Even though she knew it was coming, Sydney nearly jumped out of her skin when the door buzzer sounded.
She pressed the button on her apartment's intercom panel and leaned close before speaking into it. "Hello?"
"Hi, this is Samantha with Bexley Cable. I'm here to install your modem."
Sydney buzzed her in and then retreated to the sofa. She turned sideways, feet up on the cushions, and stared at the door. A few minutes later someone knocked. She got up and walked over, unlocked the door but left the chain on, then cracked the door open a few inches.
A tall red haired woman peaked through the opening. "Are you Sydney Rossiter?" she asked.
"Yeah. That's me."
"I'm Samantha. I'm here to install your modem."
"Sure. I was expecting you. Well, not you specifically, but someone from Bexley." That was a dumb thing to say, Sydney thought. She struggled for different words that better reflected her true intellectual capacity. Nothing came to mind.
"I'll need to do that from inside the apartment," Samantha stated.
"Oh. Right." Sydney stepped back, took several deep breaths, then unchained the door and opened it. Samantha was wearing jeans, a tool belt, and a blue jacket with the Bexley logo on it. A cardboard box was tucked under one arm, and she held something like an oversized multimeter in her other hand. Sydney stepped back and gave a little nod with her head to indicate she should come in.
"Nice place," Samantha observed as she entered, "reminds me of my college apartment. To bad about the carpet, though. I bet there's some gorgeous wood floors under that. Probably red oak from up state. All these old buildings were made with that."
Sydney retreated to the sofa. "I think you're right. You can see some of it in the closet. No carpet in there."
Samantha grinned. "I knew it."
"I asked my landlord if I could pull it up. The carpet that is. He said no. Wood floors are too expensive to maintain, he said. He would rather just replace cheap carpeting."
"Bummer. That's why I finally bought my own place. I can redo my floors in decoupage and nobody can stop me."
"You did that?"
"Oh god no. But I could if I wanted to, that's the point."
Sydney couldn't think what to say. She was still trying to imagine what decoupage floors would look like. How would you walk on it?
"Well, anyway, I should probably install this modem. Where does your cable come in?"
Sydney pointed. "Over there. Next to the desk. I haven't used it in several years."
"No worries. I'll do a continuity test before we hook up." She set the cardboard box on the desk, then scooped up the end of the coax cable and attached it to a connector on the multimeter-like gadget. She tapped furiously at the gadget's keys while staring intently at its LCD screen.
"Would you like some tea?" Sydney asked not out of politeness but as a reason to retreat to the kitchen nook. It was farther away from the desk area.
"Mmm. Tea. Yeah, that'd be nice." Samantha didn't look up from the gadget.
Sydney got up and headed for the kitchen but noticed her door was still open. Should she close it? If she left it open, anyone could wander in. But if she closed it, she would have no easy escape route. She resolved to close but not lock the door and take a chance that Samantha would not suddenly turn into a raving psychopath.
"I don't normally do these residential installs," Samantha declared.
"Oh really?" Sydney poured boiling water into the tea mugs and prepared herself for Samantha's psychopathic transformation.
"They mostly have me working the backhaul network these days. This must have been some sort of major rush job for field maintenance to throw it over the wall like that."
"Yeah. Rush job. It was definitely one of those."
"So what do you do exactly, if you don't mind me asking."
"Software development mostly. Technology consulting more broadly. I've got a wide skill set."
"Jack of all trades. I'm sorta like that too. I've worked at a little bit of everything. Was a barista before going into networking." Samantha's expression became distant. "You meet some weird people in coffee houses."
Sydney took the tea bags out of the mugs and threw them away, then realized she probably hadn't steeped them long enough. No going back now. "Would you like anything in your tea? Milk? Sugar? Honey?"
"Honey would be nice."
Sydney dripped a bit of honey into her guest's tea and poured some milk in her own. She walked slowly with the tea mugs. "Here you go."
Samantha took a cautious sip. "Mmm. That's good."
"I made it too weak."
"Well, I wasn't going to say anything."
Sydney retreated toward the sofa, nearly tripping over Zoe on the way. "Damn it cat, are you trying to kill me?" A splash of tea escaped her mug.
"Kitty!" Samantha crouched down and extended a hand toward Zoe. The cat approached, sniffed, then flopped onto her side and demanded chin scritches. Samantha obliged.
"That's Zoe. She was probably hiding under the sofa. That's where she usually retreats to when people come over. Pixel is probably under there too, though honestly I've no idea where he disappears to sometimes. You wouldn't think he could hide in a place this small, but somehow he does."
"I had a cat growing up. He was the best." Samantha looked thoughtful for a moment. "I should get a cat again."
"Anything stopping you?"
"I used to live in an apartment that didn't allow pets, but I've had my own house for over a year now, so I guess I've got no excuse." She took a long sip from her tea. "Yes. I'm going to get a cat."
"Get two. They'll amuse each other when you're not around."
"Does that really work?"
"I don't know. I was told that, but I suspect Zoe just torments Pixel until he hides somewhere. Maybe the shelter was just trying to clear their inventory or something."
Samantha's multimeter gadget chirped. She turned her attention from the cat to the device. "Looks like your cable's continuity is good. Minimal attenuation. I can finish up here." She pulled a cable modem from the cardboard box and began connecting it. "This unit's got four Ethernet ports but no WiFi. I hope that's OK. It's all I had in the van."
"That's fine. I've got a hub here somewhere."
Samantha finished tinkering with the modem. "There you go. Go ahead and try it before I leave. It's configured to provide addresses via DHCP by default, but you can log into its admin page via any web browser and set up static addressing."
Sydney unplugged her laptop's Ethernet from the DSL modem and moved it to the new cable modem. She tested the connection by downloading the latest Linux kernel image. She was uncomfortably aware of Samantha looking over her shoulder. "Huh."
"Something wrong?" Samantha asked.
"No. I thought there was, but it's working. It just finished so quickly I assumed it failed."
"Well then, I should probably get going. Thanks for the tea." She gave Zoe a final scratch and collected up her things. At the door, she turned and said, "It was really nice meeting you Sydney, and... I hope you don't mind me saying this... you seem like maybe you're going through something right now. Whatever it is, I just want you to know I'm sure you'll get through it."
Sydney just nodded her head in response. She considered answering, saying she was fine, but feared what sort of noise might escape if she opened her mouth.
"Well, I'm off then. Maybe we'll run into each other around the neighborhood. I'm in the coffee shop down the street all the time. It's where I used to work." Samantha turned and trudged away down the hall. Sydney closed the door with more force than she intended, locked and bolted it, then fled to her reading chair. She scooped up Zoe and held her to her chest, then took deep breaths until her heartbeat slowed.
"I'm fine, it's fine, it's all fine," she muttered to Zoe. Zoe affirmed this assessment by purring.