I think Heidi looks around my apartment when I'm away.
The first thing I learned about Heidi Best was from her (our) front porch-- a giant pink sign facing the street urging everyone to "KEEP ABORTION LEGAL." Adjacent, a sentry to the screen door, stands an almost life-sized ebony statue of a naked woman. Her mailbox bears a gold-lettered "S H Best." I signed a lease the same day I saw the second floor apartment.
Heidi has two cats. She used to have sixteen. Heidi is in her sixties, missing some teeth, and when she does speak to me she forms loud statements with a precedent "Hun." Otherwise she leaves notes on my door in a looped, teacher-like script. Her niece used to follow my college band. I suspect I am her only source of income. I suspect I am her only consistent communication.
We pad around our separate floors in synchronized time. I hear her coughs and smell her meals, all the while wondering how long she has lived in her way—rarely does she venture outside, never welcoming a visitor. There is no sign of a partner in her past or future. At first I thought her a widow, deprived of whoever the "S" was on her mailbox for a great number of years. A glimpse at the lease revealed the initial to be for an un-favored first name. I then mused that she may be just another aging gay woman, bearing down her romantic frustrations upon social reform and politics. Her collection of feminist bumper stickers supported this theory until my own sister's adorable androgyny convinced me otherwise. Meg's buzzed head held a smile with one arm outstretched in greeting but my landlady would not shake her hand. It's one of those moments we both cringe at in recollection. Heidi talks to her cats.
Late into the night when I hear the blue buzz of Heidi’s television I wonder how many years, how many solitary meals it takes before a mailbox bears only my name.
"Hun, you do have friends, right?" She asked one day.
"Hah, yes-- yes of course I have some friends!" I replied truthfully but I also couldn't help feeling defensive. How could she accuse me of being alone in the world? Her own face has carved a tired gaze from decades of solitude as she knits in front of her television, social interaction now as discarded as her first name. I wake at dawn and witness the sun rise as my neighborhood sleeps. I listen for the waterfall down the street. I rescue beautiful leaves and pieces of wood and clean every day. I have eight stacks of books. I used to have two. I talk to my dog.
Sometimes when I return home it feels as if the air has solidified around a different shape. I imagine Heidi entering and wandering through my meticulous minimalism-- touching hand-crafted canvases, strange photographs, furniture with a war-torn elegance, type-written correspondences. I imagine her leaving discreetly, leaving confused or leaving affirmed. I walk through my rooms to find nothing misplaced save a much-needed sense of sanctuary, but that is easily recovered with the next silent dawn.
While sitting outside a coffee shop with a companion I saw her sail past across the street toward home. Her long stride and head high advertised determination, but one induced by detachment or erected as a bastion. She was alien on the sidewalk, weaving through families and clusters of children. She did not notice me nor did she turn her head in observation or recognition of anything but stepped deliberately onward, pulled by a collected force strengthened over decades back to familiar walls. I gave her a second of reverent silence before facing my friend once more.
