Jenn and Smoke

by Kate Wehr

“I’m really sorry to bother you, but I locked my keys in the laundry room. Could I borrow your key to go get them?”

The young woman at my front door does not look familiar.

“I’m Jenn. We met when I moved in next door.”

Then I remember a few months ago, when a young woman, a nicely-dressed older woman, and a dog were letting themselves into the apartment next to mine, as I opened my door to go out. Jenn and her mother introduced themselves, saying that Jenn was just moving in with her dog Smoke. 

I was smiling and making welcoming noises until they got to the part about the dog. I said that I was surprised, that I thought this was a cats-only building, which it was when I moved in eight years ago.

“Not any more”, she said firmly.

“Hmm, that’s interesting. Well, in my experience, dogs howl when they are left alone during the day when the owners are at work.” I have endured this experience a couple of times in other apartments.

“Smoke would never do that. She is very quiet and gentle.”

The mother looks a little anxiously between her daughter and me. Smoke is curious but calm, interested in everything new - the apartment, the stairs, the smells. I give her my hand to sniff. She seems like a nice dog. Her tail wags readily. She has long, soft ears. Her solid, medium-sized body has a healthy white coat with black markings, like a Holstein cow. Later I will notice “Cowdog” in the list of nearby wi-fi networks and guess that that is Jenn’s.

“OK”, I say, indicating that I am willing to try. “I hope that this works out. I have had four sets of neighbors in that apartment since I moved in. It would be nice if someone stayed.”

In the months since this meeting, I have seen Jenn a couple of times in passing. We have greeted each other pleasantly but have not conversed. I have noticed that she has a tendency to slam her front door. Smoke has barked a few times, but there has been no whining or howling. A series of pleasant dog walkers have taken her in and out during the day. Little knotted bags of scooped poop are sometimes outside Jenn’s door, but nothing really to object to. 

Smoke is friendly and seems to want to come into my apartment if my door is open and she is outside on the landing. She sniffs expectantly and has to be held back by either collar or leash. I am friendly to her, but uncertain about her coming into my cluttered space with its undoubtedly lingering scents of my late cats.

Jenn and I text back and forth a few times. She takes in a package that arrives for me when I am away. I tell her what I know about the large and erroneous October overcharge of our utilities and its progress toward  resolution, when she notices it on her bill and asks me about it. She says she doesn’t know anyone else in our building to talk to. I think this may be her first apartment on her own.

Still, I did not immediately recognize Jenn when she appeared at my front door. I offer to unlock the laundry room for her and we walk down the hall, chatting in an easy, neighborly way.

Over the holidays she is back, having again locked her keys in the laundry room. This time I am feeling stressed by other things, in a grinchy mood, and I am impatient with her. I have never wanted to be anyone’s mother, and at that moment I felt put upon. I ungraciously unlock the laundry room. Later I regret this behavior. I text an apology and leave a box of Christmas cookies and a lanyard for keys outside her door.

A week or so later I see her in the hall. She is doing her laundry and rather proudly shows me the lanyard with the keys around her neck. We both laugh and wish each other a Happy New Year.

Late one Sunday evening at the end of January, I noticed a text from her, sent earlier. I had had dinner guests and had shut my phone off. She has locked herself out of her apartment this time, and wants to know if her friend John, a parkour practitioner, can use my deck to climb over to her deck, and get back into her apartment through her unlocked deck door. The decks are adjacent. We are on the third floor. I have seen videos of parkour practitioners gracefully navigating urban obstacles by jumping and climbing, using nothing but their bodies and the laws of physics. But, in my opinion, this could be tricky at best and dangerous at worst for John, whom I have never met.  I am glad I did not see the message while my guests were here. I text to ask if she has gotten back in and tell her she is welcome to knock on my door, but loudly please because of my poor hearing.

Then I decide to just open my front door to see if anything is evident. Jenn, Smoke, and two young men are on the landing. One is clearly a locksmith, squatting down and trying to get the door open in very poor light. Smoke is tied to a bannister, calm and alert, intent on the locksmith, but not whining or growling. Jenn and the other young man start animatedly telling me how they had finally called the locksmith. 

“I offered him $50 and he hung up on me. Then the dispatcher called back and said he would do it for $90.”

I tell them that I have locked myself out twice, and both times I paid a lot more than that. Our property managers do not offer a lock-out service. Jenn says that this is ridiculous, since they have the keys to our apartments in an on-site office. I say nothing. Our property managers do not live on-site. For a few years I was a resident manager in a downtown Seattle apartment building. It was annoying to have to unlock residents’ doors at all hours of the day and night.

I leave my front door open and shine my phone’s light over the locksmith’s shoulder to try to help him see better. I ask him if he can use the inflatable air bag tool, rather than drilling out the lock. This is a method where the locksmith works a flat inflatable bag with a valved squeeze bulb at one end in between the door jamb and the door. They inflate the bag using the bulb to create space between the jamb and the door, and then apply a crowbar at the lock to pop the door open. It won’t work if there is a dead bolt, but it usually works with a simple door lock. The result is little or no damage to the door or the lock. Drilling out and replacing the door lock is more time-consuming and expensive. Plus, the apartment is not secure until the lock is replaced. 

The locksmith apparently had been trying an airbag, but the door is very tight. Before I came out, he had begun to suggest that the lock would have to be drilled out, and that there may be a deadbolt in place. We assure him that Jenn could not possibly have locked her deadbolt without her key. He is a good guy, a reasonable man. He agrees to try adding a second airbag. 

Jenn and the tall young man, John, tell me that they went for a walk in the park with Smoke while they were waiting for the locksmith, and now they are both a little drunk. I think they may be a little high, too, because they are so animated and talking so fast. 

But they are sweet and funny. John looks adorable, like a six-foot tall Harry Potter with his round glasses. Jenn says that she made chocolate chip cookies that day, and that there is a container of them for me in her kitchen. John has a plate of these cookies, for some reason. They are huge. He holds the plate out to me, offering cookies. I decline, saying that I will soon be getting my own. He continues to offer, so I finally accept a cookie and join in the festive mood. Soon we are all laughing, eating the cookies and going on about how good they are.

Smoke strains at her leash, wanting to come into my apartment. We joke about how she must think that all the apartments are the same, and that surely there is dog food in this open apartment.

Suddenly, the door pops open with a sound like a champagne bottle. Everyone cheers and there is general hilarity, shouts of “Give that man a cookie!” Jenn dashes into her apartment, returning with more cookies for me and for the locksmith. The locksmith at first turns them down. Jenn asks him, “Don’t you like chocolate chip cookies?” He shyly admits that he loves chocolate chip cookies, and accepts them with a smile. He gathers his tools and leaves. Our thanks and good wishes follow him down the stairway.

Jenn tells me that she is sorry, but she will be moving at the end of February. She says that she has enjoyed being my neighbor, but she thinks that she really needs a roommate. I silently agree. But I mean it when I say that I will miss her, and that sweet dog, Smoke.