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staring at her.
     
     

Chapter Eight
     
    “To be happy, we must be true to nature and carry our age along with us.”
    —William Hazlitt
     
    Back on the main floor, Essie exited the elevator to find Marjorie seated in the family room in front of the television with several other residents. She caught her friend’s eye and gestured for her to follow her. Essie rolled her walker to a table near the back of the family room and parked. Marjorie soon arrived and docked her vehicle nearby as the two women pulled out chairs with their backs facing the rest of the residents on the other side of the family room.
    “I didn’t find Bob’s room,” reported Marjorie.
    “I did,” countered Essie, “and that’s not all! Violet found me!”
    “She was in Bob’s room?” asked her pert, red-headed friend.
    “No!” said Essie, shushing Marjorie. “She caught me trying to break into Bob’s apartment.”
    “What?”
    “And I would have gotten in too—and Violet would have been none the wiser, but they put one of those security locks on his doorknob!”
    “Oh my!” gasped Marjorie. “And you were trying to pick the lock?”
    “I didn’t have a chance!” added Essie. “Old eagle-eye Hendrickson must have been lurking around just waiting for someone to break into Bob’s place.”
    “Oh, Essie,” scoffed Marjorie, “I think that’s unlikely. She was just probably passing by. You know she tends to make a lot of unscheduled visits. I think she’s checking up on the aides and the workers.”
    “Yeah, probably wants to make sure she squeezes every penny of work out of them,” added Essie. “That woman scares me. The way she stares at you down her long, skinny nose. And those eyes. It’s like they’re little radar machines following you and your thoughts. I feel creepy when she looks at me, like she’s looking right inside my head.”
    “What did you say when she caught you?”
    “I think I mumbled and bumbled well enough. At least, she let me go with a warning. But I’ll have to be really careful that I stay clear of her the next time. If she catches me anywhere near Bob’s apartment again, I’ll be in really big trouble.”
    “I know what you mean,” Marjorie said. “Once I threw a candy wrapper in the trash bin outside the dining hall and I missed and it fell on the ground. It felt like someone was staring at me and when I looked around, there was Violet standing in the door of her office glaring at me and the wrapper on the ground. So I quickly bent over—well, as quickly as I can bend over—and picked it up and put it in the waste bin. She gave me this anemic little grin and then went back into her office. She scares me too.”
    “ Good gravy train, Marjorie! Just listen to us! We sound like a couple of school kids who’ve been caught jumping in mud puddles. Why should we be scared of Violet? We’re both adults. We have nothing to be scared of.”
    “Actually, you do, Essie,” noted Marjorie. “I didn’t do anything wrong. If I’d found Bob’s apartment door with a padlock on it, I surely wouldn’t have tried to break in.”
    “You’re such a goody three shoes.”
    “Two shoes.”
    “I don’t care how many shoes you wear, Marjorie!” sputtered Essie, trying to keep her voice low. She turned back to see if any of the other residents in the family room were paying any attention to their conversation. “The point is, we have to get inside Bob’s room.”
    “How? We can’t break open a padlock!”
    “Not if we can get the key,” suggested Essie, her eyes twinkling.
    “Essie!” exclaimed Marjorie. “Just where do you think you’re going to get the key to that lock?”
    “I don’t know,” replied the feisty woman. “Obviously there has to be a key. One of the workers has to have it and probably more than one must know where it is.”
    “What about the worker who cleans Bob’s apartment? Would that person have the key? Or know where it is?”
    “Probably,” answered