2nd Floor

Chapter 2

He had to admire Penny's dogged determination as she marched up the stairs, planting both feet firmly on each step before continuing. She barely even used the railing and didn't break a sweat. "So, Matt, what do you do besides the art?"

Matthias snorted. Oh how he would have loved to tell her that he was making money with his writing, but of course she knew better. "Overnight security guard."

"Hmmm, stimulating." Penny's cut him a sideways look and her smile was playful.

"Yeah. The only nice thing about it is that I come up with a lot of ideas while I'm sitting there watching a parking lot." Matthias paused and winced, "not that I have the time to write any of those ideas."

"If that's not life I don't know what is," Penny chortled. Then stopped at Matthias' landing so he could lean into his doorway and drop his laundry basket just inside. Stepping back onto the landing he nearly collided with Penny. He had expected her to keep going up the stairs. Instead she had stopped in front of Trav's door, her brow furrowed as a field.

"What's wrong?" Matthias locked his door and crossed to stand beside Penny. He thought he could just catch the sound of a TV, or maybe a youtube video seeing as Trav's TV was broken, playing beyond the thin wood.

"That kid... I don't know." Penny shook her head. She glanced up and must have caught Matthias' furrowed brow. "He's a good boy, he's just... he runs into trouble from time to time and this time-"

"He broke his leg and lost his job," Matthias filled in sympathetically.

"Right," Penny agreed, though her tone made Matthias think he'd been wrong about what she was going to say. "He's in a bad spot. Needs friends."

He thought of telling her that Trav had paid him an uninvited visit the other day, but it felt like he was reporting to a grandmother that he had played with the unpopular kid on the playground and was looking for some kind of reward for being nice. Instead he clasped his hands behind him to follow Penny up the stairs to the third floor. As he turned from Trav's door a little huff of air, as cold as the wind outside, tickled his cheek. He hesitated, eyes drawn to the crack between door and frame, but he didn't see anything so he walked on.

"Here we are. Make yourself at home." Penny ushered him into her apartment.

It was laid out similarly to Matthias' but where his was a barren expanse of dusty hardwood and open surfaces, here he immediately had to check his long-legged stride or knock into a side table cluttered with porcelain dogs. He inched artfully around the table and looked up, nose already filling with the homey odor of chicken soup and potpourri. He couldn't decide if he would describe the space as cluttered or more like a museum-- full, but everything in its place. He often described sights to himself as though he were writing on a page, but Penny's home was unclassifiable. Every surface was covered; the floors with patterned rugs, the furniture with colorful throws, the surfaces with a wild and disparate collection of knickknacks from floral teapots to stacks of books. He rounded her small TV, treading carefully past an overstuffed ottoman, scanning book titles as he went. Mostly classics, but his brows went up when he recognized a modern erotica title mingled with the Dickens and Bronte.

He achieved the couch and sat down. It was short, and his knees buckled up close to his chest. He'd always been long legged, but now he felt like a gangly spider.

Penny trundled to the stove, past her own kitchen island, every inch of which was covered in bottles and spices and stacks of canned food. Turned on the stove where a pot of soup already sat, awaiting heat and pulled out a step-stool to reach down some three bowls from a cupboard. Matthias wondered if he should help, but he felt like he was in the way just by being in her apartment so he kept his overlong limbs to himself.