It’s Wednesday. Sometime mid morning, early afternoon. It’s pouring down rain with a few bolts of lightning and occassional thunder. I love this type of weather. It set all of my nerve endings on fire. It’s like being touched with a feather that gentley glides along my skin.
I get up from my chair to take a closer look of the magnificant down pour when I see the beautyful girl from next door standing on her front porch soaking wet. She sees me and smiles. I smile back and she starts to walk towards me. I watch her walk past me. I knew there was no way she was smiling at me. She must have seen a friend. There’s a knock at the door. I go to answer wonder who would be visiting me at this time of the morning and there she is.
“Hi, Mr. Key. I’m Jennifer, from next door. Sorry to bother you, but could I use your phone. I’m locked out and I need to call my roommate so she can drop off her key on her lunch break.”
“Sure, come on in and get out of the rain. You’re soaking wet.”
She takes off the rain soaked jacket from her head and steps inside. She’s shaking like a leaf from the cold.
“I’ll take that”, as I grab hold of her jacket and place it over the heater to dry.
“Thank you”, she says as she continues to shake vigorusly and rub her arms trying to warm herself.
“I’ll get the phone and put on a pot of coffe. Please have a seat.” I run to the back, turn on the coffe pot and grab the cordless phone. “Here you are”, I say handing her the phone and taking a seat in my recliner. “The coffee should be done any moment.”
“Thank you”, she says and begins to dial. “Hey Sandy. You’re never going to believe this, but I locked myself out again. Yeah, so when can you get home to let me in? An hour and a half? You can’t make it any sooner? But it’s pouring outside. I’m next door at Mr. Key’s. I’ll check, hold on.
“Sandy wanted to know if I could wait for her here?”
“Sure, I’m not going anywhere.”
“Great. Thanks.
Sandy, it’s cool. I’ll just wait here for you. Okay. Great. Bye.”
“So everything’s okay?” I ask her as I grab the phone and take it back to the hook.
“Yeah. Sandy has a meeting she can’t get out of. I’m such a dunce. I’m always locking myself out.” “How do you like your coffe?”
“A little cream and a lot of sugar please.”
“Coming right up. So what do you do Jennifer?”
“I’m a student at the community college by day and a cocktail waitress by night.”
“A student, huh. Here you are. Careful that’s really hot. So what are you studying?” I ask taking a seat next to her on the couch.
“I’m studying to be a nurse.”
“My wife was a nurse for thirty year.”