808

Padding down the carpeted hallway in my socks, no one could have heard me coming. I was just walking down the hall to move my laundry from the washer to the dryer. No need for shoes. As I passed apartment 808 I heard a soft whimper. I paused and looked at the door. The whimpering built up to sobbing. I walked on to the laundry room. On my way back to my apartment I stopped again in front of apartment 808. I heard a female voice say, "But there's no one here and the test is positive." She was still crying. She must have been on the phone with someone. My heart went out to her, she sounded so scared. I would never have done it, but I wished I could have opened the door and given her a hug. In the following days I would blow a kiss at apartment 808 as I walked past and would hope that she could feel that someone was wishing her happiness, or at least courage.

And then, yesterday, as I was walking down the hall to the elevators, 808 stepped out of her apartment. She looks a lot like me. We're both young, white, brunettes. We got onto the elevator and smiled at one another. There was an awkward pause as the smiles faded and we both engrossed ourselves with the descending elevator numbers.
"Do you want a Jolly Rancher?" she asked.
"I'm sorry?" I turned my head to look at her.
"Do you want a Jolly Rancher?" she asked as she began to poke around in her purse, "I have red or green."
"Uh, green." and she handed me a green one, "Thanks" I said.
"What's your favorite color?" I asked.
"Hurm... I guess green too."
"Oh! Well, I don't want to take..." I trailed off as she waved her hand.
"Don't worry about it, I have tons at home."
The elevator *binged* and we stepped off into the lobby. I was the first one out the front doors and held them open for her. We smiled again and turned to walk in opposite directions.

***

It was 10 o'clock at night and I was coming back from the grocery store across the street. I had gone to the store for milk but ended up purchasing milk, orange juice, a bottle of iced tea and 2 bags of potato chips (buy one get one free). As I lumbered into the apartment building's lobby with my bags of groceries I spotted an older man staring at the community events bulletin board. He continued to stare at the board as I passed behind him and slipped onto the elevator. I set my bags down and punched number 8. Then I thought better of it and poked my head out the elevator. The man turned to look at me. "Going up?" I asked. He didn't say anything, just turned to board the elevator. He hit number 5. I smiled at him and he smiled back. He was also holding a grocery bag.
"You know, I went to the store for milk and I come home with all this!" I joked.
He smiled.
"I got dinner," he said as he raised his grocery bag and I saw that it held a six-pack.
We both laughed.
"See you," he said as he stepped out onto 5.

...