The sun was hot.
She spiraled her wrist, jostling the ice in her drink, ice that was melting rapidly, watering down what was left of her Arnold Palmer. The ice clinked against the side of the glass and it was rhythmic, it was mesmerizing, and she wondered about the things that lived between the spaces of each chime.
Clink
Why was her drink called an Arnold Palmer? Just because some golf guy liked a little sweet with his sour doesn’t mean he should get a drink named after him—
Clink
Why was it so damned hot? It felt like the sun had moved closer to the world, closer to her town, settling right over her house to heat the air, warm her skin, melt her ice—
Clink
What time was it? It was already past noon—she knew that much—so why was it as hot as hell itself in the middle of the afternoon? No, it wasn’t even afternoon anymore—it was evening … right? She had finished making tuna pasta salad, had put it in the fridge right before coming out to read. That was at least an hour ago—
Clink
When does evening start? Like, technically? 5 pm … 6? Doesn’t the sun have to be setting for it to really be evening? Can you even call it evening if it isn’t actually getting dark? What if the sun never rises to be able to set later in the day, like in some part of Alaska during winter—?
Clink
Is it Alaska? Where the sun doesn’t rise … Alaska, right? Wait maybe that’s where the midnight sun happens—where it never sets—not the other way around. Either way, God! How do they live like that? How can they stand it being light all the time—?
Clink
‘The midnight sun will never set … it shines forever in my heart …’ Who sang that? Billie Holiday? No, her voice wasn’t as introspective as Billie’s. Dinah Washington? Carmen McRae? No—deeper, haunting. How could I forget! The Divine One. Sarah Vaughan—
Clink
Condensation wet her fingers as her mind twisted and turned, whiling the day away.
The trees whispered answers to her unspoken questions, helping her piece together the puzzles her mind occupied itself with.
Shhhhh
Clink
Shhhhh
Clink
The hair at her temples was damp, sticking to her skin in dark swaths. Dark yellow swaths. She knew what they looked like without having to check; she had already caught a glimpse of how wrong the color was in the shower that morning. Near perfect when dry, golden with chestnut highlights and glossy—so very glossy—but when it was wet it was the most ridiculous shade ever. Artificial. Deliberate. Fake. She felt like everyone could see the partitioning, could see where the highlight foil added visual interest. When it was wet the whole damned thing looked like it came out of a box. And even though it did, that was beside the point. It was a damned expensive box, if that’s what it came down to, and if Everett wanted her to continue paying for it, he’d better fix this—
Slam
A new sound.
Broke up the ice and tree duet.
Made her jump.
Her Arnold Palmer shot up like a geyser, almost came out of the glass onto her hand.
It was loud—louder than it should have been.
Her neighbor.
Thirty feet between the houses, yet the sound was loud enough to rip her away from her thoughts. Now she felt like she could hear everything, every creak of the wood planks on the deck, the whine the chairs made as whoever had come outside laid something upon them. Who was it—Jeff? Or was his name John?
Or … Jack?
Jerry?
Wait … was it Pat?
Mike?
Rick?
Shit.
She had never taken the time to learn their names, commit them to memory. How long had it been—three years since they moved in? They had bought the place after Jason and Kim moved to New York, some new opportunity opening up for her that, for some reason, couldn’t be done remotely. She didn’t know if she believed that—everything was online now. You could have doctor consultations online, order groceries. You could even do house walk-thrus online now, which is exactly what Jason and Kim had done. There might have been a job opportunity, but it was more likely that they were sick of it all. Tired of the grass, tired of the HOA, tired of having to drive 20 minutes to go shopping, no access to anything but the family movie theater and mom and pop restaurants.
Sick of the sticks.
She sniffed, remembered a conversation in their kitchen a few years back. Jason had said that they were living in suburban hell without the benefits. And yeah, it was true—sometimes she could feel the cows closing in on their little development, the cement sidewalks, identical mailboxes, and paved trails encircling the complex not enough to keep rurality at bay. But for her, the sound of the wind working its way through the leaves beat police sirens and elevated voices any day.
They left and those people came and she hadn’t been in the house since. Not that she had been over there a lot when Jason and Kim lived there—Jason worked from home and was always on one call or another and Kim … well, she was Kim. But still they had gone over a few times and had the couple over to their house a time or two also, but now Jessica or Jennifer or whatever her name was wasn’t letting them in.
Her eyebrow arched reflexively.
Maybe that was a stretch.
Whatever.
The bottom line was that there had been no invitation for drinks or game night. No afternoon chats or sharing a grocery run.
Jeff/Jack/Pat/Mike raised a hand and smiled, all teeth and charm above his tie-dye T-shirt.
And that was that.
Who didn’t call over to their neighbor and comment on the weather?
Who didn’t ask how they’ve been, offer them a drink, chitchat about garbage pickup or the mailman leaving the mailbox door open or people letting their dogs defecate on their lawn and not picking it up?
All of the other people on the street did … at least the ones on their street. They greeted each other as they walked by, talked while standing on their respective driveways, kids and dogs running circles around their legs. They stopped mowing their lawns to inquire talk about gas prices or the new recycling pick up schedule. They were fucking neighborly.
She was neighborly.
But maybe they weren’t like that where they were from.
He was sorting things out on the grill station—from where she sat it looked like seasonings and sauce, maybe some bread or buns. Maybe it was a rub for ribs? She couldn’t really tell. She peered closer, dropping her foot from the chair it was propped up on so that she could lean forward lower, closer, nearer.
Not ribs.
Some kind of meat, but not ribs.
She could only see the pink flesh through the new fancy black aluminum balusters they installed. Damned thing looked like a gate. What had been so wrong with deck railings that were there before? Jason and Kim had had the deck inspected before they put it up for sale and they were just fine. But no, Jeff/Jack/Pat/Mike and Jessica/Jennifer needed something different … something special. Just had to waste money on a fancy cedar deck with black rails on the back of their house where nobody would ever see. A fancy deck that looked like a gate. Like bars at a jail. What were they trying to keep in? What were they trying to hide?
“Almost too hot to grill,” he said and she almost didn’t hear him. She was fully leaned over by then; the angle of her body was so severe, she was nearly coming out of her seat. Could he see her? Maybe. But maybe not. She had heard he didn’t see well from a distance.
She sat up gradually anyway, hoping her movement wouldn’t be noticed.
“Y-yes,” she stammered as she fought the urge to pat at her hair and smooth her skirt. That was something her mother would have done, her hands always fluttering in an effort to tidy when she got nervous. When had she become like her, patting, fidgeting, fiddling under the weight of a man’s stare? She didn’t know and she wouldn’t let herself wonder about it too long because to do so would turn her attention to the real question hanging in the air.
He smiled and turned back to his hunk of meat, big and marbled with fat.
Did he smile … or did he smirk?
She was afraid to keep looking and find out.
He was fiddling with the meat—she could almost hear the squelching of the juices as he massaged it smugly, so smugly like he owned the place, could almost smell the seasonings he rubbed into the flesh, the arrogant bastard, could almost smell the blood …
The wife or girlfriend—she didn’t even know if they were married—told her that they were from just outside Washington DC when they were moving in. The movers had had to work hard that day—there were so many boxes to unload, such many heavy wood pieces to bring in. But there were a few boxes that they wouldn’t let anyone touch. A few that only Jessica/Jennifer and Jeff/Jack/Pat/Mike touched. What was in there?
Unmentionables?
She couldn’t help but laugh at herself. Unmentionables … what even was that? And how old was she all of a sudden? Had sitting out in the sun cooked her brain? There had to be a better word for girly magazines and toys than that, even if it had been a while since she had thought about those kinds of things …
No, that’s not the point. What she and William did or didn’t do in the bedroom was not the point at all, although some nights, when she was awake and the snoring beside her drove her mad, forced her up and out of the bed, out of the room … sometime she wondered what the sounds she heard carried on the wind were, sounds that could have been born of pleasure as easily as of agony, sounds that seemed like they were right next to her.
They had a dog.
The day the moved in there was a dog on a leash being led by a little boy. He looked like he might have only been nine years old—the girl, presumably his sister, was a little bit older. The dog was just a baby, a pup of around 4 months by the looks of it. A mut. A shaggy little thing who would grow into his paws before they knew it and then eat them out of house and home. Like the boy would.
The boy and the puppy would start eating, and eating, and eating, consuming everything they could get their hands on. And it would be so much, too much to keep up with, everything Jessica/Jennifer and Jeff/Jack/Pat/Mike bought would be eaten, sucked in, swallowed whole.
She hadn’t seen the dog in a long time.
The boy was two inches taller now than he had been that day.
Was Jeff/Jack/Pat/Mike smiling or was he smirking as he finished massaging the meat and opened the grill lid, effectively blocking her view of him, his house, and everything he wanted to keep secret? Because that’s what it was, wasn’t it? He was keeping secrets. People like that, ones that keep to themselves, don’t invite their neighbors inside, and set their grills up so that they block the world out when they cook—those people are always keeping secrets … aren’t they? Hiding behind something like they hide behind the grill lid. But hiding from what? Keeping secrets about what, she wondered? And why? The prospect gave her chills. Were they running from something they did back wherever they came from? They moved in fast after the sale—was that why? Did they take something with them when they left, bring it here, hide it somewhere in the house? Is that why they never invited her over—because she might see—
“I can’t believe you’re still out here, Mom.”
She hadn’t noticed the door opening and closing nor her daughter coming out onto the deck but there she was, dressed in a white sundress that showed off her curves. She remembered when she used to look like that in a dress, remembered when she would let the sun kiss the tops of her shoulders, smiled when it left tan lines there to remember it by. It wasn’t that she couldn’t wear a sundress now—she could … she exercised four times a week, didn’t smoke, didn’t drink … much. But it was different now—gravity had had its way and what a bitch she had been about things.
“What time is it?” she said, sounding as if she were coming out of a fog.
“Almost dinnertime.”
She nodded. William had talked about shish kebob. She wondered if he needed help.
“I brought you another drink. I figured yours had to be watered down by now,” Krista said cheerfully.
She loved the sound of her daughter’s voice. So melodic, so lyrical. She was cavalier, worry-free, stressless and you could tell. Her voice was airy and light, confident and nonplussed. Like a bird chirping in the sky. She marveled at the thought of her pretty girl with her pretty boyfriend and her pretty life.
She looked into her glass and smiled. She rubbed her hand over her daughter’s cheek in thanks.
“Oh look, it’s like yours!”
Another Arnold Palmer. Her favorite. A few ice cubes and a wedge of lemon to top it off. And this time William had frozen the cubes fast enough. The iris was still hazel.
Originally published in The Tales of Time (Falstaff Books, 2023)
