It's a nice apartment at least

Kaila pulled us off of the 101 onto a long side street lined with apartment buildings intermixed with cookie cutter looking houses. We drove for only a few lights, before Kaila reached above her head to punch a small remote button secreted beneath the sun visor.

"Entry Thingy..." Kaila mumbled. "It's uh... dammit, right on the tip of my... don't you hate it when you can't think of a word, just ONE damn word? It's like Entry remote, or... something. Just can't think of it."

"The thing that opens the gate?" I postulated.

"Exactly, but is it the remote, or the key, or the buzzer, or the fob, or what? I mean, I don't have it on my keys, and it's not really a remote, since it's just to open the gate," I noted the large steel gate to the apartment building was opening at a glacial pace. "But it's not really a gate key."

"Uhm, Magic Box?" I offered, thinking of the usual Renfaire excuse. "Or uh, clicker... " I tried to think of what Dad usually called the garage door opener at his house.

"The box," Kaila sighed, "That's what Carla and I call it. We always try to remember to look it up when we get inside, and we always forget because usually we just want to... oh god, I'm doing the we thing again... sorry."

"It's... Ok, I feel bad because now we're all dancing around it," I joked as Kaila pulled us around a small section between two buildings. A tall wood fence on our right separated us from what looked like a local diner, before a large concrete wall dominated the view out of the passenger side window.

"I'll show you pictures," Kaila smiled. "Hang on a second. I always miss my turn here."

Her eyes flitted to the numbers on the concrete dividers between the rows of parking spaces. At the end of the long rows I noted the fluorescent lights and slightly liquid reflections of a pool, surrounded on the remaining sides by the buildings.

"There you are you little..." Kaila grumbled, and spun the wheel to the left, taking us down one of the identical looking concrete divisors. "EL, EM, EN, EO... and bingo was his name-o". She twisted the wheel again, driving the van into a spot clearly marked "EP". The Van fit neatly into the spot, and it was clear that she had done this maneuver hundreds of times.

We quickly exited the vehicle, and she lead me along between the dividers until we found a small concrete pathway between two fairly well manicured grass lawns.

"I'm a building back from my parking spot." She apologized, leading me along the walkway. Near the end of the first building, we had to pick our way through a smattering of randomly scattered toy guns and various other strange action figures that I didn't recognize.

"Watch out for my neighbor's kids. It's like a minefield around here sometimes." Kaila apologized, grasping my hand softly.

I glanced down at the ground, and took in the brightly colored barrel of a half broken squirt gun that was shaped exactly like an M60. The cool evening air brushed through me, and I could smell the soft scent of water off the pool... a contrast to the cool dry air... the last scent of gasoline from the motor pool...

I fought back the thought that threatened to well up and concentrated on Kaila's hand as she led me around the building. It was pleasant, and I was actually pretty shocked at her grip. It was like she somehow could sense that I needed her to hold my hand as tightly as she was.