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Lena finished unpacking the very last box. It had taken two weeks, between late nights at the office and having to do it all alone, but she had finally finished moving in to her new apartment. She ran the back of her hand over her brow before deciding to open up the window. She’d given the view outside a cursory glance when the realtor had first shown her around before signing the lease, but really anything was better than living with her mother a moment longer; noisy streets or ugly views were much easier to deal with. She hadn’t thought the view would matter.
Resting her elbows on the windowsill, she took in the cool breeze as she took in the view properly. It was at that moment Lena noticed a woman in the apartment on the same floor as hers, but on the opposite side of the street. She was standing by the window in front of an easel, paint brush in hand, running lines over the canvas in front of her as though nothing else existed in that moment.
That night, Lena had put aside paperwork for the evening and was sitting out on the fire escape, with a pillow behind her back, looking up at the stars intermittently. The painter had apparently had the exact same idea that night, and was sitting on her window seat, with her legs stretched out in front of her and easel and only the dim light of a lamp behind her. Soon enough she caught the painter looking at her. The woman gave her a little wave, and Lena waved back. They sat in strangely companionable silence for a while; the only two people looking up at the stars in the darkness on a quiet night.
Over the next couple of weeks, Lena started noticing the painter more and more. She was often standing by the window, looking lost in thought as though she could see the secret to life itself in her mind, and was trying to figure out how to put that onto paper, but she always smiled and gave Lena a little wave when she saw her.
One day, after essentially forcing herself to take a few days off, Lena was feeling more restless than rested. It was at that moment, lying back on the couch and wondering if it was too early for a glass of wine and a movie, that Lena remembered her new apartment came with a little plot in the apartment gardens out back. An indoor parking space would have been more useful, but nonetheless she decided to go and see it; if nothing else to have a look at what her neighbours had done with theirs and maybe get a pint of ice cream on the way back.
Kara was reading in her window seat cubby when unexpected movement caught her eye. People rarely went into the gardens across the street, folks tended to come in every so often to check up on the plants, but mostly everything seemed to be left to it's own devices.
Downstairs, looking at the little empty patch of soil almost hidden between plots overflowing with outrageously colourful flowers and small trees that had no respect for the plot boundaries, Lena suddenly had the urge to put something in her plot. Something bright and vibrant that might make it just a little bit less pathetic next to all the others. With her arms folded, she tilted her head; it would just be a quick trip to the gardening centre for a few plants and a pair gardening gloves would be useful too and then…. Realising she was getting way too caught up in caring about a patch of soil and that she was a Luthor, and Luthors didn’t care what anyone else thought, she stopped. With a shake of her head, she tried to dismiss the thought of doing anything gardening-related and turned away. She could hear the Rocky Road at the parlour down the street calling her name.
Across the street, still sitting with a book out in front of her and not paying any attention to it, a thought occurred to Kara as she saw her neighbour across the road leave the gardens, looking slightly unhappy. Kara smiled.
The next evening
“One second.”
Lena picked up her wallet on the way to answer the door; that had to be the fastest food delivery ever; she’d only placed the order five minutes ago-
“Hi!” Kara smiled brightly, before looking slightly confused at the 100 dollar bill Lena was holding out to her.
“Uh- You’re not the delivery person.” Lena recognised her in an instant; but had not been prepared for her to be this beautiful up close. Which is probably why she was stating useless facts and doing an excellent impression of a confused goldfish, rather than introducing herself properly to her neighbour from across the road.
Kara grinned and adjusted her glasses, “oh, nope, sorry. I’m your neighbour, I live across the way.” She gestured in the direction of her place before realising that was pointless; of course Lena knew where she lived they’d been waving at each other nearly every day for two weeks.
“Oh right, hi. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Lena.” She stuffed the money into her pocket along with her wallet.
“I’m Kara.” She gave a little awkward wave. “I just thought I should welcome you to the neighbourhood.” She smiled.
“Oh, that’s…” Lena trailed off for a moment. This was the second time Lena had been thrown for a loop in as many minutes; no one had ever done something like that before. Although, having lived on the Luthor family estate for her entire life up until a couple of weeks ago, no one had ever really had the chance to. “That’s really kind; would you like to come in?”
Lena opened the door wider and stepped back, giving Kara room to pass. It was then she noticed the bag Kara was carrying, which had a lot of plant spikes sticking out of the top of it.
“Thanks, but uh- I can come back later if you’re expecting food?” Kara paused. “Or uh- I don’t have to come back, you know, I don’t want to impose I just thought-“
Lena smiled and Kara decided to stop talking.
“Would you like something to drink? I don’t have a lot of variety as I haven’t made it to the supermarket this week yet, hence the takeout.” Lena gestured to the door and Kara lit up.
“Did you order from Wu’s Cottage? They have the best potstickers in town.”
Lena nodded, “yeah, they had amazing reviews.”
“Only like, half of them are from me.” Lena chuckled. “Oh! I almost forgot, I brought you a housewarming gift.”
“Oh, that’s really sweet you didn’t-” Lena paused and her eyebrows shot up as Kara pulled a cacti variety bundle from her bag, “have to do that.”
“It’s for your garden… thingy, downstairs! I didn’t know what you had already, so I figured this was a safe bet.”
Lena took the offered veritable buffet selection of cacti from Kara and set it down on the kitchen table without saying a word. Kara had no way of knowing that Lena didn’t quite know how to accept acts of kindness like this; she hadn’t exactly had a lot of practice. Or that cacti were possibly the only plants she could just about manage to keep alive without help from her assistant.
In the moment of silence, Kara saw the inscrutable look on Lena’s face and suddenly realised she may have overstepped by turning up to a stranger’s apartment, sitting on their couch and giving them a pretty big set of plants. “No pressure though, if you don’t like it or anything, that’s okay. My sister loves plants, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if-” as Kara tried to think of how to convince Alex that they did not have enough cacti yet and seven more could only be a good thing, Lena spoke.
“No, it’s not that, I… I just wasn’t expecting it. I really do like it; it’s very thoughtful. Thank you.”
As Kara gave an internal sigh of relief, there was a knock at the door. Lena answered, paid and tipped generously as always, before setting the bag of food down on the table.
“I think that’s my cue to, make like a tree and leave,” Kara had never wished for the ability to rewind time or unspeak words more. Laser vision was great, but other things would be considerably more helpful sometimes.
Lena laughed. “That, was awful.”
“Okay, I was on the spot and it wasn’t my best, but I stand by it.”
Lena shook her head, “regardless of your truly terrible puns, if you want to stay, you’re welcome to join me. I always order way too much.” Kara hesitated. “And I hear they have really good potstickers.” As she spoke, Lena lifted up the potstickers.
“Well I guess I could…” Kara’s grabby hands as she took the potstickers was wildly at odds with her nonchalant tone.
As they ate, Kara regaled Lena with stories about the neighbourhood and the previous tenant of her new apartment – who apparently had been a really big fan of blaring awful music in the very early morning.
“Well, I can promise you I like to sleep in the early morning.”
Kara grinned, “I’m sure your taste in music is much better too.”
“Definitely.” Lena sighed and set her mostly empty box of rice down on the table. “I am stuffed.”
Kara pouted, “but, we’ve got to have dessert!”
“You still have space?!” Despite her incredulity at Kara’s apparently superhuman ability to eat, Lena couldn’t help but notice that Kara pouting was so very, very endearing.
“I always have space for dessert.”
Lena chuckled and thought for a moment. She was not prepared for a situation like this; dessert somehow hadn’t occurred to her last time she’d gone shopping.
“What do you suggest?”
“Do you want to go for ice cream? There’s a nice little place near the corner. My treat...” Kara smiled a smile which made Lena’s heart flutter just a little.
“Yes. Let’s do it.”
She jumped up with far too much energy for someone who had just eaten half their weight in potstickers, and offered Lena a hand to lift her up from the couch.
Lena took her hand.