Katie and I had been roommates for about three weeks when Hank turned up for the second time; this time in a most unwelcome way. He was crawling out of the front window of our apartment. He must have thought I wouldn’t notice as he hung halfway in and halfway out of Katie’s bedroom window. That would have been nearly impossible since the front door and bedroom window were only a few feet apart facing a crowded parking lot serving the group of apartments.

Due to the late hour I’d had to park way out on the outer edge of the lot and walk up the rather creepy sidewalk through the trees leading up to our door in the darkness. The Spanish moss hung down in beards from the low branches, long enough to brush the top of my head like spider webs as I hurried past. I made a considerable amount of noise as I clomped toward the apartment door, evidently so much noise that Hank had bailed out upon my arrival.

Hank’s pocket was evidently caught on the window handle leaving him dangling in neither world by the seat of his pants. It seemed fitting, somehow. Even as Katie tried to calm him down I recognized his swearing as she pushed on his backside from inside the room. I considered giving him a quick jab from my umbrella just for good measure; he was the type your mother always warned you about. Alas, it wasn’t my battle.

I stepped inside the apartment pretending not to notice the window drama and headed straight for my room to change clothes. It had been a long day between working at the bank and suffering through the tedious evening course on Banking and Negotiable Instruments.

I presume Hank was supposed to wait until I was inside the apartment to crawl out so I wouldn’t see him, as if it were some kind of mystery that he was sneaking about. Leave it to Hank to mess things up whatever it was. I knew Katie would eventually share an entertaining story about this guy.

Katie and I had worked together at the bank for nearly a year before we decided to share a two bed room apartment. Neither of us had much furniture starting out. Katie had moved from a furnished flat. And I had left my belongings behind in a bailout plan suited for quick marital departures.

By the time we had each bought a decent bed, our meager funds suffered under the strain leaving little money for other furniture.  We spent a lot of weekends together scouring flea markets and garage sales, hoping to find affordable items for our living space. We purchased colorful fabric and made pillow covers which we stuffed with foam pieces to create huge floor cushions for our bare living room.  These served as our chairs.

For our bedrooms we transformed empty cardboard boxes into makeshift storage by covering them in vibrant contact paper. This would serve until we could buy dressers. We were thrilled to have enormous walk-in closets, and eager for the day we’d be able to fill them with brand new clothes. But the way things were looking, that wouldn’t be anytime soon.

Our salaries at the bank were pitiful compared with the responsibility of our daily work. As tellers, our cash drawers at times might hold a hundred thousand dollars or more. Excess cash would be collected in batches during the day and stored in the vault to be deducted from our final ending cash tally.

I suffered from frequent nightmares in various themes always based on me coming up short in my cash drawer and ending up in awful trouble or fired, or worse. We were responsible for balancing our cash drawers at the end of the day and were expected to balance to the penny, which we very nearly always did.  Except for that one awful time when we all had to stay until we found my huge shortage.  It was nearly seven at night before one of us discovered a duplicate transaction where my register had stuck and issued a double entry.  The ongoing stress was tremendous.

Although the bank frowned on salary discussions among employees, Katie and I had of course compared notes and had come to the same conclusion:  we didn’t make nearly enough money.  To our surprise and delight, we discovered a small provision in our employee handbook promising a five dollar raise weekly for any courses completed with passing grades.  So we’d both signed up to take classes two nights a week through the American Institute of Banking.  It was from one of these classes that I had returned to the apartment to find Hank hanging out the front window.

Stranger things had happened since I met Katie.  When she batted her big beautiful blue eyes she could fool you into thinking she was an innocent.  But when it came to fooling men, she was an academy award winning actress.  I had long since seen through the innocent façade having watched her in action during our many evenings out.

Beyond the monotony of our day jobs at the bank, evenings revealed a major transmutation.  Like a caterpillar into a butterfly, Katie would transform from prim stuffy bank teller into a voluptuous curvy woman wearing a figure flattering evening dress and high heels.  Her hair, worn in a tight bun during the day fell in soft curls resting softly on her shoulders at night. Katie rarely paid for a drink when we were out; rounds just showed up at our table.  As a pair we attracted all the wrong types for all the wrong reasons like flies drawn to honey.

On the nights when our schedules didn’t include evening classes and out of sheer exhaustion we stayed at home, we would entertain ourselves telling each other stories about our lives. We called the game true confessions and that’s what it was exactly. From that dialogue, I learned a lot about Katie that most people would never in a million years suspect. She shared with me intimate, dark and compelling secrets from her past, the real substance of nightmares.

Katie had led an extraordinary life already: on her own at sixteen, married by eighteen, trapped in a disastrous marriage to a movie producer of sorts, making the type of movies that didn’t require wardrobes.  She had been turned into an actress against her will, held captive by her youthful naivety and trust, betrayed by one who had shown a different and less charming side of himself after the wedding.

Katie and I were about to turn twenty-one; in fact our birthdays were close enough together that we had a planned a huge celebration for our big day.  The bizarre outcome of that party would bring a future torrent of doubt and suspicion upon us to the extent where we were now the subjects of a bank wide investigation.  The future looked grim for both of us, unless we could prove our innocence.

Tonight that gloomy future was still way ahead of us as Katie and I made ourselves comfortable on the pillows in the living room, our own little neutral zone, to discuss the Hank incident.  I figured I’d have to begin with a story of my own; give Katie a chance to recover from the strange scene at her bedroom window.  My curiosity would be satiated; in due time she would explain everything. 

It occurred to me that I had indeed met Hank long before he helped move the new bed into Katie’s bedroom.  I’d had no idea he would be back to try it out so soon.  And then I recalled the night months ago when I’d come home to the flat I was sharing with Katie, her very small room where I had moved after my separation.  She lived in a tiny walled off section in a turn of the century house converted to a boarding house. The kitchenette was hidden behind a folding screen and consisted only of a small sink and a cabinet.  It hadn’t taken us long to discover we would need more space if we ever moved in together permanently. 

When I arrived home quite late in the evening, Hank was quickly retreating down the sidewalk leading away from the small flat.  When I entered, Katie appeared flushed and uneasy, immediately taking refuge behind the kitchenette room divider.  We had not discussed the incident.  It was through Katie’s good graces that I had a comfortable place to stay until I could get on my feet.  I had nowhere else to turn at the moment when Katie had graciously taken me in.

Katie joined me as we settled onto our floor cushions, both gravitating to the common ground of our living room. Telling my story would wait tonight, as Katie began speaking in a soft, slow monotone, so quietly at first that I had to strain to hear her words.  Teardrops welled up in her big eyes and spilled over her cheeks leaving damp circles on the front of her velveteen dressing gown. I was captivated as she began to recall the lurid details of her long, disturbing entanglement with Hank, who it turned out, was really her uncle. 

And when she finished talking, I was indeed sorry that I had hesitated at the window.  Sorry that I hadn’t bashed him over the head with my bag of text books.  If only that would have slanted the odds in Katie’s favor, for once and for all she might have been free of him.

√ ^{This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental. Author retains all rights of publication in any form.}