The neighbourhood’s new girls and our pastor

There are these two extremely good looking girls who recently moved into the neighbourhood. They raised quite a stir, for different reasons; the men were absolutely thrilled about them, and the girls were jealous. And of course it was the girls who started the rumours about them. Rumours no one wanted to believe until they realised that things might not quite be what they seemed.

Clearly, this was a case of judging a book by its cover. The first indicator being that these were two very young girls renting an upscale apartment with no parents or guardians in sight.

Hardly had they moved in, than our neighbourhood started experiencing a range of high-end cars that would park at that apartment. Tongues started wagging.

The main topic being what exactly these girls did for a living, especially since they kept very unusual hours from the rest of us normal hardworking citizens.
People talked and talked, but it did not matter much because the girls never interacted with anyone. They just kept to themselves. The only time anyone ever saw them was when they were leaving or returning to the apartment. Not even their neighbours in the block knew their names.

Within a fortnight, everyone had written them off. All except one man called Fred, who, for his own reasons, decided to go visiting. Without telling anyone, he simply walked to their door and knocked.

He says he knocked for about five minutes, until one of the girls opened the door slightly, pocked her head out and clearly irritated at the intrusion asked if she could help him with anything.

Now Fred is not a good liar, so all he could come up with was, “you look like someone I know”. She looked at him possibly wondering if the man was just plain stupid, or just annoying. Then she asked him, “Oh really? Who?” And he answered, “my ex-girlfriend.” And she laughed.

At this moment she must have made up her mind that he was just an idiot, and so she turned to close the door. But Fred was not done with her. Quickly fixing a foot in the doorway, he asked her to wait. Irritated, she asked him what he really wanted. But of course he did not want anything specific, just plain old curiosity.

Fidgeting for an answer, he looked over the shoulder and he claims he saw a pile of money on the table behind the girl. Then he told her that he had in fact come to find out if she needed anything, since she was new in the neighbourhood and such, all in the spirit of good neighbourliness.

Well, the girls had been there for a month or so, that welcoming offer was very late. But who am I to judge the logic of ‘better late than never’. She told him, “no thank you”, and turned again to close the door.
This time round, he extended his hand and introduced himself. She did not bother shaking his hand, or even telling him her name. Instead, she politely asked him to remove his foot.

Before he did, he claims he saw a face in a mirror reflection, a face no one would mistake if they saw it, because it belonged to a very famous church pastor. Then she kicked his foot away and closed the door.

Apparently, Fred stayed all evening and most of the night nearby, watching that apartment waiting for the ‘pastor’ to come out. I was inclined to believe him, he had no reason for lying about something like that.
But no one ever saw the ‘pastor’ leave, and it has been a month now. Fred is now plotting on how to blackmail the pastor, and I am sure what is motivating him must be that ‘pile’ of money he claims he saw on the table behind the girl.

“He claims he saw a face in a mirror reflection, it belonged to a very famous church pastor. Apparently, Fred stayed all evening and most of the night nearby, watching that apartment waiting for the ‘pastor’ to come out. I was inclined to believe him, he had no reason for lying about something like that.”