Micro-story #2
For Rent
When the touch screen of her cell phone lit up from an incoming call at eight-fifteen Wednesday evening, Evelyn’s leathery brow knitted. She didn’t recognize the number, though the area code said it was local, which meant only one thing: someone was calling about a vacancy in one of her rentals.
She took a long drag off the half-spent cigarette piped between her lips and considered whether or not to answer. It was late in the evening, for her anyway (especially when her internal clock still roused her at four every morning despite her being long retired), and she was comfortable lounging out on her back deck, taking in the scent of menthol mixed with the enticing smell of burning cherry wood wafting her way from down the block. The late November air was chilly but tolerable.
Though she was really in no mood to talk business, Evelyn had been faced with an exodus of many of her tenants as of late. Revenue was down. Young people either moving back home because they claimed they could no longer afford the rent (which she believed was quite fair in terms of being competitive with what else was out there), or they were shacking up with significant others to save on expenses. They claimed they were in love. Evelyn grimaced. In love or not it was costing her dollars and making more work for her to fill the empty spaces. She picked up the ringing phone; she couldn’t afford to miss this call.
“Hello?” Her throat was perpetually raw, her voice a constant rasp. Probably a result of too many smokes. But then she’d never had any other complication as a result of a habit that’s been keeping Big Tobacco in the black since she was sixteen. She just cleared her throat and said again, “Hello?”
“Yes, hi, I’m calling about a listing you have for a first floor duplex on Paden Road.”
Ah, yes, Evelyn thought, the end of the cigarette glowing bright from her deep inhale. Her lips pursed tight around the ashy tasting cylinder. Paden. That duplex was one of the few properties she had in her arsenal that featured a low turnover. The location was in the middle of a quiet suburb stretch of mostly retired folk like herself. The upstairs unit was occupied by an elderly man named Lou who had been there almost a year. Poor man had been stricken with Alzheimer’s, one of Evelyn’s biggest concerns as she approached her eighth decade on Earth. A concern far greater than whatever mounds of tar were covering her lungs. The downstairs of the Paden duplex had only recently become open after a four-year occupation by a student taking early-education courses at the university.
“Have you spoken with Jimmy already?” she asked the caller.
“I did try the other number in the listing but no one picked up.”
Evelyn sighed. Typical that her grandson, who was her handyman and filter for most of her prospective tenants, couldn’t be bothered to answer. Likely too busy lighting up himself. Except he didn’t dabble in the legal stuff.
“Well,” she said, “if you’d like to see the apartment, I can arrange sometime tomorrow in the late aftern—”
“I don’t need to see it,” said the man. “If it’s available, I’ll take it.”
Evelyn snuffed out the last quarter of her smoke, sitting straight up in her wicker porch chair. “You don’t even want to see the place?”
“No need,” said the caller. “Just let me know what you want in terms of first month and a safety deposit, and whatever else you need. I’ll bring you a check tomorrow.”
Evelyn didn’t know what to say. This was most peculiar. Never before had she heard of someone taking an apartment sight unseen. She cleared her throat, suddenly feeling skeptic and a little irritated. She wanted to huff on another cigarette immediately. “Is this a joke? Did my grandson put you up to this?”
The man on the other end of the line assured her this was no joke.
She didn’t know why, but Evelyn believed him. Something in the sincerity of his voice.
“Well,” she said, “rent is eight hundred, deposit is the same, and I require first and last months.”
“I’ll make you out a check,” said the man.
Evelyn almost laughed, not because she found the situation funny, but strangely absurd. “Who is this, by the way?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said the man. “My name is Miles.”
“Miles,” she repeated.
After the call ended, Evelyn sat back in her chair and lit a new smoke. For the longest time she remained under the starry ceiling of the clear night, a trail of smoke rising over her, wondering what would cause a man, relatively young by the sound of his voice (and young compared to her) to settle so quickly on a home, one that would initially set him back twenty-four hundred dollars, that he’d never seen before.
What was he running away from?
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