Mrs. Bing

There is an earlier version of this story, published last week, but I have taken it off the Lighthouse, and have locked it in the vault, whence it shall never again be seen. In it Martina was altogether too goofy, too unbelievable - a cartoon person rather than a fictional person, if you take my meaning.
So here is the episode introducing Mrs. Bing, the nextdoor neighbour.

An Episode in the life of Martina Bellini, curly-headed nursing student
Mrs. Bing

Poor Mrs. Bing. She’s just been at my door, asking if I know where her glasses are. They were sitting on the top of her head, and when I told her so, she got confused and said it was Wednesday. I don’t know what that means, because actually it’s Thursday. I wonder if I should tell her? I don’t know how important knowing the right day of the week is for her.

I call my next door neighbour Mrs. Bing (even though that isn’t her real name), because I hear her alarm clocks go off three times every day: the first one is for waking up (very, very early), the second goes off at 11:00 in the morning (I haven’t figured out why), and at 7:00pm when she watches Jeopardy. Very loudly. It’s not that the tv is loud, but she shouts the answers at Alex as if he could hear her all the way in California or wherever he is. I can tell when she gets it right because she stamps her foot on the floor and smacks her hands together with a delighted cackle. Now I’ve made her sound like a witch sort of person, which she isn’t – not at all! She’s very sweet really, just a little confused about certain things ... and very excited about Jeopardy.

Her last name is one of those full of consonants with swoops and lines all over the top and my tongue just can’t make sense of it. Where my family is from, they use mostly vowels in all their words, so I suppose I’m not genetically capable of pronouncing a name like hers. I see her name on the label beside her buzzer downstairs and try to get the sounds right, to make it sound like when she first told me her name, but I’m afraid it’s no good; so when I talk to her, she is ‘you’. Like: “Hello you, how are you today? Nice to see you again” which can be awkward at times, but our conversations usually involve her telling me long stories about what her dog has done today (she doesn’t have a dog), and me providing encouraging or sympathetic noises in the appropriate places.

She comes to my door pretty regularly, but sporadically. What I mean is, it happens only on some days, but on those days she knocks rather often, and it’s always for very random things – like this morning, asking about her glasses. A frequent question is if I know what her dog’s name is, and I always tell her it’s Rufus, just because I can see it makes her feel better to get an answer. I used to say that she didn’t have a dog, but then she would want me to go out looking for it, thinking she’d lost it.

Anyway, Mrs. Bing’s visits today have put me behind in my work, because I get distracted from my train of thought. I was deeply into my paper on the history of foot care earlier this afternoon, but by the time I convinced her that the glasses on her head were in fact the glasses she was looking for, I decided I should do some laundry. But I made the fatal mistake of laying down on my bed and I ended up falling asleep! I probably wouldn’t have woken up now, if I hadn’t heard Mrs. Bing calling for Rufus out of her living room window. I think I’ll make a grilled cheese.