Socio

Dr. Warren's apartment was way beyond anything Shannon had ever seen in the movies. It was amazing and spectacular in every sense of the word! As soon as she stepped inside, she automatically froze in place and stared all around her in awe, jaw slack the whole time. "Oh my God," she breathed. "This is incredible." The doctor simply smiled in appreciation as Shannon continued to stare, dumbfounded. They had entered a giant living room with humongous ceiling-to-floor windows that rose nearly three stories tall. The city beyond it was breathtaking even from several feet away. Shannon could see hundreds of buildings and even part of the Hudson. As if in a trance, she shuffled over to the huge windows and gazed at the city below. At the windows, it almost felt as if she were suspended in the air, hovering over the detailed cityscape below. People and vehicles were everywhere although she heard no sound. "There's so much to look at. One could really get lost in a scene like this, daydreaming all day and trying to guess where all these people may be going." "It is mesmerizing," she heard the doctor say behind her. "Sometimes distracting too, if you're trying to focus on something. But until I retire to warmer weather, it's absolutely wonderful." "How high up are we?" "About five hundred feet." Shannon continued to gaze in wonder. The vehicles below looked so tiny, especially the ones farther off on the horizon. They wormed between the buildings and some of the people seemed as if they weren't much bigger than insects. "This is just unbelievable. You ever hear sounds coming through the walls from your neighbors or is it soundproof?" "The building is very solid and soundproof but I never hear them because there aren't any shared walls. Only the interior corners of the apartments join, and if you look at the building from outside, you'll see the corners are cut out. Each apartment on each floor faces a different direction, giving each one added privacy, especially when out on the balcony. Unless you leaned your head over the railing and someone above or below you did the same thing, you can't see each other. Once or twice, I was out there, and I could hear music drifting out of an open unit somewhere on this side, but you won't hear much more than the staff vacuuming the hallways, which they do on Mondays and Thursdays. The only other thing you might hear is sirens but it’s not very loud and that's usually only in the dead of night and only if you happen to be awake to hear it." "What about the people above you?" "Very quiet." Shannon turned to look at the interior of the apartment. She'd been so taken by the scene beyond the giant windows that she hadn't yet noticed the rest of the apartment. She could see a kitchen at the other end of the spacious living room and when she looked upward, she could see a couple of doors beyond a railing that ran the length of the far shorter wall of the rectangular-shaped apartment. "I take it that's where the bedrooms are?" "Yes, ma'am." As breathtaking as the apartment and the view were, it couldn't distract her long enough to jolt her back to reality. Her pets were dead and she was homeless. Fresh tears began to well up in her eyes as she took a seat on the couch and buried her head in her hands. The sound of a glass clinking on the glass coffee table before her made her look up. The doctor had placed a glass of water on it for her. "Thank you." Dr. Warren then sat down next to her with her own glass of water. She took a few sips and then placed it on the coffee table next to hers. "My pets are gone and virtually everything I own is gone." The doctor ran a hand along her shoulders soothingly. "What does a person who is broke and homeless do? Wouldn't the landlord have some kind of insurance? I mean, wouldn't he be responsible for helping relocate his tenants?" "I don't know the laws, but I'm guessing that the landlord would only be responsible if they were at fault. Do you remember reading anything about that in the lease agreement?" Shannon shook her head. "Like most people, I didn't read every single word. I guess no one ever counts on these things happening to them in the first place." "You can call in the morning and see if you can find out more about the legalities and all that." "I'm going to have to quit my job and go back home. I have an old friend there who will help me out until I get back on my feet." "Well, you can do that if you want, but you don't have to." "What do you mean?" "Well," the doctor said, taking a deep breath, "I can't give you your pets back and I can't give you your belongings back, but I can give you a place to live and take you clothes shopping." Shannon's eyes widened. Did she really hear what she just heard? "Oh, wow, that's so incredibly generous of you to offer, Doc, but I don’t know. I mean, I don't think I could take advantage of such generosity knowing there was so little I could give in return. At this age, I think it's safe to say that I'm probably never going to have much money." "There's more to life than making money." "I know. That's precisely why I haven't made much, not that money is a bad thing either. But you would be giving me so much and there wouldn't really be anything I could do in return." "Oh, but there would be a lot you could do." "Well, if I don't return to my home state, you name it and you got it." "You can still keep your job and do whatever it is you do online once we get you a new laptop. That much doesn't have to change." "Okay," Shannon said, waiting for the doctor to go on. "But as you know, a doctor's job never ends. There's so much more than just seeing patients. The paperwork and the online portal are a whole separate job in addition. Not only that, but I'm occasionally on call in the emergency room." "I guess you don't have much free time." "I work quite a bit. Meanwhile, my housekeeper just moved down to Florida. How do you feel about taking over the housekeeping?" "I would love to but that still seems like nothing in comparison to all you'd be giving me, especially for a place like this," Shannon said, sweeping her arm toward the darkening panoramic view before them. "Would you be up to the idea of cooking and doing laundry as well? God knows I could use the extra time it would save me not to have to do it myself and I wouldn't want to hire someone just for those things either." "I wouldn't mind cooking and doing laundry at all. There isn't much I couldn't do as long as it didn't require driving. For everything else I know how to do, I'm ready and willing. For what I don't know how to do, I'm usually pretty teachable." Shannon and the doctor became lost in conversation for a while. Shannon's position on the couch meant that she wasn't facing the windows. When she later turned to face them, her breath caught in her throat. "Wow!" she exclaimed as she gazed out at all the twinkling lights that stretched for miles and miles before her in the now darkened city. "It's like a million stars twinkling away right here on earth." Yes, she thought to herself. I'll miss my poor little furry friends but I could definitely get used to this. Definitely.