She had awoken without anything. No money, and no memory of anything before the auto accident. She knew which one she missed most as knowledge of herself couldn't be replaced. But money wasn't something she could do without which lead to the pridicament she had found herself in. And she was finding it to be almost as hard to get money as it was to recover her memory. Then to make matters worse she found to her horrer that she didn't even have a high-school diploma under her name, nor any birth certificate or any other offical record under the name Hermione Warren. Hermione sighed as she prepared for another dismal day. There were no other jobs to be had and she had one, even though she hated it with a passion.
Early on, after the accident she found herself as the owner and manager of the cheapest apartment dwelling in the local slum district, where she lived off the little money she could make. The apartment seemed to be the outlet for the local prisoners and vagrants who, if Hermione was lucky, would often be caught and thrown back into prison where they could harrass her no longer. The sexual harrassment was aweful and she hated it the most. It came from every direction where the almost completely male population of the complex did everything from hitting on her to grabbing and touching her. She fought back but they never seemed to learn. But they gave her some income, if not an iota of respect and admittedly thats what kept food on her small spindly table. Income that may one day allow her to get the education she'd need to forget about this place as effectivelly as she had forgotten everything before the last two years. It was around the holidays and she was even more depressed. The holiday spirit seemed to mock her as it made her feel more alone not having any friends or family to celebrate it with in addition to that spirit possesing her tenants in the form of heavy drinking which made the harrasment much worse. She didn't remember nor had any family come look her up. She only had one friend and he was away at the moment as he usually was. She wished he would come back though, she would never admit it to another human being but she greatly missed him when he was gone.
She shook her head at her wandering thoughts to get back to the here and now. A new tenant was coming today, Ron Patterson, and bless her luck none of the other tenants seemed to be familiar with the name, meaning he may actually not be from the local prison, a somewhat promising sign. But Hermione wasn't going to get her hopes up, in fact she hadn't had hope in a long time. She went out the door to do a last minute check on his vacant apartment to make sure everything was in order. She managed to accomplish this but before Ron arrived Hermione had found herself locking herself in her own apartment to avoid any more heckling and waited by the door almost in tears, she would have to compose herself to properly greet the new tenant though in Hermione's mind she felt that he would probably just add more fuel to the fires of hell she felt around her. Before she could do this Ron had arrived
Ron Patterson shook his freckled face dismally. He was once again out of a job and having to be on the move on what limited funds he had saved. This wasn't the first time. It had almost been a constant cycle since the car crash two years ago. At least he was told it was a car crash but he couldn't remember it at all, nor anything that had happened before that moment. But he had dreams, he thought they might be memories but he wasn't sure. But it didn't matter because they were so vague and fuzzy that he wouldn't even be able to recognize anyone that he saw in his dreams even if he were to meet them the next morning. But he needed a job, not dreams. Or more accurately he needed a job to reach his dreams. Unfortuanately while he was always well-liked by almost all of his bosses, he apparently never even got a high-school diploma and was expendible in this "economic downturn." The market was pretty much dried up all around but he'd been managing to get enough to skrape by by pinching every bit of money he had. This was why he had to live at the notorious apartment complex infront of him. People said things and they had a lot to say about this place. Many thought the superintendant to be completely mental but he'd worked with and under many that genuinely fit under that description. He would just try to be patient and friendly and just avoid her as much as possible and try not to step on her toes when he couldn't avoid her.
'Besides I haven't even met her yet' He thought to himself. He had a good idea of what his neighbors were going to be like, a price that had to be paid by living in cheap accomidations in the worst parts of town. But he had no choice, and he didn't want to be judgemental, he considered himself to be a decent person and there could easily be others like him there.
Ron entered the complex and found the owner's appartment door. He took a moment to prepare for anything and knocked. The door burst open and he only had time to register a small object being thrown at him and a head of bushy brown hair swishing around as the door slammed shut. He didn't even have the chance to open his mouth to speak. He stood there in a daze at this odd behavior while one of the tenants who saw this laughed somewhat drunkenly. After a few moments an impatient voice came from the the other side of the closed door.
"Excuse me but are you able to read?" The woman said bossily to Ron. Her voice barely muffled by the thin barrier between them.
Ron frowned at the closed door. After a moment of consideration he decided to respond "...yeah pretty well... Why?"
"Are you able to count as well?" The woman with the brown hair asked again through the doorway
"Yeah, but I'm not following..." Ron responded in what he thought to be a fairly politely given the situation.
"Well then I would assume that you would have the mental capacity to read the number on your key then locate the apartment with that number." The voice behind the door said waspishly
Ron shook his head but held his tounge. The unkown man that had laughed at him earlier could not however, nor could another man who had apparently just joined him.
"Fine peice of work huh?"
Ron just let out a sigh as he turned to find his apartment.
"Fine peice of ass too" said the other man and the two both laughed in a drunken manner while Ron just gave a cough to excuse himself, now feeling a little more sympathetic to the poor if rude landlady.
Hermione withdrew from the door into the small living room of her apartment closing her eyes tight and clinching her fists shut as well as her mouth in her fury. She was fighting back tears because she knew she'd have to calm down to give the new tenant a more proper introduction soon. She knew her raging emotions weren't going to help, but she couldn't help it.
'They're not men their pigs... bloody animals every single one of them' She thought to herself. Then her eyes flew open as she thought she smelled smoke.
'Oh no not again, why does this keep happening?' she thought desperately as she saw that a nearby picture hanging on the wall had spontaniously caught fire. She put out the flames with a glass of water finding surprisingly there was no apparent damage to the picture. Another reason why she needed to keep her temper in check. She didn't know why these kinds of things would happen when she got upset, but it didn't bode well and she needed to try to keep it to a minimum. Then a sudden thought occured to her and she looked up at the brand new smoke detector hanging practically right above the picture yet had remained silent. She saw that its light was blinking but only a very muffled whine came out of it that she could hardly hear when she was listening for it.
'Oh great another thing that needs to be fixed" Hermione thought angrily to herself. Then attempted to calm down. Getting angry wasn't going to help anything. She settled down abit but was still hacked off as she left to give Ron a basic orientation though she didn't know what use it was since she refused to point people to the direction of the closest liquor store dispite Hermione having just told them that she did not permit alcohol in the building , as if they actually listened. Generally they didn't listen at all anyway but merely starred at her and tried to hit on her through out her entire speech often making her storm out. But she felt that she should at least try to do her job, though most of the residents probably didn't grasp the concept of a job anyway, except perhaps as a euphemism for a pre-meditated heist of some sort.
Ron had found his room and was just getting settled in. He had just begun to make some tea when he heard the impatient knock on the door. He took a deep silent breath and opened it, he was determined to make a good-impression, or at least not give a bad one. Hermione huffed and stormed in.
Ron took a breath and decided to start "Hello Ms Warren, I'm..."
Hermione gave a look that cut him off "I'm aware of who you are Mr. Patterson" she said annoyed, and looking as though expecting him to make some sort of rude comment and was daring him to try her patience.
"Well then... um..." Ron said somewhat stupidly and glanced at the boiling water to see if the tea was ready, he was now sure he was going to need some soon.
"Well we might as well get down to business" Hermione said bossily.
Ron gave a respectful nod "Alright"
Hermione gave a huff "I'm sure you have a few questions" she said still annoyed for a reason that Ron didn't exactly know for sure but thought he had a good idea why.
"Well let me take care of the few that I'm asked most often" Hermione said sternly "No, I am not married; No, I do not wish to become married at the present time; And most importantly No I have absolutely no intrest in engaging in any activity that only married people have any business engaging in in the first place" She said with a satisfied and bossy smile. "Now if you have any other questions that aren't on any of those subjects, I'll be more than happy to answer them" She said her expression turning back to an annoyed look
Ron stared at her stupidly at first
"Well why don't you humor both of us and act like you do have a proper intelligent question then" She said with a snarl.
"Uh... Well... uh... thats all good to hear... I guess... but uh... before I start asking questions why don't you sit down" he said pulling up a chair while his face flushed red. He was angry but not at her, He'd been in many residences similar to this and knew that her attitude towards him was not entirely baseless, But he wasn't like that, and now he needed to make sure Ms. Warren knew that.
Hermione just glared at him "No thanks I'll stand, though I have to admit that it is refreshing to see one of the 'pigs' act like they actually have enough common decency to offer me a chair"
"if... if you say so" Ron replied
"I want to take as little of your's as possible, don't take it personal" Hermione said in her bossy tone. But an idea occured to Ron.
"Except for my money of course"
"You do have the money then?" Hermione asked sternly
Ron gave a nod.
"Tell me Ron, Do you have a job?"
Ron shook his head.
"Then how do I know you'll continue to be able to pay me"
"I have three months rent upfront plus the security deposit" Ron told her.
"You do do you?" Hermione asked with narrowed eyes
Ron nodded "Yes" he said sincerely
Hermione stared hard into Ron's eyes and felt the oddest sensation. She knew he was honest but there was something else about it. She felt as though she had never gazed into eyes like that before, but that wasn't right. She felt as though she HAD gazed into eyes as honest and open as that before, but it wasn't during the two years she remembered... could it be?... or could this person be one of the smooth criminals. She knew such monstrosities existed even if she had never had to deal with one and hoped to keep it that way. She was lonely and honestly desperate for any sort of friendship, she knew it, and she knew that one of those kinds of criminals would have her eating out of their hand with almost no problem. She hoped she could tell the diffrence.
"I'm... I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm accusing you, Not everyone is honest and I have to be cautious, don't take it personally"
"Then you believe me?" Ron asked incredulusly losing his train of thought
"For now" Hermione said guardedly
"Well won't you sit down then?" Ron asked politely, he didn't do it in a sugary or smarming type of voice. he spoke in a tone that was alittle gruff but gentle and showed respect. He tried to be mannered but he was sincere not a suck up.
"Ron, like I said I want to take as little of yours as possible..."
"But I haven't given you the rent yet"
"But you will soon, correct?"
Ron nodded "Yes but I still haven't signed anything, everything that I haven't brought into here, such as the furniture is still yours Ms. Warren."
Hermione looked taken aback for a second as though she'd never had one of the tenants actually try to reason with her. She gave a nod and sat down.
She then gave Ron a look as though she now saw right through him and was daring him to try to seduce her. Ron again was angry, he could understand her gut reactions
She sniffed the air "What is that smell?"
Ron then gave a start "The tea" he exclaimed having momentarily forgotten. Luckily it was just right.
"Tea?"
"Yeah, just needs to cool alittle" Ron said in a friendly manner.
"That doesn't have any alcohol in it of course." She said sternly "Because I do not tollerate any alcohol"
"No, I don't drink"
"Oh really?" Hermione asked again through narrowed eyes. In the two years she had spent as the manager, she hadn't had a single tennant who refused booze.
"Yeah"
Hermione wasn't sure why but agian she looked into his eyes and was sure he was telling the truth. Wonderfull news to her, if he was truthfull... and didn't pray on women like her.
Ron then looked at her while Hermione was preparing to give her little orientation speech.
"Ms. Warren would you like some?" He asked
Hermione stared blankly at him, she was a little thirsty, but she was also starting to get scared. The apartment did get released prisoners and unfortunately they didn't always give rapists and preditors life sentences. He either was really a decent guy or he was any young woman's worst nightmare.
She nodded but watched him like a hawk, Ron seemed to notice but rather than getting offended he seemed to make an effort to make sure that everything he was doing could clearly be seen by her. He wouldn't have put it past some of the other tenants to try to spike her drink.
And speak of the devil one such person passed by the still open door, and of course rather than keep his rude thoughts to himself he yelled out "Hey Sweetcheeks, I'm having a problem with the bed, why dont you stop in and help me fix it, looks like it could take awhile" he said with a wink and a drunken laugh as he walked away.
Hermione stormed over and shut and bolted the door closed.
"God I hate this place" she commented
Ron nodded in agreement. "Here's your tea Ms. Warren"
Hermione looked up. "Thanks" she said in a tone of misery.