CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I know something’s wrong even before I open the door.
I’m at a new house-sitting gig only ten blocks north of Gavin’s place, in a building that’s roughly the same age but less glitzy. The mess outside the door is my first clue—a T-shirt, several empty pizza boxes and a few beer bottles are shoved in a corner.
This wouldn’t surprise me in an apartment building like the one Stella lived in with Blayde, but I don’t expect to see it in an Upper West Side hallway. On a Wednesday morning.
I key in and the destruction inside tells me this was some party—not an epic mess of Gavin Slater proportions, but also not typical of a couple that’s away on their twentieth anniversary cruise.
I’m pretty sure the Ellisons didn’t trash their own place before leaving.
I pick my way across an Oriental rug strewn with Cheetos. A water bong sits in the center of the coffee table, and a china bowl has become a makeshift ashtray. A crystal vase is shattered in the corner of the living room, knocked from its pedestal.
I don’t even want to think about how much that cost.
I know I didn’t make this mess, but the Ellisons aren’t going to feel very good about Keystone Property Management keeping watch over their apartment if they come back to this.
I’m only supposed to visit a few times while they’re gone for three weeks—pick up the mail, water the houseplants, straighten things up, restock the fridge. So sometime between when they left on Saturday and my first visit four days later, someone got in.
Who?
From what little I know about this couple, no one else lives here.
I consider calling the police or the doorman, but I want to look around more first. Like Dan did at Gavin’s place, I take a bunch of pictures with my phone to document the damage.
Mental note to hire housekeepers.
The kitchen is a wreck of more food and booze. In one corner, there’s a makeshift bar where virtually every vomit-inducing liquor bottle is lined up. Most of them are empty. I guess I’ll be restocking their top-shelf liquor cabinet as well.
Dried-out lime wedges and the sticky remains of spilled margarita mixer signal some effort at making cocktails.
I pop my head into the office, which is mercifully untouched, and in a guest bedroom where the covers on the bed are a disheveled mess. I open French doors to the master bedroom and see a bulky lump under the red comforter. A foot protrudes from one corner.
Oh, shit.
I inhale sharply and the foot moves. A shock of wild black hair nudges its way from beneath the covers and I’m on edge, wondering if I should run. But my curiosity gets the better of me and I see a thin face covered in freckles, the young man’s eyes bleary and bloodshot.
With my phone in my hand raised as my only weapon, I muster my most authoritative voice. “Stay right where you are! I’ve called the police and they’re on their way.”
I hope and pray he won’t call my bluff. Even though I’m not sure where I stand with him anymore, I wish I had Anthony’s wall of muscle backing me up.
“How did you get in here?” the teenager’s muddy voice asks. I can tell he’s still waking up from a drink-induced coma and I catch a waft of alcohol and powerful B.O.
“No. How did you get in here?”
“I live here.”
“No, you don’t.”
He pushes himself up on his hands and I shrink back, wondering if I can take his scrawny ass if it comes to that.
Who am I kidding? No way.
I should have called the police.
“Don’t move another muscle or else I’ll spray you with pepper spray.” I back up my threat by putting my hand in my pocket as if I’m reaching for the canister, wishing desperately that I actually had one.
The teen’s eyes focus and then squint with worry. “Don’t shoot. Or spray. And don’t tell my parents.”
Ah-ha. The Ellisons have a kid. “You’re nuts. Of course I’m telling your parents. What are you doing here? Other than throwing a party and trashing the place?”
“It’s not my fault. I barely know the guys who came over.”
“But you let them in.” I feel anger building for all the parties I never threw, and all the trouble I never got into as a teenager because, between my mom and me, I had to be the responsible one.
I hear my pitch climb as I lecture him. “Don’t tell me you’re going to cop out with that lame excuse. Like it or not, you’re still responsible, buddy.”
The boy moves to sit and then puts his head in his hands, moaning. “Can you just not talk so loud?”
I lower my voice but try to keep a dangerous edge in it, the way a bad cop does in a crime show interrogation. “I won’t shout at you if you start explaining. How did you get in here?”
“I have a key.”
“But you don’t live here.”
“I live at the dorms at NYU. But it’s way nicer here.”
“Well, duh. But your parents obviously didn’t say you could stay here while they were gone.”
“I don’t exactly have a great track record.”
“Color me shocked.”
“Spare me the lecture, Miss Priss.” He gives me a cranky look and his voice rises. “I’ll bet you never pulled anything like this in your perfect little life.”
It’s clear that this outburst caused him another round of pain courtesy of his pounding, hung-over head, but my head’s buzzing with anger from his remark. “Don’t you dare make assumptions about my life. You’ve got a fancy home and rich parents and this is the way you repay them for putting you through college? I’d say you’ve got no room to talk.”
“At least your parents paid attention to you,” he mumbles.
“No. They didn’t. Because my dad died and my mom was so devastated that she curled up in a shell for, like, years. But I didn’t act like a complete jerk and trash her apartment.”
“I didn’t trash it.”
“You want me to give you the grand tour?” I stride to the bed and grab the neck of his T-shirt, feeling his skinny shoulders flinch.
Maybe I could take him. I definitely outweigh him.
He flops back on the bed in protest and throws an arm over his eyes. “God, no.” He’s silent for a minute and I wait. Finally, he peeks his eye from behind his arm. “How bad is it?”
“Pretty freaking bad. Like, spend-all-day-cleaning-it-up bad. And spend-all-of-your-allowance-to-fix-it bad. And kiss-your-next-ten-birthday-and-Christmas-presents-goodbye bad when your folks see that vase.”
“Shit. I thought I heard something break.” He groans and rolls on his side. “And we’re Jewish.”
“Whatever. Your next ten Hanukahs, then. I don’t think that vase came from Macy’s.”
“Nope.”
“Well, then. Are you just gonna be a limp-dick and lie here, or are you going to clean up your mess? Because I can tell you this kind of cleanup is not in my job description.”
Well, maybe it is for Gavin’s place, but this kid doesn’t need to know that.
The teen gives me an appraising look. “Wait a second. Who are you? You never told me why you’re in here.”
“I’m the house sitter. I’m here to water the plants—after you pick out the nasty cigarette butts your friends stuffed in them.”
“A house sitter? My parents could have just had me come over to do that stuff.”
I burst out laughing. “Seriously?” I give him a look of utter disbelief and he has the decency to look a little bit embarrassed.
“They didn’t even tell me they were going out of town. I came over to do my laundry and no one was here. When I saw the cruise on my mom’s calendar, I figured—well, it’s not like they’re using the place.”
“Sounds like they don’t trust you,” I roll my eyes. “Big surprise. What’s your name?”
“Joel.”
“I’m Beryl. And it looks like we’ve got two choices here, my friend. Either you snap to it, make friends with the vacuum and get to work making your parents’ place even better than you found it, or I’m going to have to interrupt their anniversary cruise with a report.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.” I raise my brow and leave the bedroom, going back to inspect the damage. It will definitely take at least a day for one person to clean up in here, and I’m awfully glad that person is not going to be me.
Unless Joel bails. But I have no intention of letting that little shit get away with this.
I hear him shuffling around behind me, heading toward the kitchen. Beneath his shaggy black hair, Joel’s dingy T-shirt and jeans hang loose on his bony frame.
Clearly, he never got around to doing laundry.
He opens the refrigerator door and chugs orange juice directly from the carton. Gross.
Joel wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Did you really call the cops?”
“No, but that’s my one and only bluff. Because if this place isn’t freaking pristine by the end of today, I will throw you under the bus so fast your head will spin.”
“But if I do what you say, you won’t tell them?”
“I can’t see any way not to. How else are we going to explain the vase?”
“I could replace it,” he offers.
I bend down and pick up the largest cut-crystal shard, crisscrossed with delicate hatchings that reflect light brilliantly. “Your bank account must be a lot bigger than mine.”
“Probably not. My folks keep me on a pretty tight leash, money-wise.”
“Not tight enough, if you ask me,” I grumble and put the shard back on the carpet. “What’s your brilliant plan to replace the vase, then?”
Joel looks worried. “I remember buying it with my dad for my mom’s birthday at a store on Madison. Some crystal place.”
I shake my head. I haven’t been in many shops there except the Ralph Lauren Mansion that Stella dragged me into. That place made my head swim with its curved staircases and chandeliers. We oohed and aahed at the dresses, but the one thing I wanted there, a home fragrance candle, cost sixty bucks.
Ouch.
“I’m pretty sure I could find it again,” Joel continues, “and stores like that keep track of what you buy, so I could buy the same piece if they still have it. Now all I need is an extra thousand dollars or so.”
I snort. “Don’t look at me, buddy. In my world, ten bucks isn’t ‘extra.’”
“I’ll bet I could earn that much before my folks get back. If I got a job.”
I smirk. “Repeat after me: ‘Would you like fries with that?’”
His mouth sags and he slumps on a barstool. “I don’t want to do that. My friends would never let me hear the end of it. What about your job? How’d you get to be a house sitter?”
“My uncle hired me.” I sit on a barstool next to Joel.
“That can’t be too hard, right? I mean, watering plants and stuff?”
“You have no idea,” I say, thinking of emptying the glop from Gavin’s bathroom sink and piling Greta’s unmentionables in the laundry bag for a trip to the cleaners, not to mention nearly poisoning Jasper with a shrimp dumpling. “It’s not glamorous work.”
“It’s better than fast food. Do you think you could get your uncle to hire me?” Joel’s face looks hopeful.
“Um, Joel, are you crazy? You just proved you can’t be trusted in your parents’ house and now you want me to tell my uncle to hire some irresponsible kid? I’d rather eat the shards from that vase.”
“First of all, I’m not a kid. I’m nineteen. And second, I need a break. How else am I going to earn enough to buy a new vase before they get home?”
“That’s not my problem.”
“Look, how about I make you a deal.” Joel’s trying to negotiate even though I hold all the cards. But I hear him out. “I’ll clean up this place like the party never happened and you come back and check my work. And if I did OK, then you at least think about telling your uncle about me.”
I give Joel a slow once-over, considering this. He seems so earnest, and so unmistakably lost. Like Gavin. “It’ll be grunt work, you know.”
“I can take it.”
“It’s a lot of poop-scooping and errand-running and dirty laundry.”
“I’ll do it.”
“Then get to work here. Prove it. If I can eat off the kitchen floor by five, I’ll consider it.”
“It’s a deal.”