Happiness is a stranger here.

                You open the door, let her in.  She never looks the way you expect her to.  Covered in mud, or in clothes that don’t fit, or anachronistic in dress, like an alien who studied the wrong era before attempting to costume herself as a commoner.

                You didn’t know you were running a bed and breakfast but her fingers on the doorbell set you in motion.  Changing sheets, stocking the refrigerator, checking to be sure you flushed the toilet, hiding the detritus of your morning whirlwind in toppling piles under the sink.  You want her to think you’re at least okay at doing life.

                She will excuse herself to the bathroom with cool, unassuming manners, and you are racing to the linen closet, fingering the stacks of towels for the silkiest, the whitest.  You remember with painful agitation that there’s nothing soft or clean for her dripping hands in that tiny room.

                Should you knock on the door?  Stand outside and wait?  Lay them neatly on top of the guest bed for her to use later?

                You just don’t want her to leave.  You’re sure you’ve already scared her away with your cooking, your silverware, the pimple growing through the wrinkled stress of your forehead.

                But she walks out of the bathroom whistling, and as she brushes past you, you spot two damp hand marks on the backs of her jeans.  She winks and she’s good at it, just one eye at a time.