“Is Steven home?” Ashleigh asked.
The man wiped his hands together, trying to clean the dust or dirt off. “You’re too late,” he said. “Or he’s too late really. He never paid me the back rent he owed, so I left him an eviction notice. Late last night, I see him carrying some stuff out to his car. You know, a suitcase, a couple of boxes. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was moving out, but he had the back rent for me. Next thing I know, he’s driving off.” The guy shrugged. “He never came back, the bum.”
“You don’t know where he went?”
“Sweetie, if I knew that, I’d find him and send the marshals after him. I see this all the time. There are a lot of crummy people in the world.”
Ashleigh didn’t know what to think. She felt relief, yes. All the fears and anxieties she carried with her, all the worries about what might have gone wrong if she did end up talking to Steven Kollman eased and allowed her to breathe more freely than she had all day. On the other hand, a crushing disappointment lurked beneath everything. What was she going to do if Steven was gone? Everything-
“Didn’t he tell you he was leaving?” the man asked.
“No,” Ashleigh said.
“He didn’t tell anyone in the family?”
Ashleigh shook her head.
“See, that’s crummy.” He pushed his glasses up.
Ashleigh agreed. It was.
“That guy came back looking for him.”
“What guy?” Ashleigh asked.
“Remember?” he said. He sounded frustrated, like Ashleigh should know exactly what he was talking about. “Last time you were here I told you that another guy came to see him and they had an argument. Remember?”
Ashleigh did, once he mentioned it. “Sure. Okay.”
“That guy came back, too, looking for Steven.”
“And you don’t know who this guy is?” Ashleigh asked.
“I’m not a secretary.”
“I thought maybe he left a note or something.”
“He didn’t. He just left. And that’s all I know.”
But she couldn’t turn away. She remained on the stairs with one hand holding the banister.
“What’s going to happen to all his stuff?” she asked.
The man turned and looked into the apartment door, appraising the contents of the room. “The apartments come furnished, so none of that is his. I guess I’m lucky he didn’t try to swipe it. The rest of the stuff is just junk. Papers and bills and stuff. It all gets thrown out.”
“Thrown out?”
“What am I supposed to do with it? Make a scrapbook for him? Store it?”
“Let me come in and see it,” Ashleigh said.
The man looked surprised, like someone who finds a forgotten twenty-dollar bill in his pants pocket.
“You want to come in? Here?”
“If you’re just going to throw the stuff away-”
“Of course. Come in.”
He stepped back and into the door of the apartment, and while he moved he reached up with both hands, attempting to smooth the ragged strands of his hair down against the skin of his scalp. Ashleigh knew she was taking a risk. Her mom had already given her more than one talk about men-the kinds of situations to avoid, the times to turn and run. Mom wouldn’t approve of this one, Ashleigh knew. Being in an apartment with a strange older man. Alone.
But Ashleigh put it all aside. The guy looked so pathetic, so nerdy. And how would she live with herself if she came this close and didn’t take the opportunity? She may never have the chance again to learn something-
Ashleigh went the rest of the way up the steps to the third floor. The manager held out his hand.
“I’m Nick,” he said, his body filling the doorway. “Nick Reeves.”
“Ashleigh.”
She took his dirty hand reluctantly, but tried to conceal her disgust. His skin was wet and clammy. Ashleigh wanted to wash the feeling off right away but didn’t see any graceful way to do it.
Ashleigh followed Nick inside and looked around. A few boxes sat on the floor, their tops open. Junk filled them. Papers, magazines, plastic cups and dishes. A few pieces of clothing. Ashleigh noted that Nick didn’t shut the door behind them, and that brought her a small measure of relief. She thought again of what Kevin said about giving people a break. Shouldn’t she give Nick a break as well? Maybe he was just a harmless nerd, a middle-aged guy who didn’t know how to act around women of any age.
“Is this all there is?” Ashleigh asked, pointing to the boxes.
“There’s the trash in the hall,” he said. “But that’s basically it. I already cleaned out the bedroom. Are you looking for something in particular? There wasn’t any jewelry or pictures, if that’s what you’re looking for. I wouldn’t throw someone’s pictures away, and I’d sell the jewelry for the back rent. I’m allowed to do that.”
“I don’t know what I’m looking for,” Ashleigh said, bending down near the first box. “I don’t know. And it probably isn’t here anyway, whatever it might be.”
“That doesn’t really make sense.”
“No, it doesn’t,” she said.
She took handfuls of the paper and paged through them, letting each piece drop away to the bottom of the box when she saw it wasn’t important. And none of it was important. Junk mail, mostly. The same crap that filled their mailbox at home, the stuff everyone on earth must throw away but companies still felt compelled to mail.
“Where do you go to school?” Nick asked.
“What?” Ashleigh turned her head.
Nick still stood there, just a few steps away. She had assumed he would go back to his cleaning and leave her alone, but he hadn’t. He seemed to be waiting on her, like he thought she might need something that only he could deliver.
“Your school?”
“Dove Point High,” she said. “I’m going to be a sophomore.”
“DPH? I went to Dove Point West-you know, out in the country.”
Ashleigh waited to see if he wanted to say anything else, but he didn’t. In fact, Nick turned away a little bit and looked around the kitchen of the apartment. Ashleigh could see dishes piled in the sink and some garbage in the corner. He still needed to clean there.
She turned back to the papers and picked up her pace. She didn’t know how long she could stay in this little crowded room with Nick. She shuffled the papers quickly, almost not paying attention to what passed her eyes.
“Are you going to drive next year?” Nick asked.
“Sure. I guess so.”
She kept looking at the papers.
“You’ll turn sixteen, right?”
“In April.”
“You can drive then.”
“Sure.”
She picked up the paper she had just discarded.
Across the top it said: “Clerk of Courts, Franklin County, Ohio.”
Ashleigh scanned the paper. A few words jumped out.
Assault…second degree…warrant…
