author: melayneseahawk (
melayneseahawk)
email: melayneseahawk [at] gmail.com
artist: riot_o_curls (
riot_o_curls The first thing you need to know about Shoshana Finklestein is that she lives in a very strange apartment building. The water goes out every afternoon from 2:15 to 2:47 and the power goes out almost every time the wind blows. The landlord swears he can't figure out what's causing it. But the place is rent-controlled, bug-free, and walking distance from her job, so she's hesitant to look for another place.
The second thing you need to know is that Shosh is in love with her next-door neighbor.
Mary is tall, red-haired, and freckled, and about as Irish as a person can possibly be without having been born in Ireland. They meet when Shosh comes into the lobby and sees Mary trying to cram a futon pad into the old-fashioned cage elevator. As is its habit, it's trying to close on her.
Shosh hurries over and shoves the door open. "Thanks," the other woman says, hauling the mattress a little higher and pulling the last two feet into the elevator.
"You looked like you could use a hand," Shosh says. She steps into the elevator and closes the door. "Are you the new 4B?"
"That's me," the woman says. Trapped behind the mattress, she sneaks a hand around one side for Shosh to shake. "Mary O'Reilly."
"Shosh Finklestein. 4C."
"Oh! Good to meet a neighbor," Mary says. She's silent until the elevator whines and stops at the fourth floor. "Will it try to eat me again?" she asks as Shosh pushes the door open.
"No, it only does that on the ground floor," she says, but she holds it anyway while Mary tosses the mattress out into the hall. "Need a hand?"
"No, I've got it," Mary says, flexing her fingers and then wrestling the mattress into an upright position. "A friend's helping me move, but he's parking the van around the corner."
"Well, good luck with it," Shosh says, stalling on walking the last twenty feet to her door. "This place has... character. It takes some getting used to."
"That's what I heard," Mary says, just as the lights flicker and go out. "You like it, though?"
"Good neighborhood, nice people," Shosh says. "I don't mind it. And the power usually comes on pretty quickly."
The lights come back on just in time for Shosh to see Mary's smile. Her teeth are perfect. She unlocks the door to 4B and pushes the mattress inside. "It was nice meeting you," she says.
"You, too," Shosh says to the closed door.
Shosh watches Mary go through a procession of increasingly distressing boyfriends. She finds herself lying awake at night, listening to the yelling next door. It's a surprise the first time Mary knocks on the door with a bottle of wine in hand and a sheepish smile on her face. Shosh lets her in, and is treated to a detailed analysis of what went wrong this time. And the next time. And the next.
"I'm not frigid, and I'm not withholding sex to be manipulative," Mary says this time, and Shosh nods, taking a sip of her wine. A houseplant would be just as effective in Shosh's role in these visits, but she's not going to complain. It gives her a chance to spend time with Mary, and it lets her pretend they're closer than they actually are. It's a little codependent, but Shosh rationalizes that away easily: Mary wants someone to talk to - at - and who is Shosh to cruelly turn her away?
Shosh is good at rationalizing.
"I just don't enjoy it," Mary continues, and Shosh blinks, trying to remember what they'd been talking about. "Sex, I mean. I never have. Maybe I'm doing something wrong."
"Maybe you're just having it with the wrong people," Shosh says thoughtlessly, and then barely resists the urge to cover her mouth in embarrassment. How old is she, fourteen? But Mary is looking curiously at her over the rim of her wineglass, so Shosh adds, "Have you ever had sex with a woman?"
Mary blushes. "Once, in college, but I don't really remember. It was college, you know?" Shosh can't help finding her embarrassment adorable. "Have you?"
Now it's Shosh's turn to blush. They've gone out for coffee a bunch of times since Mary moved in, but Shosh has always been able to steer the conversation away from her love life. "Ah, I'm a lesbian. So, yeah."
"Why didn't you tell me!" Mary admonishes. "Oh no, you're trying to convert me." But she's laughing, face a little flushed from the wine, so Shosh isn't concerned. Mary's a bit of a lightweight.
"You've revealed my evil plot," Shosh deadpans, and Mary laughs even harder, putting down her wineglass. "Seriously, though, this isn't going to be a problem?"
Mary makes a silly pshing noise and waves one hand. "Do you have a problem with me being a redhead?" she says, but Shosh doesn't quite follow that bit of logic. Mary goes back to talking about her most recent ex, but Shosh catches Mary giving her an odd look when she leaves.
It's Shosh's third winter in this apartment, so she's prepared for the inevitable blackouts: lots of candles and batteries, the down comforter out of storage, and - her pride and joy - a battery-operated space heater. Mary learns quickly, and only has to borrow a blanket once before she gets the hang of things.
Shosh is actually surprised how far into the winter they get before the first really bad blackout, the kind that lasts all night. Maybe that fact causes her to get a little careless, and she gets home from a dinner out to discover that the power is out... and she'd forgotten to charge the space heater.
Shosh leaves her coat on as she paces around the apartment lighting candles, cursing all the while. It's the last night of Hanukkah, and although it's been dark for hours she decides to light those candles, too. Flashlight in hand, she finishes lighting the regular candles spread around the apartment, and then counts out nine candles for the menorah. She'll be finishing off one pack and starting another, but that's not surprising; she doesn't think anyone's ever used exactly one pack for the holiday.
She's just about to start when there's a knock on the door. "So, my comforter was in the wash when the power went," Mary says when Shosh opens the door. "Can I share your space heater if I beg?"
Shosh chuckles and steps aside to let her in. "I've got good news and bad news. You're welcome to stay, but I completely forgot to charge the space heater after the last time I used it. It's probably got only an hour or two."
"Maybe we can run it just long enough to fall asleep warm," Mary says, sensible as always - as long as it doesn't involve relationships. "I'll go grab more blankets."
Shosh smiles and goes back to lighting the menorah, sliding its tray to occupy one half of the coffee table and setting up the space heater on the other. She puts on her pajamas and hauls her comforter and extra blankets into the living room, shoving a towel under the bedroom door to block the draft. She's setting up her usual cocoon in front of the couch when Mary comes back into the apartment, locking the door behind her. "The bedroom has a draft, so I usually camp out in here," Shosh says.
"Works for me," Mary says, adding her blankets to the pile. "It'll be like a grade school sleepover."
"Colder, though," Shosh says with a laugh.
"We can share body heat," Mary says, taking off her coat and tossing it over the arm of the couch. Shosh finds her flannel pajamas amusing for some reason. Mary settles herself in one side of the blanket pile and holds a blanket up for Shosh. "You're going to freeze if you stay out there much longer."
Shosh knows she's right, so she rounds the coffee table and sits down, wrapping the spare edges of blanket around herself, leaving her arm free so she can lean forward and turn on the space heater. It beeps and begins to heat up, and Shosh sits back, tucking herself in more securely. A cold hand lands on the back of her neck and she yelps. "Not fair," she protests.
"Sorry," Mary says, but she doesn't look at all repentant. She takes her hand back, but they're still pressed side by side inside the blankets. "So, it's the last night of Hanukkah?" she asks, tipping her chin to point to the menorah.
"Yeah," Shosh says. "I've never been really religious, but it feels wrong not to do it." She shrugs. "I don't think I've been to synagogue in years, but I do some of the holiday stuff."
"You've got one of those box things on your door frame," Mary points out.
"Yeah, but that's my mother's fault," Shosh says, wrinkling her nose. "She comes to visit occasionally, and she'd kill me if it wasn't up."
"I swear my mom knows when I skip Christmas mass, and she calls me the next day to harass me about it," Mary says. "Mothers, right?"
"What can you do with them?" Shosh agrees. "So, tell me something about yourself. Some random thing, whatever."
"We're really going hardcore sleepover, aren't we?" Mary teases. "Um... Mary's actually my middle name. My first name is some ridiculous family name that I refuse to use."
"Aw, man, you can't leave it at that," Shosh says, elbowing Mary in the side. "Tell me."
"You've got enough blackmail material on me already," Mary says. She rests her head on Shosh's shoulder, and Shosh manages not to jump. "I don't know about you, but I really do have to be up tomorrow morning."
"Me, too," Shosh says. "My cell alarm is going to go off at six."
"Perfect." Mary closes her eyes, and Shosh isn't sure whether she realizes that she's practically nuzzling Shosh's neck as she gets comfortable. "Thanks for letting me sleep over."
"No problem," Shosh says. "Sleep well."
"You, too."
But Shosh finds herself staring at the guttering candles in the menorah, unable to sleep. Maybe it's the fact that's she's forgotten how to sleep with another person. Or maybe it's Mary's soft breath on her neck.
It's warm under the blankets. And Shosh doesn't have any meetings tomorrow, so she can afford to be a little more tired than usual.
Shosh must have fallen asleep sometime during the night, because she wakes up the next morning to the insistent beep of her cell phone. Mary's head is still on her shoulder. Shosh reaches up onto the couch to turn the alarm off, and Mary sits up, untangling the blankets. The electricity must have come back on sometime during the night; Shosh can see the microwave clock blinking in confusion from the kitchen.
"Hey, you didn't leave the space heater plugged in, did you?" Mary asks, and Shosh's attention is drawn to the little white machine. The red light on the front is still lit, and it's definitely still radiating heat. Shosh sits forward to examine it, and the space heater makes a sputtering noise and turns off. "Was it on all night?"
"Seems like it," Shosh says. She looks at the clock on the phone in her hand and laughs.
"What?"
"It lasted eight hours," she says. Mary shakes her head in confusion. "We've had our own Hanukkah miracle."
"If you say so," Mary says, but she's smiling as she reaches back and uses the couch to push herself up from the floor. Shosh stands and they start separating the pile of blankets. "Remember to plug it in this time?"
"Definitely," Shosh says, laughing. She puts the ball of her blankets on the couch.
"Let me take you out to dinner tonight," Mary says suddenly, her own arms full of blankets.
"No, you don't have to," Shosh says. "It's just being a good neighbor, right? You'd do the same thing for me."
Mary nods, but her expression is oddly serious. "Humor me, ok?" she says. "It's not just about last night." Before Shosh can ask what she means, Mary shifts her bundle and reaches out one hand to cup Shosh's cheek. "Please?"
Shosh swallows. Mary's thumb strokes over her cheekbone, and Shosh thinks she's forgotten how to breathe for a minute. "How can I say no when you ask so nicely?" she says, surprised how husky her voice has just gotten. She turns her head slightly and presses a kiss to the ball of Mary's hand. "Though, usually I like going out for dinner before I spend the night with a girl."
Mary laughs, surprised, and Shosh smiles. She walks Mary out and then starts to get ready for work.
It seems like there's more than one miracle at work after all.
the end