Authors: Karen Reis
The neighbor on my other side was a single heterosexual man who kept mostly to himself and rarely had company over. He was a good neighbor; not loud or obnoxious. He was some sort of mechanic, and he liked to spend time on some weekends tinkering under the hood of his truck, a 1970-something navy-blue Chevy Bonanza. Every once in a while, I would see him with Charles under the Ford’s hood, and vice versa, with Charles under the Bonanza’s hood, but that seemed to be the extent of their neighborly relationship.
I saw my heterosexual neighbor from time to time, but I never did more than nod politely and murmur a hello when we happened to pass by each other. You see, he wasn’t the sort of man I would normally start a conversation with. He had colorful tattoos on both forearms and his head was shaved bald. Two black plugs were drilled into the lobes of his ears and he was very tall, very muscular, and when I saw him, he was almost always dirty and smelled of gasoline and sweat.
To say the least, he was scary looking and he intimidated me. When he frowned, he looked like the sort of man who killed puppies and kicked cats and bullied children in his spare time.
On my very first day off from work after I’d moved into my new home, I went to at the local thrift store and bought a used Crock-pot and some other essential kitchen stuff that they happened to have. Judy and my friends had done a wonderful job with the basics, something for which I am still grateful for down to this day, but there were still a lot of useful things that I didn’t have like ice cube trays, cookie sheets and cake pans. My income was tight, and I budgeted like a Nazi, so even though I needed a lot of things, I had to be patient and wait to buy them. I went on several limited shopping sprees over the months.
The first time I actually met my bald neighbor, and by meet, I mean more than simply eyeballing him suspiciously from across the parking lot, was after one such shopping spree to the thrift store; I had also gone to Target to pick up a few feminine necessities. At the thrift store I found a nice set of eight water glasses with clear daisies etched onto their surfaces, along with some lightly used bake-ware and some Pyrex mixing bowls. I had even hit the jackpot and found a small microwave in decent condition. It was the end of the day though, and I was tired and hungry, which always makes me crabby, and I decided to get as much as I could upstairs in as few trips as possible. I lugged the heavy microwave upstairs first, my bake-ware balanced precariously on top, and on my second and final trip, I slung my Target bags over both arms and balanced my two boxes of used glassware in my hands. I was halfway up the stairs when one of my shopping bags caught on a bit of protruding metal from the handrail and broke open, spilling its contents down the concrete steps.
“Dang it!” I exclaimed in dismay, and watched as a box of Tampons, some black nylons, and a package of new underwear with multicolored hearts and squiggles on them tumbled down, down, down the stairs in beautifully choreographed somersaults, and finally came to a rest against a pair of battered black boots that belonged to my scary neighbor, who I privately called Baldy. He was standing at the bottom of the stairs in his stained mechanic’s coverall. Apparently, he’d just come home from work.
I don’t think I’d ever been more embarrassed as I looked him in the eye from above. I was blushing furiously and trying to speak in something more dignified than a choked squawk. You have to understand that I felt uncomfortable putting Tampon boxes on the conveyor belt at the checkout station if my checker was a man – because God forbid he should discover that I was capable of bearing children – so I was absolutely mortified that my Tampons had actually rolled up on my scary neighbor’s feet.
I stared at Baldy for a moment with my mouth hanging open, and then literally ran down the stairs, boxes of glass still in my hands, all the while apologizing profusely as I tried not to look him in the eye anymore. I set the boxes down on the stairs and tried to gather my things back up into my ripped bag, but my underwear and then the Tampons kept falling out as the man watched me in what must have been shock or horror or amusement, and I finally exclaimed in frustration, “Well, Jesus Christ on a piece of toast!”
I grabbed my purse, which I had slung over one shoulder, and began stuffing what I could in there.
My outburst seemed to wake Baldy up, because he actually blinked and then laughed at me. He’d probably never in his life heard anyone curse like I did. Some might think that it’s wrong to take the Lord’s name in vain, but I think that doing that is a lot better than throwing around the four letter words. It’s also much more creative.
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Baldy said, his voice warm with laughter as he tried to reassure me. “Accidents happen.”
I quickly snatched up the box of Tampons that he’d just started to bend down and pick up, and hid them behind my back. “This isn’t an accident,” I said to him fiercely, my cheeks on fire. “It is a horrific catastrophe.”
He smothered his laugh, though a smile still tugged at his lips. “Like I said, don’t worry.” He gestured to my boxes. “You need some help?”
I stopped moving like a maniac and really looked at him. I was standing a step above him so that basically we were of a height. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, showing off his muscled forearms and his tattoos; it was obvious that he worked out. He had a deep voice and broad shoulders. I swallowed. He looked like he’d just come from prison.
“No,” I shook my head quickly. “No, no. I can handle it, really.”
I picked up the boxes, put my Tampons on top and raced back up the stairs, my now bulging purse bouncing on my back. I looked back once while I was pushing my front door open, and Baldy was watching me from the bottom of the stairs with what I could have sworn was a wistful expression on his face. That by itself confused me, but seeing him standing and watching me like that gave me the creeps, so I rushed inside, and locked the door behind me.
That was the last time I talked to him for months, even though I saw him regularly. He stayed away from me, and I stayed far away from him.
“My dad called me last night,” I said as I put down the knife I’d been using to smash and dice garlic. I paused and looked over my shoulder at my friend, Genny, short for Genève, and waited for her reaction.
I had known Genny, an accountant, for four years. We met in church, the same church where I had met Judy at actually, though I’d stopped going there soon after I moved out because I couldn’t stand having Nancy stare daggers at me from across the auditorium. Anyhow, I remember thinking the first time I spoke with Genny that she was frightening. She’s tall, at least 5’ 10”, and bossy. She’s also twenty years older than me, even though then she looked like she was in her mid to late twenties. I have sighed over that fact many times. I shield my face, and other body parts, from the sun in order to keep my lightly pigmented skin as wrinkle-free and cancer free for as long as possible, and here Genny, a beautiful black woman with a killer body, was wrinkle free by the blessings of DNA and her dark pigmentation.
Sometimes I could spit with jealousy.
Genny looked back at me and frowned. She knew all about my family. She thought Nancy was bipolar and had told her that to her face. Needless to say, Nancy didn’t like Genny or her family by extension.
“What did he want?” Genny asked as she stood waiting in front of her humming microwave.
Nancy still hadn’t said one word to me, even though it had been more than six months since I moved out. I think the fact that I’d renewed my rental agreement had pissed her off, because it reinforced the fact that I really was never coming home. I still saw my sisters though, and they hung out from time to time at my place for a girl’s night of popcorn, chocolate, and a movie. I’d occasionally seen my dad the couple of times I’d dropped by the house in my pitiful attempts to be a dutiful daughter and keep the lines of communication open, but Nancy always went into hiding when I came, so not only had I not talked to her, I hadn’t even seen her in almost eight months.
Apparently though, she spoke about me plenty when I wasn’t there.
“Dad said that his and Nancy’s feelings are really hurt because I haven’t been including them in my life since I moved out,” I said, giving Genny my can-you-believe-them look.
“What?” she exclaimed loudly, then shook her head. “Oh, no. You did not let him get away with that kind of manipulation. Nancy’s probably been crying and whining, and instead of telling her to get over herself, he makes you out to be the bad guy. Please tell me you told him off, honey.”
I shook my head sadly. “I didn’t. I thought about that after the fact, but honestly, I was just so flabbergasted that I didn’t know what to say. I mean, come on. She disowned me; she labeled me the traitor, not the other way around. I was honestly speechless. Dad told me that I should be a more dutiful daughter, and then he hung up.”
“I don’t know how much more dutiful they want you to be. I mean, just last week you went over there to help your dad install insulation under the floorboards of their house. It’s not your fault Nancy didn’t come out while you were there, so how much more dutiful can you be? What do they expect from you?” Genny ranted. She took a deep calming breath. “So what did you do?”
“I slid down the wall next to my bed and sat on the floor and cried like a baby for about a half an hour,” I said, shaking my head in disgust at the memory, though I understood why I had melted down. I was the one feeling betrayed then, and I’d cried till my stomach ached, then slept the sleep of the dead.
“God, that man should get hit by a car,” Genny said ruthlessly as the microwave beeped and she took out a plate of hor’dourves. “Well, now I know why your fingers are looking worse than usual. Jesus, he makes me want to slap him upside the head.”
I nodded, glancing at my hands quickly and then curling them into fists. I had the bad habit of biting my nails and the skin around them till they were raw and bleeding. I told everyone who asked about them that it was just a nervous habit, but I had come to notice, since moving out, that my fingers tended to look worse right after I’d gone a round with my parents. Conversely, they began to look slightly better when I was away from them.
But only slightly. It seemed, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop biting my nails.
The condition of my fingers embarrassed me. I usually tried to hide my fingers from people’s sight, sitting with them tucked under my thighs, or with my arms crossed and my hands tucked into fists as my side. Normally people who knew me well didn’t say anything, but Genny was different. She tried to get me to stop in gentle ways, printing out articles from online on how to break habits or suggesting to me that I should perhaps see a therapist. I ignored her attempts to help me though. I guess a part of me, no matter how embarrassed by my hands, didn’t want to stop. It was like, in some twisted way, I enjoyed biting my nails and fingers. I needed to do it.
I also needed to change the subject, so I asked, “Want to hear something weird?”
“What’s that?” Genny asked, looking at me curiously.
“When I went outside this morning to leave for work, there was a little bouquet of white daisies on my doormat. No name, though. I have no idea who left them there, or why.”
Genny’s eyebrows shot up in excitement. “Somebody likes you,” she said in a singsong voice.
I shrugged and blushed. “I don’t know who it could have been. No one I know looks at me like they’re secretly in love with me.”
“Oh, what do you know?” Genny said, waving her hand as she placed the hor’dourves on the kitchen buffet counter, which opened up into the living room. “You hardly even notice the opposite sex.”
“It’s more like the opposite sex hardly notices me,” I grumbled. When I looked in the mirror, I saw someone that was marginally pretty when my hair was done and my makeup on. I’d never in a million years call myself a head turner. I had eyes in my head though, and I could appreciate a good looking man. I’d just never bothered to try to take that attraction to the next level, like dating.
The flowers that had been left for me had been very pretty, though. Tulips were my favorite flower, but daisies came in at a close second. I believe Meg Ryan put it perfectly in that movie, You’ve Got Mail, when she said, “Daisies are such happy flowers.” And they really are. They turned my depressed mood upside down. I put them in a vase and displayed them prominently on the end of my kitchen counter, where I could see them from any angle in my apartment, and I’d been thinking about them and their giver, and not my crazy parents, all day.
“You need a makeover,” Genny declared as though she’d been reading my mind. I looked at her in horror, but was saved from saying anything by the doorbell, which suddenly chimed.
Grabbing onto the distraction, I grinned at Genny. “That’s probably Isaac and his friends,” I said.
Though Genny was forty, she hadn’t managed to find Mister Right, even though some of the guys she’d dated in the past had been fine upstanding citizens. Then Isaac had come along, the last person in the world that I’d thought she’d pick to be her husband forever. Isaac was from Ethiopia, and was a thin man who likely weighed half of what Genny did, though he was inch taller than her. He was also extremely quiet. In fact, Isaac was so quiet that sometimes when he spoke to you he actually mumbled under his breath. During half the conversations I had with him I had to lean in and ask him to repeat himself, which he did quite readily. He was really an easygoing sort of fellow exactly the same age as Genny, who’d come to America in his twenties to escape a really nasty political situation back in his home country.
Isaac was a US citizen, and had managed to win Genny’s heart. He doted on Genny, treating her like the high-maintenance queen that she was. He’d asked her to marry him after dating for six months, and he’d presented her with a modest diamond ring, a mumbled proposal, and a heart full of love. Genny had given him an ecstatic yes. She had called me that night to tell me the good news, and to say that they’d already picked a date six months down the road: October 30, a Saturday.