Jenny Plague-Bringer(8)
The doorbell rang a third time. Jenny looked out again, feeling suspicious—though officially dead, she and Seth were actually on the run from the United States government. It was always possible someone had discovered they were alive and living in Paris.
The girl didn’t look like any kind of police or law enforcement, though. She looked no older than Jenny, with dark Mediterranean skin, deep auburn hair and sea-green eyes. Unlike most law enforcement officers, she wore a short choker dress with vivid purple designs. The bright dress was damped down by the long black coat she wore over it.
Despite her revealing dress, the girl also wore purple lace gloves that reached well up her forearms.
She rang the doorbell a fourth time, still not figuring out she was at the wrong apartment. She was probably just some random pretty airhead, Jenny decided, who couldn’t be bothered to read the door number.
Jenny pulled on her own gloves and opened the door, but not too far. The girl was in heels, too. She probably wasn’t here to capture Jenny. Jenny looked out at her, but didn’t say anything.
A bright smile had bloomed on the girl’s face as the door opened, but now it died. The girl’s mouth dropped open in confusion. That’s right, genius, Jenny thought. You’ve been annoying the wrong apartment.
“Bon jour,” the girl said, uncertainly.
“Bon jour,” Jenny replied.
The girl looked at her for a moment, then continued, hesitantly, speaking in French, but not with a native accent. “I am sorry. I am looking for a young man.”
A second possibility flared into Jenny’s mind, hot and angry. Maybe the girl didn’t have the wrong apartment. Maybe she did know Seth, and she was the kind of friend that Seth chose to keep secret from Jenny...
“What sort of young man?” Jenny asked.
“He is this tall or so.” The girl held a hand above her head. Jenny looked again at the lacy purple glove clinging to her fingers. “Blond, handsome, shoulders like this, a muscular build. Eyes are blue, like...” The girl gazed at Jenny’s eyes. “You must know him.”
Jenny shook her head. “You have the wrong address.”
“No, I am certain...” The girl pushed Jenny’s door open—quite rudely, Jenny thought—and took in their apartment with her strange, intense green eyes. “Yes. This is just as I have seen it.”
“Seen it when?” Jenny asked.
“It would make no sense to explain.” The girl shook her head. “I do not understand. Perhaps I am too early.”
“Too early for what?”
The girl studied Jenny again. “Do you have any plans to move out? Is someone else moving here in the future?”
“I have no real plans either way,” Jenny said. “When have you seen my apartment before?”
“You live here alone? There is no boy as I described?”
“If there were a boy like that here, I would be too busy to answer the door,” Jenny told her, and the girl laughed.
Then the girl looked off into the distance, down the short hall to the elevator. Her eyes seemed to cloud over.
“I don’t understand,” she said quietly. “Everything keeps changing.”
“Maybe you should visit a doctor,” Jenny suggested.
The young woman’s eyes cleared, and she made an effort to smile. “I think I may be too early. Should you see someone as I described, perhaps sometime in the future, will you tell him to contact me?”
“I suppose,” Jenny said. “What’s his name?”
“I have only seen his face. I do not know his name.”
Okay, it’s a creepy stalker lady, Jenny thought. “How did you get into my building?”
The girl’s smile seemed more genuine now. “That is easy. Watch for an older man, chat with him as he walks inside, as if you are his guest.”
“That’s it?”
“You can add the trick to your repertoire, if you like.”
“What makes you think I have a repertoire of tricks?” Jenny asked.
“Every woman should have one.” From her purse, she brought out a pen and a paperback by someone called Giuseppe di Lampedusa. She wrote on a mostly-blank page of the book, then ripped it out and passed it to Jenny. They gave each other a look as the torn page passed from one gloved hand to another, but neither commented on the fact that they’d both chosen to wear long gloves on a warm day.
“There is my mobile number and my home address. I’m at school most days, so evenings are better,” the girl said.
“School?”
“Art history. The Pantheon-Sorbonne. Do you attend university?”
“Not at the moment,” Jenny said. On the scrap of paper, the girl’s handwriting looked like some kind of advanced calligraphy, which was a little odd. Her name was Mariella Visconti, so Jenny supposed her accent was Italian. Jenny folded the page. “I’ll keep it just in case, but I don’t believe anybody like that lives here. You must have the wrong apartment building.”