Mattress

   The sound of a fist reverberated off the wooden apartment door. Startled, Tallulah lowered the volume on her computer, and pushed the wheeled chair away from the solid desk. The chair rushed a few feet closer to the door and when it slowed she slipped her feet into the shoes by the kitchen counter and got out of the chair to answer the door.

Two men in dark blue jumpsuits looked her up and down once. “Are you Tallulah Bell?” one of them asked.

“That’s me.”

“You order a new mattress?”

 She sighed. “Yup.”

“Where do you want it?”

One of the guys stepped out of the doorway and started to lift up the mattress. Tallulah told the men to follow her as she led them into the bedroom. They leaned the mattress against the wall.

“Boyfriend move out?” the one who hadn’t spoken as of yet asked her.

“What?”

“When someone downgrades from a queen to a twin, there’s usually a reason.”

“Bobby,” the other one warned.

“What? You know it just as well as I do, Chris.”

“No one moved out, I just didn’t want such a huge bed anymore,” Tallulah replied, even though it really wasn’t any of Bobby’s business why she had gotten a new mattress. He rolled his eyes as if he didn’t believe her, but she wasn’t lying to him. There was no boyfriend who had moved out, because there had never been a boyfriend to move in in the first place. When she’d first gotten her own place she had opted for the bigger mattress in the hopes that she would find someone to share it with. After three years, there was no point. It took up more space than it was worth, and what was the point of keeping something that was only ever half-used?

“Want us to take the old one out?” Chris asked.

“Are you allowed to?”

“Well, no, but I don’t think you can carry a queen down four flights of stairs by yourself and it’s too big for an elevator. We can put it in the alley behind your building if you want. Our little secret.”

“Sure. That’d be great. Thank you.”

“No problem. I just need you to sign here for the new one.” He extended a clipboard out to her. Tallulah scribbled her signature onto a paper and handed the pen back to him. “Thank you.”

“No, thank you.”

He nodded his head.  The two of them switched her old bed with the new one. “ You’re going to need a new frame you know, that one is too big.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting it to be here so soon. I’ll get a new one.”

“Right, well, we’re done here. Enjoy the new bed,” he said as he picked up his end of her old queen.

Tallulah forced a smile while she watched them walk out of her apartment. She shut the door behind them and then walked back into her room. Along with the new frame she hadn’t purchased smaller sheets yet. She studied the new mattress. It was significantly smaller. She resolved to put the mattress on the floor until she got a smaller frame, one that actually fit instead of making the bed look like a child drowning in the middle of a wade pool.

Once the mattress was on the floor she took off all the protective coverings and threw her blanket over it. She then took the frame apart piece by piece and carried it out into the alleyway. She rested all the pieces of metal frame against the mattress. An idea struck her. She ran inside her apartment and grabbed a permanent marker, sheet of paper and tape. In bold letters she wrote the word “free” and in smaller letters underneath, “I hope you have better luck than me.”

Satisfied, she went back into her apartment and with a single pillow underneath her head she laid down on her new twin sized bed and fell asleep.