Page 14 of Yes No Maybe

My shoulders slump at her unwillingness to negate the partying.

Five

Rowan

Honkingwakesme.Obnoxious,lay-on-the-horn honking. When it doesn’t stop after a solid minute of burying my head in my pillow, I jolt from bed, surging with angry energy.

It’s Sunday—the only morning I let myself sleep past seven. I need the rest. A monster list of to-dos has swallowed the week. Ripping up carpets, scrubbing the endless grout, painting the walls (white in the bathrooms and sage everywhere else to match the kitchen tiles), and finally organizing and arranging—I expected these.

But another monster of must-dos snuck in with the unexpected. Jane’s contact transplanted the raccoon family, cleaned the chimney, and fixed the upper cap to prevent more settlers, punching an unexpected, six-hundred-dollar hit to my bank account.

Then, the dryer conked out, the AC unit’s motor died, and a toilet leak in the guest bathroom required a plumber. The latter resulted in an awkward encounter with a brutish man who smelled of beer and cheese and visibly shuddered at the sight of me. Two-hundred-fifty to him, $700 to Best Buy, and another thousand for the motor replacement, and my savings reflected my energy level—drained.

As is my tolerance for deliberate honking before eight on a Sunday morning.

My front door swings open with the force of my annoyance and sends waves across my nightgown. Yes, that’s when I realize—I’m standing outside in my nightgown.

The offender locks eyes with me from across the lawn, where he sits smugly in the driver’s side of an older model white van like a pedophile looking for targets. He honks the horn again, smirking at me as he presses it. With my arms folded across my skimpy tank gown, I trudge barefoot through the high grass, determined not to retreat now that I’ve been spotted.

The window rolls down at my approach.

“Jack Graham… why are you honking?”

He motions behind him, where the back seats are nearly full of senior citizens.

Rose bats her blue-gray eyes at me. “Didn’t you get my emails? It’s the church party bus. Want to join us?”

Their newsletter,Daisy Chain, Connecting Our Streets Since 1997,had reached my inbox—seventy-seven back issues and counting. It’s named for our street, Daisy Lane, not the slang term, thank God, although a sex den was mentioned when we first met, so who knows? The headlines, often shorthanded with emojis, boast merit badges, honor rolls, church concerts, medical appointments, and proper lawn maintenance. I’ve only skimmed a few issues.

Spotting my ignorance, Rose giggles. “A teacher who doesn’t like homework, aye?”

I deflate like an undone balloon gone flaccid, anger gone, and embarrassment taking over. “You drive the church bus?”

“Keen observation, Miss Marple.” A snide look accompanies his jab.He thinks I’m an old busybody.“Hop on. You’ll give the preachers plenty to sermonize about in that get-up.”

His brown eyes burrow into mine, daring me for a rebuttal that doesn’t come.

“Sorry, Jack. Forgot my readers.” Vernon climbs into the open door on the right side.

“Oh, do come, Rowan. It’s such fun.” Rose claps.

“No!” My brain floods with excuses as if I need any, and these compile awkwardly into, “Shoes… clothes… sleep… Just go.”

I step back, and Jack gives me a shameless once-over. Legs, hips, chest—braless, of course. I feel like a cut of meat ogled by a hungry wolf. But his amusement vanishes at my scars, though he slowly studies them, too. He glances at the little house behind me before peeling away.

My face falls into my hands, and I wish I could erase the last five minutes. Better yet—that I could erase buying this place at all for how it has zapped my energy, drained my money, and put me inthatman’s periphery.

This is not my first awkward encounter with Jack Graham. It’s not even the first time he’s woken me up.

Often, I hear him late at night, playing music, moving around his deck, splashing in his pool, or taking shots on his driveway basketball court. Once, when this happened at 3:30 in the morning, I slipped outside and peeked over the hedges, thinking something must be amiss. No one in his right mind would be gallivanting at this hour.

But there he was, half in the pool, hovering over a composition notebook that was surely getting wet as he scribbled into it. Beside him, a glass of brown liquid served as inspiration. Before long, he tossed the notebook aside, downed his drink, and dove under. I seized the moment to scratch my leg—something was biting me—and when I looked again, he stared in my direction. I ducked and back-stepped, nearly tripping over an unruly garden bed, and then dashed inside, hoping he hadn’treallyseen me.

But he did. The Miss Marple remark surely confirms it.

One morning, returning from a run, I slowed outside his house and witnessed him escorting a gorgeous brunette to her car between groping and kissing her. It was the second woman I’d seen him with that week. His eyes met mine over her shoulder, and he tossed me a wave, as if boasting about his virility.

The worst encounter, though, was Friday night. Returning from Mira’s around ten, I pulled up behind five unsteady bicyclists, balancing beers on their handlebars and taking up the entire road. It took a short honk for them to notice me, even though I drive a convertible 1977 VW Bug that anyone sober would hear coming a mile away. Clumsily, they made room for me to pass, and one said, “Dude, is that your new neighbor?”

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