Page 4 of Below the Shadow of the City

CHAPTER 4

FRIDAY, EARLY SEPTEMBER

I can’t stop thinking about the interaction I had two days ago in the laundry room. This stranger has occupied too many of my thoughts. Perrie used to be the one to fill my days with mindless chatter and deep discussion and movie watching. I hadn’t come close to anything similar since then. Somehow, after a few hours in the basement I’d moved slightly closer to something that feels like excitement. When I returned to my apartment, right around six in the morning, I threw myself on top of my bed and passed out immediately. Our conversation had quieted every thought that normally hovers around my brain like cheap Halloween decorations, ready to jump out and scare me.

I had the foresight to email Ralph and HR while I was in the basement, feigning food poisoning. The desperate “Sent from my iPhone” modifier in the signature and the early morning timestamp only made my lie seem more realistic. It was around one in the afternoon when I arose, hot and sticky from being burrowed under blankets as the sun beamed through my windows. I accepted the fact that the day was mostly a waste, only leaving my apartment to grab a sandwich, soda, and bag of chips from the bodega down the block and watching The Golden Girls. Margo texted me to jokingly call me out for my fake sick day, peppering me with questions about the real reason I’d stayed home. She somehow always knew when I was bluffing, one of those unique best friend superpowers you don’t question. Even over text bubble, I could feel excitement jittering in her as she asked if it was because I stayed the night at someone’s place.

I typed out a few messages attempting to explain what happened, but how could I explain that I talked to a naked stranger alone in my basement for hours until the sun rose without sounding like I was primed to be the feature of a Dateline episode?

Throughout the workday on Thursday I’d made half-assed attempts to find him. I was massively distracted from my actual work because of it. I nearly missed a meeting, ordered the executive team lunch at the last minute, and I forgot to attach a file on an email. A fake name and a general possible address are essentially useless in my search, but I was trying. Margo snuck up behind me while I was in the middle of Googling “ bodybuilders Williamsburg. ” I had no information, I was running out of queries and combinations of keywords. I was throwing spaghetti at an imaginary wall and hoping that a singular strand would stick.

“Babes, that desperate?” Her voice jolted me out of my haze. Desperate would be an understatement.

“What?” I swiftly closed my browser and spun around to face her, a blush bloomed across my cheeks. She immediately clocked it.

“ Bodybuilders Williamsburg ? Are you going through a crisis and want to get into weightlifting?” Crisis, yes. Weightlifting, most definitely not. I shifted in my seat, visibly uncomfortable from the question.

“You’re going to think I’ve gone crazy.” Because I think I’ve gone crazy at this point.

“Try me,” she leaned on the edge of my cubicle and raised a brow. She’d seen enough crazy from me to supply her for the rest of her life, but this feels beyond my typical brand of crazy. It takes a few seconds to form the words I’m actually trying to say, because I’d been operating on pure feeling up until this point. Logic left my brain a while ago.

I deeply inhaled. “A few nights ago I couldn’t sleep so I decided to do some laundry to kill time. When I went into the laundry room there was someone else down there, and he was hiding behind this door that must connect to another building or something. He said he was doing laundry…naked.” Margo raises her eyebrows. “We talked through the door while we waited. We actually talked until the sun came up. I swear to god, things felt so much easier with him than anyone you’ve set me up with, no offense.” Recounting it all out loud made the situation seem even more strange and impulsive. Maybe I was lucky to come out of this situation totally unscathed.

“None taken,” she brushed me off, “you’re a finicky one, Miss Larson. But what’s his deal, what’s his name? I can find anyone online in five minutes or less. I have few skills in this life but that’s one of them,” she gregariously laughed as she pulled her phone out, ready to search for someone I can’t even guarantee actually exists.

“He wouldn’t tell me. I have literally nothing to go off of. But Margo, the guy must’ve been massive . And his voice was…” I vaguely gestured between my legs. She chuckles at my pantomiming. This hunt has been fruitless, and short of breaking into the building next door and going door-to-door like a Girl Scout selling cookies, I’ve hit a wall.

“That’s all kind of hot.” Her pursuit to get me laid may not end as tragically as we’d both thought it would. Because, if anything, I’d definitely be willing to take this guy for a spin with no strings attached. Which I consider to be massive growth for me.

“You’re telling me! I’m weirdly fascinated by him and I only have a voice to recognize him by. And unless doing late night laundry is a regular thing for both of us I doubt I’ll ever see him again.”

“What if he’s a ghost?” Her voice grew low and sultry. “He could be a sexy grown up Casper ready to haunt your pussy.” She released a cackle so loud a few other heads pop up over their cubicles and stare at us.

“Margo, what the fuck ,” I narrowed my eyes at her and shook my head.

She flipped one of her inky locks of hair over her shoulder, “I mean, I’d fuck a ghost if I had the chance. Just saying.” Margo talks an incredibly big game. Ever since she got divorced she has very much been relishing in the young divorcée title. If she could, she’d probably wear a feather-trimmed silk robe and pace her apartment with a cigarette and claim she doesn’t know what became of her ex-husband or his millions of dollars like a woman in a crime show from the seventies.

“I’d prefer a real living human, personally,” I retort in a quieter volume. “Figuring out ghost boners sounds far too complicated.” Not that I could figure out human boners as it stood.

“Well,” she started, “if you do find him, the laundry room would be a perfect location for a meet cute. Very made-for-TV movie.” Of course it would be, I’ve had fleeting thoughts about the same thing for the last two nights. But I can’t fall in love with him, or anyone, for that matter.

“Please, Margo, you know I can’t think about that.” I couldn’t think about dating this guy if I couldn’t prove his existence.

“Right,” she scoffed, “the curse. ” Her tone was patronizing, there have been multiple drunken nights where I’ve practically shouted from the rooftops that I must have wronged someone in a past life. Because without a doubt, someone hexed me with a curse that will follow me for the rest of my life because some deity decided love could only be something fleeting and temporary.

I’m acting in spite of myself. I’m on romantic autopilot, letting my heart take the steering wheel for the first time in a long time. This is so high school , I think. Dozens of dates who have fallen to the wayside, and here I am unable to stop thinking about a guy whose face I haven’t seen. He’s a voice I talked to for only a few hours. And at the moment it feels entirely ridiculous.

I haven’t touched my mixer in months, and suddenly I’m rummaging through my cabinets to bake cookies at ten p.m. on a Friday for a stranger? He might be in a relationship or not interested. He might not even exist. It would be laughable if I went through all this mental turmoil for a figment of my imagination. But how else could he have been so perfect?

I know the recipe by heart. I brown butter and chop dark chocolate on a cutting board while I ruminate on what to say to him. It would defy all odds that he happens to be down in the laundry room again tonight, and even if he is, does he want to see me? He didn’t seem to want to see me in the first place. And actually, I can’t be too sure if he even saw what I looked like. But I’ve never had such effortless banter with someone before. And that voice, oh my god that voice. The cartoon heart driving my every action giggles with self satisfaction while I scoop the dough onto a baking sheet.

While the cookies bake I write a note. Multiple notes, because each one doesn’t feel right once I put pen to paper.

I’m not this girl, I’m not a teenager who writes love notes to her crush in loopy cursive. My manufactured ice queen facade is melting way too quickly for this guy and as I scribble my phone number on a piece of paper I feel like a total idiot .

I pace my kitchen while deciding if I really, truly want to do this. I could procrastinate by writing a pros and cons list, but I know myself well enough that I could conjure up dozens of reasons not to take the walk to the basement and drop off the box and note.

My cheeks grow warm in a combination of frustration at myself for overthinking this and embarrassment for wanting to do it in the first place.

My anxiety swells as I walk down the haunted hallway in the middle of the night for the second time this week. What if he doesn’t like chocolate chip cookies? Would I even want to be with someone who doesn’t like chocolate chip cookies? What if a rat gets to them first? What if he doesn’t find them for days and they go bad? What if he didn’t feel the same weird way I did after that night? What if none of this is real?

I stand outside the laundry room and listen for the same rustling and shuffling I’d heard days before. It’s completely silent now. There’s no sign of anyone in the room, and the machines sit empty. I cautiously open the door, hoping that he’ll be waiting for me to re-emerge. Of course, this isn’t fantasy. The hot stranger isn’t waiting for me to find him again. So, like a fool, I cross the black and white tiled floor and deposit the box and my note next to the locked door on the other side.

I’d addressed it to “Adam” in hopes he’d remember the offhand nickname. In hindsight it was silly to call him anything at all. If you name something, you get attached to it. And I can’t get attached.

Before resorting to baking, I’d stalked the building next door with the sole mission to see if anyone stepped out wearing some clothes I’d seen or had the build I’d imagined. You’ve lost your grip on reality, you’re doing something a stalker would do. I immediately regretted the approach, even in the haze of lust, I’d gone too far.

Naturally, I had to do what I do best instead. There was that old saying about the quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and maybe it would work in my favor.

When I get back to my apartment I place my phone nonchalantly on the coffee table and try to focus on the true crime documentary I’m streaming with little success.

Then, it happens.

I get a text. I leap from my seat at the sound of the buzzing, forgetting how to be a person when I hold my phone in my hand and only manage to stare at it. The area code is strange, nothing I recognize from around here. He could be a transplant, having moved here recently. Maybe I’d been looking for him in the wrong places, but he exists. Maybe. Hopefully.

Unknown Number:

Chocolate chip, huh?

There is no way of knowing it was actually him, but somehow I can tell. Call it a sixth sense, or call it completely unfounded optimism.

Don’t tell me you’re some sort of monster who hates chocolate chip cookies.

Worse. I’m a vegan.

Shit. Really?

I’m so fucking sorry.

No. lol.

You actually happened to make my absolute favorite.

And I shamefully wolfed way too many of them down.

I pause the show entirely now, sorry talking head criminal investigator, something far more interesting has come up . Relief settles in. He liked the offering! It’s the first in many steps to figure out if I should put my heart at risk by talking to him. After all, there could still be a partner, or he could not feel the same way I do, or he could be a really tech-savvy ghost. Or, I’ll inevitably fuck it up. The most likely of these hypothetical outcomes.

My fingers can’t move fast enough to reply to him. I’m shaking far more than a twenty-eight year-old woman with a career and her own apartment should.

How can I be sure this is the same guy from the other night?

Maybe you’ll just have to take the risk and see.

But if it’s proof you want,

I still haven’t finished Les Miserables.

They’re still miserable.

Should we swap?

I’ve got a list of ten leadership hacks with your name on it.

Perfect, and I’ll attempt to explain the French Revolution to you .

We volley back and forth seamlessly. Conversation is as easy as it was in the basement. The text bubbles barely have time to form before they turn into flirty sentences and funny quips. There’s still the lingering air of mystery. I still have nothing to go off of, he’s a wavy figure made of blurry pixels.

After two hours straight of texting, I want some point of reference, so I can place pieces together and reconstruct him like a criminal sketch artist.

You can ask for a photo, you know. It’s the Twenty First century, and you’re too smart to let yourself get catfished.

Now that we’re more formally acquainted, could I get a real name?

What if I said no?

And that I’d rather things stay semi-anonymous.

You’re not doing great at proving you aren’t a serial killer.

I know.

It seems crazy.

I’m just very private.

Truly not a serial killer, if I was I’d be a terrible one.

And considering I don’t know what you look like either, who’s to say you aren’t a serial killer?

I’ll keep you on your toes then.

And, fine.

No name, no pictures.

Can I at least get a few descriptors?

I don’t see why not.

Eye color?

Blue.

Hair color?

Brown.

Height?

Tall. :)

Weight?

You never ask a lady that!

Ugh fine lol.

Teeth?

White?

And you have all of them?

Last I checked.

Beard?

One could say I have a monstrous amount of facial hair.

Weird way of saying it, I think. I realize it’s almost two in the morning at this point, I’m nearly dozing off on the couch, I wouldn’t be shocked if he’s doing the same. No witty reply to his answer comes to mind, so I tuck my phone away for the night.

But, at least the portrait can be painted. If I were in a cartoon, there would be two miniature Sigrids sitting on my shoulder. The one in a red devil suit tells me to stop getting so attached. He’s going to disappear, just like the others have. Don’t suck him into your sad little vortex . The other mini Sigrid, dressed like an angel, settles onto my shoulder comfortably. Don’t you want to find out if he’s different?