Chapter 14
Meredith and Vi’s apartment backed up onto a small city park that boasted a swing set and a few picnic tables. By the time they were crossing the overgrown lawn, it was just after eight in the morning. Their apartment building blocked them from view of the parking lot, just as they had hoped it would.
Vi’s bare feet squished into the damp grass as they walked, making small squelching sounds. Her socks were stuffed into her pockets and her prized leather boots sat abandoned in the wash where they had rested earlier. Vi stepped around a broken off branch of a bougainvillea bush, careful of its long, sharp spines.
A young woman was walking her dog through the park, and she smiled at them as she passed. If she noticed Vi’s bare feet, she didn’t give any indication. After returning her grin, they waited until she was gone from sight before they walked into the shadow of their apartment building and sidled up under Josh’s window.
Vi reached down and picked up a handful of landscaping gravel that had gathered along the foundation of the building. She threw a pebble upward, but it bounced noiselessly off the stucco next to the window.
“Seriously, Vi? The window is like six feet wide.” Meredith took a pebble from Vi’s hand and threw it up, where it clacked against the glass.
“That was just my warm up,” Vi said defensively. She threw a second pebble, which pinged against the metal window frame that ran down the middle of the two panes of glass.
They threw several more rocks, each a little harder than the last. After each pebble, they glanced around cautiously, making sure they weren’t being observed. Still, Josh didn’t come to the window.
“Maybe he’s not home,” Vi suggested, disappointed.
“Maybe he’s a really heavy sleeper,” Meredith countered. She bent down and pulled off her tennis shoe, turning up a corner of her mouth slyly. She felt jittery and nervous as the wet of the grass soaked through her sock, sending a chill up her body. She threw the shoe at the window, where it thumped loudly against the window, causing the glass to shake in its frame. She looked around to make sure no one had seen them.
From inside the apartment, they heard a muffled, “Jesus Christ!”
Meredith gulped down a giggle, feeling giddy in her relief that he was home. She looked around again nervously, making sure they were still alone behind the building. Vi raised an amused eyebrow at her while Meredith walked over and picked up her shoe where it had fallen on the ground.
Upstairs, they could see Josh hobble angrily over to the window on one crutch. His hair was sticking up on one side and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. When he caught sight of Meredith and Vi down below, his anger turned to confusion as he opened the window. “We have to stop meeting like this,” he joked, though his curiosity was written all over his face.
They had agreed on the walk over to keep Josh as much in the dark as possible while still convincing him to give them a ride to the hospital. Meredith focused on stuffing her damp foot back into her shoe while Vi did the talking. “We need your help,” Vi began. “A friend of ours is in the hospital, and we need a ride to go visit him.”
“That’s not as romantic a tale as throwing things at my window would suggest,” Josh said, fishing for more information.
Vi’s eyes slid over to Meredith’s face, as if asking for permission to say more. Meredith said, “Well, since the last time we saw you, we kind of got into a bit of trouble. And we’re worried that someone might be watching our apartment.”
“Where are your shoes?” Josh asked Vi.
Vi smiled. “They were hurting my feet, so I ditched ‘em.”
“Ha, literally,” Meredith said out of the side of her mouth.
Vi chuckled at the private joke. Then she said to Josh, “Got any sandals I can borrow?”
“So now you want a ride and shoes?” He looked at them as if he was sorry he had ever met them.
“And food,” Meredith added hopefully.
Josh closed his eyes and scrubbed a hand down his face. “Dude, my apartment caught on fire and I have a broken ankle. I don’t really want to get sucked up into your… whatever it is.”
“You just had to ask for food, didn’t you?” Vi teased, confident that she would be able to persuade Josh to help them, girlfriend or no.
“Okay, no food!” Meredith amended.
Contrite, Josh said, “No, no. You can have some food.” Then he added wearily, “Are these, like, drug guys or something?”
“No,” Vi assured him.
“So who are they then?”
“Come on, does that really matter?” Vi asked with an alluring smile.
“It matters if I’m going to help you,” Josh said, unaffected by Vi’s charms.
Meredith remembered Vi’s irritation a few days earlier at Josh’s having a girlfriend and wondered if Josh had borne the brunt of it. She knew a different tactic was probably a better idea. “We saved your life,” she reminded him quietly. “We wouldn’t ask if there were anyone else who could help us.”
“And you can come get us around the corner. They won’t even know you’re involved,” Vi added.
Josh looked at them darkly. “Fine. Give me ten minutes and then I’ll come pick you up at the Circle K.”