Let it Go [part I]

The caller I.D. said "Restricted" so I knew it was Nadine. I had spinach and feta ravioli boiling on the stove, last week's episode of "What About Brian" playing on my laptop on the kitchen counter, and I'd just poured a beer, but I answered it anyway. We exchanged opening pleasantries, then she asked if I had a few minutes, and, silly me, I said yes, so she began to tell me about this week's drama.

"I'm so stressed out," she began, and I could hear the worry in her voice. "I get up at 6:00 in the morning and put in a twelve hour day, and I just don't need this kind of bullshit when I come home. I want to relax, and maybe have a drink, you know? But it's been four days now that I can't get into my parking space, and I can't deal with this anymore!"

"Hold on, Nadine, start at the beginning. What's the matter with your parking space?"

"Well it started on Monday when I came home from work, and there was this car parked next to me and it was over the line and I couldn't get my Mercedes into my spot. I have a concrete post on the other side and I couldn't squeeze in."

"So where did you park? What did you do?"

"Well, I had to go back out and park on the street, what else could I do?" The horror of having to park on the street was being clearly telegraphed in Nadine's voice. "What would you have done?"

I started to say that I would have written a polite note asking the owner to please allow me a little more space next time he or she parks, and left it on the windshield, but I only got as far as "Well, I..." before Nadine continued her saga.

"The bullshit politics that's going on in this place! Don't trust Pamela. She's a bitch and a gossip and she has a huge drinking problem. A couple of weeks ago I called the building cell phone when she was on call, and it was 1:00 in the morning and she didn't answer because she was passed out drunk." Nadine hiccups, then continues: "She was drunk at 3:00 in the morning and tried to get out of the parking garage and she stalled her car and then couldn't figure out how to start it again!"

Pamela is the assistant building manager. She's approximately twelve years old and as dumb as a sack of weeds, but I've found her to be responsive on the occasions when I've called the office about something. But then, I don't call the office in the middle of the night, and I wondered how Nadine had come by this information. I also wondered what it had to do with her car parking problem, but I've learned that where Nadine is concerned, the Perry Mason principle, as taught to me by my mother, applies: Wait until the end of the story. It will all make sense.

"She's such a bitch. I called her on Tuesday and told her what was going on and she didn't even care. I should demand a different parking space. So when I came home on Tuesday the damn fucking car was still there in exactly the same spot, and I didn't know what to do so I squeezed the Mercedes into the spot but I was right up against the post and there's about an inch of space between my passenger side and the other car and..."

I took a stab at an interjection, in hopes of clarification: "Is it a new car in that space, or is it the same one that's always parked there?"

"Oh, it's the same one that's always there. It's Ramon's car," she added, calmly, as though I should have known so all along. I know Ramon. He lives on the first floor. Last fall I'd heard from Monica that he had some furniture he wanted to get rid of, so I knocked on his door and we chatted and had a beer, and then he and I carried a chest of drawers up to my place. And then we had another beer. He seemed like a nice guy.

"Nadine, have you talked to Ramon about it?"

"Yeah, so, I called him on Tuesday night and he said no problem, he'd move his car, but on Wednesday when I was leaving for work at 6:00 in the morning the fucking car was still there in exactly the same place. He hadn't moved it an inch! And I had to get to work, what could I do, so I tried to back the Mercedes out and I scratched my car on the post and I was so upset and how can people be like that? I've left three messages on his phone saying hey, Ramon, how's Anna Lucia — we have the same maid, you know — hey, come on, Ramon, move your damn car."

Nadine paused, briefly, to take a sip of her vodka and cranberry. I could hear the ice tinkling in the glass.

"When I got to work I called the office and Pamela answered and she was all sarcastic and like, that's too bad but what can she do. I bet she told him not to move his car. She's such a bitch. Did you know Monica only hired her because their families were friends. She has three older sisters and she's always been the bad sheep of the family, and Monica gave her a chance when she would have been out on the street otherwise."

Nadine was nearly hysterical, now, but every time I tried to say something soothing, it had the effect of riling her even more. So I just let her talk.

"I am so tempted to go down there right now and park right beside his car and leave one inch in between just to piss him off. That'd teach him a lesson! I'm so upset! I'm going to call the office and demand that he be reprimanded. He should be told to put his car in its proper place!"

Her other phone rings, and she tells me to hang on a second. I hear, "Hello?" A pause, then, "Oh, hi, Ramon." Another pause, then to me: "I'll call you back."

To be continued tomorrow.