The Woman Upstairs Page 3

  “Recovering from a heart attack. What the hell are you doing?” Tara let out a big breath. “Dear, God.”

  Ricci stared, agape, and shook her head. Tara was on her knees, a pile of thistles beside her, and a smudge of dirt on her face. There was no sign of witchcraft. “You’re weeding my garden.” Way to state the obvious, Rica.

  Tara didn’t respond with anything more than a droll look.

  Clearing her throat, Ricci looked at the shed wall beside Tara and at the garden bed with a deficient population of annoying thistles. “So, uh, sorry about that,” she said, gesturing at the tin wall. Tara yanked out another weed. Ricci suspected Tara wished it was her neck she was wringing. “And, umm, you’re doing a great job. Thanks. You didn’t have to, you know?”

  “I found myself idle and the day is pleasant.”

  “And you talk like a posh aristocrat, do you realize that?”

  Tara stopped weeding and look up at Ricci. “I was raised as one.”

  “What? An aristocrat?”

  “As someone that knew how to articulate.”

  “So why aren’t you married off to some wealthy rich guy pumping out posh babies instead of sitting in my backyard in the dirt?”

  Tara stood up and brushed the dirt from her jeans. “Because, Miss…it is miss, isn’t it?” Ricci nodded. “Well, Miss Velez, because marrying for the sake of breeding and money disgusts me. Trust me, my mother tried and failed to do just that.”

  “So you became a director of a department store instead? Taking on the world one shopping mall at a time?” Ricci chuckled to herself.

  “No I became disowned.”

  “Oh.” Awkward.

  “Well, as much as this little heart-to-heart has been fun, can I move into my apartment yet?”

  Great, from awkward directly into bad news. “No. The previous tenant completely wrecked the place.”

  “Meaning?”

  Ricci took a deep breath. “Meaning it’s going to be a while.”

  “How long is a while?”

  “How much do you like the smell of fish?”

  “Excuse me?”

  Ricci sighed. “The point is, there’s a bit that needs doing. Maybe a week…minimum.”

  Tara sighed and pulled off the gloves as she stood. “Then I should begin searching for more suitable accommodation.”

  “You don’t want the apartment?” Part of Ricci cheered at the idea, another had already become used to this uptight woman and decided her anal tendencies would make for a good tenant.

  Tara stared thoughtfully at her and took a deep breath. “Beyond its obvious flaws, it does have spectacular views across Central Park.”

  Ricci nodded. “It does.”

  “And the layout is pleasing.”

  Ricci kept nodding.

  “And the lease payments…they’re negotiable?”

  The nodding halted. “Uh…what do you mean, negotiable?”

  “I think, with this inconvenience, that my monthly lease arrangement could be…discounted.”

  Ricci narrowed her eyes. “Discounted?”

  Tara hummed.

  “I’m not a department store. I don’t do discounts. That apartment is overdue for a lease increase, and the tenant in unit four is desperate for the top suite, so consider yourself lucky I’m letting you have it at the old rate in the first place. In fact, consider that your discount.”

  “Well then, perhaps I should look further afield.”

  “Go for your life, but don’t expect to find anything this good, or this convenient, for under twenty grand.”

  “Convenient? It’s been anything but.”

  Ricci gritted her teeth. “A slight inconvenience, then. Your office is just around the corner, the park is right there, and I’m the best damn landlord you’ll ever have.”

  “Well, you’re certainly an improvement on the last one, I assure you that much,” Tara said, brushing past her and striding off to the house.

  Ricci pinched her nose between her fingers and sighed. That conversation had no resolution. Was Tara coming or freaking going? Ricci wasn’t sure she was in the mood to care.

  Chapter Four

  The Affairs of Law

  Monday. A day usually set aside for her own personal hobbies, but not today. Today she was escorting the law and her insurance inspector through the fifth floor. I’d much rather be fixing the damn place, she thought as she impatiently waited for the police to arrive. The insurance representative arrived half an hour ago. She was an irritable woman with a hair-do that was pulling the skin taut on her face who kept checking her watch every twenty to thirty seconds. Apparently she wanted to wait for the local law enforcement to arrive before stalking through the apartment. Checking her own watch, Ricci groaned. It was nearly noon and so far today had been as productive as watching grass grow. The woman beside her tisked and looked at her watch…again.

  Thankfully, a police cruiser showed up moments before Ricci wanted to rip the stupid thing off the woman’s hand and throw it out onto Fifth Avenue. Try keep your hair smooth and tight dodging through traffic, she thought to herself.

  “Officer,” she said, standing and greeting the man and woman team here to collect her charges.

  “Ma’am.”

  “This way,” she said to the group as she took them upstairs via the elevator. One of the officers, a middle-aged man working on a moustache, spent the whole trip looking at his growing whiskers in the reflection of the elevator walls.

  “Leave it, Jed. You’ll push them all back in,” said the stocky woman with him.

  He rubbed his stubble. “It’s just not growing.”

  “And it won’t if you keep fiddling with it.”

  Ricci hid a smile and saw the insurance lady rock back on her heels with disgust.

  “We’re here,” Ricci announced as the elevator dinged. “Feel free to look around,” she said as she opened the door.

  Twenty minutes later, the police officers left requesting copies of any security footage. Another two hours passed before Ricci was free of the uptight insurance assessor and granted the green light to go ahead with repairs. Repairs that were listed across ten sheets of paper that she had photocopied from the assessors notes.

  Huffing, she took a tub of yogurt from her fridge and sat down to make a plan. Once her appetite was sated, she had a neat list of headings.

  Plumbing: everything!

  Electrical: everything!

  Flooring: rug cleaning, fill gouges in wood floors, and replace cracked tiles.

  Plasterwork: holes in second bedroom, gouge in main bath, replace wall in third bedroom, and loose plaster around fittings.

  Upholstery. Ricci grimaced at that one. It was thanks to the assessor that they discovered a mix of honey and oil drizzled underneath all the cushions in the living room. She moved further down her list. Windows: ceased shut. Paint: the lot.

  Ricci groaned. This workload was going to take more than a week to complete, and more money than she wanted to fork out. Time to make some phone calls, she thought, picking up her phone and calling in favors across the state of New York.

  “Hey babe.”

  Ricci managed a grunt in reply. Her head ached from number crunching the budget needed to fix the fifth floor. The final figure was alarming, but knowing she could do the bulk of the work herself, she was going to come out ahead. Now, if the insurance claim could be rushed through, then I won’t be out of pocket.

  “Your day was that good, huh?” Alicia asked, laughing at her.

  “What do you want?”

  “Oh, snappy. I wanted to share the goss! I found out why Tara is here. She’s a great boss and all, I think, I couldn’t really tell after just one day, you know?”

  “Get to the point.”

  “Well, she’s here because of an affair.”

  “With?”

  “The Regional Director over in the west. Hannah told June, who told Lacey, who informed Yvonne, who told me, that Tara broke up a marriage.”
>
  “She what?”

  “I know, right!” Ricci could swear she could hear Alicia hopping about. “She’s supposed to be this gun-ho, awesome, hold-no-prisoners, straight-shooting—”

  “Enough with the metaphors.”

  “—woman, who is respected by everyone, but no, she’s just a trollop like the rest of us.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  “Oh, har-har.” The woman in question chose that time to let herself into the apartment with the key Ricci gave her that morning. Diving forward, she snatched the phone off the bench-top and tried to turn off the speaker function. “My point is, Miss Tara Straight-Laced Reeves is a kinky bitch, just like us.” Tara’s eyebrows shot up. Shit. Too slow.

  Clearing her throat, Ricci said, “Again, speak for yourself.”

  She gave Tara a small smile and a wave which the woman responded with a scowl before stalking down the hall. Damn.

  Alicia huffed at Ricci’s response. “Yvonne said that Tara was going for that East-Coast Regional Director promotion, and tried to get it by sleeping with the boss of the South-Central Region. According to the gossip, the little wifey found out and Tara was promptly relocated to New York without a promotion. Actually, she got demoted.”

  “That’s…actually, that’s kind of sad.”

  “Mmm…but that’s what you get when you sleep around like some ladder-climbing slut. I wish I got paid six figures to sleep around.”

  Tara walked into the kitchen halfway through Alicia’s rant and Ricci sat up, trying not to look guilty about the conversation on the other side of the phone. “Gotta go.” Ricci ended the call with a grimace. She was going to pay for that rudeness later. “Hi,” she said to a weary-looking Tara.

  Tara inclined her head.

  Checking her watch, she saw it was after eight. “Long day at the office?”

  Tara breathed in deep through her nose and ignored the pleasantries. “I see the gossip is spreading like wildfire?”

  “Gossip?” Ricci said, hating that her voice pitched weirdly. Way to sound nonchalant, she thought as she hopped off the stool at the kitchen counter and sauntered non-guilty like to the terrace. “Wine?”

  Tara followed and eyed the wine and half-full glass abandoned on the table. “Yes.”

  Filling the spare glass she had taken from the kitchen over an hour ago, Ricci handed it to Tara and returned to her seat that Alicia’s phone call had dragged her from.

  “So…” Ricci said. “How was your first day?”

  “You first. What rumors are going around this time? Am I a home wrecker or a raging dyke?”

  Ricci choked on her wine. Gross, she thought as some went up her nose. Spluttering, she coughed out, “Dyke?”

  “Oh, so that one isn’t here yet? Don’t worry, it’s coming.” Tara smirked coldly and sipped her wine. “So tell me, what’s the current home wrecker story?”

  Wiping her mouth with her hand, Ricci pretended the wine up her nose didn’t sting like hell and said, “Umm…that you broke up a marriage to get a promotion, but you failed and got demoted and packed off instead.”

  Tara laughed. It was hollow, sarcastic, and followed with her downing what was left of her wine. “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

  “I never do. I prefer to listen to fact, not idle gossip.”

  Tara’s eyes cut to hers and seemed to appraise her. “Then good for you.” Tara picked up the wine bottle. “May I?”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  Tara raised an eyebrow at her before filling her glass again. Sitting back, the pair fell into silence as they looked out across the garden. Lit with fairy lights and scattered lamp posts, the garden looked like a dream. The exact effect Ricci was going for when she installed it. Glancing across to Tara, she noticed the woman studying the lighting effects. With a smile, Ricci reached for the remote control and pressed a button. The warm orange light transformed into a magical new lightscape. The pond, bordered by blue LEDs, lit up with an underwater lamp, and a small fountain erupted from its center. The hedges surrounding it glowed softly in a white string of dainty lights. The trees growing near the back suddenly burst to life with a spotlight searching up the trunk and into the canopy, and varying other effects made the nightscape an understated show.

  “That’s…beautiful,” Tara said, as her eyes feasted on the changes.

  Ricci smiled shyly. “Thanks. It was worth all the scratches and ant bites to do.”

  Tara turned to her. “You did that?”

  Ricci shrugged. “It’s my thing.”

  “Lightscaping is your thing?”

  Ricci blinked, impressed this woman even knew that term. “Electrical engineering is my thing. Lightscaping is a hobby.”

  “Huh,” Tara said with a disbelieving puff of air. Looking back to the garden, she shook her head with a smile. “Well, your hobby looks…effective. A step up from the brutishness of your usual personality.”

  “Brutishness? Excuse me?”

  “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’re feminine enough to eventually snatch your dream man.” Ricci couldn’t help the curl of her upper lip. “Perhaps you could woo him with this,” Tara said, sweeping her arm across the garden.

  “Ugh. No thanks.”

  Tara seemed to have caught the contempt in her voice and studied her with a tilt of her head. “Then perhaps you’ll want to woo a woman?”

  Ricci swallowed. What did it matter to Tara who the hell she wanted to woo? It was no one’s business, least of all hers. Ricci’s silence seemed to answer Tara’s question, and her smirk widened.

  “A woman who is handy with a hammer and some electrical wire. Who lives independently, and is wealthy going by the lease rate you charge, and has a physique that borders on muscular…tell me…are you trying any harder to fit the butch stereotype, or was that a happy accident?”

  Ricci scoffed. “This from the rumored dyke?” Shaking her head, she fiddled with her glass. “No, I’m not butch. I guess I’m not femme, either,” she added with a shrug.

  “Then what are you?”

  “I’m just me.”

  Tara’s gaze lingered on her for an uncomfortable amount of time. “Yes. You are.” She swallowed the remainder of her wine and stood. “You know,” she said when she’d taken a step. “Not all rumors are untrue. Some I’ll happily admit to. You just need to pick out the truth.” Tara winked before she left.

  “Well, holy shit,” Ricci thought to herself as she gaped at the spot Tara just vacated. Is Tara gay? Ricci frowned. Then how the heck did that fit the affair with a married man rubbish? No, she must have meant the affair part was true. “Ugh.”

  Slumping into the chair with a long sigh, Ricci abandoned all thoughts of Tara and shut her eyes. She had a long week ahead of her with no time to sit about pondering other people’s issues when she had plenty of her own to go along with.

  “Hey, Lawrence,” she greeted to her ex-colleague when she saw his van pull up.

  “Greetings, baby.” The burly, incredibly wide, man wrapped her in a bear hug, lifting her two feet from the ground.

  Ricci groaned with discomfort when her ribs were squished. “Geez, man. I need air.”

  A low, rumbling chuckle came from the jet black man when he set her down. “Serves you right for not coming by.”

  Ricci looked suitably contrite. Her remodeling of her apartment had taken up a considerable amount of her free time. “Yeah, sorry,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck.

  Lawrence grinned. “You got water problems?”

  “Yeah. It’s a mess.”

  Lawrence hefted a tool box out of the back of his work van and said, “Lead the way, little lady.” A few minutes later, the man was scowling. “Tell me who did this, and I’ll make sure he can’t open his eyes for a month.”

  Tempting. “Thanks, but Stevan is on the case.”

  Lawrence hummed and turned thoughtfully to the disgustingness that was the toilet. “I’m gonna get Howie up here.”

  Ric
ci’s brow creased. “I thought he was doing time?”

  “Got out last week.”

  “Oh.”

  Howie, Howard Bessler Junior, was another former colleague that had recently found himself incarcerated thanks to significant gambling debts. He learned his lesson the hard way that he couldn’t sell equipment from the worksite to pay his loans, and his father, Howard Bessler Senior, promptly had him charged with theft.

  Bessler Property Group was Ricci’s former place of employment. Straight out of her Electrical Engineering Degree, she was snapped up as a contractor on the most talked about property development on the east coast. The five-star hotel was a love affair in all things electrical, and the two-year project had earned her good money, and even better friends. Lawrence and Howie, the best plumbers she knew, had been a godsend when she struck out on her own after that project to risk it all on her Upper East Side apartment building. The gutted, rat-infested building had been a labor of love for both herself and her friends. An attachment Lawrence seemed to feel when he started cussing and informing Howie, who was on his way, that they were going to find the person responsible and add broken kneecaps to his black eyes.

  Leaving him to his rant, Ricci started on broken appliance number one: the dishwasher. She had pulled the machine out and had replaced the sliced cord when Howie strutted in. A weedy thing that looked in every way opposite to Lawrence, strode over to her and promptly kissed her on the lips.

  “Dammit, Howie!” She wiped her mouth with the back of her arm.

  The slim man sporting a new goatee giggled. “Hi, beautiful,” he said in his weirdly high-pitched voice.

  “Hi, yourself. Lawrence is that way,” she said, pointing to the hall. “Go give him a kiss.”

  “I’m on it,” he said, adding a click of the tongue and a wink. A minute later, Lawrence hollered with offence.

  Laughing under her breath, she shook her head and returned her attention to the dishwasher. She had missed the boys. A curious collaboration of electrical engineer and plumbing trades, but they had struck it hot from the get go, and although she barely saw them on their former worksite, and since she left, they had made it work and turned it into a seven-year friendship.