Jacob made sure the door behind him clicked loudly when he shut it to alert the Fat Lady to his presence. “Hello?” he called out.
“In here, Jacob, in here.”
He walked down the narrow hallway, through a cluttered living room, and into a dark little kitchen, following the sound of the Fat Lady’s voice. She filled the entire area, with barely enough room to move around. He cleared his throat.
She turned and grinned—her odd assortment of teeth shining at him. The top ones were nearly all gone; the bottoms were pearly white and straight. She fingered the piercing in one of her ear lobes—stretched out so far one of her pudgy fingers would have fit in the space—and Jacob tried not to cringe.
“Good to see you, good to see you,” she said. “Give me a minute to finish.” She turned to the sink, hand still on her ear lobe.
Jacob didn’t want to know what she was doing, so he stepped back into the living room, shoved papers off a section of the dusty orange couch, and sat down.
After a few moments, the Fat Lady shuffled through the room, beckoning him to follow. “Let’s go get this shindig planned.”