The ladies explained that they complained, and so anyone who wanted now had a compact washer and dryer in their apartment. None of the men did, it was said, but most of the ladies preferred to wash their dainties in the privacy of their own homes.
Some things she learned to tune out, and only nod her head in all the right places. She was getting quite good at that, but mostly Connie was amused by their stories. Being a housewife had never occurred to her. If she had married Edwin, they’d probably have lived in his parents’ home, and that place had servants.
Perhaps they could have had an apartment instead—no, Edwin would have never left the family estate, and why should he? He grew up there; he’d inherit the place. She would have been just another intruder.
Was that it? Did his family make her feel . . . inferior?
Was she?
It was as if she could hear his mother say: “A working girl, you say, son?”
His father too: “No trust fund?”
Then the parents would say together: “Where did you go to school?”
Oh, I see, that’s a public university, isn’t it?
Better to be here on my own and happy with my lot in life, Connie figured.
These tenants weren’t so judgmental—at least, they didn’t seem to be. For some reason, she got the impression that most of them were old ladies left over from couples whose husbands had expired long before them. Their children had all married and moved away to other places, sometimes to other states or even other countries.
Everyone was friendly, but the true friendships were close and long, but seldom spanned other floors. The first floor had the manager’s apartment, the lobby with a desk and phone and a few chairs for people to wait. The mailboxes were also there. There was the laundry room too and some common rooms they called the TV room and the reading room and what seemed to be a game room with folding chairs and card tables.
Connie was told that all the other floors were just like her own: Each floor had four apartments, one per corner. Some were divided into more than two bedrooms, but otherwise, they were all exactly the same size.
Outside the elevator, which was also the top of each flight of stairs, was a sort of communal sitting area for that floor. Old magazines were there, along with lamps and chairs. Sometimes when she came home, the old ladies were all sitting there, sipping some sort of cordial, and knitting or reading old mystery novels—sometimes out loud.
Alva, Gladys and Hester shared the sixth floor with Connie, and sometimes, they’d talk about their eligible sons or even grandsons. Given that Connie wasn’t that long out of college herself, she had to wonder what they thought of her singular existence. In their day, women usually only worked until they got married.
Well, not during the war—women worked wherever it was needed. That’s how women came to understand that they were capable of keeping the home fires burning, but also building the homes, and keeping the engines running, and working in the accounting firms and the factories and the fields.
Connie envied them a bit—all of it would have been new then for most women. In a way, these women were explorers, adventurers . . . pioneers.
Of course, they spoke of their other children—some grandchildren too, but Connie got the distinct impression that they were trying to set her up with one of their eligible brood. She should have been flattered, but doubts kept creeping in, and she found herself not taking the elevator anymore, and only using the back stairs instead of going through the common area the ladies called the sitting room.
~~~
Her new job was challenging; sometimes it was stressful too. Connie considered it a mixed blessing, because the salary was excellent compared to what she made working her way though college. She had a chance for advancement too—this was a career, not just a job.
There was less travel than her previous job, though she had enjoyed seeing some of the world before she was ready to settle down behind a desk. Connie did wonder why Edwin had encouraged that, and thought for a while that it was because he had also traveled with his parents all the time he was growing up. She wondered if he wanted her to enjoy seeing the parts of the world so they’d have more to talk about.
She wondered it right up until the time she saw the announcement in the city paper. She still got the subscription delivered so she’d know what was going on in her hometown.
It was a wedding announcement.
She must have missed the one for the engagement—no, it was an elopement—this was the first mention of it in newsprint. She immediately called her parents, who were apologetic.
“It’s not your fault, I just . . .”
Her mother understood, and her dad was supportive too. Their concern only made it hurt more, and yet, she didn’t even know that it would. Any guilt she felt about ruining his plans was wiped away.
And any anger she had when he tried to get her fired.
Edwin had run off with someone she had seen at work, but didn’t know. Apparently, they had been dating for a long time. Long enough for him to have been dating his new wife when he had proposed to Constance.
What the Hell?
Okay, so maybe some of that anger came back, along with a realization: Ah, that was what his mother was talking about—new blood. Connie was considered good breeding stock. It was her IQ, she knew, and also her looks, which were not beautiful, but she was almost a pretty girl. All the old ladies told her that, and some men had said so too.
So Edwin finally followed his heart . . . or maybe it was another body part. The woman in the picture—the bride—wore a lot of makeup and jewelry too. The high heels made her as tall as her new husband, but with her hairstyle, she looked taller.
Trophy wife?
She wondered how that went over with Edwin’s parents.
She murmured, “None of my business.”
Connie sighed.
The older ladies in the building spoke of their husbands sometimes like they were children or pets. A few others had unkind things to say about their dearly departed, but usually it was because the man had done something unsavory when it came to the law or had broken a wedding vow.
These women took those vows seriously, and though Connie hadn’t spoken nearly as much with the older gentlemen in residence, she knew none of them had been divorced, and only one had married again after his first wife had passed away.
The buzzer rang. She pushed the intercom to the lobby. A detached voice said, “Pizza for Connie.”
She rushed down the stairs, wishing she had some wine too. As she walked up, someone was coming down at a pretty good clip—clearly not one of the old ladies, unless the old dear had tripped and was now rolling all the way.
Connie prepared herself for the worst, but as she turned the corner, someone brushed into her, knocking the pizza loose. The box flew open, and slices went everywhere along with the smell of pepperoni too.
Her stomach growled as she swore out loud, but the other person was already long gone. Connie grumbled unkind things as she picked up the pizza—nothing was salvageable. She went down to the lobby and tossed it all into the dumpster, and gathered a few things to clean up the stairs where it had all fallen and smeared.
By the time she was done, her mood was foul. In the apartment, the buzzer rang again.
The voice said, “Pizza for 6-B.”
“Hello?” she said.
The voice said again, “Pizza for 6-B—you want it or not? I got other deliveries.”
She had already paid the other guy; she didn’t have change for another. Connie didn’t have anything else in the apartment that would supersede that smell of pepperoni.
She said, “Do you take credit cards?”
“Already paid for, ma’am. Look, I gotta run. Okay if I leave it by the mail boxes?”
It didn’t seem to matter—the voice was gone.
She was hungry enough to take the elevator.
Maybe whoever had run into her was repentant. But how did he know where she lived? Connie th
ought on it on the trip down and up. It hadn’t registered that the perpetrator was a guy, at first.
Now she knew it was. It kind of bothered her that he knew where she lived—trying to make up for his rudeness or not.
Things got worse in the next few weeks.
It wasn’t just the music, but the sound of feet stomping. There was talking too, and she wondered why the heck they just didn’t turn the music down if they wanted to chat?
Occasionally there seemed to be sporting events, and there was no talking during those. But when some favored team scored or something was called, a whole crowd roared right above her head.
Her lovely existence here was at an end, and Connie thought about moving. She went through the rental agreement, but there didn’t seem to be any recourse other than complaining to the building manager—she’d already done that.
When she asked the other ladies if the noise had disturbed them too, they seemed oblivious. But they never looked her in the eye when they replied, and sometimes she could swear they were smiling. Maybe they were being obscure on purpose.
~~~
Finally the night before an important presentation, she’d had enough. Connie ran up the stairs to the seventh floor and banged on the door. It wasn’t all the way shut—it opened.
There were crowd noises, true, but there was no party at all, only one guy was there, and he seemed surprised at her intrusion.
He was in tee shirt and jeans, and his buzz cut was growing out a bit. It looked a little . . . fuzzy.
His living room seemed to be filled with all sorts of electronic things: computer screens and all the paraphernalia, blinking lights and all.
Her first thoughts were about the wiring, and what would happen if the ladies had to buy their apartments or move out. What had been their homes for decades had turned into a sort of rest home for them in their golden years. It was as much of a community as any others she’d seen, and it would be a shame to lose that.
He might have been reading her mind. He said, “I had this apartment rewired myself. Don’t tell the landlord, he’ll raise my rent. Don’t worry, it’s up to code.”
She said, “I heard a party, and it’s still going on.
He picked up a remote and turned down the noise.
He said, “I couldn’t figure out how else to talk to you, especially after I threw your food.”
He was the man on the stairs, of course.
“You could have stopped to help me then.”
“I was— Nope, I have no excuse. I felt like a jerk, and I sent you another, but I didn’t want you to think I was a stalker or something.”Ó
She blurted, “So you annoyed me with party noise until I had to come up here and act like a bitch instead?”
“Well . . . yeah,” he said, and didn’t look the least bit sorry—in fact, he looked amused.
Connie couldn’t help it, she laughed just a bit. She said, “That’s messed up.”
He shrugged. “I’m harmless, especially when it comes to you.” Then his eyes got big, and he quickly added, “I’m not stalking you or anything like that.”
He said that before. Just trying to get my attention, she thought, like a boy in junior high who messed with her locker or swiped her stuff.
She said, “It’s not harmless when I’m trying to work, I have big presentation tomorrow.”
“Oh . . . well . . . I hadn’t thought of that. The ladies said you worked, but I guess I . . . Nope, I got nothing but an apology. I keep late hours, I work online mostly, and—“
“What do you do?”
“Software testing and technical support, mostly for gamers and game development, but that’s just a hobby. I get paid to troubleshoot computer systems for corporations overseas—different time zones.”
He looked a little nervous now.
She demanded, “You’re not a spy or something?”
She didn’t know what she’d do if he was. It’s not like a spy would own up. Still, it’s all she had, and Connie didn’t want to leave just yet.
He just laughed, shyly.
Clearly he felt bad. He looked a bit rumpled, and he could use a better haircut . . . and needed to do his laundry too as the jeans had some kind of stains.
He turned to clean off a spot on the couch and said, “Sorry, I’m rude, would you like to sit? I mean, if you’re not done yelling at me.”
She hadn’t really been yelling, had she?
She said, “How long have you been here in the building?”
“I moved in the week after you.”
He flamed red and quickly amended, “That’s what the ladies told me. Alva and Gladys and Hester, I mean—the Witches Three.”
Then as he rubbed at his hair, she could see the tattoos there on the backs of his arms. Connie had seen the likes before, and knew what they meant. Sometimes people in the same unit all got the same marks.
She said, “Where did you get those?”
He said, “Okinawa, or thereabouts. I’m a Marine. I’m not on active duty anymore.”
Once a Marine, always a Marine—it wasn’t something they put on or took off like a uniform. But for a Marine, he looked rather nervous, and he wasn’t anywhere near a field of combat.
She said, “How did you get past the interview?”
“You mean to live here? Well, I’m Laverne’s grandson—that was as good as a full background check. The Witches own this place now; most people don’t know that. It’s just coincidence that this apartment was the only one left.”
Was it?
They stood there for a moment—Connie was looking around at the other things in his life—pictures of men in uniform mostly, and his life before. In a mirror, she saw that he was looking at her.
When she turned his way, he flamed red again and quickly looked away.
She said, “So Marine, have you had dinner?”
His smile was about the best thing she’d seen in quite a while, and she knew that her future was going to hold something good.
The End
Something Good
* * * * *
“If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere.” ~Frank A. Clark
“When your dreams turn to dust, vacuum.”
~Author Unknown
“Sometimes you must cross a bridge and other times you need to burn it.” ~Dodinsky
~~~
BRIDGES
Murphie Hawes and her fiancé, Kale, had it all worked out. They had been high school sweethearts, and always knew that someday, they would be married. But they weren’t ready at eighteen, they knew, and their parents were relieved that they were going to wait a while.
Kale applied to college, and she signed up for the military. He was accepted, and she got a signing bonus. Their parents advised that they put that into investments, and in a few years, they could use it to buy their first house.
While she served her tour in the military, he would live off her salary for anything else that he needed, given that his parents paid his tuition. It might mean long separations, but they were prepared for that—well, as much as anyone can be. After he finished college, he’d get a job teaching high school English, and then it would be her turn to go. Her parents couldn’t afford that, but she’d get assistance as a veteran.
Then Kale made it into graduate school, and he was so excited about getting his Master’s degree in poetry, that Murphie agreed to re-enlist. She got another signing bonus that went into their house fund too. It wasn’t her preference to stay another tour, but this was for their future . . . wasn’t it?
She hadn’t anticipated war coming, and while serving overseas had always been an obligation she knew would keep coming, she figured it would be in a place like South Korea or Germany, like where she had already been.
Going into a war zone was unexpected by her. She had trained as a cook, hoping to further those skills when she went to college or a trade school to become a chef or a caterer or even a restaurant owner.
&
nbsp; Murphie loved feeding people. She loved the big groups of men and women actually enjoying what she prepared. She was told that it was unexpected, and she continued to do the best with what she had. Murphie got the notice of some officers too, and there was talk of her assisting for their special occasions, even for a general and his staff.
But in the war zone, contractors cooked the food, and she was sent to additional training and then put on guard duty instead. She learned to excel at shooting her rifle and then put on the body armor and armband with ‘MP’ and still did the best she could.
It was noisy in Iraq—something was always blowing up.
It wasn’t Kale’s fault that he was involved in his graduate work, and they no longer talked as much. After all, it was quite an accomplishment, given his field of study. She figured someone must still want to learn about European poets, because there was still that field of study, after all.
Then she heard the good news over an Internet connection that cost too much: “Murphie, sweetie, I got accepted!”
She could see that he was very excited, and she thought it was for a job. She hadn’t realized he’d been interviewing already, but maybe he meant to surprise her—and it certainly had. When Murphie got home in three months, she figured with all that had to be done, it would take about six months to plan their wedding.
Now excited too, she said, “Maybe we could get our moms to pick a venue, because those have to be reserved way ahead of time.”
But he said, “Um, about that. I thought you understood.”
“Understood what?”
“Murphie, this is for my doctorate. It’s very prestigious, but it will have to be study in France.”
“Oh, well, good thing I already have my passport. So . . . oh, you want to get married there? I’m not sure my family can afford that, and I don’t want to spend any of my signing bonuses on a one day of celebration, even if it is our wedding.”
A Little Romance: Stories for Hopeful Hearts Page 21
