Blood and Bone: A Smattering of Unease (17 page)

Except for Mop. Her daughter’s dog, the English shepherd had been with them since he was a puppy. Lauren began paying extra attention to him; he was the last remaining member of her family, an extension of her baby girl.

* * *

Lauren woke abruptly from her fitful sleep. She moved, and the sensation of the picture frame sliding away from her brought her to a fuller awareness.

She recognized the steel guitar of country music, a deep, throbbing bass in the background. The music was accompanied by people shouting and singing drunkenly. She got up from Allie’s bed and shuffled down the hall to the window next to the stairs, which looked out onto the street.

“Uggghhhh,” she groaned. The newcomers’ house blazed with light, while the other surrounding houses had long since gone dark.

“No matter,” she told Mop, who had padded down the hall at her heels. “White noise, buddy.”  She glanced at her digital clock and saw that it was nearly 1:00 a.m. “Damn. Good thing it’s Saturday,” she said to the dog, who wagged her tail and gave her hand a brief lick. “Let’s go.”

She turned her box fan up to its highest setting so the calming noise would cancel the racket outside, then pulled back the covers and slipped into her own bed.

The next morning, the young widow woke from a dreamless sleep, sniffling in the stuffy room. The double layers of blackout curtains that covered the windows revealed no hint of daylight, but Lauren assumed that it was past dawn because she was overwarm, which usually foretold of a sunny day. She stretched and yawned, catching Mop’s eye. The English shepherd sat on the floor beside the bed, staring at her.

“I see you,” Lauren reassured her canine companion. She sat up, threw back the blankets, swung her feet to the side of the bed and planted them on the floor. The glowing blue digits on her clock read 8:17. “After eight o’clock!” She exclaimed. “No wonder you look so sullen! We’re late getting up.” She used her cell phone to check the weather. “And it’s already almost seventy degrees!”

Mop stood and wagged his tail as his human pulled on a pair of sweats and struggled into a bra, using a complicated method to don it beneath her t-shirt. He followed her to the side window, smiling eagerly with his wide, toothy grin as she pulled the curtains and blinds and opened the window wide to let in the fresh morning air. The dog sniffed as Lauren inhaled deeply.

She followed suit with her front bedroom window and stood for a moment, looking at the brown house opposite her own. The moving van was still parked in the street. Why they hadn’t parked in their driveway was beyond her. Their yard was littered with toys, belongings, and furniture.
Good thing for them that it didn’t rain,
she thought.
Just looking over there was enough to bring on a severe headache.

Lauren turned away. “Ready, boy?” Smiling, his big pink tongue hanging out the side of his mouth, Mop extended his front legs, chest to the carpet, rear-end in the air. “Good idea,” his human agreed. “A yoga workout is definitely in order.”

She padded down the hallway to the bathroom in her slippers; then she and Mop headed downstairs. Lauren exchanged slippers for flip-flops and let Mop out the back door. As was her habit, she checked her backyard gate latch to make sure it was secure, then returned to the kitchen, leaving the screen door propped so that Mop could freely use the doggie door.

In the living room, Lauren slipped her favorite yoga workout video into the DVD player and unrolled her mat. Soon, she was relaxing into beginning Savasana.

About half an hour later, she was planted firmly into the Warrior I pose when a barrage of barking sounded outside. Lauren cut her focus, but remained in the pose, listening.
Sounds like Mop. But Mop is shut in the back yard.

More barking.

Come to think of it, she hadn’t heard Mop come back in from his morning ablutions to eat his breakfast crunchies. But she might have been too relaxed to notice whether he had come in.

Lauren sighed and slowly reversed out of the pose.
At least I almost finished the workout.

Brakes squealed in the street.

Now, Lauren ran through the kitchen and down the back steps in her bare feet. Finding the gate standing ajar, she ran through it and up the driveway toward the street. Relief washed through her when she saw Rita Williams, steering Mop by the collar, waddling in her direction.

“What happened?” Lauren kneeled in front of her daughter’s dog.

Rita’s lips were set in a thin red line. She jerked her head toward the street. “I saw the little girl open your gate and run away with this fool on her heels.”

“What was with the car brakes I just heard?”

“Mop was just bounding his merry way across the street and very nearly got hit. But I got him for you, dear!”

“Thank you!” Lauren wrapped her arms around the wayward canine. “You bad boy, you don’t just run after any old thing that comes through the gate!” she chided him.

“At least he’s okay. Maybe it’s time to get a lock for your gate.”

Lauren frowned and looked across the street. “Yeah. Maybe it is.”

The two women exchanged brief pleasantries and a promise to get together later, and Lauren led Mop into the kitchen, closing the screen door.

“Now you’re grounded,” she told him. As she ushered him into his kennel, a loud banging sounded from the front door. “What now?”

She opened the door to a scrawny middle-aged woman with dull brown eyes and a hooked nose set in the middle of her bony face. She sported a stiffly unkempt jet-black mullet, a torn, dirty t-shirt, and faded leggings. Upon seeing the lady of the house, the woman launched into a tirade, shaking her fist.

“You better keep that mangy fleabaga yers on yer own sidea the street! Damn near bit my niece! Next time it happens, I’ma shoot it!”

For a moment, all that Lauren could do was stand there, dumb with shock, staring at her mousy neighbor. Then she gathered herself, smiled brightly, and said, “Really? I’m sorry. What was your name again? I didn’t catch it when you introduced yourself.”

The woman looked confused for a moment. “Uh . . . Rosalie Preacher.”

“Rosalie. What a lovely name! First of all, Rosalie,” Lauren said in a calm, even voice, “Pounding on your new neighbor’s door and threatening to shoot her dog on your first day in the new neighborhood is
not
exactly the best way to make a good first impression.” The other woman started to interrupt, but Lauren held up her hand.

“Secondly, I have it on good authority that
your niece
came over here to
my
yard and
unlatched my
gate, letting my daughter’s dog out. Thirdly,
my daughter’s dog
nearly got hit by a car because of
your
negligence.” Lauren stopped to give her neighbor a chance to speak.

“That didn’t happen! That’s a lie! Who said that?”

“Someone that I trust, who’s never threatened to shoot my dog! I strongly suggest that you keep
your
family
on
your
side of the street and
out
of my yard. And if I were you I would not touch
one whisker
on that dog, or there is going to be a
big
problem. Now,
Rosie
, I would appreciate it if you would take yourself off of my porch and get back where you belong.” She turned and pulled the screen door open.

“Of all the -” Rosalie spluttered. “Listen,
you-
”

“No,
you
listen, because I’m not saying this again. Get off my porch. Leave Allie’s dog alone. And if you ever choose to speak to me again, maybe you should think about being a little more civil.” Lauren stood and stared at the scrawny, birdlike woman, who stared back, her mouth working noiselessly. Then she simply gave up and walked away, down the steps and back across the street.

In the kitchen, Lauren let Mop out of his kennel. “Well,” she told him, “
That
went well! It’s a good thing I did my yoga workout before she came. I really kept my cool, considering she threatened to shoot you. The nerve!”

She suddenly felt drained. It wasn’t even ten o’clock yet, and all she wanted to do was go back to bed.

Glancing out the kitchen window, she saw Rita walking across the driveway. She opened the door before the older woman had a chance to knock.

“Hello, dear! I heard the little woman making a big noise over here. Are you all right?”

Lauren sighed and held the door open so that Rita could step into the kitchen. “I’m not my best. I had a rough night. I was just trying to have a nice, relaxing Saturday.”

“Is there anything I can do? Have you even eaten yet this morning? Or had coffee? How about I fix you some brunch.” She put a hand on Lauren’s arm and guided her to the kitchen table. “Sit down.”

Mop ran up to Rita eagerly and received a hearty petting and baby talk, then he settled down on his giant pillow in the corner of the kitchen while Rita bustled around, opening and closing the cupboards and fridge, clattering pans and dishware.

Lauren leaned back limply in her chair. “I swear, Rita, I don’t know what I would do without you. You’re always helping me. Cooking. Cleaning. Watching my back. I give so little in return.”

Rita flapped her plump, pale hand. “Honey,
I
don’t know what I’d do without
you
. I’m bored as hell over there. Bert’s always puttering in the garage or watching sports. Retirement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Actually, it
sucks
. I don’t go to BINGO or have book club or any of that kind of stuff. You’re like the daughter I never had, and you need me. You’ve been through hell, and I’m happy to be here for someone. I need to be needed, so it works out perfectly.” She poured pancake batter into a hot, greased pan. Then she poured two cups of coffee from the freshly brewed pot and handed one to Lauren, who sipped it gratefully.

“This is so much better than when I make it,” she commented. “I don’t get it. Same coffee. Same water. Same coffee pot.”

“So, like I said, I heard what little Miss New over there had to say. But you were remarkably quiet.”

Lauren shrugged. “I was feeling pretty mellow, but I told her off, anyway. She told me her niece didn’t come over here, called you a liar, pretty much. Then she threatened to shoot Mop.”

Rita turned around, her mouth a big round “O”. “You’re kidding me,” she said in a hushed voice. “What did you say?”

“Told her to go away and leave me alone. Told her to keep her family over there. That’s all.”

Rita shook her head as she slipped the spatula under a pancake and flipped it. “Well. I don’t know what to say. I can’t wait to get over there with a pie.”

“You still want to go over there with your greeting service?”

“Of course! Especially now. ‘Know thy enemy,’ dear. If she’s going to establish herself as your enemy, then I
really
need to know what she’s doing. And to do that, I need to be neighborly. And taking a pie over is a neighborly thing to do.”

“Wow. You don’t have any underlying motives toward
me
, do you?”

“Goodness, of course not! You’re practically family.” She set a plate of pancakes and bacon on the table in front of Lauren and took her own place.

“I’ve been so tired. It would be Allison’s birthday next week, and I keep thinking about her.”

“Of course you do.”

“And when she threatened Allie’s dog, I just . . . I’m glad you’re here.” She took a bite of her meal. “Hey, how did Bert do with the sleep study?”

“They sent him home with an oxygenator when I picked him up this morning. Supposed to help. It’s probably just going to be one more thing that will keep
me
from sleeping.”

“But maybe it will help him. And if it helps him, it should help you, too,” Lauren said positively.

“I can only hope.”

* * *

The moving van had disappeared from across the street and the newcomers were quieter than they had been the night before, but the two women decided to take a break from the front porch in favor of the privacy of the Williams’ back yard when they reconvened later that evening. As they enjoyed after dinner drinks, Lauren kept an eye on Mop, next door in her own back yard. The breeze had picked up, and the dog frolicked after leaves that blew randomly down from the trees.

She held up the padlock she had bought that afternoon. “Here it is! I had to buy a hasp, too. I’ll install it tomorrow.”

“I’ll send Bert over to put it on for you.”

“I can do it myself, Rita.”

“Oh, I know you can. You’re probably more capable than most men. But it’ll give Bert something to do. He likes to feel needed, too, and he can’t get enough
real
fix-it jobs. Right, dear?”

“Yes, Rita,” the stooped old man said, letting the screen door slam as he stepped out onto the porch. “Wait a minute. What am I agreeing to?” He sat down in one of the porch chairs, set his full beer bottle down, and shook a cigarette out of a half-empty pack.