Loving Piper (3 page)

Rob tried to tamp down on the pride he felt and was quite sure was leaching out of him as he opened the side door to his first prospective tenant. A young woman, so close—how would he handle this interaction right under his own roof. Speaking with her on the phone had been matter-of-fact, but now he noticed self-conscious nerves surfacing. He did not welcome this and he certainly didn’t want it to show through while interviewing her today. He took a step back and the young woman passed in front of him into the hallway.

Victoria seemed pleasant enough and, a recent graduate of Seneca College, she had two part-time jobs—working reception for a nearby legal clinic and at a real estate office. She had been guaranteed eventual full-time employment at the real estate office. Rob thought that sounded promising. In person, Victoria was of medium height and build, pleasant looking and reserved. Her light brown hair was pulled back in a clip and she wore horn-rimmed glasses, a white cotton blouse and peasant skirt. A wholesome look. Rob decided immediately that she fell nicely within the parameters he had set for his dream tenant and was relieved that he felt no physical attraction to her. Too young, too reminiscent of fumbling college romances.

He led her into the apartment and they sat on stools at the island counter. Victoria was chatty and, after answering some questions about the water pressure and the nearest subway stop, Rob doodled on his clipboard and allowed his mind to wander. He gazed affectionately at the clean white stove and fridge, recently installed in the freshly painted kitchen. He imagined Victoria had good housekeeping instincts—non-greasy ingredients in her cooking, lots of carrots probably, not someone who’d set off the smoke alarm. He’d bet she took cleanliness seriously, maybe had a schedule for regular housekeep—

“…cats seem like a lot.” Victoria paused and appeared to wait for his reaction.

“Excuse me, did you say
nine
cats?” Rob was all ears now.

“Well, yes, there are nine, and a couple more on the way, but they are sweet little kitties and really are no trouble. I have a litter box for each one, and separate food bowls, too.”

“That means nine litter boxes right now, and more later,” he said, and rubbed at his chin, thoughtful.

She was an earnest advocate for her cats. Rob experienced a squeeze between his empathetic nature and his desire for a trouble-free rental.

He surveyed the small apartment, and said, gently he hoped, “Look, Victoria, I’m sorry. In the ad, I forgot to mention anything about pets. I like cats, I even like dogs, but look at this place—it’s small, a nice size for one person, maybe even one cat, but, well…it’s just that nine is so far from one.”

He stopped talking. It was likely the only way he could prevent himself from renting the apartment to her. For the first time, his confidence faltered. He needed a time-out.

“Would you like a cup of tea, Victoria.”

An hour later, he waved goodbye as Victoria pulled away from the curb in a subcompact car. He wondered about the likelihood of fitting nine cats into it. They had walked up the stairs into the kitchen. He had made them tea and together they had combed the free dailies and the internet for a more appropriate rental. She was, as he had imagined right from the start, a sweet young woman. He’d gone beyond the call of duty, which he did not regret at all. He’d been happy to do it and was relieved that Victoria would not be returning as his tenant.

Relieved, and deflated, too. Sandra wouldn’t have had all this trouble. She had always done what needed doing in a somewhat careless fashion, had made even the most difficult tasks appear easy. Rob did not have that gift. Another reminder of how incomplete he could feel these days. All the reassurance that Sandra had meant in his life, her firmness, in body and spirit. The yearning he felt was a visceral memory of deep physical contentment now turned empty and restless. The simple memory of touching Sandra’s neck…and then her back and hips…and then making love to her. Was he suffering a broken heart or was his body just starved for touch?

He rose from the chair and walked back downstairs. For a few seconds he stood in the doorway to the apartment and then entered and wandered through the space. This was one of those turning point moments: to be alone in this venture, like all ventures now. Which way to go? There was no one to ask anymore, so he was solely responsible for the questions and the answers. If he stopped now, he might as well get out of the business of living. What an impossible thought…he would do this for Jennie. Everything he did, he did for his daughter now. Some of his earlier resilience began to assert itself as his internal voice prompted him:
You are a capable man. Stick with the plan
. He might not be able to find a good tenant as quickly and effectively as Sandra, but he could still do it. He
would
still do it. He’d done the heavy lifting: made the decision and readied the apartment. Stay the course.

Make that
adjust
the course, he amended, and he considered what had gone well and what needed to be improved. He thought he deserved credit for his thorough inquiries from prospective tenants. The over-the-phone list of questions was substantial and he had opened a file for every caller. Overkill, he knew but hadn’t been able to curb that impulse. His methods generated the joys and sorrows that were inherent in excessive organization. Sandra had often teased:
Rob sweetie, that is a talent that is occasionally useful
.

He opened one of the files and glanced over it, reconsidering his baseline for an adequate tenant. With the exception of Victoria, no one had reached that benchmark. He hadn’t even advanced to the stage of contacting references and running credit checks on other applicants. The process was more convoluted than he had imagined.
Uncle
, he thought. Maybe he should just advertise for a medium-height woman with stunning hazel eyes, a curvy athletic body with perfect breasts to cup in his searching hands, and a mind to match her strong looks. Sandra, he shivered and sighed.
If this was the best he could do, and the apartment remained empty, then he needed to delegate the task to someone else. He’d be better off calling in a professional. Rob checked his local business pages.

Rent2U/Rent4U, Renting Rentals Is What We Do

The sign had been hanging over a well-kept storefront on Bloor Street for years. Rob thought that no one could stay in business in a neighborhood for a decade if they offered substandard services, so they must be reputable. No extra marks for the slogan—or the rhyme—but he was about to lay the matter of the perfect tenant on their doorstep.

Rob took in the sight of a long leg extending from the open car door. The car had been parked in his driveway for several minutes, the driver seemingly stuck half in, half out of the car. He could see that the woman was absorbed in a conversation on her cell phone. She was animated and…lovely, he thought, no, worried—no, he wasn’t sure, since he couldn’t clearly make out her facial features. Shoulder-length dark hair that hung loosely around her face, nice legs, well…one leg anyhow.

Finally she closed her phone and he stepped back quickly against the wall, away from the window, not wanting her to catch him watching. He smoothed his shirtfront, walked to the side door, the shared entrance to the apartment and the main house, and opened the door.

He had raised his hand, about to greet his potential tenant, when he saw her rise from the car, lose her balance and crumple to the ground. Rob bounded off the porch and was on his knees at her side within a matter of seconds.

First-aid training ran through his mind as he looked closely at the woman. “Good, you’re breathing,” he whispered. Her eyes were closed and he wondered if she had hit her head on the open door as she fell. He lifted her limp arm and quickly took her pulse. It was steady, and not abnormally fast or slow. He looked at her face. Her skin tone was fair, one of those ivory shades, on the wan side at this moment. She didn’t appear to be in pain or have trouble breathing. She seemed younger but he knew, from the rental agency, that she was in her late thirties.

“I think it’s time for 911,” Rob said, mostly to himself. He had begun to rise from the pavement, when he heard her moan and saw her begin to move her legs. He could see the faint crow’s feet fanning out from her eyes, which were now squeezed tightly shut.

“Are you all right? Are you in pain?” he said slowly, enunciating each word. “Do you need a doctor?” Ready to spring into action, he continued to crouch beside her, focused intently on her and waiting for an indication of what he ought to do.

Mum, I know this is not something you’re expecting to hear from me, not the best timing. I’m pregnant.
Kathleen’s announcement echoed in Piper’s mind. She lay on the ground beside her car wishing she could be swallowed up by the driveway and transported to an alternate universe, one where Kathleen wasn’t pregnant and where she, Piper, wasn’t clumsy and in pain, and embarrassed, as well.

She could hear her prospective landlord speaking softly to her, but she couldn’t force her eyes to open. Maybe if she lay still and continued to ignore him, he’d make that call to 911 and she’d leave, mercifully, in the back of an ambulance. She shouldn’t have worn the high-heeled strapless sandals that were intended for standing only, and Kathleen shouldn’t have called her with her alarming news. And she should have eaten, too. She felt light-headed, even though it was her ankle that actually hurt. Finally she opened one eye and stared into a bright blue sea of concern.

She had the strange thought that he was too handsome to be a landlord...too handsome, period. His clear eyes and the smooth features that had coalesced into such a serious expression made her even more aware of her unglamorous pose and the humiliation that went with it. “I’ll be right back with…a glass of water…stay still,” he said. He sounded calmer now. “And a cold compress.” With that, he was gone. Piper was grateful to be removed from under the microscope, even for a minute. She closed her eyes again. “Cold compress,” she groaned. “It’s going to take more than a cold compress.”

She wanted to yell at her daughter. After all, Kathleen was an engineering student, and engineering students didn’t get pregnant. She was too studious to get pregnant. Hadn’t she learned anything at all from her mother about teenage pregnancies? And what about the crushing load of assignments and labs and fieldwork—when exactly had she found the time to get pregnant? Was the sperm donor another engineering student? Had engineering students never heard of birth control? Then again, maybe the father wasn’t a student in the same faculty. Maybe he wasn’t a student at all—maybe he was an unemployed, dope-smoking kid with tattoos and an enhanced sense of entitlement who hoped to be taken care of by a beautiful, bright and industrious engineer.

She pulled herself back to the present. Rob Mossman. She remembered his name at the same moment he reappeared and she realized the impression she had created was likely not that of an appealingly invisible, trouble-free tenant.

He was now holding a glass of water to her lips at an awkward angle. She adjusted her head and water dribbled out of both sides of her mouth. He supported the back of her head and dabbed at her mouth with a dry facecloth, then pressed his warm palm to her forehead and remained unmoving for a long moment. Her eyes closed. A wave of relief flowed through her and a sense of safety engulfed her. She felt…peaceful…while at the same time wondering at the strange sensation and the intense longing to stay this way forever. Her sense of loss was immediate when he removed his hand from her forehead and replaced it with the cold compress.

“Ms. Justice—Piper—is there anything I should be doing? Do you want me to call 911? Do you want me to take you to the hospital? Do you need a doctor? Did you faint…what happened?”

Rob heard himself asking too many questions and felt skittish and uneasy. Piper Justice was having an unusual effect on him. He was used to being reliable in an emergency, take-charge and calm, and he reminded himself to slow down. She had to be able to get a word in edgewise if she was going to answer him. At least her eyes were open now, staring at him, actually. He waited for her instructions. When no words were forthcoming, he tried again, wondering about the severity of her injuries. A head injury would discourage conversation. “Piper, can you tell me what day it is? Do you remember why you are here? What is your name?” Rob stopped himself, and said quietly, “Even though I’ve just told you what it is.”

She took a deep breath and held up one hand. The other went to the compress on her forehead. “Look, I’m sorry. Give me a moment…I’ll be okay. I don’t know what happened.” She adjusted her position slightly and exhaled, a loud whoosh of air. “Well, I do know what happened—I never did get my license to wear high heels and they turned on me. My ankle hurts. I hope I haven’t sprained it or shredded my tendons or whatever. I’d like to go slowly, but I’m ready to get up now. Look, I’m more embarrassed than hurt, that’s the truth of it. I can’t tell you how sorry I am to be such trouble.”

Rob watched her closely as she made ineffective grappling gestures. She was evidently not quite ready to rise.

“There’s no rush, take your time. And it’s no…uh…trouble.”

“I suppose you were expecting one of those well-balanced, non-falling-down tenants,” she said, closing her eyes and letting her head roll back against his hand, which he had kept in place.

Until she closed her eyes, Rob hadn’t realized he was being held hostage by beautiful green eyes, earthy and exotic at the same time. “No,” he said, surprising himself. “I was expecting you.”

WITH A BOOK
propped on her bent knees, Piper sprawled on a lounge chair in the backyard, listening to birdsong and the burble of the pond next door. Rob’s yard got the benefit of the pond without the work it required. She had been living on Minor Street for three weeks and, as she thought about it, was surprised at how quickly she’d abandoned her despair over the house. Until experiencing the basement flood that crumbled huge portions of the foundation of the century-old house, she hadn’t known home ownership to be an onerous matter. That innocence had been altered in less than twenty-four hours as the magnitude of the damage was revealed. She had been allowed to go into the house only to retrieve clothes and necessary items—the emergency crew had said the house would be unsafe until additional structural supports were in place.