One night, the doorbell rang at nine.
Rainy Sinclair wasn’t in the habit of receiving company so
late, but she had an apartment upstairs for rent and she needed a new tenant, so
she opened the door. Sure enough, in the shadowy entrance stood a
skinny man with the For Rent sign in his hand.
Everything about him was Tom Petty, except he had a row of stitches the
size of Las Vegas that ran across his face and his name was Roy, but she liked
him anyway. He handed her six months’
rent in cash; she handed him the small gold key she kept hanging on the wall.
The next morning she stuffed the money into her purse. There were two things she had to get, blonde
hair and a string of pearls, the kind her late husband never gave her. So she sat in the beauty parlor thumbing
through old copies of Cosmopolitan waiting for the bleach to make her hair just
the right color yellow; when it finally did, she tipped the hairdresser twenty
dollars. Then she stopped at Walmart to pick up the pearl necklace she’d been
eyeing for months.
Later at home she could hear Roy’s creaking and cracking
upstairs as he settled in. Rainy counted
the money she had left, and then stuffed it under her mattress.
That night, the doorbell rang at nine.
Through the peep hole Rainy saw Roy. She adjusted her blonde hair a little then
opened the door. They stood there awkwardly for a moment before she asked him
to come in. They sat on a couch in the
hall and he talked about the war, and although she wasn’t sure which war, she
listened anyway. Then she put on a song,
her favorite, Light My Fire, and they danced for hours stopping only long
enough for Rainy to restart it over and over.
From then on Roy always rang her bell at nine. And Rainy got very used to Roy.
One day, however, the doorbell rang at noon. The gas company wanted to check the pipes for
leaks, so she let them. They said they
had knocked on the door upstairs but got no answer.
For safety sake Rainy climbed the stairs, turned the key in
the lock and pushed Roy’s door open. The squeaking hinges echoed into a cold
white empty apartment. Her eyes grew wide
as her high heels clicked across the deserted wooden floors. Why would Roy
leave? His six months weren’t up. Then as perplexed as Rainy was, she suddenly
remembered she had a hair appointment.
By the time she got home that night she had forgotten all
about Roy. She was digging out her For
Rent sign again when she heard the familiar creaking and cracking upstairs.
That night, the doorbell rang at nine.
(c) 2015 Jan Darrow
Originally published by the Black Poppy Review - September 4, 2015
photo credit - pixabay.com
