Rustles

Part 6

She dreamt of nothing more but good night sleep, but she didn’t let him take her home. Instead she chose a friends block of flats and asked Nathan to drop her off there. She knew the code on the front door and taking elevator to floor up would give her nice way to ditch him and then plenty of time to hop home. Or go all the way to fifth and ring the bell and sleep on Sofia’s sofa. Aa, yes, but then she couldn’t take the pills and she knew she wasn’t sleeping unless she got one of them down her throat.

They were driving in different car, a smaller one and cleaner one. This one had open ashtray spreading musky odors and the interior hadn’t been cleaned since spring. It still had dandelion yellow spots on front panel, all nicely circled up, reminding the golden wreaths from times when grass was greener.

“You have children?” she asked, watching the imaginary blossoms.

He gave her a quick look. “No, my nieces. We like going on picnics.”

“Me too…” she said.

“Kids? Pets?”

“Friends.”

“That’s nice.”

They didn’t say much after that. She showed him where to go and he followed directions to Promenade street.

…

He stopped in front of the gray six stories high building with no lights on beside one on the fifth floor. It had four entrances and she chose the one in the middle. It was old, but renovated and looked lovely in its 70s-style plastic covers and nothing-to-loose birch-wannabes on top. Besides that greenery there was none around the houses, even the smallest patches of grass had dried and the cooling rain was only a mockery to their misery.

She clutched her bag harder and took a deep breath.

“Thank you for bringing me home,” she said calmly, as nicely as she could manage under the circumstances. She wanted to open the door and run, like bird in a cage with possibility of getting free.

“It was nice having you,” He grinned. She understood his humor, but only managed a polite smile.

Without drawling the parting further, she left. The cool sandy asphalt felt fantastic under her feet. There was nothing dark here, nothing scary – just freshly smelling paint and perfect combination of clean air mixed with cat piss.

She turned around and waved, retreating to the ever waiting blue door with bell ready to beam her up and away. She punched in six, seven, eighty eight and nine and listened the music of opening lock. The door slammed closed behind her and she fell in total darkness for the time it took the automatic lights to pick up her movement. She used it to peek outside.

The car sat quietly on with him in it. He lit a cigarette and pushed the driver’s door open, landing his left foot outside.

Just having a moment, she thought, but in a wrong time or place, she encountered and stepped away from the window to be showered with the warm light.

So, the escape was not going to be so easy. She hopped to the elevator and crashed herself on the back wall choosing number three on the panel. She could wait it out. When the elevator stopped, she hopped out and looked around the empty stairs. There used to be an old armchair here. The cold concrete wasn’t nice to her feet and she hopped closer to the window, where there was still some old handrail attached. She glanced down and nearly fell over, seeing him leaning on his car, resting his hands on the roof and looking right up, right at her.

He looked at her for a moment and grinned. She watched him sit back in the car, toss the butt out on the street and drive away. She felt like a fool. Yes, the plan had merit – exactly until to the point that he saw right through her.