Instinctively, Suzanne shrank back and dropped the box of books she
was holding. It spilled out over her lawn.
"Fiona?" she said. "What's happened?"
"I was *arrested.* They came to my workplace and led me out in
handcuffs. I had to make *bail*."
Suzanne's stomach shrank to a little pebble, impossibly heavy. "What
was I supposed to do? You two took off with my home theater!"
"What home theater? Everything was right where you left it when I
went. I haven't lived here in *weeks*. Tom left me last month and I
moved out."
"You moved out?"
"Yeah, bitch, I *moved out*. Tom was your tenant, not me. If he ripped
something off, that's between you and him."
"Look, Fiona, wait, hold up a second. I tried to call you, I sent you
email. No one was paying the rent, no one told me that you'd moved
out, and no one answered when I tried to find out what had happened."
"That sounds like an *explanation,* she said, hissing. "I'm waiting
for a fucking *apology.* They took me to *prison*."
Suzanne knew that the local lockup was a long way from prison. "I
apologize," she said. "Can I get you a cup of coffee? Would you like
to use the shower or anything?"
The woman glared at her a moment longer, then slowly folded in on
herself, collapsing, coughing and sobbing on the lawn.
Suzanne stood with her arms at her sides for a moment. Her Craigslist
helpers had gone home, so she was all alone, and this woman, whom
she'd met only once before, in passing, was clearly having some real
problems. Not the kind of thing she dealt with a lot -- her life
didn't include much person-to-person hand-holding.
But what can you do? She knelt beside Fiona in the grass and took her
hand. "Let's get you inside, OK?"
At first it was as though she hadn't heard, but slowly she
straightened up and let Suzanne lead her into the house. She was
twenty-two, twenty-three, young enough to be Suzanne's daughter if
Suzanne had gone in for that sort of thing. Suzanne helped her to the
sofa and sat her down amid the boxes still waiting to go into the
U-Haul. The kitchen was packed up, but she had a couple bottles of
Diet Coke in the cooler and she handed one to the girl.
"I'm really sorry, Fiona. Why didn't you answer my calls or email?"
She looked at Suzanne, her eyes lost in streaks of mascara. "I don't
know. I didn't want to talk about it. He lost his job last month and
kind of went crazy, told me he didn't want the responsibility
anymore. What responsibility? But he told me to go, told me it would
be best for both of us if we were apart. I thought it was another
girl, but I don't know. Maybe it was just craziness. Everyone I know
out here is crazy. They all work a hundred hours a week, they get
fired or quit their jobs every five months. Everything is so
expensive. My rent is three quarters of my salary."
"It's really hard," Suzanne said, thinking of the easy, lazy days in
Florida, the hackers' idyll that Perry and Lester enjoyed in their
workshops.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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