CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: Nose-Wear and Fashion Flair

Since receiving Mr. Catcher’s rejection note regarding Mamie’s damages, I had been going to Manson Street just about every evening after work to paint the #apartment.  Now that I was somewhat more experienced at painting, it didn’t take me as long as the last time.  The fact that I was less painstakingly pernickity about painting the trim probably had something to do with it too.

My sister Frederica sometimes accompanied me when she wasn't too tired after a day of entertaining my mom's summer camp kids, so at least we were able to spend some time together catching up on news.  

It was now Sunday: a week to go until August.  Despite adding the words “Money Back” to my advertisement in the Schemmerhorn Gazette, I was beginning to resign myself to the prospect of another month without #rent, when a girl named Kristina called to inquire if the apartment was still available.  I told her it was, and she asked if she could come along, right now that morning, to see it.

"Sure," I said.  "I can be there in half an hour."

Leaving Mummy and Frederica busily sewing a long mouse tail, stiffened with handfuls of glue, onto a leotard that Bronwyn was to wear in one of the camp’s end-of-summer performances, I drew up outside number 51, just as two very dark-skinned girls rode up on bicycles. 

One of them mumblingly introduced herself as Kristina.  She was short, stocky, and wore her hair in lots of tight braids.  The other girl, younger, slimmer, but equally be-braided, was her sister, Priscilla.  Both sported shiny nose rings.

I showed them around the apartment.  It looked spic and span, with its white walls and newly- painted floors.  There was, however, just one problem.  I’d painted the wooden floors a rich chocolaty-brown color and mistakenly used wall paint instead of floor paint.  As a result, our shoes stuck to the painted floorboards, coming away at each step with a squelchy, ripping sound, like pulling Velcro apart.  Luckily, Kristina and her sister seemed not to notice the sound effect, though their heavy tread made the ripping sound louder.  They quickly walked around the apartment, impressed by the size of it.  Meanwhile, I was trying to size them up.  They seemed pretty innocuous.

When we got to the kitchen, Kristina announced, "Okay, I wan' it."

"Really? Well, I'll need to get some information from you first." I said. "First of all, why are you moving?"

"I got me two keeds, and where we live, they don' 'ave no place to play that's safe.  Our street's pretty bad, you know?"

"I see.  Well, you know your children would only have the street to play in here too?  At least we're on a dead end, and it's pretty safe, judging by the number of kids who're always playing outside."

"I see that," Kristina agreed.

"How many would be living here?" I asked.  "And how would you be paying the rent?"

"Me and muh keeds and sometimes muh sister'll be livin' heah.  See, our parents died, so my sister, she live mostly with muh uncle.  Social Services will pay the rent."

"All right," I said.  "It's almost August.  Will you be able to move in by the first of the month?  Don't you have to give your landlord notice?  And what about D.S.S.?"

"Yeah, it might be too late, but I still wanna move in heah.  Your ad said there’d be some money back?"

"Yes.  I'll take two hundred dollars off the first month's rent, so you'd only need to pay me two-fifty for August."

"Okay, I can handle that.  Muh brother can gimme the money."

I pushed away the thought that I had gotten into trouble before from accepting tenants on the spot.  I was getting desperate again, though, and Kristina and her sister couldn’t be as bad as Ray and Co, could they?  

"Would you be prepared to sign a lease?" I asked.

"Sure, okay."

I quickly went over the lease I had brought with me, just in case.  Kristina nodded at all the clauses I read aloud to her, such as the tenant being responsible for keeping the place clean, refraining from illegal activity,  etc.  When we had read through the whole thing, she signed on the dotted line, and I congratulated her on becoming the new tenant of Apartment #2, 51 Manson Street. 

Priscilla looked dully on during the whole process, only piping up at the end. 

 "How long is the #lease for?"

"A year."  

She grunted and resumed her bored expression.  Neither of the sisters seemed to possess an overabundance of personality, but that was okay: dull, boring #tenants were good.

"Would you mind coming downstairs to meet my other tenants, if they're home?" I asked.  

Giselle and her boyfriend, Marvin, knew just about everyone in the #neighborhood.  I thought it might be a good idea to run Kristina by them, just in case.

Giselle proved not to be at home, and Marvin was just getting into his car outside.  With a quick wave of his hand, he roared off down the street.  Oh, well.

I drove home, rejoicing in the fact that I had a new tenant.  My money worries should be over for a while.  I pushed aside the little kernel of doubt that was niggling inside my head, telling me I shouldn’t have signed Kristina up so fast without at least checking her #references first.  However, I had come to the conclusion that a #landlord would say anything to get rid of a problem tenant, so references weren’t very reliable, anyway.

A few hours after I arrived home, the phone rang.  It was a girl called Charmayne Brown and she wanted to know if the apartment was still available.  I told her I had just rented it.

"Aw," she moaned.  "My aunt lives right next door.  I really wanted to move in there."

"Oh," I said.  "Well, uh, I suppose I could still show you around.  You never know.  It might fall through with this other girl."

"Yes, please," Charmayne said, eagerly.

"You want to come along?" I asked Frederica.

We drove over to Schemmerhorn after lunch.  The floor was still sticky, and the first few steps we took into the apartment still sounded like ripping Velcro.

I looked at Frederica, she looked at me, and we burst into helpless giggles.

"Come into my parlor," Frederica croaked in a horrid imitation of Cruella Deville from The 101 Dalmatians.

Shortly thereafter, Charmayne arrived.  She was a short, heavyset girl with shoulder-length, mousy brown hair and a stud in her nose.  She was accompanied by a taller, heavier girl.

"This is my friend, Maureen." Charmayne waved at the other girl.  "We're going to be roommates."  

Maureen had a short bob of thick, black hair cut into the shape of a bowl sitting on her head.  It did nothing for her.  She also sported a nose stud.  Nose wear seemed to be the "in" thing nowadays.  I’d seen two nose rings and two nose studs in one day.

The girls noticed the stickiness of the floor but didn’t remark on it.  I tried to tread very lightly, so as to minimize the Velcro effect as much as possible, but the heavy-footed Charmayne and Maureen more than made up for my light tread.  We sounded quite spectacular as we ripped our way from room to room.  An equally heavy-footed Frederica very kindly remained in the living room, while I showed the two girls around.  

They liked the place and were very keen to take it.  We ended up in the living room by the mantelpiece, where I’d left some blank application forms.

Charmayne had been telling me how she lived with her parents and was mother to a little boy.  She had just found a job and wanted to live on her own.  Social Services would cover part of her rent because of her single mother status.  Maureen also had a job at a nearby supermarket and would help with the balance of rent.

"Why don't you fill out one of these, just in case?'  I handed an application to Charmayne.  "You know, I did sign a lease with the girl I showed around this morning, but now that I've met you, I think I'd rather have you as tenants, instead."

Charmayne was busy filling out the application form, when a skinny youth sauntered in through the front door and nonchalantly joined our little group.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Stan . . . Charmayne's brother," he answered casually around a wad of gum.  "I live next door."

"Oh.  With the aunt?"

"Yeah, that's right," he drawled.

All Stan had on was a pair of black cotton shorts and sneakers.  The top of his jockey underpants showed above the waistband of his shorts. Stan obviously thought he looked "real cool,” judging by the number of times he glanced down at his shorts to check that an inch of white underpant was still evident.  If either had ridden up or down, he'd hastily make adjustments. Neither Charmayne nor Maureen seem to find the garb of Charmayne's brother unusual.  

I glanced at Frederica.  She was standing rooted to the floor, a pained expression on her face.  I looked away quickly, lest we make eye contact and both break out into giggles.

Charmayne finished filling out the application and handed the form back to me.  I told her I would give her a call in a day or so.

When the girls and Stan had gone, Frederica thankfully shifted position, to the sound of much ripping and tearing.

"Oh, that's better!" she gasped.  "I couldn't wait for them to go. I was stuck to the floor, and I didn't like to move because it'd make too much noise."  

She bent double and laughed heartily, shaking as she let out suppressed mirth.

Giggling, myself, I waited for Frederica to recover.  When she was able to breathe again, we locked up and left.

Giselle met us on the porch and motioned us back inside.

"Just thought I'd let you know," she said.  "They make a lot of noise, those people next door, and those girls is two of 'em."  

Giselle looked so forbidding that I began to be turned off at the idea of Charmayne and Maureen as tenants.  Any hint of trouble was enough for me, and coming from the mouth of my downstairs tenant, who'd have to live beneath the people she had warned me about . . . 

"An' you showed the apartment to some other woman too?" Giselle went on.  "My boyfrien', he says you don't want them people living' here, neither.  They're big drug dealers."

"Which woman," I asked.

"The one wit a whole mess a braids."

The image of Linda Fletcher popped into my head.  Could she be the one Giselle meant?

"Are you sure she had braids?" I asked.  "Was it someone who came a while back?"

"Dunno.  My boyfrien' just said you don' want that girl wit braids what came here."

For some reason, I didn’t even think of Kristina, who definitely did have braids.  

I talked things over with Frederica on the way home.  

"What did you think of Charmayne and Co?" I asked her.

"Seemed okay."

"But what about what Giselle said, about them making a lot of noise?  It sounded like they'd be a rowdy bunch."

"Well, if Charmayne and Maureen have to party, they can do it next door, can't they?  Which would you rather have?  These two, or the black girl you saw this morning?"

I considered the question in an agony of indecision.  Finally, when we were almost home, I decided.

"I'll keep Kristina," I announced.  "What would Giselle think if I  decided to rent the place to Charmayne, after what she had just told us?"

"I can't say," said Frederica.  "I didn't see Kristina, but I think those girls would've been all right."

"My instinct is telling me to go with Kristina," I said.  "I've gone against my instincts before and gotten into trouble, so this time I'm going with my gut.

We drove for a few minutes, looking at the view.  The road followed the river for quite a way before turned away from it at an old, unused, brick railway station.  The train tracks had been replaced by a bike path.

“What did you think of the girls' nose studs and Stan's pants always falling down?” I asked after a while.

“Pretty funny,” Frederica said.  “It's starting to become the ‘in’ thing in South Africa too."

“Really?  Well, speaking of fashion statements, I guess I shouldn’t be too critical.  I never told you my geriatric ballerina story, did I.”

“No, you didn't.  Do tell?”