~

Over the following week Bette slowly moved things around, finding better homes for her paintings and deciding in the end that the lounge would feel better set out the opposite way around, with the ornate fireplace a focal point, despite its lack of usage in LA.

Occasionally she saw the slight figure of the woman in the apartment opposite, coming and going like a creature in the night, noting that she never seemed to leave completely.

She learnt of the other occupants, a couple on one side; both of whom worked in the film industry, neither of which seemed to be all that well paid since they fought about money and rent and everything else Bette could hear through the not so thick walls. On the other side lived a divorced woman and her devil-spawn child, she also seemed nice but Bette found her to be a little tense and high strung and the child had a nanny who yelled a lot.

They would all come and go, sometimes she’d catch them outside either leaving for or returning from work, picking up the mail and coming in, in the evening, from the store.

The woman opposite, on the other hand, never seemed to leave. Bette saw her slip into the water every morning for her swim and sometimes again in the evening, always during the quietest and coolest parts of the day when she could be sure no one else would run into her and because of that Bette found herself scheduling her day around those tiny events. Waking up in the morning in time to peek through the blinds and see her creeping out, coming home in the evening and rushing through to the patio doors, seeing her climb from the water before she disappeared inside again, often not reappearing again until the next morning.

Then on Friday of her first week in her new place something changed. Bette woke up in the morning and checked the window as always, her eyes trained on the door across the courtyard expecting it to swing back as the slim tanned legs would appear beneath the same white towelling robe, exciting her heartbeat just a little.

She looked and looked but nothing happened, she didn’t appear, forcing Bette to go about her normal morning routine without that ritualistic start to her day. She glanced across though the open windows as she drank her morning coffee, pretending to read the paper when really what she looked for were signs of life in the opposite house.