Page 31 of The Woman in 3B
We hadn’t done anything untoward in that Philadelphia hotel room, but if not for my cowardice, we could have. How many others had been in my position? How many others hadn’t turned her away?
The front door swung open.
I took only a moment to register the familiar face before unleashing my frustration: “You have kids?” I hissed. My hands were balled into tight fists at my sides in barely contained anger. “Does this mean you have a husband, too?”
If I hadn’t been a coil of hot anger, I would have felt sorry for her. I’d ambushed her, showing up unexpectedly at her front door, not completely unlike what she’d done to me in Philadelphia.
Anissa took a few steps outside and closed the front door behind her. “Alice? What are you doing here?”
My gaze took in her swimwear coverup. The patterned, brightly colored material looked like a kimono or short robe that was open in the front. My eyes quickly traveled to her tan, bare legs, down to her flip-flops and manicured toenails. Her long, dark hair was pulled back in a messy bun. Mirrored sunglasses were perched on her forehead. She modestly pulled close the front of the coverup.
She’d ignored my questions, so I ignored hers.
“Iheardthem, Anissa. There’s children in your backyard.”
“Yeah. My nieces and nephews,” she explained. “I don’t have kids. No husband either.”
I didn’t believe her. “But this house!” I flailed my arms at my sides. “It’senormous!”
“I live here alone,” she insisted. “I like my space. It’s why I always purchase seats 3A and 3B together.”
Her revelation made me pause. I thought back to my Wednesday flights. Had anyone been sitting in the seat beside her? I couldn’t recall; I’d been so distracted by her, there might as well have been no one else on the entire flight.
I realized I’d been staring, probably slack-jawed.
She crossed her arms across her chest. “Now why don’t you explain what you’re doing out here?”
Her voice was alarmingly calm despite my unsolicited visit.
“You-you forgot this in your seatback pocket.”
I produced the tablet that had been my flimsy excuse to drive to her home.
The sharpness to her features softened.“You could have given it to me on Wednesday.”
“I thought you might be worried you’d lost it.”
She shook her head. “You didn’t need to come all this way. You could have called. You somehow found my home address. Couldn’t you have found my phone number, too?”
My eyes dropped to the curb, and I chewed on my lower lip. I wanted to tell her the truth—that I’d wanted to see her. But the truth felt too forward, too insane.
“Well, since you’re here, you might as well stay for the barbeque.”
Her words had me returning my eyes to her level. “Oh, I don’t want to interrupt your family time.”
“Nonsense. You’re here. And there’s plenty of food. Come in, Alice.”
Despite my earlier words of hesitance, I followed her inside. A blast of air conditioned air greeted me as I entered her home.
A carpeted staircase in the entryway led to the second floor. An office space separated from the rest of the house by French doors was on my left. A formal dining room was set up on my right. I spied a large rectangular dining table surrounded by at least eight high-backed chairs.
The front foyer was open and spacious, but a chaotic pile of little shoes cluttered the space around the door.
“My nieces and nephews like to leave their stuff everywhere,” she explained, noticing where my eyes had lingered.
Anissa continued to walk deeper into her home and I felt compelled to follow. The sounds of shrieking children grew louder the farther inside we went.
The front half of the house consisted of tidy, defined rooms; the back half opened up into one large, lofted space that included both the kitchen and a sunken living room. A large flat-screen television hung above the mantle of a gas fireplace. The vaulted ceilings had to be at least twenty feet high. Twin ceiling fans rotated the refrigerated air.
