The Apartment (Apartment #1) (2 page)

“With
our
help, of course,” Maggie chuckled. “We’ve been up to our elbows in fruit tarts and finger sandwiches and decorating every surface imaginable since dawn.”

“That sounds really hectic,” Lily sympathized.

“I was actually eager to join Maggie today when she asked me to come with her. We both needed a few hours away from the madness that our house is becoming.” Emma looked at Lily and smirked. “How pathetic is it when a trip to the gyno sounds like a vacation?”

“Hey! This is not just some run-of-the-mill pap smear!” Maggie feigned offense. “This is a baby checkup!”

“Yes, dear.”

They both broke out laughing before Emma turned back to Lily and explained. “I promised her I’d play Eric’s stand-in today. That is totally how he would blow her off.”

Walking toward the door, Lily smiled back at the two women. “Alright, I’m all done here, so Dr. Wilde should be in to see you shortly.”

“Take care, Lily,” Maggie called after her as she left the room.

While she was putting the chart in the slot next to the door, she heard Emma’s voice again. “Okay, you were right. She’s amazing. Damn, now I guess I have to switch doctors.”

“Pay up,” she heard Maggie mumble. Lily smiled to herself as she walked back to the nurses’ station, wondering what it might have been like to have a sister.

“Hey Lily, what are you smiling about?” A familiar voice cut through her musings. She looked up to see the friendly face of Becky Daniels staring back at her.

“Oh, I was just thinking about how nice the Fosters are.” She glanced up at the rack on the wall and saw that it was quickly filling with more patient charts. “Shit! Becky, would you do me a favor?”

“What do you need?”

“Could you please go find Dr. Wilde? I was just about to, but I really need to start these other patients before we get completely backed up.”

“I’d love to, but Jason and Dr. Wilde are off together having another ‘
long lunch
.’” She actually made the air quotes as she said the words.

“What?” Lily gasped.

“You didn’t know they were screwing?”

“Huh?” Lily asked distractedly. “Well no, I didn’t, but that’s not really surprising. She’s always been the town cougar. I knew it wouldn’t be long when I saw how much younger he was.” Jason was still in his early thirties and looked even younger, while Natalie was a cosmetically-enhanced forty-five. “No, what’s completely pissing me off right now is that I have a red chart up and she’s off somewhere polishing his knob!”

“Shit! Forget the charts. I’ll start them. Go page her
right now
. If she gets here and sees that—”

“She’s gonna have a massive shit fit,” Lily finished.

“Exactly. Now go!” Just then the back door opened and a throaty laugh could be heard down the hall. Becky let out a breath. “Oh, thank God, that’s her.”

“Thank you again for lunch, Dr. Adams. It was very… enlightening.”

Lily walked quickly toward the flirty, purring banter. She rounded the corner just in time to see an attractive platinum blonde lean in and brush something off the shoulder of a rugged man with bright blue eyes. For a moment she thought it looked like a leaf, but then decided that she didn’t really have time to care.

Jason saw her coming toward them and wiped the smile off his face, all business once again. “Yes, well, don’t mention it, Dr. Wilde. It’s just my way of saying… uh, thank you… for helping me get settled in around here.”

“Excuse me, Doctor?” Lily interrupted. The woman straightened up quickly and turned around. There was no confusion over who was being spoken to; unlike Jason, Natalie expected to be addressed by her title. According to her, she had worked hard her entire life and paid a fortune to earn that title. Lily didn’t mind; she actually preferred the honesty. She would happily take Natalie’s blatant pride over Jason’s false modesty any day.

“Yes, Lily?” Natalie absentmindedly reached up and smoothed her hair, mentally getting back into gear for work. Lily ignored the small blades of grass that fell to the floor as she did so.

“I just wanted to make sure that you knew there was a red chart up in Room 4.”

“Oh! How long?” She glanced down at her watch that cost more than Lily made in a year.

“Less than five minutes.”

Natalie wasted no time, shoving her coat and purse in Lily’s hands. “Be a dear and stick those in my office, would you?”

“Sure thing.” When Natalie passed her, Lily noticed a small green leaf sticking out of the back of her hair. “Hold on,” she warned. Knowing that Natalie would be mortified if any patients saw her so disheveled, Lily bit the bullet and plucked the offending leaf from her hair.

Natalie blushed but recovered quickly. “Thanks. We had lunch at the new greenhouse in the park. I must have brushed against a branch.” And with that she was gone, off to impress another red sticker.

“Hey, what are you doing tonight?” Becky asked when Lily finally returned to her desk.

“Gym, then home.”

“Lily, that’s what you do almost every night! You never go out. Why don’t you come out with me and Jared later? We’re going to grab a few drinks.”

“I can’t. It’s a weeknight. I really need to get home and make dinner. Maybe some other time, though.”

But they both knew that there would never be another time. Becky had been asking her for years to hang out, and Lily always had some reason not to.

A few hours later, Lily was driving downtown in her massive old car toward the gym. As she watched the now familiar landmarks go by, she let her mind wander back to Becky’s invitation.

It wasn’t that Lily didn’t like her; Becky was the sweetest person she’d met since she’d moved to town three years ago. However, almost a straight year of having no time to herself while nursing her father, George, back to health after a heart attack, combined with being a naturally shy person to begin with, had left Lily almost completely antisocial.

The heart attack itself hadn’t been so bad; the worst part was that her father had been driving down Main Street at the time and had lost control of his car, swerving into the stupid town clock that stood right in the middle of the intersection. The impact had totaled his Chevy and shattered his hip, resulting in major surgery and months of bed rest.

The funny thing about declining Becky’s invitation was that Lily was actually desperate for something different in her life, a change of pace. She wanted to get out and live for once. Her father had eventually healed up, and with the help of a cane he had returned to his job as the high school guidance counselor. The problem was that he was so happy to have someone at home helping him with his day-to-day activities that he tended to play up how helpless he was, knowing Lily was a sucker for helping people. It had worked for a while, but she was beginning to get annoyed with him. George got everything he wanted, while Lily disappeared deeper inside herself.

As she pulled into a parking space, she thought about the fact that even though this time of day was precious to her, she didn’t really care about going to the gym every day. She wasn’t some vapid hardbody who lived to feel the burn, but it provided her with a few short hours of alone time and allowed her to work out her frustrations physically. Actually, there was nothing she loved more than popping in her earbuds and losing herself in the music on her iPod, but whenever she tried to do that at home George would inevitably hunt her down and need her to do something.

Grabbing her bag from the seat next to her, Lily locked the doors and made her way toward the gym. The Aledo Fitness Center was in the middle of a long strip of businesses. To the left of the gym was an accountant’s office, its employees already working late to get ready for tax season, and to the right was a place that Lily always liked to walk by: Knight’s Dance Studio.

The first time she’d seen it she had laughed, wondering how on earth an old-fashioned dance studio stayed in business in such a small town. Even if everyone who lived in Aledo decided to learn the foxtrot, Lily had figured that they would run out of customers within a year, but somehow it seemed to be thriving.

From what Lily had heard from her father, Mrs. Knight used to work at the high school office a long time ago, but after she retired, she spent a year remodeling the old dance studio that hadn’t been in business since the early 80s. The rumors were that she had been quite the dancer back in her youth, and had cried when she heard about it closing. Now she spent her afternoons teaching little girls how to tap dance and elderly couples how to mambo. She was in heaven.

Passing the storefront, Lily peeked in the window like she did every day, smiling as she watched the current class of seventy-somethings shuffle along. Right before she reached the end of the building, she saw something that made her stop in her tracks. There, smack dab in the middle of the window, was a sign that hadn’t been there yesterday.

She changed out of her scrubs quickly, throwing on her capri-length black sport pants and one of her favorite concert tees, a dark blue shirt that said
TOO MANY DICKS ON THE DANCE FLOOR
across the front repeatedly in rainbow letters. Making her way across the cardio room, Lily signed for an open treadmill and popped in her earbuds, scrolling through her playlists until she found the one labeled
Workout Songs
. She adjusted the settings on the treadmill for her target heart rate and incline, and within seconds she was humming along with the music as she ran.

Sadly, the first song wasn’t even over before the image of the sign in the window flashed in her mind. Lily shook her head to clear her thoughts and hit the skip button on her iPod, hoping that another tune might distract her more.

She smiled widely and started running faster when the beats of an old hip-hop song started playing, thinking that she had finally managed to focus. She was wrong. By the second verse she was wondering what the rent might be for an apartment downtown and how fast it would go. Decent apartments were hard to come by in a town so small; people kept them until death and then willed them to their family. At least that’s how it felt to Lily. She’d wanted to get the hell out of her father’s house for a long time, but she could never find anywhere decent that she could afford.

I wonder if they allow animals
, she thought to herself.
Dammit! What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I concentrate?

Lily turned off the treadmill, knowing with absolute certainty that if both ODB and Rob Base couldn’t get her in the mood to exercise, then nothing would.

She stomped back to the locker room and grabbed her bag, tossing the iPod in before zipping it closed and heading outside to her car. She rarely changed again before going home, and she definitely didn’t see the point of it today since she hadn’t even broken a sweat. However, she did see the point of her jacket as soon as she stepped outside and was reminded that it was late January.

She opened the passenger door and set her bag on the seat, fishing her jacket out and throwing it on. When she glanced back over her shoulder as she slid her arm into the sleeve, her eyes caught the sign once again.

Deciding that there was no harm in just asking about it, Lily slammed the door shut and went inside the dance studio before she lost her nerve. The office just inside the front door was empty, so she walked down the hall until she heard what sounded like Latin music combined with a French accordion. She followed the beat farther down the hall until she found a door that was propped open with a large chalkboard on the floor that read
Ballroom Dance tonight, 5 to 7
.

She stuck her head in the door and peeked around the corner, surprised to find that the elderly dance troupe she’d seen earlier had been replaced by younger couples ranging from their late thirties to their early sixties. They were paired up and dancing in tight formations, arms raised high as the ladies twisted and slithered against the men. Lily was amazed to find it rather erotic. The couples were arranged around the room in a large circle, and standing in the middle was a statuesque woman with unnaturally red hair piled high on her head. She was wielding a large, elegant walking stick that she held with both hands, tapping it on the floor in time with the beat of the music and nodding her head as each couple passed.

“Good… good… watch your frame…” She was smiling until one of the women tripped over her own feet and stumbled.
CRACK!
The end of her stick came crashing down so loudly that it echoed over the music. “People! May I remind you that
you
were the ones who begged me to teach the tango this year? I wanted to stop at the samba. You’ve shown promise so far, but at the rate you are learning, this is going to take us weeks!” She frowned at each couple, completely ignoring the exotic music in the background as she sighed deeply and continued. “This dance highlights the man’s ability to lead, as well as the woman’s ability to follow. You’ve got to give yourself over to the rhythm and the moment. Ladies, you have to let your partners have their way with you on that floor. You have to surrender yourself to your emotions and stop letting your head get in the way. We are talking vertical sex here, people!”

The flustered instructor looked up just then, catching sight of Lily across the room. She held up one finger to her and addressed the couples again. “Alright, I’ll be back in a moment, class. Keep working at it.” She stepped through the circle of dancers and made her way across the floor, first stopping at the stereo to repeat the song. “If this song ends before I’m back, you’re going to start the whole thing over again.” She turned to Lily. “Come!” she barked, sweeping through the door in a grand exit.

They walked into the hall together, far enough away from the door so they could hear each other. Lily was taken aback by how extremely tall and graceful the woman seemed, as well as how much older she appeared close-up. The thick makeup she had slathered on did nothing to hide the deep wrinkles and laugh lines on her face. Rather than being repulsed, Lily was in awe of how much living this woman must have done.