Neighbour Annabelle

You open the door to see a woman older than you, looks like her late thirties. Her hair is a mass of strawberry-blonde waves that flow down past her shoulders. Which leads your eyes to her ample chest momentarily before looking at her lightly tanned face and wide smile.

"Hi. My name is Annabelle. I live down the hall from you and noticed that you moved in recently. I thought I'd come over and say 'hi.' I would have come sooner but my work shifts have been a bit mixed up and today's the first day off I've had."

"Hi. My name is John Langwell and this is..." You turn around to find an empty hallway.

"An empty hall? Yes, I often have one of those too." She winks at your dropped jaw.

"No. I mean, yes, but no, I was going to introduce you to Tibby who I thought was right behind me."

"Would you like me to wait here until you find this Tibby?" Annabelle puts her hand on the door.

You nod your head and turn to find your wayward pet. The bathroom door is open and you can see that she is not in there. "Tibby? Where did you go?" You look into the living room across the hall next. A quick glance tells you that she's not standing in there. Maybe she forgot something in the kitchen so you head back there. Not there. That only leaves the bedroom, right? "Tibby, where are you?"

Of course, as you head back down the hallway, you see Annabelle still holding the apartment door open. "Just one minute. There's only one more place to look, unless you've seen her walk by?" She shakes her head.

At first glance the bedroom looks empty. Defeated, you sigh. Then you hear a noise and look up. There she is. She is in the closet, but peeking out with one eye. She's leaning against the door frame so that it lines up with her nose and touches her forehead. "Tibby, come on. We have company and I'd like to introduce you to them." You hold out your hand for her to take.

She stays in the closet. "Are you mad at me?"

Now you have two females worried at the moment. One is easier to take care of than the other. You lean back and look at Annabelle. "Found her. Just give me a minute to coax her out. Why don't you step inside so that you aren't waiting in the building hallway?"

Annabelle nods and steps inside. "I can come back if there's a better time."

"There's nothing wrong with this time. You couldn't have chosen any better, but it would have been worse if you'd been here an hour ago." You grin, thinking of what happened at breakfast. "I'll be right with you."

Then you step inside your bedroom and motion for Tibby to come to you, holding your arms out wide for a hug. Once she's there, you talk to her. "I'm not mad at you. I just didn't know where you went. Why did you disappear? I heard you right behind me, I thought."

You feel her shrug against your chest. "Dunno. I was walking to the door and then I got all shy and wondered if the person would like me, or if I would like them or wish that I had never met them. And I just came in here to figure it out. And then you opened the door and it was a new voice and I just dove into the closet. Maybe I needed to change to look pretty before going back out?"

You hug her closer. "Oh pet. It's a new neighbour. I don't know her either so I can't answer your questions. Why don't we find out together?" When you feel her nod, you turn around and pull her out of the bedroom and into your apartment's hallway.

"Annabelle, may I introduce Tibby? Tibby, Annabelle, our neighbour," you say.

Tibby lets go of your hand and curtsies. To which, Annabelle gets all excited. She claps her hands in front of her and her mouth opens wide. "Oh, aren't you just the cutest little pet! What type of petgirl are you, a cat?" Tibby looks at her, smiles, and nods her head before Annabelle continues. "Oh, and let me guess, you went running into the bedroom when company came? That's just what my mother's real cat used to do when I was a little girl. She preferred owning animals all the time. Even now she has a tabby cat named Tigger and guinea pig named Piglet."

Tibby lights up. "Is that because she couldn't get two kangaroos?" She looked so excited you were surprised she wasn't moving around.

You speak up, "Why don't we all sit down in the living room? Annabelle, would you like something to drink? I can make coffee. I think we have tea. We also have cold drinks." You motion to the living room entrance with your arm.

Before Annabelle moves she says, "A cold drink on a hot summer's day sounds wonderful. It's supposed to get really hot today so we might as well start cooling ourselves early." She's wearing a long, floral skirt that swishes as she walks into the living room. That white wrap top that you were not ogling earlier is tucked into her skirt so that nothing stops the swish. Comfortable sandals complete the outfit.

You wait until Annabelle sits on the couch and Tibby sits on the armchair before you head into the kitchen to pour tall glasses of lemonade. You come back to find Tibby sitting on the couch too. She looks enraptured by Annabelle's conversation. You put the glasses on the coffee table and sit down in the now vacant armchair.

"So," Annabelle says, "It looks like someone had fun in here recently." She nods towards the clothes discarded on the floor last night, only she doesn't know that.

"Yep," Tibby says, "It was fun."

You say, "Sorry about the mess. We were just about to start cleaning in here when you knocked on our door." You jump up from the chair again and quickly scoop as many clothes as you can in one arm. Tibby gets the hint and starts scooping up clothes too. In the hallway, you take what's in her arms and put all the dirty clothes in the clothes hamper in the bedroom.

When you come back into the living room, you see Tibby kneeling on the floor, rolling up her yoga mat. She must be answering a question. "No. Well, I was a gymnast. My specialty was the balance beam, but you can't do all of that just anywhere, now can you? No. So I make up my own fitness routine that I can do where appropriate." She leans it in the corner of the room before sitting down on the couch again.

"Well, I don't know how much room you need, but have you thought about using the roof?" asked Annabelle.

You didn't know that tenants could go up there. "We can get up there? Is it safe? I'd hate for anything to happen to my Tibby."

Annabelle nods. "It's no problem. We aren't supposed to have large parties up there or anything, but the landlord doesn't mind if residents are up there. The breeze is really nice after the sun sets. I'll show you how to get up there after we finish our lemonades, how about that?"

This leads to a relaxed time of getting to know one another. At various times Annabelle reaches over and scratches Tibby behind her ears. Tibby leans into her hand when it's near her cheek. Annabelle plays with the ruffled sleeves on your pet's shirt before stroking down her back.

Eventually Annabelle says, "We should go see the roof before it gets too hot. Today is a bit cloudy, but you never know."

Tibby pops into the closet to put on some white sandals and brings out your leather sandals to you. The three of you walk down the hall. Two doors down from yours, Annabelle points out her apartment. You continue to a narrow staircase just before the last apartment at the other end of the hall and climb the stairs to the door at the top.

Once the door is opened, you step out onto a flat roof with a good view of the neighbourhood. There is a parapet around the edge of the building that is high enough to ensure people know where the edge is.

Annabelle plays tour guide and points out various buildings or streets that you can see from various spots on the roof. "We don't keep anything up here, but most tenants have portable lawn chairs we bring up from our apartments." She looks at Tibby. "With your pale skin, honey, you won't be using a lounge chair to go suntanning so the chairs you bring up should be easy enough to get up those stairs. So, do you see any areas you can use?"

She has been looking at the roof during the whole tour, so it doesn't take long for her to nod her head. But it is feeling quite warm already with no shade to stand in so you all decide to head back downstairs. Annabelle says good-bye to you as you get to her door. The visit is over.