She was, Jake thought, the least attractive human being he’d ever met.
Since she was taking her time assessing the house, he had a moment to look at her through the window, and he pondered that initial impression. He was repulsed. He’d known people who didn’t, physically, have much going for them, and hadn’t reacted to any of them this way. What was different about her? She was tall and broad shouldered, but no more so than Nancy, and he thought Nancy was the most attractive person he knew. 
It was the total lack of joy, he finally decided. This woman had no light in her eyes, not even a hint of twitch to her lips. She didn’t just look unhappy, she looked determined to stay that way.
When she began impatiently eying his doorbell he decided it was time to open the door.
“Hello,” he said, trying to sound pleasant.
“I’m Dr. Kessler,” she snapped. “Dr. Hilda Kessler. I’m currently an adjunct professor in computational sociology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and my sister and I have taken the house across the street. I presume I’m speaking to Mr. Jake Deaver?”
“Yes, you are.” Jake chuckled. “Technically Dr. Jake Deaver, but as my mother used to say, my PhD didn’t seem to take. Call me Jake. Please come in?” Holding the door, he stepped to one side.
She didn’t move. “Nobody told me you had a doctorate.” Explanation was demanded.
Again he chuckled, though it sounded a bit forced in his own ears. “I’m not surprised. In a small town people think the only real doctors are the medical ones. Of course it’s different for you in academia.” He gestured, trying to look gracious. “Won’t you please come in?”
“Where’d you get it? Your degree?”
“Carnegie Mellon,” he said. “In theoretical physics, if you can believe it. Not exactly applicable to my present life.”
“Hmph,” she said. He had a prestigious degree from a prestigious school. Her degree, the private detective’s report said, was from a tiny school in central Indiana that had since lost its accreditation. One step above clipping a mail order coupon from the back of a magazine, the report said, but a small step. And she wasn’t, for that matter, an adjunct professor at IUP. She was renting an office in one of their disused administration buildings.
Since he wanted her to be friendly — if that was even possible — Jake didn’t pursue discussion of any of this. He simply waiting, holding the door with his left hand out to invite her in, and started to feel foolish.
Finally, still glaring at him as if he’d deceived her, she stepped inside. “I have questions for you,” she snapped.
“About my education?” Jake was now sincerely confused. 
“No, of course not,” she said, waving her clipboard. “Why would I care about that? About the community behind your house. The little people, as the locals call them.”
“May I get you something to drink? Ice water, or tea?”
“No, no,” she said. “This isn’t a social call. It’s academic research.” 
Although the report said she was forty-eight years old, Jake would have guessed she was much older. His grandmother had acted more youthful at ninety.
He steered her to the dining room table and held a chair for her until she sat. Sitting across from her, he said, “I’m afraid I’m not going to be much help to you.”
“Why not?,” she wasped. “People say you’re the one who knows. Somebody said you make your money off this community. You and” — she looked at her clipboard — “a Miller family. There are a bunch of them. Must breed like rabbits.”
He imagined the matriarch of that family listening at the kitchen door. At least he hoped she was, because he’d want to discuss the professor’s visit with her.
“If you’ve been asking questions,” he said while trying to look pleasant, “I imagine you’ve learned that folks around here like their privacy. Myself included. It’s one of the privileges of living in a rural community.”
“Humph,” she said. Without asking permission, she stood and crossed into his parlor, to a back window. “You’ve got a big playground out here. I see people in and out all the time. What’s the deal with that? Some kind of public park?”
He stood and walked to stand beside her. “It’s not technically public, but it’s open to anyone from around here to use. My family has a lot of land” — 
“Over a thousand acres!” she said. “That’s unheard of in this part of Pennsylvania. Farms are seventy acres, eighty at most.”
He paused until he was sure she was done, and then continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “And we share these facilities with the community. Community was alway a priority for my grandmother and my mother.”
She peered. “So you’ve got a tennis court, a swimming pool — what all is out there?”
He smiled. She found a way to make the most reasonable question into a rude demand. Pointing, he said, “The swimming people is by arrangement only, for safety. We provide a lifeguard for groups. There’s a trap shooting range up behind that barn for which we also require arrangements in advance, and a ten meter air rifle range inside the barn. The rest of it is open all the time. The court you’re seeing used to be tennis, now it’s pickleball. There’s a children’s playground, and badminton. Horseshoes and corn hole over there. And over there” — he pointed — “are two trail heads. One trail is gentle, about a mile without serious hills. It’s very pretty, with flowering shrubs and streams. Some beavers have been flirting with it, and we’re hopeful. The other is five miles and somewhat demanding. Then there are several acres of grass, ballfields and a couple pavilions, for general use. Picnics, things like that.”
He stepped away, back toward the dining room, but she stopped him by saying, “Do you know what this reminds me of? Plantations. Where they had slaves to do all the work.” 
Jake felt as if he’d been slapped. This was dangerous territory. He gave himself a little mental shake and replied, “What an odd thing to say. Have you published work about plantations? I’d be interested in reading it.”
She had not published anything whatsoever, the private detective had told him. Jake figured the best defense was a good offense, and he needed defense.
Her ugly face flushed. “It was just a general observation. Obvious to any intelligent person.”
“Ah,” he said. “Well, Dr. Kessler, we’re neighbors, and I wish we could be friends, but you seem disinclined to accept my hospitality. It’s time for you to go, but my door is always open to you… if you’re coming in peace.”
“You’re throwing me out? You haven’t answered a single question I’ve asked.”
He opened his front door and stood beside it. “Good bye, Dr. Kessler.”
She strode to the door, but stopped directly in front of him. Pointing to his nose, she said, “I don’t give up. You’ll find I can be very unpleasant until I get my way.”
He closed the door gently, in the process pushing her out like hemorrhoid cream from a tube. When the door finally latched he closed his eyes and muttered, “That’s what I’m afraid of.”