Not Quite 30-Love

#HomeFires, #PreCrisis

#HomeFires, #PreCrisis

That night in my new apartment, with the local paper open at the flat-sharing ads, some circled, I resigned myself to the shower, which removed the dirt, but not the aches. Next was the consumption of greasy delivered pizza from downstairs. The shower should have followed the pizza, I thought, while channel surfing; time for an update from home. A quick dial on my iPhone brought the desired result.

‘Hey sis, how are you?’

‘Great, Katie, how’s the tournament going?’

‘Finished. What’s your news, Lou, is everything okay?’

‘More than okay, Dave asked me to marry him. I said yes.’

‘Oh Lou, congratulations. That’s fantastic news. He’s wonderful. I know you’ll be happy.’

‘I’m very happy, Katie. I hope you are too.’

We talked diets, dresses and dates for the next hour. She sounded like a kid at Christmas, and I could not wait to stand next to her, in a dress she promised would not be too dreadful, next year. The family arguments had already started. Mum and Dad had booked the golf club for the reception. Lou was adamant she was going to get married somewhere cooler. She and Dave had hoped for a destination wedding, maybe even Hawaii. She asked me what I thought. ‘No pineapple themes’ was my advice – yellow was nobody’s best colour. We laughed and reminisced about my plan to get married in Vegas by an Elvis impersonator.

‘Is that still the plan, Katie?’

‘I still love Elvis.’

This was not my wedding. It was not about me. She said she would make sure there was plenty of notice, so I could get a holiday from work. Lou sounded different – older, settled. Memories of watching her first day at school, of formals and graduation from nursing came into my head. My little sister getting married, not pregnant yet, but children would not be too far away.

White weddings filled my dreams. I watched faceless brides and grooms spin, dance and giggle. The music morphed into Viva Las Vegas, and my dreams turned neon. The dancing was heating up when Petrov’s eyes met mine.

I sat up, drenched in sweat, in my unfamiliar bedroom.

Next morning, there was no food in my apartment. I planned to get a Coke Zero and breakfast at the convenience store two doors from my building. As I came out onto the landing, yellow tape forced me to turn left instead of right – on the ground was a chalk outline of a body. It looked like something out the TV show Law & Order. Navigating my way around the tape, I went into the grocery store, grabbed a couple of donuts, acknowledged to myself the extra pounding of kilometres they would require. Fruit and vegetable shopping was a must do.

At the register the attendant volunteered, ‘There was a shootin’ here last night. Some kid tried to rob the dry cleaners. He won’t be doing that again.’

Five hundred dollars or not, apartment hunting moved up my to-do list.