Chapter 1

Ethan was only a few months out of college when he finally landed a decent job. He'd been working part-time and living at home while he was job-shopping for a 'career' position that was somehow related to his studies as a Marketing major.

He had been applying for many positions in different locations, and it was a great relief when he'd been offered and accepted a position in the marketing department for a large pharmaceutical company. It was a great load off his mind for a number of reasons, but primarily because it would get his old man off his back, he'd make some decent money and he could afford to get out of his parents' house once and for all. After four years living on his own while away at school, living back at home had become a major pain in the ass.

The job he'd accepted was in a city about three hours from where his parents lived. On the Saturday before the Monday he was to begin work he loaded up his fifteen year-old Volvo wagon with all of his stuff and was ready to drive to his new city. The plan was to get a cheap hotel room at first and he would scope out the local area for a place to rent. He was hoping to find a reasonable place that was furnished.

His mother Margot came out to his car to say goodbye. His dad was off playing golf.

"Now, drive safely, Ethan, and call me when you get settled in and let us know where you're staying," Margot said. "And I'll scope around on-line for some rentals and I'll send you any that look interesting."

"Okay Mom, thanks. I'm sure I'll be able to find something before too long. If not I'll just pick up a chick in a bar and go home with her!"

"Oh, stop! I'm sure a tall, handsome young man like you would have no trouble doing so, but I hope it doesn't come to that!"

"Don't worry, Mom, it'll work out," Ethan said, and hugged her. "Goodbye, and say bye to Dad for me."

----

Ethan drove the three hours and checked into a Red Roof Inn about a mile from his office. After getting situated in his room he called Margot as requested and then went out to eat. His plan was to get a Sunday paper and drive around to learn the area. Then on Monday morning he'd start his orientation and training.

----

A couple days later Margot was on the phone with her friend Claire, who lived a couple blocks away with her husband Greg and their two children. Margot was forty-two, and although Claire was seven years younger, they got along well and shared many of the same interests. They'd met at the country club, played tennis regularly, and socialized quite a bit.

Margot told Claire about Ethan's new job in the city and his need to find a place to live.

"You know something, Margot?" Claire said. "My mother lives not far from there. And she has a good-sized property with a pool and a garden and an outbuilding that is an old garage but it has a nice little apartment above it. My father used it as a studio before he died.

"Anyway," she continued, "We've encouraged her to rent it out, just to have somebody else around, but she never has because she didn't want to risk getting some lunatic in there and then she couldn't get them out! But it would be perfect for one person."

"Really?" Margot said excitedly. "Do you think she'd rent it to Ethan?"

"She might, I'll ask her. It's full of junk and will need some cleaning up, but it's a nice little place. It has a kitchenette and bathroom and one extra-large room. And it's only ten or twelve minutes from downtown."

"Wow, that sounds great. And it would save him a lot of stress too, I'm sure!"

"I'll call her tonight. I think she might go for it, I will encourage her to, anyway. I'd feel better knowing she had someone else around. Plus she knows you, so that should help. It will probably come down to whether or not she really wants somebody around."

----

Claire called back that night and told Margot that she'd talked to her mother and she was open to the idea of renting to Ethan, but she wanted to meet him and interview him first before making a decision. Margot agreed that that made perfect sense, she would do the same.

"My mother said to have Ethan call her and they'll arrange a time for him to come over. I think it might work out, Ethan always makes a good impression." She gave Margot her mother's cell number.

"Oh, that's wonderful, Claire! I'll call Ethan right away, I'm sure he'll be ecstatic. He's been so busy with the new job I know he was not looking forward to apartment hunting."

They said their goodbyes and hung up and Margot immediately called Ethan's cell phone. He didn't pick up, which was absolutely normal for him, but she left a specific message and he called back in a few minutes. He said thank you very much, and to please thank Claire too. He said he'd call in the morning.

Chapter 2

Ethan made the call the next morning and left a voicemail. She called back around lunchtime. He recognized the number.

"Hello, is this Miss Lena?" he answered.

"Why, yes it is, but please, just 'Lena' will do. Formalities are not necessary. Is this Ethan?"

"Yes," he said.

"My daughter tells me you just started a new job nearby and need to find a place to live."

"Yes, that's right. I just started Monday and I'm staying in a hotel until I find something. Your place sure sounds convenient." He went on to tell her all about the new job he'd landed.

"Well, I have a small apartment above the old garage. It's not much, and will need to be cleaned out, but it would work for a single person. I've thought about renting it for some time but just never seemed to get around to it. And of course, I need to make sure I have a good tenant!"

"I assure you, Lena, I would be an ideal tenant. I'll pay my rent on time and you'll probably hardly hear a peep out of me; they will have me working pretty long and hard at the office for the foreseeable future!"

"You sound like a bright young man. Your employer has a reputation for hiring the sharpest young recruits. Why don't you come over and we can talk and I will show you the place. How about tomorrow evening?"

Ethan said that would be fine. He was excited with the possibility, unless the place turned out to be a dump. With a little luck he might have a place by the weekend.

----

They had set it up for seven p.m. With Daylight Savings Time in effect, there would be plenty of daylight left in which to see the place. Ethan found the property easily. It was much larger than he'd expected, perhaps two acres or close to that. There was a long driveway leading up to an old, brick ranch house. There was an attached two-car garage, and he could see another building about fifty yards behind the house. It was two stories with bay doors. He figured that was where the apartment was.

He rang the bell. Lena answered the door promptly.

"You must be Ethan!" she said enthusiastically.

"That's me. And you must be Lena!"

"The only and only! Come on in and let's sit by the pool and get acquainted. I have a pitcher of iced tea!"

Ethan followed her. She looked much younger than he expected, and he was quite surprised by how attractive she was. He knew Claire was a few years younger than his own mother, and Lena had to be in her mid-fifties anyway, but she looked ten or fifteen years younger than that. She was maybe five-five, with a healthy, sturdy look. Her hair was shoulder-length, light brown with a narrow streak of gray. You could tell she took care of herself. She wore blue denim cut-offs, had a shapely butt, and her white t-shirt hugged her upper body. Her breasts weren't large, but were perky.

"Please forgive me for the way I look," Lena said. "I spent some time working in the garden when I got home from work."

They walked out onto the screened lanai and sat in lawn chairs while Lena poured tea. Ethan glanced around at the kidney-shaped pool, at the fountain of water splashing into it, and at the adjacent hot tub.

"You have a beautiful home!" Ethan said.

"Oh, thank you, Ethan. It's kind of big for just one person though, and a lot of work!"

"And it looks like your garden is pretty big!" He could see it out back and it looked huge.

"Yes, that's a hobby of mine. I love to garden and I love seeing it grow and then picking the vegetables and canning them. I eat my own vegetables all year long! I rarely have to buy a vegetable at a grocery store."

They made idle chatter for a few minutes while they sipped their drinks. Ethan liked Lena already, she was very down-to-Earth and easy to talk to, which didn't really surprise him because Claire was the same way. But he was very relieved that they were already so relaxed with one another.

"So, would you like to see the apartment? Lena asked.

"Yes, I would love to."

"Okay, let's go." As they walked Lena told him what to expect.

"Now, don't expect too much, Ethan. It's a mess and needs a thorough cleaning, so I hope you can see past that. It's full of junk, most of which can be moved downstairs into the garage, and some I'm sure can be thrown out. But it has a full bath, a small kitchenette, a nice-sized closet and a very large room. And there are a few pieces of furniture which you are welcome to use, although you will need to bring your own bed.

They reached the building and climbed the outdoor stairway to the second floor. They entered the apartment, and it was about as good as Ethan could have hoped for. True, it was full of stuff that had to be moved—stacked boxes, old exercise equipment, record albums, odds and ends—but it would more than suffice for his needs. There was small sofa and chair, end table, and a table with three chairs. The kitchen was equipped with a sink, small fridge, a two-burner stove, microwave and toaster oven. There was a large walk-in closet—also full of stuff—and a small bathroom with a shower stall.

"You can see why I put off renting it!" Lena said. "It will be a lot of work cleaning it out!"

"I can take care of that," Ethan said.

"I will need to determine what gets tossed and what gets stored downstairs. And it needs a top-to-bottom scrubbing!"

"I'd love to rent it from you, Lena! How much?"

She gave him a number which seemed more than reasonable.

"The utilities are on the same meter as the house, but it shouldn't be that much, so I won't worry about that unless it gets out of hand. And you can help out in the garden."

"Okay, that sounds fine. But I don't know anything about gardening."

"Can you pull weeds?"

"Sure, I can pull weeds."

"Can you turn on the hose?"

"Yes."

"Fine, you're hired. The place is yours."

"Oh, thank you, Lena, thank you. What a relief. You won't be sorry!"

"Glad to have you, neighbor. Come over Saturday morning and we'll get to work. We could have you in by Sunday night."

Chapter 3

Ethan arrived at eight a.m. Saturday and Lena was already in the apartment filling boxes and green garbage bags with loose items that were sitting around. Ethan carried the bags and boxes down the stairs to the garage and stacked the keepers on a pallet and the disposables in the far corner closest to the bay door. Then he started carrying down the stationary bike, a small treadmill and boxes of record albums.

Lena started looking through the stacked boxes one by one to see what was in them. Then she told Ethan which ones were to go on the pallet and which ones were to go in the corner. Much of the stuff belonged to her kids and they would have to come and deal with that in the future.

This took a few hours. When all the boxes and other miscellany had been removed, and all that remained was the furniture Ethan planned to utilize, it was almost one o'clock and Lena announced it was time for lunch. They went to the house, washed up, and she served a huge salad—all from her garden—tuna sandwiches and iced tea. They ate ravenously and soon were back to work.

The walk-in closet was full of boxes too, and garment bags on hangers. While Ethan carried the garment bags down to the garage, Lena went through the boxes one by one and determined that they were all papers and items related to her husband's business, which had been defunct for a few years since his death. By the time Ethan had carried them all down to the garage and piled them with the disposables, it was getting to be late afternoon.

"Well, it looks like we got quite a lot done today!" Lena exclaimed as she removed the sheet covering the sofa and plopped down.

"We sure did," Ethan said, sitting down beside her. "Thank you so much. You worked hard!"

"So did you. But I've been meaning to clear this stuff out for ages. I'm glad you came along; I appreciate the help."

"If it's okay, I'll come by tomorrow morning and clean," he said. It's really not bad at all, just windows and floor and kitchen and bathroom."

"That's fine, you can move in tomorrow," she said, and walked to the kitchen and handed him a key. "I'll worry about getting rid of the junk downstairs some other time."

Ethan took the key and followed Lena out the door and down the stairs. They walked past the garden to the side of the house.

"Thank you, Lena. I appreciate what you're doing for me and I look forward to being neighbors."

He hugged her before he got into his car and drove off.

----

Ethan showed up Sunday morning with his cleaning supplies and got to work. He knocked down a few cobwebs, and then cleaned the kitchen counter and cabinets. Then the bathroom, which wasn't too bad: the commode needed a good scrubbing but shower looked like it had rarely been used. He mopped the floors. The windows were the worst; they looked like they'd never been cleaned and were covered with years of grime. But after a few hours he was done, and more than pleased with the result.

He was walking to his car to start moving all of his things into the apartment when he saw Lena on her knees in the garden. He waved and walked over.

"How's the cleaning coming, Ethan?" Lena called.

"All done. Going to move my stuff in now," he said, admiring her thriving garden, lush growth in what had been a very dry summer. "Man, Lena, your garden is amazing! Dry season we've had, most gardens are barely hanging on and yours is flourishing! How do you do it?"

"Pig shit!" Lena said.

"What?" Ethan said, laughing. It was funny hearing her curse.

"Pig shit. That's the secret. That plus weeding and watering. Most people spend small fortunes on fancy fertilizers and sacks of cow manure and miracle this and that. Me, I call this old farmer friend of mine and he brings over a big truckload of pig manure—he loves having someplace to get rid of it—and dumps it here. And I shovel it and till it and plant and weed and water and this is what you get. Hell, sometimes I grow things I didn't even plant!"

"Wow, that's one I never heard before."

"You heard it here first!"

"So when I'm weeding the garden I'll be kneeling in pig shit?"

"Yep, so don't wear your Sunday best!"

Ethan laughed and said, "Well, I'm going to unload my car and move my stuff in. Tomorrow when I get home from work I'll do some weeding."

"We all need something to look forward to!" she said.