He was running late. As the elevator opened he had his Iphone out, checking the apartment number one more time. He looked up from his phone to see an older woman in a fashionable red trenchcoat, just going through a doorway at the end of the hallway. Older but still put together, at least from what he could see from a distance - high heels, shoulder length hair, with a waistbelt cinched tight creating the perfect hourglass figure. He wondered what was under the trenchcoat but put the thought out of his mind as the door closed.
He slid his phone away and firmly grasping the bottle of wine he'd brought as a gift for the party, marched down the hall, checking numbers to the left and right. He covered the entire hallway and ended up before the door he'd seen the older woman go through moments before. Well, well, this party just got more interesting, he thought as he knocked at the door. He'd always had a thing for older women.
The door pulled back, a chain halting it from opening inward and the woman he had seen before, still in the same trenchcoat, gazed out at him through the few inches of exposure. Rather than the noise and party he had expected as the door opened, he saw revealed instead, a dimly lit but tastefully modern living room behind the woman whose face was just as good as the form he had seen from a distance. As they studied each other, the lights of the living room grew brighter behind, the fluorescent bulbs in their recessed spots warming up as the two confronted one another. She'd apparently just come home.
"Umm, I'm sorry to bother you, I think maybe I've got my address wrong somehow. I was invited to a party..." he stopped as she looked at him somewhat nervously.
"There's no party here. You're mistaken and I don't know you."
"This is apt #1923, isn't it?"
"Yes it is. But there's no party here, there's just me..." she stopped herself abruptly, realizing she had just revealed that she was alone.
"Yes ma'am." he said politely trying to calm her though he couldn't help checking her out as she shifted nervously. Her heels were high and her slender legs were encased in shear nylon though he could only see to her shins. The trenchcoat had loosened partly and he saw what appeared to be the top of a little black dress cut daringly low, especially for an older woman, revealing the hourglass figure and spectacular cleavage he had imagined when he had first seen her from the other end of the hallway. She looked to be in her late fifties, maybe early sixties but again, everything was preserved like fine wine, much finer than the wine he was holding in his hand.
She picked up on his eye movement and pulled the trenchcoat closer with one hand but kept the other firmly pressed against the door. "I'm sorry I can't help you. You need to go now, " she said firmly.
"Of course, of course. I'm sorry to have disturbed you. I just don't get it. #1923 12588 West Adams was the address I was given. I'm sure I had it right."
"This is East Adams," she corrected him.
"What?"
"East Adams." She forced a small polite smile. "You're not the first person to have gotten them mixed up. "
"East Adams. I didn't even know there was an east and west."
"The street signs aren't marked. The numbers run up from McCambridge Park in both directions. If you don't know..."
"No, I didn't know. Well then, sorry again to have taken up your time. I'll get out of your way and try to make it my party before it gets too late."
She chuckled at that and smiled properly for the first time. "You've an awfully long way to go. It's the other side of the river."
"The river? Aw man, I might as well just call it a night. He glanced down at the bottle of wine and she laughed at his predicament.
"I'm going to call it a night myself. Goodnight young man."
"Yes ma'am. Goodnight." He turned to go and then turned back as she was just beginning to closer her door. "You want a bottle of Merlot?" he asked, holding the bottle upwards. "I'm not gonna need it."
She smiled again. "Not a wine drinker?"
"I like wine. But it was meant to be a gift; I probably would have been drinking Scotch at the party. But, it's a good wine." He held it out towards her. "Please take it. I'm not one for drinking home alone. It'll just get wasted. Or re-gifted," he laughed. "At another party."
She paused and then reached a hand out through the still chained door and took the bottle from him. "Alright then, thank you, young man. Better luck next time."
