“But this was free, right?” She traced a finger through the air between them.
“I don’t make a habit of charging for unsolicited conversations, particularly if I’m the one gatecrashing someone else’s peaceful moment.”
The distant sound of laughter pulled the woman’s attention. She glanced at her watch and jumped up.
“Sorry, I have to dash. It was really lovely chatting to you?—”
Catherine stood. “Yes, lovely to meet you again.”
“Likewise,” she said, before focusing on something above Catherine’s head. Catherine looked up but saw nothing aside from the vaulted glass ceiling.
“What is it?”
“You have a little…” She plucked a pink petal from Catherine’s hair and held it out on her fingertip.
“Oh!” Catherine took the petal. “Thank you.”
A smile rose on the woman’s lips. “I’ll see you around, then?”
“I hope so.”
She turned, her red coat swishing like a brushstroke sweeping off a canvas before she disappeared. Catherine stared after her, the petal still perched on her finger.
I didn’t ask her name.
After the pinkpetal encounter with the lady in red, Catherine practically floated home. She swung by Snoots to treat herself to a coffee and mid-afternoon snack — a little incentive to help her power through her to-do list.
Coffee cup balanced and paper bag clenched between her teeth, she felt around for her keys in her pocket. As she moved to slot the key in the lock, she found the door already open.
What the?—
She took a tentative step into the entrance hall, peering around the door for an intruder. It was a small space with nowhere to go, other than her apartment off to the right, the shared storage and meter box cupboard under the stairs to the left, or straight up the stairs to the apartment above. Catherine tiptoed in, quietly placed her coffee on the radiator shelf and grabbed an umbrella from the stand. She gripped the newel post and craned her neck, squinting into the shadows.
There’s no one up there.
She stepped towards the cupboard. Perhaps a homeless person was living under the stairs, jimmying the lock to get in and out as they pleased, poor soul. Eyes wide and alert, she tensed and reached for the door, but it was latched from the outside. She clicked it open anyway, umbrella at the ready, but the only things living in the cupboard had eight legs and she wasn’t about to argue with them.
She turned back to check her own front door —definitely locked.I must be losing it,she thought—but she distinctly remembered double-checking the main door when she’d left that morning. She shook her head as she replaced the umbrella in the stand and grabbed her coffee and croissant from the shelf. Her heart lurched when she spotted something on her doormat — a white envelope, pushed under the door. Innocuous enough, but evidence that her marbles were not yet lost. She scooped it up, closed the door behind her and strode through to the kitchen.
Catherine placed the envelope on the counter and stared at it while she sipped her coffee, her brain working overtime. Someone had been inside the shared hallway even though she’d locked — and checked — the door. Someone had placed an envelope under her door. And that someone knew her name. She traced her finger over the sloping letters in blue biro. Should she open it? Should she take it to the police? What would she say?Someone has broken into my home — with no sign of forced entry — and left me a note.Ridiculous.
Curiosity wrestled her restraint to the ground, and she tore the envelope open. Inside was a single sheet of pink paper.
Thank you so much for taking care of Juniper. He’s a clever boy! In my absence, he’s managed to assemble flatpack furniture!! Did he learn that from you?
I’m sorry to ask for another favour. Please canyou pop into Juni again? It’s just for two more nights.
Yours gratefully, J x
P.S. Can you let Juni know that there’s a chest of drawers waiting to be assembled in the bedroom xx
Catherine exhaled a laugh as she re-scanned the words. It was cheeky, but there was something undeniably endearing about it. Just as there was something endearing about Juniper —Juni.Catherine wasn’t entirely displeased that she’d get to spend a little more time with him. The flatpack was a bonus.
But she’d have to have a word with her new neighbour about leaving the main door open and scaring her half to death.
As Catherine drained the coffee cup and tucked into the croissant, it occurred to her that the note was just signed ‘J’. Where was the W for Will? Was he no longer on the scene? The postcards she’d read were recent, so that must have meant they’d only been married for a few months.Surely it hadn’t ended already?Catherine had seen enough relationship drama in her career to dismiss that naïve question. Sometimes people got married to fix something that was already beyond repair.
Perhaps that was why J had moved here — to get away from crass, globetrotting Will.
