What Mrs. Patterson Was Before
1583 Words
I thought about what Mrs. Patterson had said for the rest of Friday and most of Saturday.
Before that I was other things.
The sentence had been delivered with the same mild precision as everything else she said — the same tone she used for do not overwater the peace lily and the washing machine requires a wiggle — but it had landed differently and I suspected she knew that and had done it deliberately.
I tried asking Felix.
"What did Mrs. Patterson do before she was a chemistry teacher?" I asked him in the hallway on Saturday morning, which was where Felix could frequently be found conducting what he described as routine corridor assessments and what appeared to be standing in the hallway with his clipboard making notes about ambient conditions.
Felix looked up from his clipboard.
"I don't know," he said.
I stared at him. Felix, who had four years of building surveillance data, who had a color-coded pigeon tracking chart, who had a spreadsheet for the baking competition sign-ups — Felix didn't know something about a building resident.
"You don't know," I repeated.
"I have never been able to determine what Mrs. Patterson did before she came to Pelican Court." He said it with the particular gravity of someone identifying a gap in their dataset that has been bothering them for years. "She arrived twenty-two years ago. Before that—" He clicked his pen. "Nothing. Completely clean history. No professional records I can find, no public footprint, nothing." He looked at me. "I find it significant."
"You find everything significant."
"Some things are more significant than others." He wrote something on his clipboard. "Mrs. Patterson is in the top category."
Bimpe arrived on Saturday afternoon.
Not because I'd invited her — because she'd decided she was coming, which was how Bimpe operated. She texted me at eleven to say she was in the area and then arrived at two, which in Bimpe time meant she'd been planning this since Thursday and the text was courtesy.
She was carrying pastries and wearing the expression of someone who had come to conduct an assessment.
"Show me the building," she said.
"I'm not giving you a tour—"
"Show me the building, Zara."
I showed her the building.
The lobby first, where she read the elevator notice — updated since my arrival, now reading THE ELEVATOR IS IN A REFLECTIVE PERIOD. PROGRESS IS NOT ALWAYS VISIBLE. STAIRS ARE A GIFT. — with the expression of someone falling in love.
"Mr. Okonkwo wrote this," she said.
"Mr. Okonkwo writes all of them."
"I need to meet Mr. Okonkwo."
"He appears when the building decides you need him," I said. "You can't summon him."
As if on cue — and I want to state clearly that I am not making this up — the door to the ground floor management office opened and Mr. Okonkwo stepped out wearing a dashiki so vividly green it appeared to be making a statement.
He looked at Bimpe.
Bimpe looked at him.
"You are new," he said.
"I'm visiting," Bimpe said. "I'm Bimpe. Zara's friend."
He nodded slowly. "She speaks of you." He turned his deep patient eyes to me. "Your friend carries good energy."
"She does," I agreed. "She also carries pastries."
Mr. Okonkwo's gaze moved to the pastry bag.
"Puff puff?" he asked.
Bimpe opened the bag and produced, from within it, a generous quantity of puff puff wrapped in paper.
Mr. Okonkwo took one with the dignity of a man accepting something that was his due.
"Welcome to Pelican Court," he said to Bimpe. "We are all, in our own way, still becoming."
He went back into his office.
Bimpe turned to me with an expression I recognized — the same one she'd made when I mentioned Noah's name, except larger.
"I live here now," she said.
"You have a flat."
"I'll sublet."
"Bimpe—"
"There has to be a vacancy somewhere in this building and if there isn't I will wait."
"You cannot wait in my flat for a vacancy to open in this building."
"The elevator notice said progress is not always visible." She looked at the notice. "I'm willing to be patient."
She met Felix in the hallway on the way back up.
Felix, who was conducting his Saturday corridor assessment, looked at Bimpe the way he looked at everything — as potential data to be assessed.
"New visitor?" he said.
"Potentially new resident," Bimpe said.
Felix's pen came out. "I'll need you to complete the survey."
"What survey?"
"The neighborhood security survey." He produced his clipboard. "It covers standard security questions and some additional items relevant to building safety."
Bimpe looked at the clipboard. "Does it ask about pigeons?"
Felix looked at her with sharpened attention. "It asks about pigeon observation habits."
"I've been watching pigeons for years," Bimpe said seriously. "I have opinions."
Felix's expression did something I had not seen it do before. Something that looked remarkably like hope.
"Come with me," he said. "I have laminated charts."
They disappeared into Felix's flat.
I stood in the hallway.
I was not going to tell Bimpe that her life had just changed. She would figure it out.
Noah knocked on my door at four.
Not with coffee this time — just himself, in a slightly distracted state that I was beginning to recognize as the state of someone who had been working intensely and had come up for air.
"Mrs. Patterson," he said. "Yesterday."
"Yes."
"The Rotterdam connection."
"Yes."
"I've been working on this investigation for four months," he said. "I haven't told anyone about the Rotterdam connection because I only confirmed it two days ago and it's not in any document I've shared with anyone." He looked at me. "She knew."
"She was other things before she was a chemistry teacher," I said.
"What other things."
"I don't know. Felix doesn't know. Felix finds this extremely significant."
"Felix is right." He leaned against the doorframe. "I looked into her this morning."
"And?"
"Same thing Felix found. Nothing before twenty-two years ago. Complete clean slate." He paused. "Which is not what real clean slates look like. Real clean slates have gaps and inconsistencies. Hers is too clean." He met my eyes. "Someone made it clean."
I looked at him.
"You think she's—"
"I think she knows things about an ongoing investigation that I have shared with nobody," he said carefully, "and that she has a professionally cleaned history and has been living here for twenty-two years being exactly what she appears to be."
"A retired chemistry teacher who knows things."
"Yes."
I thought about this.
"Are you going to ask her?" I said.
"I don't know yet." He looked down the hallway toward 4D. "I don't think she'd tell me anything she didn't choose to tell me."
"No," I agreed.
"She mentioned it deliberately," he said. "The Rotterdam connection. She wanted me to know she knew."
"Why?"
"I don't know." He paused. "But I think it was a form of help. Not interference — help." He looked at me. "She said be careful."
Be careful. With the same mild tone she used for everything else. The same tone as don't overwater the peace lily.
"Gerald," I said suddenly.
Noah looked at me. "What about Gerald?"
"The photograph in her flat. He died four years ago. She's been here twenty-two years." I was turning something over. "She talks about him in the present tense. Edith Patterson, who is the most precise person I have ever met, who notices everything, who knows about Rotterdam connections — she uses present tense for a cat who has been dead four years."
Noah was quiet.
"That's not absent-mindedness," I said. "That's a choice."
"She misses him," he said.
"Yes." I paused. "I think she's been alone in this building for four years, surrounded by people she takes care of, and the only one she's allowed herself to miss out loud is the cat." I held his gaze. "She left you tea labeled clarity. She got Mr. Okonkwo to make sure you met her. She's been making sure you're alright since you moved in."
Noah was very still.
"She does it for everyone," I said. "Felix with his charts. Me with the peace lily. The students on four with their brownies. She knows everything about this building because she pays attention because that's how she takes care of people." I paused. "I don't know what she was before. But I know what she is now."
The hallway was quiet.
"We should check on her," Noah said.
"We should bring pastry," I said. "Bimpe left some."
"Where is Bimpe?"
"In Felix's flat looking at laminated pigeon charts."
Noah processed this.
"Is that—"
"I think they're going to be friends," I said. "Felix has never had someone engage with the charts before."
"That's either very good or very concerning."
"Both," I said. "Calibrate."
He almost smiled. Then: "Pastry and Mrs. Patterson?"
"Pastry and Mrs. Patterson," I agreed.
We knocked on 4D.
The door opened.
Edith Patterson looked at us — at the pastry bag, at Noah's slightly distracted state, at my expression which I was fairly certain was giving things away — with those sharp eyes that noticed everything.
"I wondered when you'd come back," she said.
"We brought puff puff," I said.
She stepped back from the door.
"Gerald always liked puff puff," she said.
We went inside.
To be continued...
- Writer
