I am the one skulking about, driving the streets all hours of the day and night stealing a glance or two. I rush home from work, and park my car in the street with my headlights pointed into their living room window. Still they don’t appear. What is their problem? I think. Are they hiding from me?
I keep an eye out for Julie and Rod in the circle. I wish I had a dog to walk. I want to see Julie in the daylight. I want to see what the sparkle was all about. The glitter. The fairy dust. These people are really beginning to get on my nerves. Why don’t they just come out of their house? But when Florida turns cold, no one comes out of their house, even if the cold is no less than sixty degrees.
Occasionally she is there in the morning, standing by the curb, at the street, by her garbage cans, at the mailbox. Sometimes she is there early, when I pick up my newspaper, and I act like I don’t see her. She acts like she can’t see me either. In fairness, I should tell you that she actually can’t see me because I am standing behind a large bush. Because I am in my nightgown. I have spent the past ten years retrieving the paper in my nightgown. I’m not about to dress up for her. She can’t make me change things for her.
But today I don’t notice her. I don’t take cover behind the bush. I bend down, in my nightgown, pick up the paper, and there she is. Just like that. Not less than five feet in front of me, wearing a nightgown, just like me! Is this her idea of a joke? Is she mocking me? How rude! I should turn around and walk away. I should call the newspaper and stop delivery immediately. She has no social graces. No social etiquette. You just don’t sneak up on someone like this. Hi, she says. Hi, Julie, I say.
This morning ritual goes on for the better part of a week. If I get the paper at eight, she’s there. If I wait until nine, she’s there. If I don’t pick it up until well after ten, there again. Four mornings in a row, we exchange greetings. Four mornings in a row she wears her nightgown. I know she and her deceptive husband are laughing at me. Behind my back. Laughing over my nightgown. I am completely offended. Then, on the fifth morning she announces that her name is Jill, not Julie. But you can call me Julie if you want to, she says.
I am mortified. And angry. Her husband did not say her name was Jill. At least, I don’t think he did. Unless he mumbles. That could be a possibility. He looks like a man who might mumble. Or it is certainly possible that he is playing some sort of trick, a cruel joke, to make her not like me. A family of tricksters, that’s what they are. Maybe he is getting back at me for thinking he is a handyman. But in order to know that I actually believed him to be a worker, rather than an owner, he would have had to read my mind. Is it possible that he is not only a spoon-bender but also a mind reader? That must be it, I think. A family of mind readers, vagabonds, spoon benders, and who knows what else? Still, I can’t avoid them entirely. I am not about to place myself in a position that would be interpreted by them to be oppositional, not if my fate rests in their hands, their spells, their wizardry.
As a protective measure, I decide I will call her Jill. After all, it is her name. Just as it should be.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Strangely, I feel some inner longing trying to break through. Something familiar from another time. Something I can’t put my finger on. It’s disconcerting. Jill has taken up lodging in my head, an uninvited resident, snarling my brains. A resident with one name I have to erase, and another that I have to remember.
I want to mind the rules. Neighbors are neighbors, not friends. Otherwise, the next thing you know, they make comments about your comings and goings. No sooner did I have that thought, than that is exactly what happened! On the ninth week, Rod is outside playing with his son. He waves. Then he comments about how I take the garbage cans to the street late at night. The gravel driveway amplifies the sound, he says. So what? I think. There’s no garbage can curfew. There’s no law about the time of night you can take out your garbage. I don’t comment about his hammering all night long. Mind your business, I think.
If they know about my garbage can ritual, what else do they know? What about my schedule? My predictable schedule. Should they assume that I have no plans on a Saturday night if my car remains in the driveway? Will they talk behind my back on Sunday morning if I don’t go to Church? Should I start being more faithful about going to Church just so that they don’t talk? No, I think. That’s how Jill will control me. It’s already starting. But I should go to Church, I want to go to Church, but now I don’t know my real intentions. Am I going because I want to give them nothing to talk about, or because I really want to go? Does it matter? Does it count, with God, I mean, if I go to satisfy my own paranoia?
I feel conflicted. And crazy. They really are making me crazy. I don’t need this. I am going to do the exact opposite of what I think they think I should do, to defy their super-powers. This has gone too far. They are sucking the air out of my space.
Still, I wonder if there is any chance that she could be my friend. If she would like me. I feel so torn, twisted by my own sanctions. It is tempting to let her into my life. I feel embarrassed that I am so desperate to have a friend. I wish they never moved here. I was doing fine without them. My head hurts. My heart hurts.
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