The Next Best Thing

Chapter 2

Emma rounded the back of the converted mansion-turned-apartment building where she lived and skipped checking the mail to push the elevator button five times in quick succession. She wasn't in a hurry to get upstairs and be enraged by whatever Jake's excuse for rescheduling was. She just never knew when her weird landlord, Glen, would be standing in front of his peephole waiting to catch someone on their way in or out. He'd made it a point to let everyone know that the owners were offering him big incentives to catch anyone breaking building rules. An over-inflated housing market butting up against beautiful rent control meant they couldn't raise the rents of the current tenants of the six units, but they could charge new tenants double, and in some cases triple what the old ones were paying. If only they'd slip up.

Anyway, she wouldn't be trying to avoid him if she didn't owe him money.

Glen was an odd duck, but she could handle him, even if she couldn't figure him out. Some days he'd be too busy to acknowledge her, or he might react to a casual 'how are you?' as though it was an impertinent question. Other times he'd ask about her love life like he was a creepy old family friend. It would be easy to write him off as a dirty old man, because she'd often feel him staring at her before she saw him, but when they spoke, his eyes would drift from hers, not to leer at her mouth or her chest, but to study less obvious parts, like her forehead or her elbow in the most distracting way. She once tried to give him a rum baba for Christmas which he said was "highly inappropriate for so many reasons". This same man one day knocked on her door holding an orange tabby cat by the scruff, asking "Is this yours?" like it was a microphone he wanted her to speak into.

"No. Where did you find it?"

"Outside," he'd answered, exasperated eyes behind thick glasses rattling in his round head, bald save a few downy fluffs.

"Glen, I'm on the fourth floor. In a building that doesn't allow pets. How could that be mine?"

"Alright, so I'll put him back," he'd said.

A year later, she could still the cat grooming himself in Glen's window.

All that said, it'd been surprisingly decent of him to let her put off paying a month's rent during all the confusion when Gabe moved in. She was facing a steep paycut and Jake was a little late kicking in support. She took a chance and pleaded her case and couldn't believe when Glen assured her he'd appease the owners until she could catch up the following month. There were lots of little extra expenses before everything got back on track – food, movers, school clothes, etc - and repaying that missed rent was going to hurt no matter when she did it, but four months on, Glen still hadn't brought it up.

Had he forgotten? Did he let it slide? Was he waiting to ask her for some other form of payment? Jackie thought it might be a case of entrapment for eviction and kept offering to cover the amount. Emma wouldn't hear of it because Jackie was on a fixed income and had a sick husband. It's not like she couldn't hold that orange tabby over Glen's head if she had to, but she'd just as soon not remind him of the debt at all until she was making her promotion salary again.

She stepped out of the small elevator and stood in front of her door. She had a bad feeling about whatever was waiting for her on the other side, and this was maybe her last chance to exist in a moment where the chaos was going and not coming. It was before 5pm. She could probably wait out there longer without fear of seeing her only neighbour come back from work or wherever he spent his days being miserable. She took a few more seconds, then a deep breath. If the stress didn't kill her the suspense would, so in she went.

Gabe was in his zone watching something on his tablet. Jackie looked very anxious to see her.

"Hi guys!" Emma said cheerfully, trying to manifest better news. "Hey Gabe, how was school today?"