My next-door neighbor
I consider myself well within the spectrum when it comes to picking up on social queues. If the person next to me on a plane is engrossed in a book, I avoid striking up any unnecessary conversation. If a couple at a restaurant has the misfortune of being seated next to my kids, I shush them every so often. But my tall, silent, un-definable, 60-something neighbor makes it almost impossible not to violate the unspoken laws of communication. I have lived next door to him for ten years. And for ten years, I’ve been plotting my opening line—against my better judgment.
My bedroom window looks into his kitchen where his potted toothbrushes decorate the ledge. Yes, potted toothbrushes. From what I have been able to gather, he is a dentist in Chinatown. Other tenants have come and gone on our floor—and been downright confrontational with the good dentist (if you open the door to your apartment at the same time as he does, he scurries back inside like a cockroach; he’s truly unlikeable, so I understand the urge to pick fights). But I’ve stuck to averting my gaze whenever we pass each other in the compactor room—determined to crack the code on his weird character, but refusing to say anything until it was the right thing.
Anyway, this morning, after almost resigning myself forever to his mysterious (what I assumed to be antagonistic) behavior, he made the first move. He actually boarded the elevator with me (probably because I was hidden behind piles of laundry) and said, out of absolutely nowhere: “By the way, you’re a really good mother.”
