Page 38 of Zimyra

“Good morning. You can’t get into the shed?”

“No. Mauricio has the key, and he called out this morning.”

“I’m sure you’ve tried getting ahold of him.”

“I have. There’s no answer.”

“Ugh…okay. Um—just swing by my place and get a key.”

“And where might that be?”

“I’ll text you my address.”

Click.

I sit and wait for a text to come through. When it does moments later, I put it into the GPS. It says it’s a twenty-minute commute, but I’m sure I’ll get there sooner than that. I’m curious to see her side of town.

When I arrive, I find a parking space, shut off the whip, and jog up the stairs to the second floor. I find her apartment, knock on the door, and wait. When I don’t hear any noise, I knock again. This time, I hear footsteps. She opens the door and I’m surprised to see that she’s already dressed for the day, and not in those business suits and pencil skirts she wears to work. She has on ripped black jeans, a cropped, ruffled yellow blouse, and her hair is loose – curls everywhere. I even look down at her feet to see that she has on a pair of slip-in tennis shoes. White ones. I like this version of her. She looks stress-free and well, nice.

“Good morning,” I say, finally finding my voice.

“Good morning, Axel. Come on in. I didn’t think you were going to get here so fast.”

“Yeah. I’m trying to get this work done so I can actually have a weekend.”

“I know. I’m sorry. It came down from corporate for maintenance to work four hours on Saturday because we would have issues that had to wait until Monday, and they thought this was the best way to curb that, so blame the suits with all the money.”

A little boy runs out of the kitchen and grabs her leg while looking at me. I look at the adorable little fellow and then look back up at her.

She has a son?

I didn’t think she had kids. I guess I’m not as good at finding out things about her as I should be.

I ask, “Is this your son?”

“I guess you can say that.” She grins. “No, this is my nephew, Kaden. He’s a little bashful, but once he gets to know somebody, he doesn’t have a shy bone in his body.”

“Hi, Kaden.”

“Kaden, this is Axel. Say,hi, Axel.”

He peeps around her leg and says, “Hi,Assel.”

“Hey there,” I say.

Zimyra strums his curly hair, and says, “You met his mother at the coffee shop. Nykendy.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Hey, what did you think about the coffee, by the way?”

“It was delicious. With my salary, though, I’m not sure if I’ll be there every day.”

“Well, I’ll always have coffee in the lobby. It’s not as good as hers, but it’ll get you through your morning.”

She smiles.

I smile back.

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