Page 60 of Sweeper
Me: This hot girl I met recommended them to me. I’m trying to impress her.
Daphney: Why are you buttering me up? I already agreed to be your neighbor with benefits.
Me: Can I reap some of those benefits tonight?
Daphney: I’m afraid not. I’m working at Old George.
Me: Well, if you have some free time this week, let me know. I want to do this bus tour thing, and I need you to be my tour guide.
Daphney: Those buses come with a tour guide.
Me: Yeah, but you can give me the stuff they don’t cover in Bridget Jones’s Diary. ;) Whatcha say, Ducky?
Daphney: Very well, Soccer Boy. I’m free Tuesday after 4.
Me: Perfect. I’ll pick you up.
Daphney
It’s Tuesday at 3:50 when I hear a light knock on my door. “Keep going,” I tell my niece Marisa as she sits at my keyboard, playing through the lesson I assigned her last week.
I tiptoe behind her and hurry to the door. “You’re early,” I say to Zander as I peer through my cracked door.
He frowns. “Who’s playing your piano?”
“My niece. She has ten minutes left for her lesson. Just go back to yours, and I’ll come get you when we’re done.”
I move to close the door, and he holds his hand out to stop me. “Can I watch?”
“Watch me give my seven-year-old niece a piano lesson? No!” I hiss.
“Come on,” he whispers as his eyes dance with interest. “I can already hear her through the wall. I’ll be as quiet as a mouse.”
“Too soon for mouse references,” I grumble under my breath because I still haven’t caught that vile creature. He’s leaving signs of his existence in the building, too. I roll my eyes and open the door. “You can come in but don’t say a word. I don’t want her distracted.”
He smiles victoriously and walks quietly behind me. I point at the sofa for him to sit, grateful that Marisa is still focusing on her music. We don’t need to waste time with introductions. She already talked to me for the first ten minutes of her lesson about her difficulty with pooing at school. I honestly sympathized with the poor girl.
I sit back down on the chair next to the piano bench and cringe when Marisa accidentally hits two notes beside each other. “Okay, Marisa, look at your hands. What’s wrong with them?”
She exhales heavily and blows a strand of her auburn hair off her face. “I don’t know, Auntie D.”
“Yes, you do. Remember you should curve your hands like a little old lady, right?” I crook my voice up into the best impression I can muster of my grandmother. “Show me your granny hands, and be sure to add in a proper granny voice, too.”
Marisa giggles and holds her hands up to me. “How’s this, my pretty?”
“That’s a little Wicked Witch of the West, but it’s close enough! Let’s try again.”
Marisa smiles as she resumes the sheet music in front of her, and I can’t help but glance over my shoulder at Zander. The expression on his face isn’t exactly what I’d call amusement. I’m not sure what I’d call it, but it’s making the hairs on the back of my neck stand.
When Marisa finishes, I tap her on the shoulder and point my thumb behind me. “Did you know you had a professional footballer watching you play just now?”
Marisa’s green eyes go wide as she turns around on the piano bench to see Zander. She blinks curiously at him. “He doesn’t look like a footballer.”
I laugh at that very candid response. “What does he look like?”
Her nose wrinkles. “He looks like he could be a house cleaner? It is quite messy in here, so if he is your cleaner, I don’t think he’s doing a very good job.”
“Oh, you cheeky rascal!” I reach out to tickle her sides, and her giggles are music to my ears. “My flat is clean enough.”
