Vera was having the time of her life restoring that bookcase. The problem was that she was low on materials. She needed to go to a hardware store to get more sandpaper and the kind of finish she needed now that the joints had all been fixed.
There was one not too far from her apartment building in Seattle so she decided to get what she needed there and bring it back to work with her in the morning. She had to go grocery shopping too but she could do that afterward so she didn't have to drive around with perishables.
She knew this place like the back of her hand by now so it took her less than five minutes to find what she needed. Most of the employees here knew her so when she got checked out the cashier smiled and asked her what she was working on this time.
They chatted while her purchase went through before she cheerfully said farewell and headed to the grocery store. She was in the mood for some of Tilly's snickerdoodles so she needed to get ingredients for that. She was running low on sugar and was completely out of shortening.
Vera hummed to herself as she went and ended up reaching for a carton of eggs at the same time as someone else. "S-sorry, you can h-have it."
She looked up in surprise. "Casey! I didn't think I would run into you here. How are you?"
Casey seemed simultaneously relieved to have accidentally brushed hands with someone he knew rather than a stranger and terribly embarrassed. His face was the color of a tomato and he fiddled with his hoodie string.
"F-fine. How are you, V-vera?"
"I'm great! Did you end up getting in contact with everyone about fixing up your house?"
"Yeah. Th-thanks again for that. The roofing people mart Stunday. Start Monday!" he exclaimed, turning even redder after his blunder.
Vera smiled reassuringly at him. "Oh good! I was hoping you would be able to get started on things soon. Just let me know when you get to the cabinets and anything else wood-related aside from the floor. I'm afraid I don't have any experience with floors but I can help with windowsills and such."
Casey nodded. "I was th-thinking of doing that next."
"Awesome!"
She got the feeling that he didn't want to stand around and chat in the middle of the grocery store so she handed him the eggs he had been reaching for before getting herself another carton. She smiled, told him to have a good day, and waved before pushing her cart into the next aisle.
Poor thing had been so nervous all three times she had met him. What was his deal? Did he have social anxiety or something?
Oh well. Casey was out of mind not long after because Vera was focused on her task of tracking down everything on her grocery list. She wasn't a big fan of running errands so she tried to get two weeks' worth of groceries at once.
That wasn't hard for someone living alone. She didn't go through very much food.
She headed home, made those snickerdoodles, ate way too much dough, and then felt bad about it so she went to her apartment complex's fitness center to try and work it off. She listened to an audiobook as she worked out and didn't notice the pointed stare directed her way from someone on a different machine. Or the picture of her taken on their phone as she did squats.
Vera headed home unburdened and went to go take a nice long bath. She felt relaxed and refreshed when she was done and curled up on the couch to watch a period drama under a warm blanket.
She may love her work but it was nice to unwind too. Though sometimes she wished she had someone to do it with.
She hadn't tried dating anyone since Tilly's health first began to decline because she had been too worried about her aunt to care about such things. Now she wondered if it was time to try and put herself back out there.
Who would want to date a workaholic like her though? She spent most of her limited time outside of store hours either working on side projects or visiting Tilly.
Vera wasn't sure how understanding any potential boyfriend would be of that. Maybe she needed to get involved with someone in her industry but all the men she knew were either taken, way too old, or both.
Meeting eligible guys wasn't exactly easy in her line of work. What she needed was to put herself out there more but she didn't like partying and had heard too many horror stories about online dating to dare try that. There had been a serial killer down in Oregon not too long ago who found his victims on dating sites. How horrifying!
The likelihood of that happening up here was incredibly slim but she could still end up being stalked by some weirdo easily enough. That had happened to a girl she knew in college.
Vera lived alone and her emergency contact was a seventy-two-year-old woman in a nursing home. That wouldn't do her much good if something bad happened. It would be nice if she had someone big and scary looking around as a creep deterrent.
Or anyone, really. Living alone could be dangerous.
She had taken as many precautions as she could, considering her restrictions from living in an apartment. She had gotten permission to install a strike box and dead lock on her door from the landlord.
No one would be kicking her door in so easily. Her apartment building wasn't in a terrible part of town but it was better to be safe than sorry. It wasn't in the best part of town either. It fell somewhere in the middle.
Vera had done her best to protect herself knowing she wasn't very imposing and couldn't do much if someone wanted to hurt her. She knew basic self-defense moves at Tilly's insistence but also knew in a real fight her height would work against her depending on the size of her attacker.