Alix Ohlin - Inside

Soon the intruder in the lobby had drawn the residents together, like survivors of a storm. For the next two days, as Anne went into and out of the building, she would meet her neighbors’ eyes with a shrug and a smile, and they’d shrug and smile back.

In all this time the guy beneath the blanket didn’t show his face, though the smell of urine started wafting up the stairwell. When the tenants met now, they scrunched their noses in distaste and hurried into their apartments as quickly as possible, disgusted and afraid.

Finally, Mrs. Bondarchuk, the one who had called the police, clutched Anne’s arm outside her door and drew her into the kitchen. “You’ve got to do something.”

“Me? What about the super? Or the cops?”

Mrs. Bondarchuk shot her a scornful look. “You don’t think they have other things to do?”

“Sure, but what am I supposed to do?”

Mrs. Bondarchuk was a tiny Ukrainian lady, barely five feet tall, but her wrinkled face was powerfully insistent. Her short hair was dyed a lurid, unconvincing red. Until recently, she had refused to acknowledge Anne’s presence, but her new friendliness came at a price. “You go talk to them,” she said firmly. “You’re a young person.” The logic of this was self-evident to her. “ You go talk.”

“All right,” Anne said. “Fine.”

She went downstairs and stood next to the pile without any idea what sort of creature was hidden beneath it. “Excuse me,” she finally said.

There was neither answer nor movement in the pile, and the smell was rank. It had been four days.

“I’m sorry, but you can’t stay here. You have to leave.”

No answer. Was he asleep? Passed out on drugs?

“I know it’s cold out,” she said. “But there are places, right? I mean, shelters. They’ll feed you, and give you a shower and stuff. You have options.”

As she said it, she remembered someone speaking those last three words to her, You have options , when she was very young, and the way a voice had risen up inside her, silent but stubborn, that said, No, I don’t .

The pile, however, said nothing. Defeated, she turned on her heel and went back to her apartment.

What put the situation over the edge was the shit. She left for rehearsal and when she came back, three hours later, a few pages of the New York Times Arts section were neatly folded into quarters in the opposite corner of the entryway. The smell was unmistakable.

“Jesus Christ,” she said. “Are you kidding me?”

Taking a deep breath and holding it, she grabbed one edge of the wool blanket and pulled. Whoever was underneath — both underneath and inside and twisted around, it seemed — pulled back, and for a minute it was like a tug of war. Anne wanted to give up, because holding this filthy blanket was grossing her out, but then the other person gave in and she reeled backward, almost stumbling flat on her ass, and when the blanket dropped from her hand, she saw to her shock that it was a girl. Blond, teenage, stocky, her round cheeks constellated with pimples.

“I need some food,” the girl said, then burrowed into the green army coat and pulled her knees up to her chin, wrapping her arm around them. It was as if she were anchoring herself to the floor, folding herself into a packet as neat and small as the newspaper. She smelled like mold and garbage, like something discarded and left to rot.

“I’m hungry,” the girl insisted. Then, as if reading Anne’s mind, she added, “And I stink. Can I use your shower? I feel kind of disgusting.”

She was so matter-of-fact, so unapologetic, that Anne was speechless. She had been picturing a man, older, maybe a vet, somewhat or completely out of his mind, homeless for a long time. A teenage runaway — a girl who could shit in a building and then curl up asleep next to it — had never occurred to her.

“If I bring you upstairs and let you shower,” she said, “will you go to one of the shelters? I’ll help you get there.”

The girl gazed at her, the expression in her eyes impossible to read. “I’m starving,” she said.

“I have some food,” Anne said. “Okay?”

The girl struggled heavily to her feet, gathering her coat around her. She looked sleepy, and willing, if not happy, to follow her upstairs. As they passed Mrs. Bondarchuk’s door, Anne knocked lightly to let her know what was happening — though she didn’t doubt that the old lady was already peering through the keyhole. You owe me one, she thought.

The girl stepped into the apartment as if it were hers. She was wearing dirty jeans, sneakers, and a blue sweater, and Anne had only a moment to guess at her age — fifteen, maybe sixteen? — before she went into the bathroom and closed the door, without asking directions or permission. After a minute, Anne heard the shower running.

“Okay,” she said out loud. She went into the kitchen and set out bread and peanut butter and jelly. Not caring much about food herself, she hardly ever cooked, and her cupboards held little beyond takeout menus and leftover packets of soy sauce. In the other apartments in the building, the little old ladies spent their days simmering soups and boiling potatoes, wanting to have something on hand in case their families stopped by (though they rarely did), always smelling up the hallways with their traditionally prepared recipes. Probably the girl wished one of them had taken her in.

Anne started to make a sandwich, then realized the girl would need clean clothes when she got out of the shower. She rummaged through her dresser for some rarely worn sweatpants and oversized T-shirts — the girl was much heavier than Anne. Then she went into the bathroom and said, “I’m putting some clothes on the toilet,” but she got no response from the shadow behind the shower curtain. Back in the living room, she waited. All these actions were unaccustomed. She never had houseguests; when men came over, she gave them what they wanted — time with her in bed — and never thought about whether they were hungry, or thirsty, or uncomfortable. If they needed a drink of water, they could get it themselves. If the girl was planning to steal from her, too bad, since Anne didn’t have anything worth stealing. There were advantages to living an unbuilt life.

A few minutes after the water stopped, the girl came out wearing the sweatpants and several T-shirts layered one over the other. Anne couldn’t help noticing that her breasts were enormous, pendulous, beneath the shirts. Her body looked like a woman’s, but her face was chubby, childlike, round. Eyeing the peanut butter, the girl sat down on the kitchen stool. She made herself a sandwich, ate it, then made herself another. Halfway through this one she said, “Milk?”

Anne shook her head, regret washing over her. Why had she let this person — this animal —into her apartment?

While the girl kept eating, Anne went into the bathroom and stuffed the reeking clothes into a plastic garbage bag, wincing when she saw that her shampoo, conditioner, exfoliating scrub, and lotion were all uncapped and messy. Those products were expensive, an investment in her looks.

“I’m going downstairs to put your stuff in the laundry,” she said. When she got back upstairs, the girl was fast asleep in her bed.

She slept poorly on her uncomfortable couch. She had never been one for good deeds. She wasn’t selfish — just self-contained. She liked to stay within her own borders. Yet in the morning, for some reason, she dragged herself to the deli and came back with orange juice and donuts. The girl looked like a donut eater. She sat sipping black coffee on the couch until the girl woke up around ten and wandered into the living room, apparently surprised to see Anne there.