All I want is a little solace on my terrace before my day starts. Is that too much to ask for--enjoy a cup of coffee and peruse a two day old Times? A screeching blue jay interrupts my reverie. Suddenly, my terrace turns into Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom with Huey, the tabby, attempting to leap where no cat has leapt before.
Well, this sunny morning, another repetitive noise was interrupting my solitude, (besides the bird, my kids, and my inner voice saying "get up off your butt and work").
"Hello! Hello! Anyone? I need help. Can anyone hear me?" My terrace is on the fifth floor. I can see a few other terraces from my perch, but no people. If I peer over the bamboo fence, I can spy into neighbor's backyards to the south of me. The voice seems to be coming from down there somewhere. The woman may have been making this request a few times and I just tucked it into my subconscious. Eventually, her words drown out the Trump and Hillary debacle that is catching my attention in the paper. I jump up and peer down. I do not want a Kitty Genovese incident in my neighborhood. I spy a blond woman, walking around her nicely appointed garden. Maybe sometime she'll invite me down for a drink.
"Yes, up here." I feel the need to yell since she's five stories below me.
"I've locked myself out. Can you call my husband for me?"
"What's going on out here?" A woman in the building adjacent to mine opens her window and asks. "Someone has locked themselves out," I answer. Was she getting ready to respond, I wonder.
"Let me get my phone." Luckily, it isn't a sweltering 95 degrees, but a balmy 85 and cloudy.
As she shouts out the number, I'm amazed at how 9's sound like 5's and how my mild, self-diagnosed dyslexia could be a problem here. The sixty vertical feet between us doesn't help either.
After a couple wrong numbers and confusion with strangers on the phone, I get the correct husband, but only to leave a message. Who doesn't respond to an unknown phone number? Really!
I shout to my stranded neighbor that I'll continue calling. She's grateful and calm. After our challenging number exchange, she probably believes I'm partially deaf.
On my fourth try, the husband's curiosity wins out. I explain who I am and why I'm calling. He doesn't seemed overly alarmed. Maybe it has happened before and someone else had come to her rescue.
"Hello!" I shout downward a couple hours later. No response. Apparently, her husband made it home. I pat myself on the back. A good deed accomplished and I didn't even leave my apartment!
Later that night, I turn on the Alfred Hitchcock hour on TV. Grace Kelly and Jimmy Stewart grace the screen in Rear Window. I suddenly feel like a third character in Jimmmy's apartment as we three (Jimmy, Grace and me) wonder if the shifty husband across the way murdered his wife.
A tense hour later, I turn off the TV and close my curtains over the sliding glass door leading to the terrace. I think about my blond neighbor.
I think I'll take my morning coffee at Starbucks.
