Marge
by
Nasty Shrew
Marge Rosenbaum was a 68 year old widow who had no sisters and hated cats. Therefore, she spent most of her time watching the comings and goings of the world around her – namely, the fellow residents of the second floor of the Aurelly building, 46th street, New York. Some called her a nosy old woman with nothing better to do, but Marge she preferred to think she was keeping an eye on her neighbors for their own good. Like the time she noticed a man trying to break into Susie’s apartment (12B, blue door) and called the police. Or the time she spotted a vicious looking dog circling Jake’s apartment (14B, green door) and called animal services.
Whatever they thought of her, her watchful gaze was unavoidable. She knew Dave Little (17B, brown door) was having an affair with a girl half his age. She knew Mary Ploffman (10B, blue door) was had never had a single person come to her apartment liked to listen to rock music alone in the holiday seasons. Marge knew that the two young men who had moved into the apartment beside her two days ago (16B, red door) were Queer.
Now, Marge liked to think she was a modern, Christian woman. Therefore, after much internal debate, she had come to the decision that it was not her place to judge and to be good to her new neighbors. After all, the poor dears had probably been through enough as it was – it wasn’t easy to be queer. If that was the proper term for such things. Political correctness always seemed to thwart poor Marge’s determination to keep up with the times. Queer? Homosexual? What was the polite term for it, indeed, if there could be a polite term for … Marge blushed and decided to occupy her mind with baking.
As she flicked through her cook book, she cast her mind back to the day before. She had watched the two talking as they hauled their own furniture into their apartment and had managed to pick up a few facts here and there.
The man with the bleach blonde hair was English and called Spike – a nickname, she assumed, but you never could tell with these modern parents. He talked about music, somewhere called Sunnyhell and someone called Peaches, who he didn’t want to bump into. He seemed a cheeky sort, tough, maybe a little sinister - but Marge had seen him smile at the other man with such fond tenderness he reminded her of her Stan, who used to look at her like that. Once, and only once, Spike grabbed the bigger man and gave him a an unhurried, lazy kiss, grinning all the while – something within the two of them shone in that moment. If he wasn’t queer and in love, Marge would try and set him up with Mary Ploffman.
The other man was American, but Marge wasn’t sure of his name because Spike called him a string of different names in the space of an hour. Git, whelp, mate, bloody human, Slayerette, pet, love, kitten … though the last name was said mockingly, with a raised eyebrow. The dark haired man was witty and quick, more than a match for Spike’s scathing quips. They spent most of their time arguing on who should carry what, the banter always approaching malicious before one of them rolled their eyes and moved away – the only thing they seemed to agree on was a mutual loathing for ‘Peaches’. Despite their horsing around, Marge sensed a sadness in them, a terrible loss – she hated not knowing something, so she set to thinking about possibilities for the sadness in their eyes as she pulled a chocolate cake from the oven.
By 3:00 that afternoon, she was setting her second tray of shortbread to cool and had constructed a past for each of the new tenants. The man with the dark hair and deep brown eyes was the product of a broken home and had been tortured by his family for his decision to live with another man but pulled through it with his biting sense of humor and a sad smile as his mother waved him off. Spike, with his bleach blonde curls and wicked smile, was an eccentric son of a British millionaire who had disowned his son at the discovery of his dark haired … companion? Special friend? Partner?
By 4:00 she was standing outside their door with a huge basket of cookies and cakes and a look of determined cheer.
The End
