She greets me with a warm smile. Her name badge is partly obscured by the large package she is cradling, and despite having seen her every evening since I arrived, I realize I can’t for the life of me remember her name.
“Hi, Mia,” she says. “Sorry to bother. This just came for you. Someone dropped it at reception—it wasn’t Michelle but it seemed pretty urgent so I thought I’d bring it straight up.”
“Okay,” I reply, baffled. I assume someone called Michelle must have delivered my welcome gifts to the apartment before I arrived on Sunday.
The tightly bound packet in her arms crinkles, the brown packing paper soft in her hands, something angular hidden within. There are no postage marks on it. No need if it was hand-delivered. I see my name written in neat precise black Sharpie across its front in handwriting I don’t recognize. I try to think who on earth would be dropping off a parcel for me at seven o’clock at night. My agent perhaps, it could be scripts. But he’d just email them.
I realize she’s waiting for me to take it or at least acknowledge her effort in bringing it up for me. I’m sure it’s not part of her job description to cart people’s stuff directly to their doors.
“Shall I?” I ask, taking the heft of it from her. “Thank you so much for bringing it up here—” I spy her name badge now. “—Lucy. I really appreciate it.”
She beams. “No problem at all. It’s a bit slow downstairs at this time of the evening, gave me something to do! I’m guessing you’ve noticed the building’s pretty quiet at the moment.”
She’s clearly bored and in the mood for a chat. I shift in my doorway, the package awkward in my arms, but I have to admit my curiosity is piqued.
“It’s funny you say that, I was thinking exactly that this morning. It does seem oddly quiet here.” She gives me a conspiratorial smile. “Did they build this place on an Indian burial ground or something?” I joke.
“You know what, they may as well have.” She laughs. “No, it’s, actually—” She stops herself abruptly, like a Transylvanian villager suddenly thinking twice about telling me about the local landlord. If a peal of thunder sounded now, it wouldn’t be entirely out of place. I let out a compulsive giggle at the sudden campness of the situation.
“Wow. That bad, huh?” I ask.
She flushes slightly. “Pretty sure I shouldn’t be telling you this. Are you, like, a nervous person? Do you get anxiety or…？”
I shift my heavy mystery package in my arms and briefly consider. “Nah, I think I’m pretty sturdy. I suppose it depends what it is.”
She considers before continuing. “Basically, during construction on the building some state geologists discovered that there’s a minor fault line running between Wilshire and Ninth. Right where we are. There was an article in the Los Angeles Times.”
It’s not what I was expecting. “What, like an earthquake fault line?” I ask. “Under us? Here?”
She snorts out a little laugh as my voice leaps an octave.
“Yeah. But the fault line’s inactive, so the city decided it was fine to carry on construction. Apparently they can stay dormant for up to three thousand years, so…I think we’re probably fine. But a lot of buyers read the article and pulled out of buying apartments. We opened last year and not many people actually moved in. Most of the apartments are foreign-owned, Asian investments, just sitting empty. We’ve got a couple of short-term lets over pilot season like you and a few out-of-town studio executives are renting up on the top floor but aside from that, I’d say there’s only about twenty full-time residents.”
“Out of how many apartments?”
“Two hundred.”
“Wow. No wonder I don’t see anyone. How can the building stay open?”