TWENTY-FOUR
“Well, here we are,” Freddie said after they had trudged up the stairs to his third-floor walkup. He unlocked the door, then stepped aside. “After you.”
Vivian walked past him into a stuffy, cramped one-bedroom apartment that smelled of cigarettes and appeared to be in a permanent state of disarray. Everywhere Vivian looked she saw dirty dishes, pizza boxes, takeout cartons, clothes, old magazines and newspapers, empty bottles and cans, half-filled cups and glasses, ashtrays filled to overflowing and worn furniture that was covered with fur balls and sagged under the weight of years of use.
“Don’t mind the mess,” Freddie said, “I don’t.” He chuckled at his joke.
For Vivian, a woman who liked things neat and tidy and fervently believed that less was more, the disarray was ne
