Page 2 of The Nosy Neighbor

A couple of days ago, Doris popped by my house yet again, pounding on my door, then walking right in like she owned the place. As usual, she failed to greet Harold.

“We’re going away, Bob and me,” she announced out of nowhere.

“Away? What do you mean?”

Now keep in mind that Doris and Bob haven’t left the country in all the years I’ve known them. Bob’s asthma is aggravated by airplanes, and his food allergies make travel to foreign lands nearly impossible, much to Doris’s chagrin. It was for this reason that, at first, I wasn’t quite sure what Doris was nattering on about.

“I’ve booked Bob and me a special long weekend in Spain. We’ll be studying flamenco with one of the world’s foremost dancers. And if that doesn’t get Bob’s juices flowing, that’ll spell the end for sure.”

I was struck speechless. Her mention of Bob’s juices produced a most unwelcome image in my mind.

“Spain,” I managed to say. “For how long?”

“Three nights,” she replied.

“That’s it?” I asked. “That’s a long way to go for such a short time.”

“You never know,” she replied. “One of us might like it so much, we may never come back!” She laughed then, mouth wide open, head thrown back with abandon.

I stayed quiet, because I didn’t like what I was hearing. To be honest, I knew there was something odd about this trip, but I couldn’t figure out what.

“We leave in two days, and I was wondering,” she said, “if you’d mind looking after the house while we’re gone ... since you’re always watching it anyways. Can you keep an eye on things and water the new hydrangeas outside?”

“You don’t have hydrangeas,” I said.

“If you could spy into my backyard the same way you can into my living room, you’d know that I just planted a fresh plot. They’ll need water to thrive.”

“Very well,” I said. “You’ll leave me a house key?”

“Marge, don’t pretend you know nothing about the key under the welcome mat.”

Of course I knew she kept one there, had seen her slip it under the mat ages ago. That’s how the parade of men always entered. But what I didn’t know is that Doris knew that I knew. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll keep an eye on things.”

“I’m sure you will,” Doris replied. And with that, she click-clacked her inappropriately pink kitten heels out of my house and back to her own.

Now, here I am at my picture window, two days after Doris’s big holiday weekend announcement. As I watch, Doris backs her candy-apple-red sedan out of her garage (heaven forbid Bob be permitted to take the wheel). Her tinted window is rolled down, and she’s waving my way.

“Live large, Marge, while you still can!” she calls out loudly enough that I can hear her through my closed living room window. “And water my plants!”

I try to spot Bob in the passenger seat beside her—poor, long-suffering Bob—but Doris promptly rolls up her window, then screeches down the street before I can so much as glimpse her husband.

I drop the curtain and turn to face Harold in his easy chair. “She’s gone,” I say. “Are you happy? We get a break from her shenanigans.”

With that, I go brew a cup of tea, then return to my chair by the picture window. I sip until I drain the last dregs. Then it’s time to go to Doris and Bob’s.

“I’ll be back,” I tell Harold as I head to the door.

I amble down my stairs, holding tight to the railing. At my age, holding tight has become a way of life. I make my way over to Doris and Bob’s front door, where I stand on their welcome mat—if that’s what you’d call it. From my window, I never could make out what it said, but from here I can read it clearly: “I see London, I see France ...” It takes me a minute, but then I remember the childish rhyme. Only Doris would welcome guests with a joke about their underpants.

It’s been a couple of years since I’ve been inside this house, but little has changed. Doris still has that gaudy lamp in the living room—a woman’s leg in a fishnet stocking, with a lampshade trimmed in black fringe. The wall behind it features new “artwork”—hairy male nudes in various states of undress. I step closer to see if my hunch is correct—it is. Each piece in thisoeuvreis signed by the greatartisteherself, Doris.

Everything else in the open-concept living room / kitchen is exactly as it always was, but as I walk to the sliding back doors, I spot the new flower bed in the backyard—a six-footrectangular patch piled high with freshly turned soil, budding hydrangeas planted on one end.

“Absolutely ridiculous,” I say out loud as I exit and walk over to the garden plot that Doris has shaped like a buried coffin. What the hell was she thinking?

I locate the hose and drench the bed with water, though it’s clear either Bob or Doris (probably Bob) watered just before leaving. Once done, I’m about to head inside when something on the patio crunches under my heel—a shelled peanut. I spot a couple more on the slabs by the sliding door. Damn squirrels. They steal nuts from bird feeders and carry them everywhere. It’s a good thing Bob’s not here since he’s deathly allergic.

I head back into the house and make my way to Doris’s picture window. How strange to see my world from her point of view—my empty easy chair by the window, and beyond that, Harold, seated in his chair as usual. On top of Doris’s credenza is a collection of framed photos—Doris with Master Tim in some kind of crouching-tiger pose; Doris wearing paint-covered overalls, holding a palette and surrounded by her terrible art; and Doris and Bob in full flamenco regalia—she the diva, in a ruffled, floor-length gown, and he looking anemic in an ill-fitting bolero shirt and pants so tight it’s a wonder they didn’t burst their seams. Oh, poor, poor Bob.

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