The hallway beyond her apartment door was disappointingly normal. A cursory probe with her big toe told her that the white tiled floor was about as hard and cold as she expected it to be, and apparently still a little dusty at this time of day.
Looking up to the ceiling, it seemed to be the same barren off white it always was, and the lights were off, as is expected for this time of day, with the only light coming from the sun as filtered through a big and perpetually half opened window that marked the end of the hall she lived in.
The view outside the window seemed normal too. She could make out the faint impressions of a small dirt road mostly hidden behind the concrete wall, and a little village somewhere down the hill that was shrouded partly by a dense bamboo forest. She could see a few kids still milling about down there, or maybe they were adults, it was fairly hard to tell from this high up.
Feeling just a little uncomfortable at how normal everything continued to be, but resolving to see this through nonetheless, Jeanne put on her best slightly awkward fake smile, and approached Vera’s door, absentmindedly knocking on the imposing black metal security door over it, and finding it to sound surprisingly thin despite its purpose. She wondered what would drive someone to go out of her way to install something like this, and she gave it a cursory bump with her foot to test how solid it actually was, only to wince in pain when the answer turned out to be ‘enough’.
With a sigh, Jeanne reached out to press the doorbell, or well, brush against it. The doorbell was this big flat button shaped red and white plastic sensor thing that didn’t actually depress, or really seem to do much of anything at all from the outside. This gave Jeanne plenty of time to think while she let her hand linger in place, about the terrifying mess that was her memories of last night, about the hunger still burning in her gut and the palpable sense of weight that her still tired body has, but mostly, she thought about the unassuming door beside her own apartment’s, the only one she remembered walking into last night.
Some part of her is dimly aware that all of this could be resolved if she simply turned around and knocked on that door instead, and accepted whatever awkward conversation or fight that could bring. That logically speaking, the worst that could happen outside of not getting a response or Helena telling her to screw off and never talk to her again, would be having her stare down at her judgmentally as she ranted about the weird dream she had about her last night, before she mentally filed her as ‘one of those people’, whatever that meant.
But before Jeanne could do much more than think and look vaguely uncomfortable at what is otherwise one in a long line of nearly identical wooden doors, she heard a loud clicking sound as the one in front of her swings open, the sound of muffled cursing very suddenly cutting off as she is brought almost face to face with Vera, only barely visible still behind the security door’s metal slats.
“Oh, it’s just you, I mean uh, good morning Jeanne! You’re up early,” Vera said, her voice sounding a little hoarse this morning. For some reason Jeanne couldn’t help but notice her slightly dishevelled hair through the bars, did she just wake up?
“Hi I uh, apparently I set an alarm for mornings last night, not sure why I had it though,” Jeanne said, genuinely still unsure of where to place herself or what to look at with the door still covering most of Vera’s body, she settled on squinting at her face.
“Well, it’s a good habit to pick up, you know I always told my daughter that waking up early would be good for her, go outside and get some exercise, or a bit of breakfast before she goes to school,” she scratched the back of her head. “Well, I told her to wake up a little earlier than 6 AM, but we can’t all be schoolchildren.”
“You have a daughter?” Jeanne asked, blinking slightly in surprise.
“Oh right, yeah I don’t think you’ve met her, she doesn’t really come over as much as she used to, you know how teenagers are,” Vera asked, still boring straight into Jeanne with her eyes.
“I uh, I really don’t,” Jeanne said, fidgeting in place.
“They’re loud, hungry, overly emotional, and they think they always know better than you because they saw a post on Reddit or something once, and now I’m ‘cringe’ and ‘emotionally damaging her Italian friends’ for complaining about how no one makes precracked spaghetti for some reason,” Vera suddenly blurted out.
“Uh,” is all Jeanne could muster.
“I mean just think about it right? It’d save so much time and effort, all of those minutes you’d otherwise waste on making sure the overly long noodles actually slide into the pot normally and don’t just burn up on the sides? Gone! All you have to do is crack open the packet, pour in a bit of oil and salt into the water, and wait until it starts to boil,” Vera continued, before she coughed, and notes, “God now I kind of want some spaghetti now, what were we talking about again?”
Jeanne paced a little in place, “Uhhh, my new alarm? Wait no I’m uh, I was going to ask if you wanted to have some breakfast together?”
“Oh! Well why didn’t you just say so? I don’t usually eat this early but if you’ve brought something over we can-,” Vera squinted a little, before she almost whispers, “Wait, you’re not getting breakfast together?”
Blinking a little, Jeanne finally rubbed two braincells for long enough to reply, “With who?”
“Nevermind, I guess that would be moving a little fast even by today’s standards huh?” Vera looked into Jeanne’s eyes for a moment, before she moved to unlock the security door, “Anyway, what do you want to eat? I can’t cook anything other than noodles, but there’s a lot of good breakfast food around here if you’re fine with paying for delivery.”
“I’m uh, not sure? Been a while since I’ve ordered something this early,” Jeanne said, as her gaze wanders down to Vera’s comfy looking red and black or dark brown patterned daster that rendered most of her body into that familiar vague blob.
“Well you can’t go wrong with chicken broth porridge, I know a good place near here that delivers, I think it’s called… Bubur Rijaya or something? The ones they make taste pretty good, but they always send them in these terrible little plastic packages you kinda have to squeeze the porridge out in, you can never get it all out properly,” Vera notes, after thinking on it a little.
Jeanne whipped out her phone as Vera spoke, quickly finding the porridge shop on her food delivery app of choice, it had a 4.1 star rating which seemed low, but she figured that Vera probably knew what she was talking about as she ordered a few bowls and held the screen up for Vera to see, “That sounds good to me. Could I uh, come in? I might need to borrow a bowl.”
“Oh yeah, sure, just,” Vera stepped aside, giving Jeanne a better look at her apartment as she walked inside for the first time in a long while.
It was cramped, the already small confines of the apartment’s living room being hemmed in from all sides by plastic containers and wooden or steel shelves containing the sundry dross of everyday life. There were lots of pictures of herself and friends hanging from the walls or propped up on a shelf, some with a woman young enough to probably be her daughter, little knick-knacks and decorations from all the places she’d been or gifted things from including this creepy looking porcelain kabuki mask that overlooked a round wooden dining table turned desk in the center of the room.
On the desk itself there was a sleek and professional looking metallic red laptop covered in butterfly and rainbow stickers, right beside a pile of papers, books and a tote bag full of something that made Jeanne keenly aware of how little she knows of what Vera does for a living. She took a seat in the cheap plasticky chair across Vera’s much more comfortable looking office chair, took in the scent of her morning cup of tea, and idly wondered how she managed to keep her walls looking clean as she stared intently at her phone screen for any sign of life from the delivery driver.
“So how was your night anyway?” Vera asked, breaking the brief moment of silence between them as she rifled through a nearby cabinet for a bowl.
“Hm? Oh, it was… actually I’ve been meaning to ask, I know this is going to sound crazy but did I leave the party with Helena last night?”
Vera raised an eyebrow, setting two wide shallow ceramic bowls down on the table before she took a seat, “Yeah? I was going to ask how that went. I mean you two spent the whole night together right?”
“No we uh,” Jeanne paused for a moment, still sorting through her memories of last night with that in mind. “We just talked I think, honestly last night was a little fuzzy in general, I think I was a lot more tired than I thought I was, you know how it is.”
“Yeah, you seemed a little touch and go last night, I’m glad that you were feeling up to it though, it’s good to meet new people every now and then, especially after… you know,” Vera trailed off, as if not wanting to say the quiet part out loud.
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Jeanne blinked a little, before she very suddenly realized something, “What? Did you mea-Vera I’m not a, I don’t know why you uh, I mean Widya and I weren’t like that.”
“Hey I wouldn’t judge you if she was, it’s 2024, there are worse things to be than another woman’s ex-girlfriend,” Vera said, shrugging it off.
Jeanne stammered out, “We were-are just friends okay? Just really close friends, nothing more, nothing less.”
Vera squinted at that, before she said in a slow, and easy to understand tone, “Just a very close friend, who goes to your house almost every day to feed you, cleans your house, hang out with you, and proofread and edit your life’s work for free?”
Jeanne blinked again, “Y-yes.”
This prompted a deep sigh from Vera, “Oh God, that poor woman.”
Jeanne blurted out, “H-hey I mean, I didn’t ask for any of that okay? She just went and started doing it all on her own I’m not, I didn’t force her to do any of it,”
Vera leaned forward in her seat, staring Jeanne in the eyes as she said, “I’m just saying, at best you’ve led her on for years, and at worst you’ve treated your biggest fan as a borderline live in slave. Honestly I’m surprised that she didn’t leave you sooner.”
Jeanne simply sat there for a few moments, before she finally let out a weak, “Um…”
Vera let out a deep throated laugh at Jeanne’s obvious discomfort, “Don’t worry, I’m not really judging you, I just, I mean, God. The gayest women I know have been practically living together for three years and nothing happened? Unbelievable.”
Looking very firmly down at the floor, Jeanne let out a quiet, “I uh, don’t know what to say to that, sorry…”
Vera leaned back again in her seat, “Oh don’t apologize, not to me anyway. Have the two of you spoken at all since the breakup?”
Jeanne sheepishly shakes her head, “Well, I’ve been trying to keep in touch but uh, no, she hasn’t answered any of my calls… or read any of my messages.”
Vera let out a sigh in response, “I guess that ship has sailed then, which is a real shame. You know I really liked having her around? She always had a funny anecdote, or some cool recipe to share, really helped make this feel more like a neighbourhood than an apartment block you know?”
Jeanne stammers out a surprisingly passionate, or perhaps desperate, “Well I mean, it can’t be over just like that right? Sure it’s been a couple of months since I’ve last seen or talked with her, but we’ve been friends for years! I just, I just need to keep in touch, and we can work things out again. I mean this isn’t even the first time this happened!”
Vera looked a little uncomfortable as she tried to tamp down Jeanne’s aspirations with, “Ehhh, I wouldn’t get your hopes up, if she ever feels like talking to you again she will, but aren’t you basically just harassing her by this point?”
“Well I mean uh,” Jeanne blinked, as her mind finally caught up with her mouth.
Vera coughed, before she continued with, “Look, just give her some space alright? You have other things to worry about anyway.”
“Like what?” Jeanne asked.
Vera squinted at Jeanne, before she said, “The tall German or something woman who’s completely your type who moved in next door and seems interested in you? You know, the one you stayed with for the entire night apparently?”
“Helena is…” there was a brief pause, as Jeanne’s mind scrambled to describe what she thought about her in normal sounding enough terms, “I’ll be honest she’s terrifying,”
“Oh? Go on…” Vera said, her interest clearly piqued.
Only to be met with the blunt force of Jeanne’s almost panicked sounding rant, “I’m not even sure how to describe it, she’s just, intense? Unreal? Like, how often do you meet people like her around? I’m not just talking about her looks alright? Although that’s part of it because she’s just… She had a sewing machine in her apartment! She says that she uses it to sew all of her own clothes, who does that these days? And all of the pies in last night’s party? She said she made all of them herself? How? When would she have the time for that? And I still can’t believe someone like her would even, well ok I guess she did tell me why she wanted to talk to me but it’s a little uh, I mean its ridiculous alright?”
Vera took a sip from a glass of water near her, and simply asked, “What? Does she just like chubby Asian soccer mom looking women or something?”
“Uh, what? No she uh,” Jeanne stopped to think for a moment, before she finally settled on, “I guess you could call her a fan of my work?”
Vera chuckled in response, “Oh, small world huh? I guess that’s just one of the perks of being an internet famous writer.”
Jeanne raised an eyebrow in response, “I guess? But that’s a little… wait actually how do you know that I write Unchained Hearts anyway? It’s not exactly an open secret.”
Vera steepled her fingers in response, leaning in close enough to almost press against them as she explained, “Oh in one of your social media posts from January you took a picture of a cone of hazelnut toffee ice cream you had bought during a rare outing didn’t you?”
Jeanne blinked, “Uh, what does that have to do with anything?”
Vera started to smile in an off-putting way, “While you took the time to properly cut the wrapping’s logo out of frame, what you didn’t know is that the red and brown object barely visible in the blurry background was still readily identifiable as a fountain that I remember was a popular date spot in the year 2019!”
“Wait wait, the fountain? How did you find me from a fountain?”
“The brand colors Jeanne, the colors of the wrapping paper around the cone matched an ice cream brand with a store in that very same street. And since your post noted that your editor loves to buy ice cream here I simply waited every day for a week until I finally saw Widya and struck up a conversation that allowed me to put two and two together just as planned.”
Jeanne simply sat there, for a moment, her mouth agape until she finally managed to stammer out a, “Ar-are you serious?”
Vera chuckled, and leaned back into her seat as she said, “No I’m ju-.”
Jeanne cuts her off again with a, “Holy shit do you know how bad this is? If a single picture could do that then doesn’t that mean I’d have to take everything down?”
Vera seemed a little concerned when she tried and once again failed to interject with, “Jeanne I was jus-”
Only to be cut off by Jeanne thinking out loud with, “Especially if you could, I mean no offense but if all it took for you was waiting until you got lucky then who else should I worry about?”
Vera tilted her head slightly, before conceding with, “Well okay maybe you should be more careful about this but Jean-”
Which did nothing to stop Jeanne from cutting her off again with a frantic, “Should I move? I mean she managed to track me down as well right? The two of you have been, okay maybe one of you have been nice about it so far but what if another weirdo shows up at my front door or sends me a weird package or something, how would I even sto-”
Vera reached out to grab onto Jeanne’s shoulder, before she half said half shouted, “Jeanne! Jeanne! I was just messing with you! Widya told me that you write for a living, but I didn’t know what you wrote until you told me! I just thought you two were a nice lesbian couple or something honestly!”
Jeanne blinked before letting out a flat, “What.”
Vera shrugged as she continued with, “Yeah. But really, you should stop posting personal pictures if you’re trying to remain anonymous though. I’m not joking here, did you know that a Japanese celebrity almost got stabbed to death a few years ago when a deranged fan spotted a building in a reflection in her eye or something? That’s messed up right? And it could happen to you if you’re not careful.”
Jeanne had a weird expression on her face as she tried to process all of that, squirming slightly in place in relative silence for a while until she finally said, “I uh, thanks, but look, putting that aside. How am I even supposed to deal with her then?”
Vera squinted at Jeanne as she replied,“What? Your fan? Helena? I mean, is she underaged? Are you coercing her with booze or violence or promises of wealth and power or appearances in your friend’s shows or something?”
Jeanne scoffed before replying with, “No? Of course not!”
Vera shrugged, “Then what’s the problem?“
Jeanne thought for a moment, as she tried to think of a normal way to put it, “Well, what if I’m just not good enough for her? What if she has uh, unrealistic expectations of me and where I should want to take things?”
Vera scoffed, “Sounds like you’ll need to talk things over with her to figure all that out then, you know, like you probably should have with Widya.”
Jeanne looked away for a moment, “Uh, well it’s not really the same as uh, nevermind.”
There was a brief moment of silence, as Jeanne looked down at her phone to check on the delivery, only for her to let out a sudden curse, “Great, the restaurant cancelled on us, would have been nice if there was an actual notification for this sort of thing but I guess not.”
Vera shrugged, “Happens, I guess if you’re still fine with porridge there’s always that other place, Bubur Sumber Bersama or something, weird name but it's about as okay I guess.”
Just before Jeanne could respond, or even type in the other restaurant’s name, her phone shudders in her hand as she receives a message from an unmarked contact that simply read, “Good morning Jeanne, did any of your alarms work? If they did, would you mind having breakfast with me today? We have a lot to talk about,” alongside a profile picture that showed a very familiar looking woman smiling down at the camera.
It raised a lot of questions, such as ‘how did she get this number?’, ‘why is she asking me this?’, ‘and just what did I do last night to deserve this?’, but the only one she bothered to ask out loud was, “Hey Vera, what should I do if she asks me out for breakfast?”
Vera blinked, before she suddenly stood up and bluntly stated, “Leave, just go, now. Tell her you’re coming and get ready, just don’t even apologize to me, just go!”
“Uh well, are you sure? I mean we kind of already made pla-” Jeanne stammered out, before Vera immediately cut her off with, “If you insist on sticking around just to buy me something to eat for breakfast I will chuck that thing straight into the trash you hear me? Straight into the trash. If you’re too scared of messing up or too tired to turn on the charm as much as you think you’d need to, that's fine! Just don’t pretend that you’re blowing her off for my sake!”
Jeanne looked intensely uncomfortable as she squirmed in place for a moment, before she let out a weird but frustrated seeming sound and finally stood up as well, “I, okay! Okay! But if she eats me or turns me into a trashcan or something when I mess up it’s all on you okay?”
Vera scoffed, already moving forward to try and nudge Jeanne towards the door, “A trashcan? Jeanne, Jeanne, she chose to hang out with you for the whole night over everyone else in that party, I really don’t think you could mess this up even if you tried. Now get out of here, before you change your mind.”
“You’d be surprised,” Jeanne said, even as she willingly follows along, pacing a little in place as Vera sets to work with opening both doors.
“I’m sure I will,” Vera said, as she swung the security door out, “But hey, thank you for visiting alright? And for coming to last night’s party, even if you did spend most of it eating.”
“Well uh, you’re welcome?” Jeanne noted, as she stepped out into the hall again, and spared a glance back at Vera and her little home.
“I guess I am. Goodbye Jeanne, tell me all about it later okay?” Vera said, as she moved to close the security door behind her.
“Uh, yeah, goodbye,” Jeanne said, before she took a deep breath, and took the first few steps towards Helena’s door while using her hands to smoothen the creases in her black shirt in a vain attempt to feel a little less underdressed and underprepared, even as she pointedly walked past her own without a single thought of stopping.