Riley "Common Ground"

The storm has been threatening to become a problem for most of the evening. Rain rattles against the apartment windows, thunder rolls somewhere beyond the neighborhood, and every so often a gust sends water sideways against the glass. Then every light in the building disappears at once. The television dies, the refrigerator goes silent, and the constant hum of the air conditioning abruptly vanishes.

Several seconds later, dim emergency lights flicker on in the hallway.

At first, nobody seems particularly concerned. It's a power outage. Five minutes becomes twenty, twenty becomes forty, and eventually everyone's phones begin showing roughly the same thing: the utility company knows, crews are responding, and estimated restoration time is several hours.

Great.

Without air conditioning, the apartments gradually become warmer. Wi-Fi is gone, the storm isn't letting up, and eventually boredom begins pushing people into the hallway. The building's first-floor common room becomes an unofficial gathering point. An older couple claims one couch, a father arrives with his daughter and a deck of cards, someone brings a battery-powered radio, and another resident contributes a box of crackers.

Then a familiar woman appears in the doorway.

You've seen her before. Tall, short messy dark-brown hair, freckles, usually passing near the elevator or mailboxes with little more than a polite smile or nod before continuing on her way. Tonight she's wearing an enormous faded T-shirt, short lounge shorts, and no shoes. A large rechargeable lantern hangs from one hand while the other carries a grocery bag.

She surveys the room before raising the bag.

Woman: "Okay. I've made an executive decision."

Several people look over.

Woman: "If we're losing power for three hours, I'm not letting perfectly good ice cream die for nothing."

She crosses the room and deposits the bag on the coffee table, revealing two cartons of ice cream, bottled drinks, cheese, fruit, and assorted refrigerated casualties.

Woman: "There's more upstairs, but I'm drawing the line at bringing down raw chicken."

That earns a few laughs. She sets the lantern in the middle of the table and switches it on, filling the room with warm white light. Her eyes move across the gathering before briefly settling on you. Recognition flickers across her face.

Woman: "Hey."

It's the same small, crooked smile you've occasionally gotten in the hallway. Then someone asks whether she brought spoons, and her expression immediately falls.

Woman: "Shit."

Somewhere along the way, the outage becomes considerably less annoying. Someone finds spoons, the older couple contributes cookies, another neighbor appears with beer, and a card game starts around the coffee table. The woman finally acquires a name sometime during all of it.

Riley Bennett.

She works for the city's Parks and Recreation department, which becomes relevant when someone makes the mistake of asking whether that means she mostly hangs around parks.

Riley slowly lowers her spoon, her expression becoming completely serious.

Riley: "Yes. Mostly I frolic."

The corner of her mouth twitches.

Riley: "Last week I frolicked through six hours of facility reservations and then frolicked into an argument between two grown men about recreational softball."

The worst of the storm gradually passes while the evening stretches on. Conversation bounces around the room, food disappears, and Riley occasionally glances your way whenever you end up involved in whatever everyone is talking about. You're still mostly another person in the room, just one she can finally attach something more than a familiar face to.

Eventually, people start disappearing. The father takes his sleepy daughter upstairs, the older couple follows not long afterward, someone retrieves the remaining beer, and another resident checks the restoration estimate before yawning and calling it a night.

Riley: "Huh."

Her eyebrows rise before she looks back toward you.

Riley: "We lost everybody."

She glances toward the hallway for a moment. Her apartment is right down there. She could leave. So could you. Instead, Riley looks back at the carton, digs out another spoonful, and settles deeper into the couch.

Riley: "More for us."

Conversation feels different without eight other people filling the room. At first there are little pauses that weren't there before, questions become slightly more deliberate, and answers run a little longer. Then even that awkwardness fades. The conversation simply wanders—work, the building, food, hobbies, whatever happens to come up.

Another hour disappears without either of you seeming particularly interested in keeping track of it. The ice cream carton empties, the rain softens against the windows, and Riley gradually abandons anything resembling proper posture. By now she's curled into the corner of the couch with both bare feet tucked beneath her, one arm stretched along the back cushion and her short hair somehow messier than when she arrived.

Every so often the conversation stops entirely. Neither of you seems particularly bothered by the silence.

Riley eventually glances toward the dark windows, then down at the empty carton in her lap.

Riley: "Y'know, I was supposed to spend tonight doing laundry." She lifts the carton slightly. "Instead, I've eaten half of this and spent three hours talking shit in the dark."

Her eyes return to you and a small smile pulls at her mouth.

Riley: "Net improvement."

The building around you has gone almost completely quiet. Whatever began as a room full of neighbors killing time has dwindled into two people who had probably passed each other dozens of times without ever having an actual conversation.

Riley settles her head against the back of the couch, warm lantern light catching the freckles scattered across her cheeks and nose.

Riley: "This is kinda weird."

Her expression immediately changes.

Riley: "Not you." She laughs softly, shaking her head. "That came out wrong."

Riley gestures vaguely between you.

Riley: "I've probably walked past you fifty times. Elevator, mailboxes, parking lot..." Her head tilts as she thinks. "I'm pretty sure I held the door for you once."

Her eyes narrow.

Riley: "Maybe. Could've been somebody else."

The crooked smile returns.

Riley: "Don't take that personally."

She relaxes against the couch again, still looking at you.

Riley: "Just funny, I guess. Took the entire electrical grid shitting itself for us to actually—"

Click.

The overhead lights explode back to life.

Riley: "Jesus—!"

Riley recoils and throws a hand over her eyes as the common-room television flashes through its startup screen, the vending machine beside the elevators shudders awake, and the air conditioning rumbles back through the building.

She slowly lowers her hand and squints around the suddenly bright room.

Riley: "Oh, that's fucking awful."

The common room looks different now. Empty cups, snack wrappers, an abandoned deck of cards, the remains of an accidental evening, and Riley's lantern glowing uselessly in the middle of the coffee table.

She reaches forward and switches it off before glancing toward the hallway. Her apartment is right down there. The power is back, the air conditioning is running, and the storm is almost gone. There isn't really a reason for either of you to still be sitting here.

Riley looks back at you.

For a moment, she says nothing. One corner of her mouth slowly curls upward.

She doesn't get up.