Each morning, the woman waited for the 803 bus outside of their building. Gertrude watched her from her third-floor window, still in her nightgown and slippers, while nibbling her tea and toast. She would see the woman standing at the curb, cloaked in a long, dark trench coat, hair in a tight bun. The woman kept her gaze southward in anticipation of the bus’s left turn on their street. She spoke to no one, not even chatty Mrs. Lockhart who wore her overcoat even in the dead of summer. In the late afternoons, while Gertrude poured over her school books at the table, the woman would step off the bus, walk over to the red cylindrical pillar box, drop in a letter. She did this once a week, sometimes twice, that Gertrude could see. Gertrude often wondered who was on the other end of those letters, perhaps relatives in India, where the woman was unmistakably from. She wondered if the letters arrived in chronological order, or if the letters from past weeks bypassed the most current ones. The post could be so unpredictable.

Gertrude mounted a step of equal elevation, traversed its narrow surface. The woman’s gaze continued to sweep the area. She didn’t see Gertrude until she was nearly upon her.

“Hello there,” Gertrude said. “I’m Gertrude. I believe we live in the same apartment building on Foster Road.”

The woman relaxed her face when Gertrude mentioned their shared domicile. She appeared older than Gertrude initially thought. Her athletic gait had belied her hollowed cheeks, the dark circles under her eyes. A raised mark the size of a coin bordered her jaw line. It was several shades lighter than the color of her skin, a scar of some sort. Her forehead looked plastic, as if the skin could barely stretch enough to cover it. Still, the woman was quite beautiful with her pen perched above her ear, the lovely mole near the corner of her mouth. She had thick eyebrows, long lashes. “Yes, we do,” she said. “I’ve seen you in the building.”

“And you’re a student here at the university?” Gertrude asked.

“In the graduate English department. I’m teaching this term. My name’s Deepa.” She offered her hand, fingers with short, utilitarian nails, a cold palm. “Very nice to meet you, Gertrude.”