Our first couch surfing experiences

I wasn’t sure if she would serve me a cup of tea or a bowl of stewed eyeballs and pickled fingers.

I rang the doorbell to her one bedroom flat around 8 pm on a Sunday. I heard her come down the stairs slowly, one thud at a time as her hazy silhouette grew larger through the frosted glass. Her form took up the space of the window and I saw the outline of wiry hair.  Locks twisted and unchained, she opened the door a few inches. Her nose appeared first followed by one eyeball. I smiled, I had seen this in creepy movies before. I knew what was going to happen and it was almost comical. She’d either become my best friend and we’d talk about knitting or she’d cut me up and feed me to her house cat.

When she saw me she shut the door again, undid the final chain and opened it wide. She smiled at me and her eyes squinted until they became only horizontal lines with crinkles around the edges. Like little stick bugs digging their little legs into her still smooth skin. Her gray hair cut just above her shoulders was secured on one side by a large felt flower barrette. She had a crocheted blanket wrapped around her waist, a purple cardigan and a faded yellow turtle neck.

I got to the top of the middle of the stairs and realized she might want me to take off my shoes. She told me to put them at the bottom of the steps, and so I stepped  backward down the stairs as it was too small for me to turn around with my home on my back. Another minute or two of awkwardness ensued as I bent down to untie my shoes without releasing the bag and fell forward, by arms catching the brunt of the weight before my face smacked the floor. Off to a good start.

Her house smelled of long worn carpet and once wet wool. Brewed tea had steeped into the walls coloring them a worn in brown. Tiny framed watercolors of landscapes lined the walls. On the drawers beside the entrance to the living room there were two heart shaped frames with smiling children looking back. Both had matching grins and emblemed navy sweaters, and maybe I was tired but my first thought was that they were two spoiled children up to no good.

The couch had a  white blanket covering it in that way older people do when they don’t want to be bothered getting rid of the stain sofa when they can throw a cover on it much more easier. We were quiet then for a while. She paid no attention to me laughing to herself as she read from a binder, magic spells perhaps. It was my first time and I felt as if I took up the entire room.

I asked her questions about her life and learned she was a practicing Buddhist , estranged from her father and had one sister, the mother of the mischievous smiles in the hallway, living in the north of England. She had recently taken up painting and had a preference for Downton Abbey. There were essential oils lining her sink and inspirational quotes hung like limp flowers around her home. You could follow their trail from above the dusty television in her kitchen to the mantel of the fireplace in the living room collecting discarded bits of paper and wood, more than ready to escape in smoke.

I stayed two nights with Regina on a Thai beach bed, which is essentially a mat made for enjoying tropical seasides. I was up before her both mornings, leaving little notes as if she was my caretaker and I needed to let her know I was thinking of her. It all seemed to be going well and eventless until it wasn’t anymore.

She asked me to dinner the send night and having made plans at a local pub with a new friend, I apologetically declined. That night when I got home she had locked both locks though she had only given me only the key for the bottom. She waited 30 minutes to answer the door, having said she was on the phone when I first rang and couldn’t hang up right then. She wasn’t sure it was me even, because I seemed to not be coming back due to the late hour. Her brow was more furrowed than normal and her eyes sunk in. I could tell I had offended her without her saying it. This is it, I thought, this is where she kills me in my sleep.

What are your plans for tomorrow? She asked me. I was suppose to be staying with her the following night as well, leaving for London early Wednesday morning. Because, she continued, I’d like a night to myself. So you’ll find another place to stay. The corners of her mouth smiled in a way that was not unkind but rather matter-of-factly. She was kicking me out.

The next day I asked a friend to shower at her place, not wanting to be at Reginas’s longer than I had to before departing to London. When I returned to her house she made me a cup of tea and asked about my plans. I began packing as she sat on her sofa using an exacto-knife to cut out shapes in the paintings she had made.

While I shoved my stuff into my bag she informed me that she was sending them to homeless shelters as a random act of kindness.

Before leaving I went into her room and left the flowers I had bought from the market on her bed in the way one leaves them near the casket at a funeral. She’d find them later and I hoped she’d put them in a vase and maybe paint a picture of them. The pinks and magentas bleeding into the greens giving it a soft and far away feeling. Making the real into the imagined.

I kissed her on the cheek before thinking about it. It was a hard kiss and I had just drank water so it must have left a wetness on her cheek. When was the last time you’ve been kissed? I wanted to ask.

I’m going to go make dinner now, and see about a friend. A flash of a smile before she closed the door and again became a shadow in the glass. I could still make out the tip of her flower barrette as she stood there for I don’t know how long.