5 or 6 days passed and then a knock on my door. I peeked out and it was the landlady. She’d never stopped by before so it was anyone’s guess.

“Hello?” I said, opening the door to greet her.

“Hello Elsa, I’ve brought the new lease.”

“Huh?”

“The new lease. You’re going have to sign a new lease,” she said.

I had 4 months left on my lease. “What?” I asked.

“If you want to stay, you’re going to have to sign a new lease.”

“Why?”

“You shouldn’t have to ask me that.”

“Huh?”

“You don’t need to ask me that, the way you’ve been carrying on,” she said with something that seemed akin to a snarl. She looked perturbed. Worse than that. She looked as if she loathed me. This dawned on me and it hurt my feelings.

I quickly ran through my dealings with her to see how I might have offended her but there was nothing there. I’d paid my rent early every month. I’d mail it to her home 5 or 6 blocks away. We’d had no direct contact since I moved in so I didn’t get it.

“What do you mean carrying on? What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about,” she said with a full out sneer. “You have a lot of nerve playing dumb after what you’ve done to Grocery Man.”

“What?” I was incredulous. I was also getting pissed off. Someone’s been talking, what the heck did he tell her?

“What are you talking about?” I asked, eyes drilling, heat rising.

“You. You’ve… you’re cheating on him!” she said.

“WHAT?”

“You don’t think that he is going to keep paying your rent while you go with other men do you?”

“WHAT? WHAAAAAAT?” I yelled. “What the hell are you talking about? He doesn’t pay my rent.”

“Yes he does,” she said.

“No he doesn’t. What are you talking about? I pay you every month. That’s MY money.”

“Yes he does pay your rent. I ought to know, I’m the landlord,” she said, staring me down with pure venom.

“No he doesn’t. Where did you get that idea? He doesn’t pay my rent. I pay my rent.” I felt a mixture of pain and anger and confusion.

“Look Elsa. Who do you think you’re talking to?” she said, with a hint of some kind of hick accent coming out.  “Every month I get two checks. One with your name on it and one with his. Are you trying to tell me that he writes a check on his account with your money? What do you take me for? You pay me half of the rent and he pays the other half. Are you going to deny this?”

“WHAT?!?” What! what! WHAAAAAT are you talking about?” It was surreal. “I signed the lease. The rent is XXX and that is what I pay you every month. Why is he sending you a check?” A check for what?”

She clucked. “Elsa, you don’t really expect me to believe that you didn’t know this? Like you could rent a place like this for the XXX that you pay?” She laughed as if I wouldn’t be pulling anything over on her. “He has a lease and you have a lease.”

I had a huge lump in my throat. “Let me get this straight. The rent here is XXX times 2 and every month I pay you half and Grocery Man pays you half? He has a lease on my apartment and no one bothers to tell me this?” I asked.

“You knew this.”

“No I didn’t. What the fuck? Are you fucking kidding me? Do think I would let some son of a bitch pay my rent?”

“Elsa, I don’t like that kind of language. You two were supposed to get married weren’t you? You’re his fiancée. If you’d treated him better you would not have today’s problem. It’s your own fault.”

“WHAT!????” What the hell are you talking about? I am not his fiancée!”

“Well not any more you’re not,” she said smugly. “And who can blame him, the way you’ve been carrying on. He’s told me what you’ve been doing over here.”

“I AM NOT HIS FIANCEE’! I have never been his fiancée. He told you that?”

“I’m not going to have this conversation with you. Do you want to stay? If you do then you’re going to have to sign this new lease and pay the full rent. If you want to know the truth, I think I would prefer you move. I don’t approve of your kind. Grocery Man would like his half of the deposit back as well.”

My mind was spinning. Apparently Grocery Man has been paying half my rent. He wants his deposit back? Obviously, she wasn’t making this up. My heart started to pound. I decided I need more information.

“He told you that I was his fiancée and what else?”

“He told me the two of you were engaged. He said you supported your mother so he was going to help you out with the rent. He’s a nice man and a very good tenant. He’s a good man, trying to do right by you and he’d have made a good husband. How many men take care of women these days? You could do a lot worse, that’s for sure.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Well Elsa,” she said snottily, “I thought youuuuu knew.”

“How could I know?”

“Well, he’s your fiancée. How could you not know?”

“HE’S NOT MY FIANCEE.”

“Whatever. Whatever you say,” she said condescendingly as if she were annoyed with my charade. “Are you going stay? If you are, then you need to sign the lease.”

“Does he have a key?”

“Of course he has a key. He pays half the rent, he’s entitled to a key.”

I was out in the front yard by now and this is when I screamed like an animal. I saw quick mind pictures of Grocery Man in my bedroom poking through my underwear. I imagined he’d rigged the place with cameras. The shower. It’s the shower that comes to mind and I continue to scream.  The landlady was afraid.

“He told me you were crazy like this,” she said.

“WHAT?”

“So are you going to move?”

“Are you kidding me? Some psycho over there moves me in here and is paying my rent and….. never mind. Yes. I’m going to move. What fucking choice do I have?”

“There is no need to talk like that.”

I didn’t respond. My mind was racing, gaskets blown.  The landlady confirmed I’d move by the end of the month, then shrugged her shoulders and headed back to her car but not before getting her last jab in. “It’s not right what you did to him. I don’t understand you young people. You had a perfectly good man there but I guess you think that they grow on trees.”

2 days later I moved. I never saw Grocery Man again. I didn’t confront him and I didn’t find evidence my privacy had been compromised in the duplex, but I didn’t look very well. For one thing I wouldn’t know where to look and for another, I really didn’t want to know.

I never told anyone this happened outside of Scott. It was just too gross.

The End