We Both Paid the Same Stranger to Sublet the Same One-Bedroom, and Neither of Us Would Move Out novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Welcome Supper

Corey Pettibone came through the courtyard gate at two minutes to six, in a quarter-zip and a grin.

A young woman in a yellow raincoat hung on his arm.

He looked exactly like his voicemail.

Gelled sandy hair, white teeth, a hand already out to shake whatever hand came nearest.

"Mrs. Hurd!" he called. "Corey! Great to finally put a face to the emails!"

Gloria beamed, took the hand, and said, "Welcome, welcome, we're so glad you came."

Behind her, Dolores sat at the end of the first table with her steno pad open and a pencil behind her ear.

Behind me, the gate clanged, and a padlock the size of a ham clicked shut.

I stood by the lemonade with my phone in my pocket, recording the inside of my own jeans.

The yard was full.

Forty neighbors sat in folding chairs, with children under the tables.

A sergeant from the district station in a short-sleeved shirt balanced a lemon pie on his knee.

Randy came across the tile with an envelope, big and calm in a clean button-down, and he held it out in both hands.

"Corey," he said. "Randy Kowalski. Three B."

"Bro!" Corey clapped his shoulder. "How's the place?"

"Cozy."

"Told you!"

"Four hundred, like you said. For the reissue fee."

He put the envelope in Corey's hand.

Corey weighed it, thumbed the edge, and slid it into his zip pocket without counting.

"No stress, bro," he said.

Dolores wrote it down.

He worked the room for an hour.

He told a woman her cardigan was stunning, and a man his garden was a masterpiece, and Gloria's ham was the best he'd ever had.

He held a plate in one hand and the arm of the girl in the raincoat in the other.

I watched him steer her toward the tables, murmuring about the unit, the light, the sweet old lady who ran the place.

My heart beat in my teeth.

At seven-fifteen, Gloria tapped a spoon against a glass.

The yard quieted.

"Friends," she said. "Neighbors. Thank you for coming to our Welcome Supper. I want to start by thanking the young man who made it possible. Corey Pettibone, would you come up here?"

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