“You didn’t wake me up!” she yelled through cupped hands, megaphoning her mouth. “I was already awake!”
But it was no use. He couldn’t hear her, which was probably for the best.
Ignoring J.P. completely was definitely for the best.
The apartment was relatively clean already,which Nora appreciated. She didn’t mind tidying up a pile of stray books or folding a basket or two of laundry. But the more she had to put away and straighten, the less time she had to actually clean, and that’s what she’d been hired to do.
She couldn’t deduce much about Pearl’s son, other than the fact that he had a dog and was probably a bachelor. The telltale signs of stray furs on the couch cushions, along with the dog bowls on the kitchen floor and open sack of food, gave that first hunch away. And the fact that only one side of the bed had a nightstand clued her in on that second guess. Also, there was just a single toothbrush and only one of the double sinks in the master bathroom appeared to be used consistently.
Something perked up in her stomach.
There weren’t a lot of single guys in Harmony Ridge. Not any good ones left, at least. In recent years, it felt like Nora had more wedding invitations than bills arriving in her mailbox. Everyone partnered off and paired up. She knew she had wasted good years on Connor, years she could have spent dating other guys. Or at the very least, meeting them.
But other than church and the grocery store, there weren’t many places where she even came into contact with someone of the opposite gender. Her job as a housekeeper was a solitary endeavor. And beekeeping was much the same.
If she wanted to meet someone, she’d have to put herself out there. But she didn’t even know where to start with that.
April had suggested online dating once. In fact, the three women even made mock profiles during one of their porch sit-and-sips, but they’d never actually published them. Nora hadn’t, at least. She’d have to check in with the others to see the status of their profiles.
Still, meeting an eligible bachelor in Harmony Ridge was about as probable as one of Farmer Kenny’s piglets from his most recent litter learning to fly. It just wouldn’t happen.
But Nora wasn’t a snoop. Sure, it would be nice to know who this mystery guy might be, but it really wasn’t any of her business. Her business was cleaning, and she spent the next two hours diligently bringing his apartment from gently lived-in to absolutely shining.
Late morning light flooded through the windows overlooking the Row in warm beams, the glass sparkling like cut crystal. The space hadn’t been at all musty before, but now it even smelled clean, that fresh lemon scent purifying the air.
Nora bent down and ran a finger over the coffee table for one last dust check. It came back completely clean.
“My work here is done,” she spoke to herself as she holstered her feather duster and stood upright.
In her ridiculous frenzy earlier that morning, she hadn’t taken the time to harvest the usual bouquet of flowers from her garden to leave as a gift. Since it was her first time cleaning this particular apartment, it wasn’t as though the client would notice the absence of blooms, but she still didn’t feel right leaving nothing behind. She wasn’t some cleaning fairy flitting in and out without a trace. She didn’t need the recognition, but she wanted some indication she’d been there. She wasn’t even sure if Pearl had let her son know she’d arranged this for him. It might be jarring to come home to a pristine apartment without expecting it.
Moving to the kitchen, Nora pulled open a few drawers until she located it: the junk drawer. Everyone had one. It was usually a collection of takeout menus, spare pencils, and other odd sorts of office supplies. You could learn a lot about someone from their junk drawer.
Take this guy’s, for example. There was a half-used lint roller—another nod to the fact that he was a dog owner. A set of keys on a ring shaped like a cactus. A tube of chapstick and a bottle of sunscreen, SPF 50. She picked it up. Almost gone. She had to admit; she was impressed by his attention to skincare. Maybe he had some sort of job that required him to be in the sun for prolonged periods of time.
Next to that was a pair of fingernail clippers. She grinned a little. Good hygiene was always a plus.
Finally, she found the Post-It notepad and tore one sheet off the top. Taking a pen from the drawer, she wrote on the paper:
A clean home is a happy home. Thank you for the opportunity to brighten yours.
She pressed the note to the front of the fridge, running the pad of her thumb over the sticky top portion to secure it.
Perfect. Not too invasive, but not too subtle. Just right.
She snickered, feeling a bit like Goldilocks. The intrusion part, at least. She had to admit, this was her first surprise cleaning, and she wasn’t entirely sure how it would be received.
Not willing to stick around and be found out, she gathered her cleaning items and locked up. She would drop the house key back off with Pearl at the community garden later that afternoon, but first, she needed to swing by Howie’s Hardware to stock up on supplies.
She stowed her tote in the trunk of her car and took the short walk up Harmony Ridge Row. She loved this little stretch of town with its quaint storefronts and hanging flower baskets dripping with cheery pink blossoms. April’s dress shop, Daydream Designs, had opened early last fall and Nora still got so much joy when she passed the big bay windows and glimpsed her dear friend hard at work on the other side of the glass. Today, April was with a client, crouched down to pin the hemline of a beautiful teal-colored skirt that had a repeated pattern of abstract triangles.
Nora strummed her fingernails along the window to get April’s attention. When her friend looked up, she grinned.
April made a movement to wave her inside, but Nora just hooked a thumb up the street toward Howie’s and April nodded.
How sweet it was to have a friendship where words weren’t even necessary. They understood each other, got one another completely.
Goodness, she’d shared so many words with J.P. and she absolutely did not get the man.
