The hot water for the entire three-story apartment building was depleted, our feet were wrinkled with over-saturation and almost two hours had passed. Maggie and I were laying under the cool water of the shower on the bathtub bottom, our bodies entwined, facing each other, Maggie's head tucked into the curve of my neck. The water hit directly on the side of Maggie's left bum cheek, the spray from it covering her left breast with a constant little stream of water. The streak of hair blended with pieces of her own darker shade, but still very bold and apparent.
We got up to towel off when the loud, angry knocks began on the front locked door. By the time we'd finished drying off, quickly drying off I might add, the knocks were louder, angrier on the back door... the door that was closer to the bathroom and kitchen area. As we walked out of the bathroom, our hearts pounding, I went to yell at him to calm down first when an unrecognized voice yelled "IS ANYONE HOME? SMALL FIRE IN THE BASEMENT, GET OUT OF THE BUILDING!"
Standing outside in our towels, the smell of sulfer and smoke biting into the clean of our well-washed skin, we heard the low, far-away cries of a fire truck and of the firehouse alarm. From a fat, bullet-sized hole on the lower bottom side cellar window a trail of gray smoke plumed out, as if from a pipe.
"It smells like an electrical fire of some sort," I said, the faint odor of burnt rubber wiring settling into my heightened sense of smell. Maggie sniffed in and nodded her head in agreement. The middle aged guy from second floor west walked towards us, his grin to our eyes, his eyes to our bare legs and loose towel cleavage. Maggie's hand went up to tighten her towel and my left eyebrow went up as I looked intently at him, with a smirk to meet his grin, gathering the rest of his intentions. He seemed playful and harmless.
"So, hey, I heard yelling and door slamming this morning. Are you single now, Maggie?" he was looking at me when he said this, which made me wonder how much he'd actually heard from his apartment directly below Maggie's. In my mind I pictured him standing on a chair with a cup to the ceiling, and then shook my head at the paranoia.
"No, no, no... just a disagreement. It will blow over," Maggie said and brushed the words he'd said away with her hands to the air. I looked at her but she wouldn't look back at me.
The fireman to our right flagged over the landlord. The landlord actually lived in the apartment building next door. He'd taken the entire first floor of that place and his mother lived on the floor above him, his sister on the floor above her.
Another fireman walked over to them, and they huddled together in an almost football game move, heads leaned forward, talking in some kind of weird code. The landlord kept shaking his head yes or no, the fire guys were pointing this way and that, it was hard to make out if this discussion was positive or negative. Maybe it was neither, because as soon as it ended nothing seemed to happen. Nobody shouted out commands, nobody gave orders to stay or leave, and it was looking to be another hour before anything got done, so I walked up to the apartment in the hopes I could just casually walk in, grab on some pants and a shirt, grab my already packed duffle bag and get out of there.
"Miss, you can't go in the building right now, please go back over..." the fireman started to demand, but I quickly piped in. "Sir, I am standing out here in a towel and somebody just whispered they were going to pull the towel off. I think that would create a bit of chaos at the scene here, let's be reasonable, the fire is just in the cellar and is under control, it's not getting worse, and I just want to run up and grab on a pair of pants and a shirt, it will take under one minute."
"Miss, you can NOT go into the building," he said again, ignoring my trial sized bullshit entry.
"Sir, I promise I won't blame you if anything happens to me in that building. I'm obviously a bit crazy to go into a building with a firetruck sitting in front of it, there's no way you'd take the fall on this, just tell them I kicked you in the ankle and ran inside the building before you could stop me," I tried again.
"Miss, are you threatening to kick me in the ankles?" he asked, his stern face giving me that non-nonsense look my dad used to give us kids when we were acting up.
"Sir," I said, and let the towel accidently fall a little, revealing a bit more cleavage than I should, "I just want to grab my duffle bag. Please, I have to get out of here, I'm wanted in 3 states for sexual bribery and indecent exposure. I don't want to go to prison!"
He rolled his eyes at me.
"Sir, please! My dufflebag has the map to the treasure, I have to get there before my opponent, who is actually the MAYOR OF THIS CITY, or I will lose a fortune!"
He looked at me and got all serious again. "Miss, go over there with your friends or I will have no choice but to..." he stopped abruptly as I got on my hands and knees and held onto his ankles.
"Please, sir, please, the kittens were JUST BORN and I stuffed them in that DUFFLEBAG! I will just run up and save them all!"
"MISS. REMOVE YOURSELF FROM MY ANKLES, PLEASE."
"Ok. It's cool, I'll just go over there with my friends. Sorry for the obnoxiousness, sir. My poetry is in that dufflebag. I just don't want this building to burn down and my stuff with it. It's all I got. Now."
He seemed almost sypathetic in tone as he said, "Miss, the building is fine, it won't burn down, we've got the walls filled with foam and the area is more than secure. Your poetry is safe."
I think he saw my sly grin at his statement, because he kept a hawkeye on me as I walked back over to Maggie.