A couple of years ago in the month of February around my 80^th birthday, I said to myself, Evelynn, it’s enough with the standing on your feet and just like that in the blink of an eye, I handed the keys to the boutique over to my son Stephen and his wife Sue Ellen who have worked beside me in the business for thirty years.  You could say I’m on the back burner now and they’re managing just fine without me while I’m enjoying my retirement in Palm Beach, Florida.

I’m not the type to sit around gathering rust.  I keep busy. I belong to a book club in our building and I go to the Breakers Hotel for lunch.  Men still fancy me.  I date.  Why not, I’m not dead yet.  Most of my neighbours are pleasant and friendly.  The Toucher is not.

Lately, someone has been jiggling my door handle trying to get into my condo.  I suspect it’s the Toucher who lives on the fifth floor facing the pool, the one who stole my boyfriend and goes around touching people as she speaks.  She can’t speak unless she touches.  Her mouth begins to move and right away her hand shoots up to reach out and touch.  Some people spit when they speak.  She touches.

Dollars to doughnuts, I’ll bet it’s her fiddling with my door handle.

Montreal.  Two things happen.  One nice.  One not so nice.

The not so nice is a phone call from Geena’s friend Flora.

“Chela, Chela, is that you, it’s me Flora, how are you and Canada, how is Canada, puff, puff, I’m having a bad day Chela, can you hear me?”

I tell her yes I can hear her and I don’t know about Canada, however, Montreal is glorious.

“I’ve got to tell you something, hello, hello, do you hear me, an article about Geena that appeared in the newspaper yesterday, not very nice, we all make mistakes so why don’t they leave her alone already she’s been through so much, puff, puff, all lies, Chela, lies, can you hear me?”

Flora’s voice is resonating, an octave between weeping and her real estate pitch, somewhere in the Mezzo Soprano range.

“Flora, I hear you.  Calm down.”

“All lies, the prosecutor said that Geena bought her yacht in Luxembourg in the midst of her tax investigation and that is not true because I was there when she bought it in Ft. Lauderdale, puff, puff, puff, I even remember what I wore that day when we went to the boat basin, it was perfectly nautical, a blue linen blazer and white linen pants, stunning and, and, puff, apparently she asked the Judge for the first months of her arrest in a halfway house followed by house arrest after she pleaded guilty to six tax violations for failing to report all that money, millions, bless her, in income and falsely claiming thousands to business deductions, she didn’t murder anyone for God sakes and the Judge laughed and told her that most people would pay  to have that kind of house arrest in her mansion at the beach, come on it is hardly a mansion and hardly at the beach.  It’s a sweet little one-story, three houses in from the ocean on an ocean block.  I could never list it as a mansion at the ocean so he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Flora also mentioned that the newspaper reported that Geena had been sentenced for twenty-four years.  I think she meant twenty-four months.

Since my last visit, there is more graffiti on the elevator walls in the Company Building.

Up Yours.  Kiss Mine.  Flo & Mario

Up, up, up, get me to the fifth floor, to the management office, please God, without this shaking box snapping off and plunging to the boiler room and parking garage in the basement. Workers keep getting off and on, off and on, beer bellies, staccato talking, moving in and out of Italian, Greek and French. Where are they headed? Third floor, fourth floor, finally, finally the fifth floor, the management office, take a breath now, breathe, breathe.

There is a mezuzah attached on the management doorframe identifying the premises as Jewish territory. Following the Jewish custom, it is mounted on the right outside doorpost about one-third of the way from the top of the frame, angled somewhere between horizontal and vertical. The management office blessed.

Through the glass door, I see the Hasidic in his black hat quarantined behind the reception counter. He has a stunned look on his bearded face when he sees me. His light blue eyes are not twinkling. I am happier to see him than he is to see me. The door is locked. He buzzes me and I say “Shalom”. He gives me a meek shalom back but does not move from behind the counter where he is safe from tenants who come to complain about overflowing toilets, power outages, heat, air conditioning, flooding, immobile elevators, mice, and now me. He remains safe from my hand touching him. He nervously utters shalom again and asks me what I want.

“I’ve come to work in this office,” I tell him, smiling.

“You cannot come into this office.” He is speaking to me as if I was a child and he is not smiling back. I may be tall for my generation, but this little man is short. He must have to stand on his tippy-toes to kiss that mezuzah on the outside doorframe.

“Excuse me?” I glare down at him.

He repeats himself. “You cannot come into this office.” His voice isn’t so meek now.

“You’re such a kibitzer, ha, ha, ha. Have you forgotten the Estate of the late Sam Solomon owns twenty-five per cent of this building? Are you standing there and telling me that I cannot come into this office?”  Pause, pause.  “Tell me, would you speak to my father like that?”

“No.” A very quiet ‘no’.

“Well, from now on you had better pretend that I am Sam Solomon.” I smile and walk around the counter into his space.