Alice – Episode 6: Meeting the Neighbors

That first day, we made quick polite stops at every house on the block, both sides of the street. Like Jack had figured out, it was a bedroom community, so most houses we ended up tucking the flyers into the edge of the front door. I was going to put the first one in a mailbox, but Jack stopped me. “That’s a federal offense,” he said in that serious lecture tone he shared with Mom. “They probably wouldn’t care, but it’s best to avoid trouble when you can.” I was burning to know more about Jack and trouble, considering all Mom had shouted when he first arrived, but I hadn’t even figured out what to call him. Grandfather was way too formal, Grandpa didn’t really fit either. I thought of him as Jack, but I didn’t normally call adults by their first name – at least not anyone over thirty. “We’ll go back out in the evening,” said Jack. “After dinner. And on the weekend. Take our time and let people get to know us.” That evening, Jack went straight for the house where he’d seen the girl with her head covered. It turned out one of the Apu families was Muslim, from Pakistan, but the other was Hindu, from India. Their dads were doctors at the same office. There was a Hindu girl my age, Ambar, and two Muslim brothers a little older than us, Yusuf and Karim. While Jack chatted with the fathers, Ambar and I sat in her backyard talking with the boys. Her mother kept an eye on us from the kitchen. “I’d never have been allowed to have Muslim boys for friends if we were still in India,” Ambar said. “And when it’s time for me to marry, my parents are going to insist on a nice Hindu boy.” Yusuf, who was sixteen, laughed. “Our parents would be furious if they knew how casual we are at school with the other kids. They wouldn’t want us marrying outside our religion, either.” “I don’t know if I’ll ever get married, and I don’t even go to church,” I said. “We celebrate Christmas, but that’s because everybody does.” “Don’t tell our parents,” said Karim. “That’s worse than being a Christian!” “Definitely,” said Ambar. “So you girls are going to be in high school with us this fall,” said Yusuf. “You’ll probably get Mr. Zeller for math,” said Karim. “He’s a complete burnout—he should have retired years ago. Whatever you do, don’t correct him if he makes a mistake.” We chatted for an hour about the different teachers and what high school was like. We were all friends by the time Jack finished talking with their fathers and said it was time to head home. I told him how nice they all were. “I can’t believe they’ve been on the bus for three years and they never talked to me before.” “They were probably waiting for you to make the first move, Nina. After all, they’re in a country where half the people see someone whose skin’s a little different, who talks with an accent, and immediately they’re suspected of being a terrorist.” I considered that. “Maybe. And I’m usually doing homework or reading.” I started to wonder what other potential friends had never tried to talk to me. “I don’t talk much with anyone else on the bus, either.” “Well, don’t feel bad. They’ve had each other for friends.” Jack laughed a little and slipped into teaching mode. “That definitely wouldn’t have happened if their fathers hadn’t gone to med school together. When India and Pakistan were split apart by religion, the lines weren’t as clear as the politicians tried to make them. It got ugly.” Mom using that tone would leave me bored and looking for a way out. Jack made it feel like he was sharing important secrets, so I didn’t mind. I wanted to share, too. “Ambar wouldn’t be allowed to be friends with the boys anywhere else.” “I’m surprised they let it happen here,” said Jack. “But maybe they figure it’s unavoidable, and they can manage it this way.” It was too late to go anywhere else that night, but we went out every evening after dinner. Three of the houses we visited later that week belonged to university professors. Jack talked with the couples about new developments in stem cell research, globalization vs. isolationism, and the social resistance techniques of Gandhi. In the last discussion, Mr. Parker, a young professor of Social Justice classes, eagerly listened to Jack describing the Berkeley protests he had participated in, with Mom strapped onto his chest. He asked if Jack would be a guest speaker in the fall. “I’ll have to let you know,” said Jack. When I told Mom how much Jack knew about so many different things, she still said he was full of shit. She used that word a lot whenever he was near her, and they argued almost every time they were in the same room—about personal stuff or world affairs, anything and everything. Jack’s check came to our house the first of July and he insisted on giving Mom some of it for room and board, which was probably why she quit saying he had to leave. She was getting more and more stressed about money and not having a new job lined up for the fall. She was on the computer all day every day, putting in applications all over the country. She told Jack she wasn’t putting our house up for sale until she knew where she’d be working in the fall. There was still a chance a French teacher would leave mid-summer, somewhere close enough for her to commute. I finally decided to call my grandfather Jack, like Mom did. I tried it out on him alone first, then at dinner. Neither of them noticed. At least they didn’t say anything about it.

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Alice – Episode 4: Nina Cries

This is the fourth episode of an abridged version of my novella Alice. You can read the whole thing here over the next weeks or buy a copy and binge. Or you can do both and compare the two – writers may learn from the differences. As always, you are welcome to share this link with others, but please respect copyright by contacting me for permission if you want to use the material elsewhere. Even if you’re making it into a school skit, I’d like to know where it’s being heard. Thank you.

Jack was really old school about technology. He insisted on having the cell phone on speaker so it wouldn’t give him brain cancer, so I found out his friend was dead with him. He wrote down the name of the cemetery and thanked the person who told him, then said goodbye and handed me my phone.

“I don’t know how to hang that thing up. You don’t have to pay long distance for that call?”

“No, we have unlimited calls and text anywhere in the country.”

“And your mother has internet on her phone, doesn’t she? That’s what she was doing before?”

“Yeah. So can I… I’m sorry about your friend.”

He shrugged it off. “Wouldn’t a land line cost less? Or having one cell phone? What with your mother losing her job and all?”

I’d never known anyone who had someone close to them die, so it was a relief to talk about anything else. Maybe that’s how Jack felt, too. “We talked about it when she got pink slipped, but my cell phone’s how I stay in touch with my friends, especially over summer, and Mom needs hers for jobs. So I’m going to babysit more and pay half.”

“I’m just meeting my granddaughter and here she is taking care of babies herself.”

He sounded sad again, so I babbled on about texting and Facebook and Twitter and all the ways my friends and I communicated.

“You don’t have to be an adult for that?” he asked.

“As far as the internet is concerned, I’m eighteen.”

“Does your mother know?”

“Yeah, she lectured me about not talking to strangers online, but she caved on the age issue because she knows that’s how all the kids connect. She admitted that’s important. But she insisted that I keep her on my friends list, so I have to tell everyone to be careful what they post.”

He stared out the window and let out a big sigh. “Does your mother have many friends?”

“Not really. Mostly she works and then spends time with me. It was cool when I was little, but it’s kind of a pain sometimes.”

“That’s probably my fault,” he said. “When she was little, she made new friends all the time, then we’d move on. Somewhere along the line, she started keeping to herself. I didn’t even notice until she was gone and there was no one to tell me where.”

I didn’t know what to say. Most of what he’d been telling me about my mother was really weird and didn’t fit with what I knew about her at all, but being a loner was totally Mom. After all, she even went to a sperm bank for me. But I’d never thought about why she might be that way.

“You and your friends do things together, too?” he asked. “It’s not all electronic stuff?”

“Of course.”

“But skinny dipping’s not one of them?”

He smiled. I was glad he wasn’t talking about sad stuff anymore. I grinned back at him.

“No, I don’t think my friends would do that.”

“Too bad. It’s a liberating experience. What will you be doing with them now school’s out?”

That’s when I told him how my friends all lived across town and everyone had plans for the summer. It hadn’t mattered when Mom and I were going to hike the Appalachian Trail all summer, but now it was a bummer. But it wasn’t as bad as finding out a friend was dead, so I stuck on a fake smile and tried to sound excited that I’d have all that extra time for babysitting.

“Who do you babysit for?” he asked.

“There’s one family down the street, but I think there’s more with little kids.”

He looked at me like I’d said something really strange. “Think? You don’t know your neighbors? How long have you lived here?”

I got defensive. “All my life, but we’re never home. When I was little, Mom taught gymnastics across town and took me with her – that’s where I met my friends. We’ve been friends forever. We do things together after school and summers, Mom and I go camping different places.” By then I was shaking. Everything caught up with me all at once and I couldn’t stop the tears but I managed to lower my voice. “It’s just now everything’s messed up. And I can’t tell Mom because she’s worried enough.”

Jack pulled me into a hug and let me muffle my sobs against his chest. He didn’t mind the snot all over his shirt.

I’d almost gotten it under control when we heard Mom coming. He gave me a wink and went to head her off. I washed off my face and holed up in my room until dinner.

Dinner was tense. Jack still looked like a hippie, but he wasn’t so scruffy after he’d showered, shaved, and put on some clean clothes. He complained about the bus trip.

“It would have been more comfortable if I’d hitchhiked,” he said. “But the folks at the hospital didn’t think I should do that. . . So, is this a small town or a suburb?”

“A little of both,” Mom replied. “It’s more separate from the city and smaller than most suburbs, but there aren’t a bunch of people who’ve lived here forever. Most of it used to be a farm until they built these houses for commuters.”

Jack nodded. “So it’s a bedroom community? People mostly just sleep here?”

I put in my two cents. “And they work in their yards and gardens. The houses in this area are all pretty small, mostly like ours, but they all have big yards.”

“Folks keep things nice?” he asked.

“Pretty much.” Mom replied.

“Looks like you picked a good place for Nina to grow up.”

“Don’t try to schmooze me,” Mom warned him. “You’re only staying a few days.

“I know.” He put his hands up, then looked at me and lowered them.

That ended conversation until Jack helped clear the table while I loaded the dishwasher. Mom had already excused herself to get back to her job hunt.

“I usually take a walk after dinner,” Jack said. “Let’s scope out the neighborhood, see who might need a babysitter.”

“Okay.”

As he closed the front door, Jack asked if there were any kids my age in the neighborhood.

“A few ride the bus, but they keep to themselves.”

“Why’s that?”

I shrugged one shoulder. “I think they’re Muslim. I know it’s two different families, but all the parents speak English with that accent like Apu.”

“Who’s Apu?”

“On the Simpsons, the storekeeper?”

“Oh, that cartoon. I’ve seen that a couple times. Never bothered having a television myself.”

“Mom’s like that. She’d rather read.”

“Guess I didn’t do everything wrong.”

The red Porsche with the personalized license plate that said “I SUE 4U” went by about the time we reached the vacant house on the corner.

“Lawyer I take it?” asked Jack.

“Yeah. He moved in next door last summer. He’s hardly ever home.”

“Probably busy taking people’s money away from them. He doesn’t have any kids, either, right?”

“I think he lives alone.”

There was some new graffiti on the abandoned house and the grass wasn’t coming back.

“That place looks like shit,” said Jack.

“It’s been empty a couple years. Mom said it’s going through foreclosure.”

“That’s too bad. Especially when everyone else keeps their places so nice.”

“There’s two more the other direction. They’ve been empty even longer,” I said. “They’re worse.”

You are welcome to share this link with others, but please respect copyright by contacting me for permission if you want to use the material elsewhere. Even if you’re making it into a school skit, I’d like to know where it’s being heard. Thank you.

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Warped Tales: The Gardener – Part 3

Warped Tales – be warned. As a child I read piles of books filled with short stories – the complete works of Poe, stories from the Twilight Zone, collections from Hitchcock, etc. As an adult, thrillers rule. This is that kind of story, in six parts.

Anne Davenport’s home was going to be put on the market in June.

John started fixing things before his March retirement, then they had to “de-clutter” to satisfy the realtor and down-size dramatically because the Arizona cabin he’d bought without consulting Anne was a quarter the size of their house in New York. By the end of May, they’d had four garage sales and donated $17,000 of unsold items to charity. Some were family heirlooms that had been sitting in the attic since his mother passed away. Anne had never dared get rid of them before, but John was ready to get rid of everything now. He was ready to move on to a new life.

Anne Davenport, however, did not want to leave the garden that defined her after more than two decades of work, the garden where she could still feel the presence of their deceased son.

When she realized John’s decision was final, she considered filing for divorce. Carefully vague questions led her to volunteer at a woman’s shelter where there were books she could read without any record of her borrowing them. Her problem was that John had done nothing that qualified as “fault” and would never agree to a “no-fault” divorce. She knew this without asking. He’d spoken scornfully of workmates who divorced.

And even if he did agree, everything she read and heard indicated that divorce was a financially disastrous move for both parties. Since John had always handled everything to do with finances, she’d have no clue if he hid assets, either. Her only hope was that the house would not sell and John would let her continue to live in it while he went off to Arizona.

Unfortunately, the realtor caught on to Anne’s subtle attempts to scare off potential buyers and refused to show the house in her presence anymore. So Anne was depending on prayer and a slump in the real estate market to keep her in her home. As a show of faith, she went ahead and planted a blueberry bush on John Jr.’s birthday – blueberries had been his favorite, and were small enough for her to plant on her own. When Memorial Day Weekend arrived with no offers in sight, she went ahead and planted her vegetable garden, even though that annoyed John.

Ironically, it was her established garden and the prospect of fresh tomatoes that made the buyers choose Anne’s home from dozens of houses they’d seen.

The deal closed in late July, so Anne got to harvest her early crops – asparagus, strawberries, rhubarb, peas, a few tomatoes and summer squash, and greens, of course. The best sweet corn was Silver Queen, though; it didn’t ripen until fall. Hopefully the new owners appreciated it. There was no way of knowing, really; those people would think she was odd if she wrote to ask about the corn. She’d left detailed instructions on the garden’s care. She hoped they maintained it as religiously as she had.

John sold his Toyota and wanted to sell her battered little pickup before they moved. “All we’ll need is the Mustang. There won’t be that much driving to do, and there’s a small local airport where we can park it safely and fly into Phoenix international whenever we travel.”

“You won’t want to carry plants and fertilizer in your car.” That ‘64 Mustang was his real baby.

“There’s no garden,” he countered. “I told you that. It’s tall pines and clay soil.”

“That’s all the more reason to have the truck. I’ll probably have to bring in some good dirt as well as fertilizer.”

“You’re not listening!” he shouted. “Since when did you get so stubborn and unreasonable? It’s not the least bit attractive.”

Would that qualify as verbal abuse? Maybe all she had to do is show some backbone and he’d give her grounds for divorce – even if that meant moving to Arizona. She’d checked. Their laws were similar. But she needed to know how much money there was, whether it was enough to make divorce an option.

At least the truck was hers. The title was in her name; he couldn’t make her sell it. She’d still have the freedom to come and go as she pleased, without having to beg permission to take his car.

The calendar turned to August as she drove her pickup to the White Mountains of Arizona, following John as he drove a small rental truck with the few pieces of furniture they’d kept, towing his vintage Mustang on a trailer. Anne had never been west of the Mississippi. She’d wanted to stop in St. Louis, to go up into the great arch there and get closer to the mighty river, but John had no interest in wasting time sightseeing.

As they got farther west, the vast empty spaces loved depressed her.

But she cheered up when they got to the cabin. It was actually a small house with a deck that made it look like a cabin, and it was on the edge of town, not in the middle of nowhere as she’d expected. It looked cozy and it was on a large lot with Ponderosa pines and scrubby little trees that had to be some kind of oak, based on the shape of their leaves. There was no lawn, just dirt, rocks, and weeds.

She envisioned transforming it as she had their huge yard back home.

The first full day there, she discovered she could walk downtown to the Safeway supermarket, the library, the movie theater, and the chamber of commerce. She got a library card and borrowed the book the reading club was reading. She asked for directions to a nursery and found there were two close by – she visited both and asked a million questions.

John had never been a joiner. He spent much of his time fishing or hunting, and he made a short list of minor repairs and maintenance the cabin required. The lack of a lawn under the tall pines was one of the features John had found most attractive. The small oaks created piles of leaves to burn, but that was something they did together. Anne roped him into helping her build her raised beds – the timbers were too large for her to handle alone, but he certainly didn’t want her wasting money hiring someone when he was right there.

She’d rather hoped he’d be loudly abusive about it where neighbors could hear, but he just grumbled, “Anything you plant will die when we travel.”

“I won’t be planting anything in these until spring, but it’s easier to build the raised beds now, while the ground is dry and firm. The only things I’ll plant this fall are roses and berries along the front fence.”

“Why do you want to mess with all that?” he’d complained. “As soon as I get this place patched up, we’re going to do some traveling. That stuff won’t survive if we’re gone half the time.”

“They should get plenty of water from winter snows, even when we travel. That’s when you want to travel, right?” she asked sweetly, but tuned out whatever he said next.

She waited patiently for the right time for her next step.

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