old faces, strange places

Last week I ran into my old landlord.

It wasn't the kind of place you'd expect to meet your old landlord. Nope, if you'd asked me, I'd have told you that the GYN's office was the LAST place I'd expect to run into an old landlord.

Nonetheless.

I was paying my bill, surrounded by glowing pregnant women and baby toys and laughing children and men who looked surprisingly relaxed and cheerful and kindly receptionists, when I heard, over the nurturing sound of a family-rearing TV channel, my name.

"Sarah. Hey. Sarah!"

I turned and beheld, resplendent in his over-cologned glory and overabundant hair wax, the AL.

"Santos!" I said.

He's still the biggest gossip I've ever known. Immediately following an impatient "How are you," he leaned forward with a conspiratorial grin and whispered loudly, eyebrows waggling, "Are you pregnant?"

"No."

I loved the moment of awkwardness that followed. It completely made up for the absurd inappropriateness of his question. He couldn't ask, "Oh, then what are you here for?" because there's only one other answer, and it's not, "I broke my arm." I grinned a little bit while he scrambled to regain his dignity.

He gave up after a minute and started erupting with information about my former fellow tenants -- most of the news wasn't good, but neither was it unexpected; the woman Lu who'd been scarier than the scary people that frequented the house, and so had kept me safe, fell off the deep end a little after I left, and now she's gone. Jim's alive and well, however, still residing in the apartment below where mine used to be, and according to Santos, who is probably the worst judge of character I have ever met, there's a very nice quiet couple living downstairs in the other apartment once inhabited by Pslightly Psycho Kevin.

He didn't say who was living in my old apartment. I didn't ask. He said, sort of hintingly, "You'd really like it there now. It's nice and quiet, good people there."

"Sounds like," I said, smiled, wished him and his wife well as they awaited the arrival of their second child, and went to retrieve my credit card.

I miss that apartment. Like a lot of things, it's now a closed door; but my memories there, except for the ones toward the end, throw off a soft-lens shimmer when I pull them out. It was a lovely little home, with entertaining neighbors, and for a long time, I was very happy there.