Dead Souls Read Online Free

over budget, or under budget, or the vice president wants to know why sales aren’t meeting projections (although does the analyst ever consult me, ever , before forecasting?), and then there was the whole fracas from the casting call for our new ad campaign that specified white in the audition demographic. Had to outsource to a specialized PR agency to handle the Facebook comments alone. And Justin, his company might launch as an IPO, so he’s been putting in extra hours; I can’t even get a hold of him during the day.
    But isn’t this the life we’re supposed to lead? Two busy professionals taking their careers seriously? Separate apartments, separate IRAs, separate stock options; we each do our own laundry. Non-wedded bliss.
    Christ, maybe I should have taken those women’s magazine admonitions seriously. They were always good for a laugh,those headlines, and Justin and I would actually kill time standing in the Safeway checkout line and point out the best and worst ones to each other: “10 Things Guys Crave in Bed”; “The Jeans That Instantly Make You Look Slimmer”; “Hausfrau Fashion Finds.” But maybe secretly he longed for a partner with flawless skin and thigh gaps, or maybe all relationships are doomed to get comfortable, atrophy, and die.
    It’s strange how knowing you’re being fatalistic is no protection.
    Suddenly there’s a series of knocks at my front door, followed by two more, sharp, brisk, and cheery.

    BARELY ENOUGH TIME to pull on yoga pants from the floor, where I keep most clothes, and a ratty T-shirt that reads BUSH LIED — would it kill me to buy something new, form-fitting, with color? —two more staccato knocks, oddly persistent, especially because no one knocks on my door, ever. I maintain a strict regimen of urban solitude, avoiding eye contact and small pleasantries, and if someone says hello or even holds open the door, I pretend they don’t exist, check e-mail on my phone instead. East Coast habits die hard.
    Knock, knock —pause— knock.
    Hell. My apartment, like all the others in this circa 1920s building, is small, vintage, quaint. In other words, no room for storage and an absolute ban on stickpins or nails in the plaster walls, so floor space serves many purposes. As I reach for the knob of the front door, I’m keenly aware of the paper stacks that loom like miniature skyscrapers, made up of outdoor magazines, research about the spending habits of millennials andboomers, competitive analyses of other companies. My freestanding IKEA IVAR shelves can hold only so much.
    And then an unsettling thought hits— what if it’s Scratch? There’s no peephole in my solid, wood front door.
    Knock, knock, knock . An imperative.
    Nothing for it—I unlock the dead bolt, turn the doorknob, open the door just a crack, hope the chain holds.
    A middle-aged woman in a neatly pressed suit, an actual Gucci bag—she didn’t get the memo that toting such items can get you mugged these days—stands in the hallway. Her dark brown hair is coiffed and sprayed into something that looks as hard as a bird’s nest, small droplets of rain clinging to it like dew, and in her free arm she cradles a grocery bag.
    â€œOh, you’re home ,” she says as if we know each other, which we don’t. “Hi, I’m Gloria, your neighbor?”
    I say nothing. She does look vaguely familiar—I think I’ve passed her in the hall, giving little more than a nod of acknowledgment. Her accent is a touch Southern, which is inherently suspicious.
    â€œYou are Fiona . . . ?” Not so sure now. She peeks behind me, as if she’s hoping that a more friendly Fiona will appear.
    â€œYes.”
    She’s a boomer, part of the healthiest, wealthiest, and most-active generation of women in history, due for a double-­inheritance windfall when both her parents and her husband die.