Pulling her suitcase behind her, Ryan and Nicole walked back to their house from Sip and Bite. Ryan frowned as they approached the marble stoop leading up to their front door. “Nic, man, you’ve got to keep this area clean.” Looking down, there were two empty National Bohemian beer cans sitting on the top step of the stoop. “Those are from last night.” The woman smiled as she unlocked the front door. One of the first things Ryan had learned when she moved to Baltimore was the importance of maintaining a clean and tidy stoop. What front porches were to people in the south, a well maintained stoop was to Baltimoreans. “You’re lucky Mrs. Grady hasn’t seen this.” Phyllis Grady was not only their neighbor, but their landlady. She was over eighty, and when Ryan and Nicole had moved in two years ago, the octogenarian had laid down a few rules not outlined in their lease. “Here. You take this, and no less than once a week, you scrub that marble.” The gray haired, stooped woman gestured toward the four steps leading to the house’s wooden front door.
