THE VISITOR

Late night thunder rattled the window pane, almost drowning out the insistent ringing of the doorbell. Beth turned on the light and grunted when she saw the time. eleven-fifteen. In the twin bed next to hers Jessica remained asleep. Beth grumbled all the way to the front door, but was struck silent after unlocking it to see the waif of a woman dripping rainwater and staring, as though mesmerized by the thunder overhead. The woman was a stranger, and Beth immediately looked down the front path for others. Seeing none, she reluctantly stood back to allow the woman to step inside the small duplex to get out of the rain.

Jessica, awake now, appeared at the bedroom door and was the first to speak. “Hello? Who are you?”

The woman gave a choked laugh. “Your landlord,” and dropped her faded green rain jacket to the floor as she fell onto the sofa, uninvited.

After a moment Beth gulped and asked hesitantly, “Which side of the duplex do you own?”

The woman sighed deeply and murmured, “Right here.” The sisters both blinked and after Beth re-locked the front door, they returned to their own beds. It was then Beth sat up briefly and whispered to herself, “If she’s the landlady, why doesn’t she have a key?”

When the sisters woke the next morning they found their “landlord,” or “landlady” still asleep. Beth shrugged her shoulders, still puzzled. Jessica began a big batch of oatmeal while Beth reached for the telephone. She would see what their landlord Terry Fonte had to say. In response, a staccato lifeless voice informed her that “this is no longer a working number.”

Beth repeated the message and began the coffee. Both sisters sighed. Jessica said, “Maybe the locked room is hers.”

Beth snorted. “Yes, and maybe she lost both keys.”

“Is she still in the living room?”

Beth looked. “Yes.”

“Maybe we should give her some oatmeal and coffee.”

Their “landlord” in the Livingroom stirred. “Did someone say coffee?”

Jessica quipped back, “Did somebody say landlord?”

Rather than answer immediately, the woman began drinking. “How much do you pay me a month?”

The sisters exchanged puzzled looks. Beth ventured, “You don’t know?”

The woman sighed. “My name is Gypsy Goggin. I’ve been doing a year in the Idaho hoosegow for drug possession. My so-called boyfriend offered to keep this place rented except for ‘our room’. Barf.”

Beth whispered, “the locked room is hers!”

Tight-lipped, Jessica answered, “Three hundred a month for this small duplex with only one usable bedroom.”

“…And I get only one hundred a month out of that, in my own account.”

“And now he’s disappeared?”

“If he knows what’s good for him, he has.”

As Gypsy was finishing her oatmeal, Jessica asked, “Do you still do drugs?”

Their landlady snorted. “Never did. That was Tony. He has a record and would spend years away if convicted, so I suckered up to it for a year.”

Jessica fumed. “That no goodnik!”

Gypsy nodded. “Ain’t that a man for you,” she grinned.

___________

TO THE WISE – “A competitive man and a competitive man will compete.” (Put that in your pipe and smoke it.)