Chapter 9

The ringing from the doorbell stopped and Beverly was able to sleep for another two hours before she heard it again. She opened her eyes slowly as her brain began to calculate where she was and what she was doing here. It took her two minutes to finally remember where she was and then she checked her phone and saw that it was late. She yawned and slowly went up to her door to find out who was ringing her door bell. As she moved, she fantasized about ripping the doorbell apart so that it will never bother her again, then she got a glimpse of herself through her

As she opened it, she saw Mrs Potts talking to the stranger from earlier. He looked friendly and relaxed talking to her.

"...and they were fantastic, I think I will be trying it out more often." he said, he was leaning on his door, with his hands crossed on his chest.

Mrs Potts chuckled and said, "Glad it solved that problem."

They both turned to look at her, but he barely looked at her, Mrs Potts smiled and gently said, "Ethan, I think you should come over tomorrow and have dinner with us then."

Ethan nodded and said, "Wouldn't miss it for anything, Susan. My regards to Haley, goodnight"

Susan? Mrs Potts' name was Susan? Beverly thought.

It seemed that her presence made him uncomfortable because he immediately excused himself, which left her thinking of whether she was the reason he was uncomfortable around her. He had not even said a word to her. Did he hate me? She thought.

As soon as he left, Mrs Potts turned her attention back to her and said, "So, sorry I stopped by at this hour but I figured you will be hungry if you woke up later at night and Haley was here earlier to check up on you but she said nobody asked the door."

She scratch her long wavy brown hair and said, "Yeah, I didn't hear the door."

The little basket she was holding looked heavy for her because of how tilted she was now holding it, and Beverly guessed that she had been holding it that way since she had been knocking. She ushered Mrs Potts into her apartment and took the basket from her.

"Wow, this place looks big" Mrs Potts commenting, looking around.

"I'd say it's the same size as yours."

"Definitely, ours just has furnitures and all so it doesn't look as big."

"Sorry, I don't have any cushions for you to sit on."

"It's okay, I can see you haven't unpacked yet." the she pointed at the boxes in the living room and asked, "When do you plan on taking care of these? it looks like a lot for you."

Beverly smiled and said, "It's a lot" She had unpack her microwave and her mini-refrigerator earlier and installed it so she just put the food into the refrigerator. "I almost called my friend to come help with unpack."

"Is your friend in this city?" Seeing that Beverly had unpacked the food and was trying to clean the basket for her, she added, "Oh, take your time with that, I can get it some other time."

Beverly nodded, "She...Well, she's really far away. Like, a state away"

"That's like a three hours drive, isn't it?"

"yeah"

"Well, she can't help you." She thought about it for a second and said, "I could ask the other ladies to help you. On this floor, we are nice to each other and help out in ways we can. Loiu was an exception, he was...dirty."

Beverly leaned on her counter and asked, "Dirty? what do you mean by that?"

Mrs Potts looked around like there were other people in the apartment and whispered, "There was rumour that he was a playboy and gigolo."

"A playboy and gigolo?"

"Yeah. The women in the opposite apartment" she pointed at Beverly's living room window, "The women who lived there were always coming over and the sexual screams from this apartment can be heard all the way down..." she pointed down and said, "Outside"

Beverly blinked several times for dramatic effect and let out, "Damn"

"Damn is right. He was hypersexual. Loiu was always having sexual relations. Ugh! it was like his hobby. I had to always keep my windows closed and told Ernesto to make him install soundproof but he refused."

"Did he know you had your granddaughter?"

"Everybody knew she stayed with me. You know, I think that maybe he tried to do something with Haley—"

Beverly's jaw dropped and she calmly said, "What did you do?! Did Haley say what?"

Mrs Potts shook her head and said, "No. I figured it out."

"How?

She came close to the counter and leaned on it too, "Well, what raised my suspicion was, Haley is usually very nice and pleasant to everybody, always saying hellos and hi's and all that. Fast forward to the two times I saw both of them come out of the elevator. The first time, Haley looked embarrassed. She was basically pink, she walked as fast away from him as possible. My guess is that he said something in front of her that seemed off. The second time, she looked very disgusted, and the third time, we were about to use the elevator the same time he was, immediately the door opened and she saw him, she looked in the eyes and said, grandma, we can wait..."

"Yeah, he definitely said something around her. What a weirdo! Did you ask Haley what he said?"

"No, I can't...