Love and Neckties - Lacey Black Page 0,50

very much know what he’s referring to. He means the big elephant in the room—err, car—in the form of a marriage license and Elvis impersonator witness.

“Be serious, Freedom. We can’t stay married.”

“We can.” And we will.

“No, Freedom, this isn’t the way it’s done. We can’t just get married in Vegas and live happily ever after,” he says, as he maneuvers the streets toward my apartment building.

“Harper and Latham did,” I tell him.

“But they were in love beforehand. We’re not in love,” he says, turning onto my street.

I open my mouth to respond, to tell him we’re not in love yet, but something out of the corner of my eye catches my attention. I turn to my building, shocked to find so much…stuff outside. As we pull up, I realize it’s my stuff outside. “What the hell?” I find myself saying, as Samuel pulls to a stop in the street.

Jumping out of the car, I take off toward the building, spying my massage table resting against my stove. Sitting on the sidewalk. With my clothes haphazardly thrown in piles beside it. “Holy shitballs,” I gasp, my hands covering my mouth.

“What is this stuff?” Samuel asks as he approaches, his hands shoved casually in his pockets.

“It’s my stuff! Why is it in the front yard?” I ask, just as Mr. Monet comes out the front door.

“Oh, Freedom, there you are. We’ve been looking for you,” he says, walking around my bathroom vanity, the wood surprisingly swollen and watermarked.

“What in hell’s bells happened here? Why is my stuff on the front lawn?” I ask, glancing around before returning my gaze to him.

“Well, there was a slight problem with the apartment above yours,” he says as he goes over to my fridge, opens it, and takes a cranberry juice bottle, as if it’s completely normal to pull a drink from a refrigerator sitting in the middle of the yard. Never mind the fact it’s not his fridge.

“What happened?” Samuel asks, sort of stepping in and taking control.

“Well,” Mr. Monet starts, scratching both his head on his paunch belly at the same time. “There was a water leak up at the Foremans’ upstairs. They didn’t realize it because the water was running down the wall to the apartment below.”

“My apartment,” I derive, cold sliver of dread sliding down my spine.

“Yep, your apartment. It must have started last Thursday night or Friday morning. The water ran all weekend until it started pouring out from under your door this morning. But by that point, it ran down your wall too and soaked the place directly underneath you too. All three apartments. Ruined.”

“Ruined?” I ask, the words catching in my throat.

“Oh, definitely. We got all your stuff here in the front yard and George’s stuff in the back. And Frank’s is sort of mixed between the two places,” he says, scratching his balls.

“Swell,” I relay, heading over to check out my soaked clothes.

“We got a truck coming to take all the appliances out, but you’re gonna have to move all your stuff. Preferably right away. You know, so it doesn’t make the place look junky and stuff.”

Right.

“How long?” I ask. “How long will I be out of here?”

He scratches his gut once more and glances back at the building. “Three weeks? At least.”

“Three weeks? I don’t know what to do,” I whisper to no one, trying to piece together how I’m going to move all my stuff and where I’m going to put it. It’s not like I keep a storage unit handy, just in case my apartment floods and I need to clear it out.

“I’ve got this,” Samuel says, placing his hand on my arm and pulling his phone from his pocket. He steps away and makes a call as I start digging through my soppy underwear. Mr. Monet lingers, wiping sweat off his brow as he leans against my dresser.

Sighing, I glance at everything I own. Fortunately, I’m a minimalist and not a stuff person. I don’t keep miscellaneous and frivolous things, just for the sake of filling a shelf or cabinet. I guess you can thank my childhood for that. It’s not like we were making paper mâché angels and framing family photos. If we made something, it was with the intention of selling it. It’s how we survived.

So, there’s no surprise everything I own doesn’t really take up too much space on the lawn. I find my hamper and clothes basket and start wringing out the soppy, grass-covered clothes, chucking them inside. Everything in