Even when traffic was heavy, Laura was able to make good time. She lived and worked at opposite corners of a large five-by-ten-block rectangle, and so had many alternate routes if one path was blocked by a stream of cars or a red light. Her little red Supra stayed in the apartment's underground garage except on weekends. She saw little sense in driving to and from work every day, paying the exorbitant downtown parking fees, and then paying further to join a health club to use a treadmill. Instead, her daily walk gave her exercise, time to think about problems at work, the opportunity to experience life in the city, and even more money to salt away in one of her several investment accounts.
When she arrived home and opened the door of her apartment, it too, like her office, looked like an unused hotel room. The furnishings were unlike those in any hotel, though. Laura had eclectic tastes, and had amassed the artwork and furniture slowly, buying unusual pieces when she found them. They had to go with what was already there but did not have to match it. Like a well-planned museum exhibit, each piece was unique, interesting in itself, but blended perfectly with the whole. Although neat and tidy, the rooms did not have a sterile appearance but rather invited one to sit and enjoy. They had looked much more lived-in during the brief month that Bryan had lived here. Too much lived-in, and that was why Bryan no longer lived here.
"You're such a neat-freak," he had said once, only half-teasing.
"I just like order in my life," Laura had replied. But for one usually so sure about her decisions, she still had nagging doubts about the break-up of that relationship.
Like all love affairs, it had started off wonderfully. A girl in the office had invited Laura to a Friday night party being given by friends, and she had decided to go along. The friends turned out to have a great place for a party, which they jokingly referred to as a penthouse. Actually, the apartment builder, who was also the owner, had used some latitude in interpreting the plans. What was to have been merely a small utility room beside the elevator shaft terminus on the flat roof became a one-bedroom apartment. A sizable pre-Christmas gift to the building inspector allowed this minor revision to the approved plans to go unnoticed. The landlord gained another rental unit, and a couple of Yuppies found a relatively inexpensive apartment just above St. Catherine Street with fabulous view of the city from the top of a twelve-story building.