Transvestia

greeted Susanna. "Forgive me", said our heroine "but could I borrow some tea from you? Just a tea ball, that's all." A few minutes later, Susanna was back in her a- partment with a teaball in her hand and a tremendous feeling of excitement in her heart. Twenty-four hours later Susanna again knocked at the door across the hall. This time she carried a box of chocolates which she gave the lady as a token of friendship and thankfulness. Need- less to say Susanna was invited for a cup of tea...and that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship with a human being who was desperately lonely and received Susanna's company as a blessing. It became then a routine. Susanna's brother learned to arrive silently at the apart- ment every evening. Then, Susanna would quietly des- cend the stairs, reach the main door, and then return with a determined click-clack of heels..knock at Clara's door (that was the neighbor's name), and drop in for a chat even before she "arrived" at her apartment.

What did we talk about? I was a writer of stories for the "True Confession-type of magazines..and Clara would listen avidly to my gossip about the New York from which she had cut herself off.. We would talk clothes and her appreciation reached no bounds when I established that I would give her a manicure once a week.. We also talked about my brother, whom she seldom, if ever, got to glimpse entering or leaving the apartment. Of course he was terribly busy.. too busy to make friends. I even asked her to relay a message to him about Susanna who was going to be waiting for him in the lobby of the Roose- velt Hotel... Susanna's brother arrived an hour later making an awful racket opening his door. Clara stuck her head out of her apartment to convey the message to which he answered with a gruff "thanks". Once more the "two people routine" had been firmly established. Six months later however-after a two week absence from the apart- ment, Susanna returned to learn that Clara had died (cancer again) and had been buried the day before. I cried that night and felt terribly alone. All I could do was send a wreath to Clara from Susanna. A harmless de- ception in a way, but a rewarding one for the two people involved. As a PS to the story let me say that Susanna met Clara's husband several times during those six months of visiting....and that he often expressed thanks for my being such good company to his lonely wife. It was a

78