We've had this evil neighbor named Sonya below Renata's and my side of the house for about ten years. She'd always bang on the ceiling if we played music after nine but held parties with loud funk music below our beds until two a few times a year. She threatened to sue us and several other tenants for various reasons. We had to cover our lovely wood floors with dull grey-brown carpets to placate her, which was a shame. Her dog made the elevator smell bad and she was always running around in spandex with a walkman when I went to school. She eyed my clothes with a look of revulsion every morning and took her dog to the dog spa next door while she got manicured over Seventeen around the block. Recently the noise stopped, the smell left and we began to wonder if she had gone deaf or if some Dickensian revelation had visited her overnight. She'd defended her apartment so viciously against any intruding bohemianism that we couldn't believe that she'd move out.

Today I was walking down the street on my way home and I saw a man walking in the other direction. He was in his late twenties, had black dreadlocks down to his shoulders with a few blue streaks here and there and walked a smallish brown-and-white dog with a studded leather collar. I turned into my building and to my surprise, he turned in as well. "What floor?" I asked, as he got into the elevator. "Three." His voice was harsh and he cleared his throat and repeated himself awkwardly. I made friends with the dog to ease the discomfort. When we said goodbye he stepped out and unlocked the apartment directly below mine. His somewhat milder-looking roommate pulled off some enormous studio headphones and said "hey, man, listen to this!" as the elevator door closed.

Sonya must have been a lot more desperate to get out than she let on if she was willing to sell her precious apartment to those two.