Triple Threat

fluid. Sarah could imagine situations in which she might find herself living with a family member not a husband. Maybe Miriam’s husband had just died and this was temporary—until the emotional turbulence settled.
    And Sarah
certainly
didn’t know what to make of the fact that while the garden apartment featured three bedrooms, when she and Carmel had brought tea down as the two tenants moved in, only
one
bedroom seemed to be put to that purpose. The other two were used for storage.
    Odd indeed.
    But Sarah thought the best of people, always had. The two had been nice to her and, most important, treated her like an adult. It was astonishing to Sarah how many people thought that once you reached seventy or eighty you were really an infant.
    That you couldn’t order for yourself.
    That you didn’t know who Lady Gaga was.
    “Oh, my,” she’d nearly said to one patronizing waitress. “I’ve forgotten how this knife works. Could you cut up my food for me?”
    For the first weeks the Westerfields seemed the model tenants. Respectful of landlady and premises, polite and
quiet
. That was important to Sarah, who’d always been a light sleeper. She didn’t see much of them.
    Not at first.
    But soon their paths began to cross with more and more frequency. Sarah would return from a shopping trip with Carmel or from a board meeting or luncheon at one of the nonprofits she was involved with and there would be Miriam and John on the front steps or, if the day was cool or wet, in the tiny lobby, sitting on the couch beside the mailboxes.
    They brightened when they saw her and insisted she sit with them. They pelted her with stories and observations and jokes. And they could be counted on to ask questions relentlessly: What charities was she involved in, any family members still alive, close friends? New to the area, they asked her to recommend banks, lawyers, accountants, investment advisors, hinting at large reserves of cash they had to put to work soon.
    A one-trick puppy, John pronounced solemnly: “Real estate is the way to go.”
    It’s also a good way to get your balls handed to you, son, unless you’re very, very sharp. Sarah had not always been a demure, retiring widow.
    She began to wonder if a Nigerian scam was looming, but they never pitched to her. Maybe they were what they seemed: oddballs from the Midwest, of some means, hoping for financial success here and an entrée into a New York society that had never really been available to people like them—and that people like them wouldn’t enjoy even if they were admitted.
    Ultimately, Sarah decided, it was their style that turned her off. The charm of the first month faded.
    Miriam, also a short woman though inches taller than Sarah, wore loud, glittery clothes that clashed with her dark-complexioned, leathery skin. If she didn’t focus, she tended to speak over and around the conversation, ricocheting against topics that had little to do with what you believed you were speaking about. She wouldn’t look you in the eye and she hovered close. Saying, “No, thanks,” to her was apparently synonymous with, “You betcha.”
    “This big old town, Sarah,” Miriam would say, shaking her head gravely. “Don’t… you get tuckered out, ‘causa it?”
    And the hesitation in that sentence hinted that the woman was really going to say “Don’t it tucker you out?”
    John often wore a shabby sardonic grin, as if he’d caught somebody trying to cheat him. He was fleshy big, but strong, too. You could imagine his grainy picture in a newspaper above a story in which the word “snapped” appeared in a quote from a local sheriff.
    If he wasn’t grumbling or snide, he’d be snorting as he told jokes, which were never very funny and usually bordered on being off-color.
    But avoiding them was gasoline on a flame. When they sensed she was avoiding them they redoubled their efforts to graze their way into her life, coming to her front door at any hour, offering presents and advice… and always the questions about her. John would show up to take care of small handyman tasks around Sarah’s apartment. Carmel’s husband, Daniel, was the building’s part-time maintenance man, but John had befriended him and took over on some projects to give Daniel a few hours off here and there.
    Sarah believed the Westerfields actually waited, hiding behind their own door, listening for the sound of footsteps padding down the stairs—and ninety-four-pound Sarah Lieberman was