Page 13 of Wish I Were Here
My face heats at the memory of hisalgae-brajoke.
I take Sal’s candy and tuck it into my bag. “Hopefully, I’ll see you around, neighbor.” And I realize it’s not just something you say to be polite. I reallydohope I’ll see him around. Just not while we’re climbing the stairs because the elevator is broken.
And with that, I remember I need to have a chat with my doorman.
I head downstairs, pushing open the door to the lobby that’s quiet and dark except for the emergency lights over the stairs and the sun just beginning to slant in through the glass transom. Leaning against the front desk, I pull my phone from my bag and search my contacts for Luca’s number. He gave it to me when I signed my lease in case I needed to get ahold of him in the event of a building emergency. Well, this elevator situation constitutes a building emergency.
I hit the button to call him, pressing the phone to my ear. Luca’s phone rings on the other end, and then strangely, right in tune, the front desk starts buzzing along with it.What?I lean over the upper counter to look at the desk beneath and find a phone with my name sliding across the screen. Did Luca leave his phone here?
And then, seemingly out of nowhere, a colorful arm appears, grabs the phone, and disappears into the depths of the desk like some sort of tattooed boa constrictor catching its prey. I jump when a sleepy male voice mumbles “Hello?”from under the desk, and faintly, at a slight delay, through my phone, too. I hit the red button to hang up the phone and charge around the desk. On the floor is Luca, lounging on a nest of blankets, his head propped on a pillow.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
His eyes widen and he sits up abruptly when he spots me towering over him. “Hey, Catherine.” He runs a hand through his rumpled hair and gives me a smile like we’ve just run into each other at the coffee shop down the street instead of over his nap on the floor. “What’s going on?”
“Did yousleephere?”
“Um.” Luca clambers to his feet, and my gaze sweeps from his wrinkled black doorman’s uniform to his dark hair sticking up in peaks. “I definitelylaidhere for a while. But this pillow Mrs. Esposito in 6D gave me is pretty lumpy. So I wouldn’t call it the best night of sleep of my life.”
“Do you sleep here… often?”
“Occasionally.” He shrugs and offers no more explanation than that.
“I—” I’m so confused by this that the next thing just pops out of my mouth. “You know that’s against the building’s rules and regulations, don’t you?”
“Eh.” He shrugs. “Might be.”
“Why don’t you go home?” And then something dawns on me, followed by a heavy weight on my chest. “Do youhavea home?” Maybe Luca is homeless. We live in Pittsburgh, a very affordable city. What kind of poverty wages must they be paying him if he needs to sleep on the floor of the lobby? I’m definitely going to take this up with thebuilding’s owners. They can increase my rent if that’s what it takes to pay Luca properly.
But then another weight drops on my chest.
Once Dad finds a new job, that is. Otherwise, I might not be able to afford my own rent.
But Luca just grins. “Of course I have a home. I live upstairs.”
“Then why are you…” I hold up a hand and remember the clock is ticking and I need to get to the bus. “You know what? I really don’t want to know.” I square my shoulders. “I’m here to talk to you about the elevator. It’s not right that the building’s older residents have to walk up the stairs because you can’t be bothered to get the elevator fixed.”
Luca’s eye twitches.Is that annoyance flickering across his face?But I must have imagined it because in the next second, he’s pulling his stool up to the desk and plopping down on it. “Is the elevator broken again?” He gazes at the spot over the door that’s supposed to be lit up with numbers, as unconcerned as ever. “Huh. Guess I need to call Dante again.”
“Yes, I guess you do,” I say. “I found an older gentleman climbing the stairs near the seventh floor a few minutes ago. I’m sure it took him ages to get there from the lobby, and he had another floor to go.”
He squints at me. “An older man came through the lobby and took the stairs? Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
Luca’s face goes back to neutral. “I guess I did fall asleep,” he says with a shrug. “I’ll have to tell Mrs. Esposito that her pillow isn’t so bad after all.”
I sigh in exasperation. “Can you just call Dante—whoever that is—to fix the thing once and for all?”
“Sure.”
That one word is so maddening and tells me exactly nothing.Whenis Luca going to call Dante? And when will the elevator be fixed? Anxiety fills my chest, and I can feel sweat beading up on my forehead.
Luca reaches under the desk and hands me a rag. “You look like you could use this.”
With a slight feeling of déjà vu, I take the rag from his palm. I can’t believe I’ve let Luca hold me up again. Swiping at my forehead with one hand, I stuff my phone in my bag with the other. “I’ve got to go. I don’t want to be late.”
“Another big day at work?” Luca asks, his gaze sweeping down to my feet and back up.
