“Okay,” I mumbled, still waking up. “When?”
“How about right now?”
“Now?”
“I’m in your driveway.”
I jumped. Templeton remained as prostrate as a slug. I rushed over to the peephole in my front door and peered out. Mains, leaning against a dark American-made sedan, waved at me. I involuntarily gasped.
Mains ignored the exclamation. “I promise I’ll only take a few minutes.”
I scanned the apartment for anything remotely embarrassing—stray underwear, trashy romance novels, regurgitated feline hairballs. As a woman living alone, any one of these was apt to be strewn in the oddest places. I stumbled down my abbreviated hallway and slammed my bedroom and studio doors. I glanced in the hall mirror. Dear God, I was a mess. The skirt and blouse I had worn to work were wrinkled beyond recognition, my hair was matted to my head like a flattened toy poodle. By the front door, I found a stray rubber band that Templeton would likely try to eat later. I threw my hair up in a haphazard knot.
As calmly as possible, I said, “I suppose I could meet with you now.” I hung up the phone and opened the door.
My apartment consisted of the left half of a duplex facing the street. I chose it because of its low rent and its nearness to campus, imagining that I would walk to work. I could count on my left hand the number of times I had walked to the library. The resident of the right half of the duplex was my landlady, Ina Carroll, a self-professed bachelorette, never married because she hated to cook and claimed she didn’t want some man to make her learn. In the late eighties, Ina received a letter from a former United States senator reminding her to remember her Irish heritage. Since that fateful day, painted stone and ceramic leprechauns had peppered every recess of her property. Lately, Ina had diversified and bought a couple pots of gold for the wee lads. I had made the mistake of telling Ina that a large portion of my family tree was Irish, as well. Ever since, she’s forced corned beef and cabbage on me, despite my vegetarian protests.