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Janine shivered with fear and repulsion as the elevator doors opened to that floor.
“Mr. Franklin?” she called, a slight echo following her words.
Taking a few steps into the sub-basement, she could smell the mold, and hated the look of the rusty, exposed pipes traversing over her head. The ceiling was low, as though the building had already settled or had a mini-collapse, squashing the space originally designed. Was that water she heard dripping? Maybe the pipes had already broken with the pressure of the building that was surely starting to collapse.
The sooner she got out of there, the better. “Are you down here, Mr. Franklin?” She heard the panic in her voice, but was too creeped out to disguise it. Try as she might, she couldn’t stop picturing the rats that were probably scampering around her feet at that very moment. The Black Plague started here, I’m sure.
“May I help you, ma’am?” A young man appeared out of nowhere, scaring her to the point where what little was left of her hair almost stood on end. He wiped his hands on the dirty rag hanging from his shoulder.
“I’m looking for Mr. Franklin.”
“I’m he. I mean him. I’m him. Mr. Franklin.”
She stared at him. “Unless you’ve taken some kind of youth elixir, had hair plugs, and dyed whatever little tufts were already there from gray to black—you’re not Mr. Franklin.”
He laughed. “Oh. You must be referring to my grandfather. Gramps retired to Florida.”
“He did? When did that happen?”
“Eight months ago.”
“Oh.” Shows how observant I am.
“I’m Mr. Franklin, too, but I think that sounds so officious, don’t you? Please, call me Ben.”
“Okay, Ben,” she said, trying to recall if she’d ever heard a maintenance man use the word officious before. She might not acknowledge their presence—or lack thereof—but she did notice their speech patterns and chosen vocabulary. Her job made that a habit and a necessity. “So, Mr. Franklin, I mean, Ben.” She stopped speaking. Something was off, amiss, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. “Wait a minute. Your name is Ben Franklin?”
“Ironic, huh?” His smile was lopsided.
“Well, yes.”
“I’ve yet to invent anything useful, although I’ve spent my lifetime trying to come up with something.”
She felt sorry for him. “Most of the good things are already invented.”
“Don’t I know it,” he said with a huff, looking totally dejected.
“Keep at it, Ben Franklin. You’ll think of something.”
“Thanks.” He grimaced. “It’s a hard name to live up to.”
“I’d imagine so. It must feel like a curse for someone in your line of work.”
“Yeah. Welcome to my world.” His head hung low for about three seconds before snapping up with new life. “So, how can I help you, Miss Uh…”
“Ruvacado. Janine Ruvacado. Fifteen D.”
“Fifteen D.” He thought for a few moments. “Oh, you must be Craig’s mom.”
She smiled. Everyone knew Craig. “Yup. That’s me. Craig’s mom.”
“He’s a great kid. He was one of my first customers when I got here. I changed out some worn skateboard wheels for him.”
Her smile widened. “Yes, his skateboard. He loves that thing.”
“It’s a beauty!”
She’d gotten it for him when the money was still pouring in. It’s a good thing she bought it when she did, because now she couldn’t even afford the replacement parts for it. “Thanks.”
“So what can I do for you, Craig’s mom from Fifteen D?”
“Janine, please. Well, I seem to have broken my treadmill.”
He looked from her left side to her right, then twisted his neck as if peering behind her. “I don’t see it here, so I guess it’s still up in the apartment. Want me to take a look at it?”
“I thought you’d never ask. Your grandfather was a real love. He’d always fix anything that went wrong around here, even if it wasn’t building related.”
“Yeah, Gramps is a fixing wiz. If he can’t fix something, it can’t be fixed.”
She laughed. “Yes, it was his motto. ‘If I can’t fix it, no one can,’ he used to say.”
“Some may take that as being cocky, but with Gramps it was true,” Ben Franklin said seriously.
Biting the smile that wanted to creep across her face, she replied with equal seriousness, “Yes, I know. He fixed many a broken thing for me.”
Ben nodded, solemnly.
They walked to the elevator and Janine sighed with relief as they got in and started for the “surface” floors. Her sigh wasn’t lost on Ben.
“Glad to be out of there?”
“Yes!” Then she realized she might have been rude. “I’m sorry. How did you guess?”
“Besides the look on your face as we entered the elevator?”
“That bad?”
“Well, no. The horrified look on your face for the entire time you were down there might’ve also given it away. And I didn’t think it was because you were alone, in the middle of nowhere, with a stranger.”
“I’m sorry. It’s nothing personal. I just have a fear of basements and sub-basements.”
“Taphephobia?”
“Excuse me?”
“Do you have taphephobia?”
“What’s that?”
“The fear of being buried alive.”
“Oh. No. Not really. I don’t think it’s that bad. I’m not afraid of being buried alive.” Although now that he mentioned it, she was upset by the thought. Being buried alive had to be horrendous. “It’s just a fear of being in basements and sub-basements. I’ve got an overactive imagination.”
He nodded. “I understand.”
She snorted a laugh, trying to push aside the thoughts of a predeath burial. “You’d be the first. Everyone else thinks I’m nuts.”
The elevator stopped at her floor and they got out, walking to her apartment. She pushed open the door that she’d left ajar.
“You really shouldn’t leave your door open like that. Anyone can walk in.”
“So I’ve been told. But I figure, what are the odds of some lunatic walking in the opened door of the fifteenth floor of this building at the exact moment I’m down in the sub-basement, looking for your grandfather?”
“Pretty slim, I’d suppose.”
“Yeah, and it gave me the added incentive to hurry back up from the dungeon. I couldn’t sit around with your grand-dad shooting the breeze. I could honestly say, ‘Gotta run, Mr. Franklin, I left my door open.’”
He followed her through her apartment. “Yeah, Gramps sure can shoot the breeze when he’s in the mood.”
She opened her bedroom door. Normally she wouldn’t allow anyone in there, especially with the mess that was the usual decor, but this was an emergency. She hurried to pick up the stray panties that hung off the lamp. She hadn’t bothered to clean up, assuming old man Franklin would take his time getting his arthritic body up to her apartment. She’d also had the added bonus of knowing his glaucoma-riddled eyes weren’t as sharp as they probably once were.
“So that’s it?” the young Ben Franklin uttered, pointing to the treadmill.
Considering it was the only treadmill in the room, and had the upper bar-thingie poking out perpendicular to the walking belt, she hoped his fixing talents were sharper than his observational gifts.
He was still looking at her for an answer.
“Yes. That would be the one,” she said, trying to remain calm.
He shook his head slowly. “Doesn’t look good,” he said.
“Ya think?” she said, feeling her sense of calm sliding away.
“Yup. Doesn’t look good.”
That’s all he had to say? Even she knew it didn’t look good! Why else would she have gone down to that horrifying dungeon in search of his grandfather?
“So what are you going to do about it?” she asked, trying to leave the challenge—and hysteria—out of her voice.
He shrugged. “Don’t know for certain till I look at it.”
“You are looking at it!” The hysteria was creeping in. She’d promised Harvey she’d walk every day to help fight the osteoporosis, but how could she do that if the damn thing was broken?
“And it doesn’t look good,” he said again.
“We’ve already ascertained that chosen tidbit of information,” she said with impatience. “Is there anything else you can say or do to get it fixed in—” she looked at her bedside clock “—the next half hour?”
“Nope.”
Great! “So what am I supposed to do?”
“About what?”
“My walking. I’m supposed to walk every day for at least a half hour.”
“Sorry, Ms. Ruvacado, but you won’t be doing that on this machine anytime soon.”
“So what am I supposed to do?” she demanded shrilly. At the look of fright on the poor man’s face, she realized she needed to tone it down a bit. “I’m sorry, Ben. I shouldn’t shoot the messenger. But, really, what am I supposed to do now? I have to walk daily, or my doctor will pester me. He’s already threatened to tell my mother and ex-husband to get them involved in making me walk if I didn’t do it voluntarily. Plus I’m afraid that if I stop doing it, even for a few days, I’ll never start doing it again.”
“Can he do that?” Ben asked with astonishment.
“Can who do what?” She was way beyond her frustration level.
“Can your doctor call your mother or your ex-husband like that?”
“Not ethically. But they’re both listed as my emergency contacts, so he figured he’d extort me.”
“I thought a doctor had to take a Hippocratic oath?”
“He must’ve stepped out to the bathroom or something during that part of the ceremony. He has no qualms about blackmailing his patients if he feels it’s in their best interests.”
“That’s not right!”
“Yeah, tell me about it. But he holds the strings, so I’ve got to dance his little dance like a marionette.”
“Or walk his little walk.”
“Yes. You’re catching on to my dilemma.”
“How about a gym?”
“Are you kidding? Do that in public?” Her hand waved at the broken treadmill.
“Sure. Lots of people work out in gyms.”
She looked sideways at him, her disgust clearly evident on her face. “I’m not ‘lots of people.’”
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