The Man on the Washing Machine by Susan Cox Page B

fire or other emergency (for which, read: “earthquake”).
    The back-door landings are nothing much, but big enough for a trash can and a few potted plants for those of us who are so inclined. I have some dispirited herbs, their leaves curling and protesting at the fog they’re expected to deal with when they long for Mediterranean sunshine. The buildings have a variety of dressy facades at the front, but they’re plain and flat-roofed, like shoe boxes, from the garden side. Because of the hill and the staircase effect, the buildings step down gradually so my back landing is level with next door’s rooftop. If I wanted to, I could step past my pots of oregano and parsley onto my neighbors’ flat gravel roof. In a sunnier climate, we’d use the roofs as sundecks; here we abandon them to the seagulls and an occasional laundry line.
    Lucy and I spent ten minutes in the darkened garden; me hissing at her to hurry up and she, furtive and uncooperative, taking exactly the same amount of time as usual. I could hear occasional muffled noises. Sabina’s grandfather, known as Professor D’Allessio, although he’d been retired for a decade or more, goes out after dark to crush snails and slugs. Around the time of the Open Garden, he redoubles his efforts and spends half the night out there, creeping up on unsuspecting gastropods. As if to confirm it, I heard the faint metallic ringing of his hoe.
    If I’d been paying attention to what I was doing, maybe I wouldn’t have been blindsided by what happened next. But as I made my way back up three flights of wooden stairs, wondering if I should soundproof them with sisal matting or something, my mind was dealing with Nicole’s promise to get her act together, and the new group home, and Bramwell Turlough, and, peripherally, whether I thought him as good-looking as Nat did. I was carrying a little plastic bag containing the result of Lucy’s expedition and remembering an argument I once had with a neighbor, who hates animals and what he calls their “leavings,” and trying to recall if it was the oregano or the parsley I’d poured a mug of water on the day before. Lucy’s self-important little white bottom led me up the stairs in the pitch dark. I picked up the pot of oregano, at the same time pushing the door wide open. The unshaded bulb in the utility room ceiling flashed at me like the beam of a lighthouse.
    An overweight man in a business suit was standing on my washing machine.
    Every cell in my body lurched to a standstill. My eyeballs refused to recognize what I was apparently seeing; my synapses vaporized; my muscles locked. My heart stopped beating, and then started beating so fast somewhere up in my throat I thought my body would explode.
    He was about fifty, with pitted skin the color of dust. His forehead was glistening with sweat and he was opening and closing his mouth like a sea anemone. Like me, he was paralyzed, wide-eyed and apparently frozen in place. He had a short red strap in his hand; it was ragged and torn at the ends. Tacky. Time suddenly wound down with an almost audible whine and I had time to think “tacky red strap” twice.
    Everything about him stood out like neon. The navy blue suit. The pale blue handkerchief peeking coyly from his breast pocket. The shamrock lapel pin. The stylish inch of French cuff showing at the sleeve of his jacket. The malachite cuff link. I looked down at his feet for some reason. He had trampled and jumbled my pile of neatly folded towels. I felt a surge of panic, as if a towel trampler could be capable of anything. He took a step toward me and stumbled on another towel. I instinctively swept back my arm, flung the pot of oregano at him, and produced a loud, terrified scream that hurt my throat. The ex-policeman had told us to make as much noise as possible, so I kept screaming as I tripped in my panicked exit out the door, collided with the trash can, and