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down the stack of junk mail in anger when it didn’t contain a rent check from my deadbeat tenant Brenna. No surprise there. Brenna, who was the niece of an old friend, had been late with her rent for the past three months, sometimes as much as ten days late.
    Time to get tough, I decided. The carriage house on West Gordon Street rented for $800 a month, and if Brenna, a film major at Savannah College of Art and Design, didn’t want to pay the rent on time, I could find any number of tenants who could and would.
    After I’d called both Brenna’s cell phone and house phone, I decided to pay her a visit, maybe even check out how she was keeping the place up. I had a strict no-pet policy for all my rental properties, but the last time I’d gone by the carriage house, I thought I’d heard a dog barking from inside.
    I grabbed a jacket and scarf and decided it would be simplest to just walk the six blocks to West Gordon.
    When I got to the 300 block of West Gordon, where the carriage house was located, I noticed something strange. The sidewalk waswet. The street was wet too. And it hadn’t rained in two days. I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
    â€œNo,” I said, moaning, when I saw the front door of the carriage house. Water was sluicing out from under it.
    â€œBrenna!” I screamed, pounding on the door.
    I sorted through the knot of keys on my key ring until I found the right one, and fit it into the lock. The knob turned, but the door wouldn’t budge. The wood, I knew, was probably swollen from moisture.
    Giving up on the front door, I sprinted around to the back. No water here, thank God. And the back-door key worked fine. I pulled on the door, stepped inside, and instantly wished I hadn’t.
    The smell of mildew nearly knocked me down. The kitchen’s linoleum floor was covered with half an inch of water. I glanced around. The sink was overflowing with dirty dishes. A plastic trash can lay on its side, with soda bottles and sodden fast-food wrappers spilled onto the floor.
    I looked down at my $350 suede high-heeled boots. Ruined.
    It wasn’t hard to find the source of the water. The bathroom was just steps from the kitchenette. The black-and-white octagon-tile floor was barely visible under an inch of dirty water, which was overflowing from the pedestal sink.
    I could have cried. I twisted the knobs, but the cold-water faucet seemed to have been stripped. I squatted down on the floor and searched for the cutoff valve, but it was frozen stuck.
    â€œDamnit,” I cried. My pants were soaked, my boots were ruined. I peeked into the living room to confirm what I already knew. Brenna had flown the coop. I didn’t have the stomach to see what other nasty surprises my missing tenant had left for me. I trudged back home, threw the boots in the trash, and sat down by the fireplace to cry and feel sorry for myself.
    The doorbell rang, but I stayed in my easy chair. I had endured my full quota of shit for the day. No more, I decided. No more sickrelatives, sleazy car salesmen, slacker employees, or sorry-ass tenants.
    But the doorbell kept ringing.
    â€œGo away,” I hollered. “We don’t want any.”
    â€œBeBe?” It was a man’s voice. “It’s me, Reddy. I left my wristwatch here last night. But, are you all right?”
    My shoulders sagged. I didn’t want Reddy to see me this way. Our relationship was too shiny and new to expose him to the nuttiness that was my life. And besides, I had black ribbons of melted mascara trailing down both sides of my face.
    â€œI’m all right,” I called back. “Just having a really bad day. I’ll call you later, okay?”
    â€œCan I get my watch?”
    â€œI’ll slide it under the door.”
    â€œMaybe I can help,” he answered. “Let me in, sweetheart, please?”
    I sighed, but trudged to the door. I opened it, turned around, and trudged back to