I was almost asleep when the phone calls started.

"Hello?" I asked. The line would go dead. A minute later, it would ring again.

I could see on the caller ID that it was the woman from upstairs. Her name was Ida Nelly and she weighed over 400 pounds. Sometimes when she walked around, our apartment would shake. Dave and I pretended not to mind. It was the polite thing to do.

Ida had a teenage daughter named Kristine who rode the elevator in the morning. She'd look me up and down, then raise her eyebrows in approval. She'd ask me what designer made my purse. I told her I didn't know.

"I don't want to go to school," she'd complain sometimes.

"Yes," I'd reply stiffly. "School isn't so great."

"That's why I bring this." She'd hold up a purple water bottle in triumph. "Vodka."

She especially liked Dave. Whenever she saw him, she would wave her hands enthusiastically and call his name in a strained voice. He would nod back and turn away with a grimace. I told Dave that she had a crush on him. He shook his head and blushed in embarrassment.

Dave wasn't home the night Ida kept calling. His mother was sick, and he was visiting her in New Jersey. I stayed home to work, but I called him during dinner. The bed felt large without him.

When Ida called for the twelfth time, I turned on the light. The sheets were obnoxiously white and I wanted someone to talk to. I thought of Ida waiting upstairs with tea, her thighs drooping over the seat of the chair. She would complain about her "god-damn" broken phone that kept calling me and ask me about my boyfriend Dale. I wouldn't tell her she had the name wrong. There was something too personal about correcting her.

 I slid my feet into a pair of hiking boots and pulled a sweatshirt over my head. Both were free from the sporting goods store I worked at.

The phone rang again as I walked out the door.

When I got to room 504, I knocked twice.

"Ida?" I called. "It's Maura from downstairs."

"Yeah!" Ida yelled in her full, cracking voice. "Come in!"

I turned the doorknob cautiously and took a step inside. I had only been in Ida's apartment once before, about a year ago. She had invited Dave and I up for a party. We had been the only ones to show. We spent an hour watching her dip her sweaty pudgy hands into a bowl of hummus. She had talked with her mouth full and complained about Kristine.

"She's a tramp!" she said.

Kristine had come out and blatantly referred to her mother's weight. Dave and I had blushed and told them both that we had jet lag and needed to sleep. Kristine told us to forgive her mother for eating everything. Ida had thrown a plate. We had left soon after.

Ida's apartment still looked the same. There was a low coffee table covered with takeout boxes and rented DVD. A yellow stain covered the gray carpet in the corner, and it smelled like cabbage.

"Ida, is your phone broken?" I asked, stepping back from the eerie aquarium against the wall. It was empty except for mold and dirt. "Because I keep getting these strange phone calls."

"What?" Ida barked from the back of her apartment. "I can't hear you! Come back here!"

I adjusted my sweatshirt and walked past the kitchen towards the sound of Ida's voice. "Ida?" I asked, hesitantly. I pictured myself telling Dave this story. He would smile and kiss my neck.

"I'm in here!" she announced from behind a closed door. I pushed the door open, but Ida screamed. "Get out of here! I'm naked!"

I shut the door, the vision of the mountains of Ida's bare skin burned into my eyelids. My cheeks felt hot.

"I-I'm sorry," I stuttered. "I didn't realize you were...bathing."

"Yeah, well, you should have knocked," Ida said from inside. I heard the sound of water sloshing, and a sharp grunt. I wondered why she called.

"I should go," I said stupidly.

"No, wait." There was a beat of silence followed by an exasperated sigh. "I think I'm stuck."

"In the bathtub?"

"I think so."

I pictured my bed downstairs and it no longer seemed as cold. I considered leaving. I would unplug my phone and pretend I had never heard the calls. I would just stare at the ceiling. Then, I would hear the sound of water sloshing. Ida would be stuck forever. She would pound on the walls and call my name until she starved to death.

I realized I was nearly as stuck in the situation as she was.

"Do you need help?" I asked.

"I just need you to come in here and pull me up."

My muscles tensed. I rubbed my forehead, then turned the doorknob.

"Close your eyes first!" Ida added nervously.

I put a hand over my eyes and stepped into the bathroom. I could hear Ida's shallow, heavy breathing. It sounded the same as it did on the phone. Uncomfortable and waiting.

I pushed my right foot forward and my shin hit the porcelain of the toilet. I fell forwards, my right hand plunging into the water in the bowl. It smelled like urine. I peeked. The toilet was full of a yellow liquid. I almost gagged.

"I'm over here," Ida offered.

I closed my eyes again and stood up. I held onto the toilet as I walked around it. I turned to help Ida and my hip hit against the sink.

"Ida," I said through gritted teeth. "I don't know where I'm going."

"Use your instincts."

"I've never been in your bathroom before."

I heard the water slosh in the tub and the sound of a long, strained breath. "Okay," she said. "You can open your eyes, but don't look at me."

I opened my eyes and stared down at the floor. Its tiles were wet and yellowing. The sink and the toilet were on one side, the bathtub in the back under the window. Ida's blond hair hung over the side of the tub, her feet sticking out in the air. There was a towel rack beside them.

An enormous pile of purple fabric sat under the sink. I noticed sleeves. I realized it was Ida's dress. I stepped over it.

When I was beside the bathtub, I reached my hands to her. She tossed the phone onto the floor. I realized she had been too proud to tell me about being stuck. That's why she kept calling, one ring at a time. I realized that if I had just ignored the phone calls, I would never have known. I would never have seen her.

I bent down over the side of the tub, reaching my hands towards her at an angle. She wrapped her thick fingers around my skinny ones. I had to lean over, nearly in half, because of my height. I kept my eyes on the edge of the white tub. Still, I could see the rolling hills of her pink splotchy stomach.

I pulled with all of my strength. I weighed more than most girls because of how tall I was. Her fingers slipped anyways, and I bumped back into the sink.

"I have an idea," Ida said. "Why don't you stand over me? Put one foot on each side of the tub and pull me that way."

I put my palm against the sink. I thought about Dave being here. He would have blushed in embarrassment and frustration, and wouldn't have talked about it afterwards.

I wiped my hands on my jeans and took my boots off. I stepped onto the edge of the bathtub, straddling over Ida. I could see everything now- the way her huge breasts sunk into the water as if they were just extra rolls of fat. Her legs looked like one; the skin of her knees piled on top of each other.

I balanced myself so that my legs were a bridge over her hips. I gritted my teeth and stared at her yellow hair.

"Give me your hands," she ordered.

I offered them to her. I felt abused when she took them. I leaned back, keeping a foothold on the tub. My stomach twisted into knots, but I pulled anyways.

Ida and I both grunted in frustration as I yanked on her huge arms. Ida moved just a little bit, and her skin squeaked like soap being rubbed into a counter. I bent my body into a 45 degree angle, as if I were sitting in the air. My muscles strained. Finally, with the sound of a suction cup, Ida's hips popped out and I fell back into the towel rack.

Ida used her arms to pull the rest of her body out of the water. She shook the floor as she stepped out of the bathtub, water drops falling like rain. I stared straight ahead at her legs. I could only see skin.

After Ida was done drying off, she boiled water to make tea.

She kept her thin blond hair piled on top of her head with a plastic rhinestone clip and chain-smoked at her tiny round kitchen table.

"I don't know what's wrong with that god-damn bathtub," she said, pouring me a cup. "Piece of shit."

I rubbed my back. It was sore from where I hit it on the towel rack. "Yes," I replied, careful not to look at her. I felt nauseous.

"You want any sugar?" she asked, holding her cigarette between her fingers.

"No, thank you." I took a sip of the tea. It burnt my tongue and tasted like stale bread. I set it down and looked at the clock. It was three in the morning. I wondered how long she expected me to stay.

"Where's Kristine?" I asked politely.

"I haven't seen her for hours. Not since she left me in that god-damn tub." Ida flitted her eyes at me. She exhaled slowly and stubbed her cigarette out.

"It figures she would do that," she said. "It really figures."

I left Ida's with a burnt tongue. I asked her if she was okay. She said she was just cold. She lifted her shirt to show hand-size purple bruises on her puffy hip. I asked her if she wanted me to take her to the hospital. She lit a cigarette and told me she'd seen worse.

When I laid back down, I thought about Ida and Kristine. I thought about Ida's hair dangling over the sides of the tub as she shouted for Kristine to come save her. I pictured Kristine smiling as she walked out the front door, holding her purple water bottle full of Vodka.

Just before I fell asleep, I remembered that Dave was gone. I couldn't remember why I had ever missed him so much in the first place.