There were fifteen units in this apartment building, and he’d managed to talk every single one of them into relocating? Who was he? The reincarnation of Gandhi?
As they proceeded to the elevators, Leona Machowski headed straight for them, a wide smile on her gracefully aging face. “There you are, you handsome Latin devil!” she called, waving a hand to Rick. “Hola, mi amigo!”
Poppy, who it appeared had become completely invisible, seeing as Golden Boy Rick had entered the building, slid behind the fake potted palm tree in the lobby, ducking behind it just in time to see Leona virtually beam at Rick, who smiled right back.
In her usual neon-green and black jogging suit, her sneakers whiter than freshly fallen snow, Leona zipped up to Rick and winked flirtatiously, swatting at his shoulder with playfulness.
“Hola, Leona. Como estas?” he asked, making it clear they’d had prior interaction.
“Muy bien!” she shot back, outwardly gushing at her clever use of Spanish.
“Well done, Leona! Your Spanish is really coming along. I’m continually impressed.”
“Well, you did inspire me to move to Mexico. The pictures are beautiful, and I love my Spanish teacher at the Y. She’s everything you said she’d be and more.”
Her move to Mexico? Leona was moving to Mexico? What the fresh hell was going on?
“I just want to check a couple of things with you about my relocation, Rick. Have a minute before you go?”
Rick smiled back just as warmly, his charisma oozing from his pores and dripping all over Leona. “For you, Leona, mi amiga? I have decades. Can I swing by when I’m done at Mr. Rush’s? That work?”
She giggled, delirious and girlish—giggled like a giddy teenage girl, nodding her freshly dyed ash-blonde head. “I’ll be sure and keep the sauerkraut warm. I made kielbasa just for you!”
“You’re the best, Leona,” Rick offered in return, gravelly and low, before she took off toward the door, almost skipping along the way.
Poppy looked around aghast, her mouth wide open. What the hell was going on? Mr. Rush had gotten offers before—decent, solid, some might say incredibly generous offers—for this building, and he’d turned every single one of them down, and the residents of 54 Littleton Park Square had all nodded their heads in agreement and appreciation for his steadfast loyalty to them. He didn’t have to keep the building.
He’d kept it because he loved it—it was his legacy.
Now Mr. Rush and everyone in the building was handing over their beloved homes as though they were giving them to Jesus himself? What kind of relocation package was ARMD offering—a ticket to Utopia?
When the elevator bell dinged, and the coast was clear, Poppy scooted in alongside Rick, fighting the urge to scream her frustration as the musty air of the boxy car settled in her nose.
She was going to have to tell him she lived here eventually—like probably within the next five minutes. But until then, she’d silently rage.
How had he talked them all into this? It couldn’t be anything other than some kind of crazy, fast talking persuasion. Had he used his magic to do this?
When the rickety old elevator signaled their arrival—to her floor, no less—their silence had become deafening. As the doors opened with a rumble, he swept his hand in front of him in a gallant gesture. “After you.”
Poppy poked her head around the corner and scanned the hallway with its patched but cleanly painted walls. Around this time of day, most everyone was either on their first nap or headed off to run errands. Thankfully, the hallway was deserted.
Stepping out, she stood off to the side and waited for Rick to take the lead. And lead he did, right to her apartment door—number 7E.
Now her throat was threatening to close up and her eyes grew grainy and blurry with her fear. But Rick turned to her and offered a short yet succinct explanation. “Lennox Griffith lives here.”
Oh, no she did not either. Hadn’t Mr. Rush told him Lennox no longer lived here?
“Didn’t the landlord have a way to contact her? Didn’t any of the residents know how to find her?”
Poppy, Poppy, Poppy. You’re a bad person. What kind of familiar looks right in their warlock’s eye and doesn’t tell him the truth? But that aside, how was this happening? Everyone knew her in the building. Hadn’t he asked any of them who actually lived in 7E?
Hadn’t he asked the Paxton’s, who, without fail, always brought her a plate of pot roast on Sunday evening so the starving artist wouldn’t starve?
Rick smiled, the grin coming off as rather indulgent and sweet, as though the memory of Mr. Rush and his experience with him was a good one.