Nora has a new neighbor

Nora’s 90-year-old neighbor, Cleo, who took a fall and lay there all night until her daughter came the next day, has moved to an assisted living place. She was a very nice lady. So now Nora has a new neighbor, a man. His name is one of those double first names so she is bound to call him by the wrong one first. Thomas George or William James or something like that. He looks to be in his mid-seventies and wears a golfing hat. He also drives a nice-looking SUV which he garages ($70 more per mo). The scoop from Tillie is that he’s a widower. All Nora knows is that he is incredibly shy. She met him twice in the hallways and he could hardly say a word to her and kept his eyes slightly down. Maybe he’s just deaf or something. He is fairly nice-looking.

Oops! A funny thing happened this morning. Nora awoke early as usual and went out into the kitchen to turn on her coffee machine which she fixes the night before, wearing only her skimpy cotton nitie. Her kitchen window and her new neighbor’s face each other on a slant because both apartments are on a corner, hers facing east and his west. Well, you’d have to see the building to understand this. Anyway, both Nora and James or George usually keep the blinds on the windows closed out of consideration for one another’s privacy.

Except yesterday evening fixing her supper Nora had opened hers wider than usual to let in a little fading daylight. And it was still that way this morning. So there she was, bustling about early, half-way falling out of her nitie up top, sleepy-like, yawning, when she notices her new male neighbor’s blind is also more open than usual. And his kitchen light is on this early—5:15 am—as well. And he is in his kitchen making his coffee, it looks like. And, dang, if they can’t see each other! Only he’s fully clothed. She kind of has a glimpse of a startled expression on his face before his blind goes tightly shut.

Oh, no, did he catch a peek at her ample boobs?!! What will he think, that she’s trying to vamp him? Single men here in the Twilight Zone have got to be careful because they’re outnumbered three to one. If she sees him in the hallway today will he be shyer than usual and keep his eyes down? Will she?

And what about tomorrow morning, same time, same place? Will their respective blinds be half ajar again? And what will he be expecting to see? Is Nora getting a little addled in her old age?

Wait until she tells Tillie about this!

This is for Kenju

Come on, Bette, look back at Nora (on right). Do you know
she has your cigarette butt palmed?
Tulsa, OK 1943