When Auggie first moved into his apartment, he paid his rent to an older man by the name of Harry Shulman. Harry was a nice guy in his late seventies who smelled like cigarette smoke, and whose nose whistled when he inhaled. Over time, he and Auggie struck up a good rapport. Then he retired, leaving his daughter in charge of the building. Apparently, there had been a lot of notice prior to the final phone call from Harry, who took an entire month to realize Auggie wasn't seeing the fluorescent notices in his mail. Either way, her name was Hillary, and Harry encouraged Auggie to pop down to the apartment and meet her. He might like her.
Auggie arrived the way he arrived on most girls' doorsteps: with his tie loosened and a bottle of wine in his hand.
"Can I help you?" a smoky voice asked from the other side of the door.
"Auggie Anderson," he said with a friendly smile. "I live upstairs, and I thought I'd bring you a little housewarming gift."
"Not the Auggie Anderson," she deadpanned, with a touch of a laugh in her voice. The door slid open a little further. "Come on in, let's crack this sucker open."
He followed her to the kitchen, grateful he was already familiar with the layout of the apartment.
"I'm just looking for a corkscrew," she helpfully announced, rummaging through the kitchen drawers. "I just finished unpacking, and everything's still pretty wonky."
They spent the next hour on her sofa draining a bottle of wine while Norah Jones played in the background. He learned that Hillary was 44, recently divorced, no kids. She worked as an advertising executive in New York up until three years prior, when her husband took a job in Baltimore and convinced her it was time to have a baby. She endured round after round of fertility treatments until their marriage was so hostile that not even a baby would fix things. When her father announced his retirement, she decided to finalize the divorce and start fresh. And here she was.
He also learned that Hillary was a great kisser. She had an aggressive, talented Mrs. Robinson kind of thing going on.
"Do you mind if I smoke?" she asked when they were done with the wine and a few other things. "Force of habit."
"Go for it," Auggie said.
She moved over to the window and cracked it open, letting in the sounds of the city. "This was fun."
"That it was," he said with an insuppressible grin.
And that was all it was. Harmless, occasional fun. She wasn't jealous, wasn't possessive, and had spent so much time trapped in a monogamous hell that she wasn't that anymore, either. Her father had asked her to keep an eye on him, and she would, and she did. Regardless of how much she actually knew about him or his life.
