Behind any good story is a good cast of characters. The characters grow and develop, showing shades of their true selves in small encounters along the way. Well, the characters in my neighborhood do the same—we just show shades of ourselves through nods, smiles, and broken French … and sometimes frosted partitions.
There is a really nice older woman who lives in our building. Actually, I don’t even know her name. I just call her Madame and that seems to work. I first met her not long after moving in when I was still wearing my daughter Addi in the Baby Bjorn when walking Tycho (my dog). She must have been checking her mail because she held the door open for me in the vestibule. Madame smiled and cooed to the baby. Even though I didn’t understand a lick of French, I knew she was nice. Friend, not foe. You can just tell, even though I didn’t understand the words. Madame would launch into a round of “Sshee, hheee, hoh, hoh” sprinkled with a “mon petite amour” in a distinct voice that she saved only for babies—and dogs.
We would ride the elevator together, bid each other a good day, and I was always left with a warm fuzzy feeling and the smell of her perfume. I don’t want to call it “old lady perfume” because I really like Madame, but, well … that’s just the best way to describe it. Very flowery—with impressive potency—it often lingers even when Madame is nowhere to be seen. I sometimes smell it in the elevator and know she has been there. If she went missing, I’d put a scratch-and-sniff of her perfume on a milk carton.
Now, again, I don’t want to be mean because I really do like Madame, but, I had a most unfortunate encounter with her recently. I was bouncing back from a crisp morning walk with Tycho when I caught a glimpse of Madame enjoying the beautiful morning on her terrace—her lower half blocked by the frosted glass. I tried to catch her attention to wave, when her phone rang and she stood up to answer it.
