Free Deadly Donuts by Jessica Beck Page B

to the touch, and it was rusted a bit as well.
    As I blew some air onto my fingertips to try to cool them off, I walked back and said, “I need a wrench.”
    “Sure, we’ve got one, but how am I going to get it up to you?”
    “Don’t worry, you don’t have to climb up to let me have it.   You can throw it.”   That girl really was afraid of heights.
    “Okay.   I’ll be back in a sec.”
    She took ten of them, and each one felt like a full minute apiece in the blistering heat.
    Finally, Sophia reappeared.   “Here it is.”
    “Throw it up,” I said.
    I’d planned on trying to catch it, but Sophia chucked it a little too hard, and it fumbled out of my hands.
    “Sorry,” she said.
    “No worries,” I answered.
    I took the wrench, returned to the three valves, and with a little more effort, I shut them off one at a time.   That most likely meant that I’d deprived two other businesses of their water as well, but let the landlord straighten it out.
    I went back and found Sophia still standing there.
    “See if that did the trick,” I asked.
    Sophia left my field of my vision, then she returned five seconds later.
    “That did it,” Sophia said.   “The water stopped.”
    “Good,” I answered as I walked back to where the ladder was.  
    It was further than I thought to that first rung when I looked down at it again.
    I dropped the wrench to the ground, where it took an uncomfortable amount of time to fall, and then I shimmied my body over the side of the building and hoped that I’d be able to find the ladder with my feet.   I could feel the tar and rocks of the roof bite into my hands, and my shoes were weighed down with tar and gravel, but I somehow managed to find the rung anyway.
    After that, it was simply a matter of getting off that ladder as fast as I could and plant my feet firmly back onto the ground.
    Sophia started to hug me as I stepped off onto the pavement, but I pushed her away.   “Thanks, I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m a mess.”
    “Come into the restaurant.   We’ll take care of you.”
    I followed her back to Napoli’s, stopping to take off my tennis shoes just before we got to the door.   The shoes were a real mess, and I didn’t want to track anything into Angelica’s kitchen, as crazy as it must have seemed at the time, but I had to admit, that water felt good on my feet all the way through my socks.
    Angelica took one look at me, and then she said with great distress, “Suzanne, you shouldn’t have done that.”
    “I didn’t mind,” I said.   “I know that you would have done it for me if the roles had been reversed.   A friend in need and all of that.”
    “We’ll make it right by you,” she answered.   “I promise.”
    “Don’t worry about it, Angelica.   This T-shirt was just about ready for the donation pile anyway, and my jeans didn’t get very dirty.”
    “Where are your shoes, dear girl?” she asked me.
    “I left them outside.   I’ll figure out a way to clean them up.”
    “Not even with a match and a can of gasoline,” Sophia said.   “They are worthless now.”
    “We’ll replace them as well,” Angelica said decisively, “but do any of you girls have extra shoes Suzanne can borrow in the meantime?”
    That’s when I remembered my running shoes in the back of the Jeep.   “I’ve got another pair, but I really could use a clean shirt.”
    Maria dove into one of the boxes stored above the waterline and said, “Here’s one of Napoli’s best,” she said.
    “That’s great,” I answered as I took the pink shirt from her and looked at the restaurant’s logo.   Pink was by no means my color, but I wasn’t about to be a choosy beggar.
    Angelica wasn’t about to leave it at that, though.   “Ladies, surely we can do better than this.”
    “Not on such short notice we can’t,” Antonia answered.
    “Then we must focus on the long term.”   Angelica turned to me and said, “I wish I could offer you something to