I Know What You Did Last Summer ✓

02

A close friend of mine, Emma, who waitressed with me at the 24-hour diner, once recounted about going to a Broadway musical. I divulged I'd never been to one, to which she very gravely told me to get out of New York and never come back. When she insisted I go with her to the next musical on her agenda, I had made a face. Musicals weren't my cup of tea, and they were also outrageously expensive. She pestered me for at least five hours about it until I finally gave in, only because she threatened to belly dance on the counter during our slack time. I didn't mind sacrificing the nap, but I did mind her getting arrested for public disturbance for the second time in my life.

For the next two months, I investigated on musicals to see if blowing about fifty bucks on them was worth it. During our breaks at the diner, Emma would saunter to me with her iPad, and upon the sight, the back of the kitchen would go off in grunts and moans because we all knew she was there to preach about Broadway shows.

Needless to say, it managed to make its way into my bucket list, nestled among buying a money plant as an investment for future prosperity as the legendary lore went and perfecting the enigmatic process of separating colored and whites at the Laundromat. One of the musicals in particular artfully baited me in during my research, and I found out that Emma had already watched that show three times - her favorite from the assortment of musicals she had seen so far. I obsessed myself with Emma's stories about the musical, and it succeeded in becoming my own favorite without having seen it.

Last summer, I went through a divine manifestation after my first Broadway musical live even though it shrunk my bank balance by forty-five dollars (I saved fifteen dollars on the discount). The experience was more than what I imagined it would be. I fell in love with the show, and I fell deeper in love with the lead of the show – all in the context of being a fangirl although this was a job better left unspecified.

But last summer was also when things went downhill. I had just added watching my favorite Broadway musical at least two times with Emma to my bucket list stored away in my retentive mind when the tragedy occurred. I returned to my cyclic life, and the uncompromising ennui threatened to engulf my life like a parasite. I lost Emma in the midst of all that turmoil.

I endured some nearly unadaptable changes since then, but my shabby apartment had been pretty resilient in withstanding the hurricane. It was like a lover I didn't even want but had to work around him anyway because he was the most accessible for the moment. It didn't really mean I was into looks, but when it looked like someone could treasure hunt for dead rats and flies in there, I believed I could do better.

As I scanned the apartment in its utmost glory for my purse right now, my faith that I could do better intensified. I located my purse from somewhere under the couch that used to look like it had seen better days. Mrs. Dixon from next door – who should have burned her pot roast now from the smell of it – donated it to me last year like she was doing me a favor when all she wanted was to get rid of it without having to pay someone to get it out of her apartment. I already knew I would be receiving her charred pot roast for dinner unimaginatively wrapped in her friendly-neighborhood gesture.

I was locking the door to my apartment in a hurry to get to my newest part-time job at a burger joint when I heard the apartment opposite mine unlock.

Speak of the devil.

"Carol, darling," Mrs. Dixon approached me while coughing into her floral patterned handkerchief as smoke drifted out of her own shabby apartment in billowy swirls. I didn't concern myself with correcting her the hundred and twenty-fifth time that my name wasn't Carol, and it was Coral. She extended a manila envelope creased at the edges towards me. "This came for you a few days back, and I held on to it like the good old lady I am. The mailman must have confused our blocks."

With a grace like the Potemkin village, I offered a tight-lipped smile as I took it from her. She pretended as if she hadn't seen me in days, but she was the same good old lady asking me to throw her trash every night because she was, well, the good old lady.

"Thanks, Mrs. D." I tipped the envelope up in a salute.

"No worries, darling," she said. A look that I recognized from her constant nosiness crossed her face. "It came from a certain Josh Carney. Boyfriend?"

"Josh Carney?" I repeated in a gasp. I didn't bother looking at her as I skimmed the face of the envelope, my name written on it in fine, mellow handwriting. "How would you know?"

"Why, darling, I checked it, of course. I thought the mail was mine."

"But my name is quite clearly written on this envelope."

"Is that so?" she asked as she put her hand on her chest in a regretful gesture even though her eyes panicked like a murderer caught red-handed at the scene of her crime. "Oh my, my eyes have been failing me these days."

I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes and instead watched as she culpably shuffled back into her apartment. I redirected my focus to the mail. Josh Carney? It couldn't be. I must have heard Mrs. Dixon wrong. I flapped the fold up and extracted the two pieces of paper inside in record time.

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER...

...get here right away...

One chance...

Josh Carney.

Those were the only words that were protruding enough to catch my eyes from the first paper. A surge of adrenaline tightened my jaw as I caught a glance at the date cited in the second paper. In a heartbeat, I sprinted down the flight of stairs, bursting out onto the city streets, my destination clear: the subway.

It would take forty minutes. Forty long minutes to Manhattan. Forty distracted minutes to get to Josh Carney.