When She Least Expected It

by Jeanette Lynn

  Well, hell, I thought, looks like I've got me a new neighbor after all. And isn't he just a ray of sunshine?! Oh joy...

  It All Started With A Snuggles

  I woke up sometime after eight and lazed about until the sun beat down hot enough from the windows and into my bedroom to coax me out of it.

  Finally toddling down the stairs, after much lollygagging, I ate breakfast in my pajamas—it's sweet to be me—and sipped peppermint tea by the kitchen window.

  Staring out and a little to the left, I was half hoping to catch a glimpse of the guy next door. Curiosity was such a terrible thing, and I’ve always had a bad case of it.

  Gaze slowly shifting, I peered around a little, acting like I was checking out my flower beds, the fence, the tiny weed sprouting up I’d have to remember to pluck up later, all while trying to get a peek from my peripheral at the house next door.

  His car was still there, I noticed, but no disgruntled grump in sight.

  Hmmm… Honestly, he’d lasted longer than I would have thought. I had him clearly pegged for the type that turned tail and ran at the first sign of a problem. Then again, if his phone conversation was anything to judge by, I didn't think he had much choice in the matter.

  But, eh, forget about that. I gave it two weeks, three at the most, factoring in him being more resilient than I’d initially given him credit for.

  Enough of that, though, I told myself, determined to enjoy my day. Nothing’s going to rain on my parade this fine morn. And now, on to much brighter things! To the shower!

  “Maybe the third time’s a charm and I won't look like I'm prepping for Saint Patrick's Day anymore,” I mumbled aloud, whispering the words under my breath with a grim sliver of hope.

  One can only hope, or scrub myself within an inch of my life and pray.

  ****

  "Ah! Fuck!" was the muffled shout I heard as I toweled off my hair.

  Squinting at my reflection in the mirror, twisting and chucking my towel over my shoulder towards the laundry hamper just behind me and to the right to turn and grope the countertop, I nabbed the hard bit of blurry plastic my fingers found, careful of the lenses, and wiggled them until the two little legs on either side slipped free. Lifting them up, I put my glasses back on and went to look out the window.

  Trying to digest what I was partially gaping at, I took a little too long standing there blinking stupidly. "Oh shit!" I exclaimed, finally snapping out of it, and ran towards the stairs.

  Slip sliding along the way, I hauled ass down the stairs and out the front door, running bare foot across the lawn to tackle Snuggles, Mrs. Schloop's Labrador mix.

  "Snuggles! No!" I commanded, reaching the oversized pooch in the nick of time, getting a nice death grip on his collar to try and subdue the over exuberant, easily excitable, precocious beast. Damn dog was bigger than me.

  "Are you insane?! That thing is vicious!" Fancy Pants shouted frantically, desperately trying to climb the poor porch railing, grabbing at the old bits of wood attached to the support beam cracking and creaking ominously.

  Okay, so maybe that old place needed a lot of work, but it still wasn’t a freaking shack.

  Also really hoping that rail can hold his weight, I thought with some trepidation, but the worry was fleeting—obnoxious men have a tendency to suck the nice right outta ya.

  "He's really a sweet pup," I said coaxingly, my fingers tightening on Snuggles' collar until they ached.

  New neighbor guy wasn't buying it.

  He gripped the wobbly rail harder, and I winced as I imagined all the splinters he'd be pulling out later.

  Going back to the culprit of our impromptu meet n greet, I squinted down at the slobbering dog wiggling beneath me. "You're a good boy, aren't you, sweetie?" I asked Snuggles, practically straddling the horse for a dog.

  Snuggles looked up at me then, stopped snarling threateningly at Fancy Pants, and instantly turned into a big puddle of tail wagging, happy-doggy-dancing goo, licking my face, whining and yipping excitedly as I gave him a good ear rub.

  Where the heck is Mrs. Schloop, I wondered, my gaze darting about questioningly.

  Neighbor guy eased down the rail a bit and Snuggles' head whipped around, ears pulling back, tail dropping, fur bristling, to glare at him, his lips pulling back in a warning growl.

  Neighbor guy yelped on the first warning snarl and climbed right back up the railing.

  "Snuggles? Snuggles? Where are you, ya little rascal..." I heard a familiar call out and perked up.

  "Over here, Mrs. Schloop!" I called out, hoping she’d brought Elliot with her, just in case Snuggles made another grab for the new neighbor.

  Not exactly the best way to start off on the right foot. And yet, I could just picture it now. 'Sorry you got bit by the dog but, hey! We're all real nice and friendly around here. Heh-heh. Let's be friends!'

  "Is Elliot with you, Mrs. Schloop?"

  "I'm right here, Bit!" Elliot called back, coming around the corner, his shock of red hair the first thing I spotted as he rounded the bend. The cavalry has arrived!

  Jerking my chin at angry cell phone man, I explained to Elliot, "Snuggles went kamikaze on the new guy."

  Eyes widening beneath his specs, Elliot hurried up the steps and, taking Snuggles’ collar from me, hooked his leash onto it.

  "So sorry about that,” Elliot said quickly. “I got him.” Tugging the loveable but jumpy pup back, he offered Fancy Pants a small, apologetic half-smile. “You can let go now," he said and pushed his wire rimmed glasses back up his nose quickly with his free hand. “He can’t get you.”

  Relinquishing the hold I still had on the side of the dog's collar, waiting until I knew Elliot had him to completely let go, I let out a thick sigh and sat down on the porch steps.

  Mrs. Schloop toddled around the corner, her bathrobe flapping, white hair a little puffed up cloud around her head. "Oh, Snugglekins! What have you been doing?" Tsking all the way over, shaking a wrinkled finger at her wayward pet, she cooed at the dog.

  "That dog should be shot!" Neighbor guy growled, surprising everyone present, Snuggles, who couldn’t understand a word, included.

  Jerking as if the new guy had just tried to slap him, Elliot frowned over at him, while I sat there, open mouthed, blinking stupidly, and gaped a bit.

  "Snuggles just isn't used to you yet. I'm very sorry he frightened you, but he wouldn't have really done anything. He's all bark and no bite.” Elliot tried for a smile again, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “The guy really is a giant marshmallow," Elliot said quickly, in an attempt to ease the guy. Loosening his hold on Snuggles’ leash to switch hands, he held his right one out to the new guy for a hand shake. "I'm Elliot Schloop and this is my mom, Agatha, and, uh... you've already met Snuggles." He chuckled that last bit out, humor tingeing his voice, trying to make light of everything. His smile was genuine now, brown eyes twinkling teasingly.

  Fancy Pants was not impressed.

  "Yeah, well, I don't care if he knits blankets for orphans!” neighbor guy yelled, rebuffing Elliot's olive branch. “If he comes in my yard again I'm calling animal control!"

  Clutching at her robe tighter, Mrs. Schloop gasped and hurried over to Elliot. "But-but-but... they'd put him to sleep! Or some other terrible thing!" she tittered worriedly, spluttering, in a panic, gripping her son's arm as if to hold herself up. "Snuggles is all I have left of my dear departed Wilfred. I don’t- I don’t know what I’d do!"

  "Then keep your mutt the hell away from me!" new guy barked at her, a definite growl in his voice.

  "Come on, Mom," Elliot said softly, glaring at the new guy as he guided a visibly upset Mrs. Schloop and a tail wagging Snuggles back home.

  "You are such a jerk," I said to Fancy Pants quietly, once Elliot and his mother were out of earshot.

  "I never said I wasn't," new neighbor guy clipped out waspishly, looking down the length of his perfectly straight nose at me.

  "I get that he scared you, but he wouldn't have bi
tten you,” I said reasonably, trying to keep my tone light but to the point. “You didn't need to bite her head off like that. They said they were sorry."

  "What are you, the conscience fairy?" he snapped sarcastically, trying to get down off the railing he was stuck to.

  "You aren't going to make any friends around here with that kind of attitude," I quipped. If we were going to go like that, I wasn’t going to just stand here and let him belittle me—us—the whole damned town.

  "I have no intentions of mingling with the local yokels," he said after a long moment, distracted as his foot ended up caught between two rail rungs and he couldn’t quite figure out how to get it out. "Or the punker hippies or whatever the hell you are," he added, glancing toward me briefly, accusingly, obviously referring to me.

  Punker hippies?

  A snort on my lips and a weird sense of offense beginning to prick my chest, I glanced down at myself, taking in my worn jeans and most comfortable, faded t-shirt with my favorite picnic basket stealing fiend on it. Taking a moment longer, I thought about my wavy hair, down to the middle of my back, more brown than it is auburn, faded blue streaks tinting it from when I'd last felt the need for a bit of color. Different, fun—eccentric, even—but, punker hippie? No, I don't think so. Is there even such a thing? Ugh. How insulting!

  He could have called me a nerd—sure, why not, I love sci fi, I love to read, I wear thick glasses—okay, yeah, stereo-type away, but... punker hippie? Someone needed to get out a little more.

  Stereotypically speaking, I didn't fit into either one of those categories. Hippie? Doing a bit of reading into it, based on his possible, unimaginative stereo-type-based assumptions of me, do I look like I smoke pot, stink it up with patchouli, or seem even remotely interested with saving a rain forest, let alone commune with nature? Can someone give me a big hell no.

  And punker? I dunno what one would have to do to be one of those... Mosh pit on the regular? Listen to x music and talk about I don’t even know? I didn’t get out enough to know or care! Isn’t anarchy involved? Or the idea of it? No, that’s just more stereo-typing on top of... Hmmm. Really, I didn’t do labels, and anyhow, any way you sliced it, I'm more of a lover not a fighter and, hey, I didn't have a mohawk or really cool punk band shirt to parade around in as if to serve as proof of said proposed punkery. Kinda disappointing though, reflecting back on the potential of the idea, and how much fun that could possibly be. I'd have to say, for lack of any... anything on the subject, no.

  "I'm a human being and I've obviously been mistaken," I sniped right back, getting my head back in the game. "I didn't know I was going to have to live next door to the Tin Man."

  "Tin Man?" Upper lip curling up in an ugly sneer, he snorted derisively. "Well, I didn't know I'd have to live next to a leprechaun, so I guess we're even."

  Eyes widening before narrowing, I growled at him angrily. Huffing and puffing angrily, I hopped up off the porch, cursing the stupid paint can in the garage all over Christendom, and that nasty, beautiful yet ugly man stumbling from his perch before me.

  "Only thing you're missing is the red hair," he muttered, looking to me smugly.

  So smug, yet still so stuck. Asshole. Lips tipping up, I smiled at him nastily and blew him a kiss, singing a few bars from that lovely movie about a man made of tin who lamented his lack of a particular beating organ, belting it out as I marched across his dead lawn, and into the greenery that is mine, flouncing up my own porch steps, and right into my well-kept abode.

  I wonder if he keeps his in a glass jar filled with formaldehyde by his bed, I thought angrily, still huffing and puffing, until I thought smoke rings might pop out my nose at any moment.

  Slinking towards the side window, I peeked at him through the curtains in the living room, smiling when I saw him, still standing there, still semi attached to the porch railing, openly gaping at my front door.

  Thinks he's so superior, does he? Tin Man, indeed! Mrs. Schloop is like eighty five years old! Was he trying to give her a heart attack? And I get it, really, I do. Snuggles must have seemed like a scary son of a bitch—I'd have been scared too if a big assed dog came up to me and growled.

  But didn't he notice Snuggles didn't go onto the porch steps or actually come within three feet of him, though? He stood back, barking his head off, but didn’t advance.

  Personally, I had to say, if only in my head, so I wasn’t being the biggest hypocrite of the year, but maybe still a little bit of a b, I would have run into my house if faced with the same situation—I wouldn’t deny that.

  “Shit,” I mumbled, picking at my lip absently, grimacing in distaste. Alright, so if I really thought about it, I guess I could see it from both of their point of views. Still doesn't excuse him being a total asshole, though.

  Waving it away, waving it all away, I grimaced and turned, giving the window my back and, with a dismissive sniff, walked resolutely to my studio in the basement.

  Hands in my pockets, a small tip of my lips hinting at a prick of humor, I whistled "If I only had a heart", maybe a little too loud, as I made my way down to my cave to work.

  Lions! Llamas & Fairs! Oh, My!

  "Auntie Bit! Auntie Bit!" little Jeremy yelled, his blonde head bobbing happily through the crowd as he wove his way towards me, his dad right behind.

  "Look what Daddy won!" he cried out excitedly, holding up a giant stuffed dog.

  "Awesome, bud! I love it!" I called back, smiling at the expression on my nephew's sweet little face.

  "Yep, takes a lot of this," Toby said, flexing a muscle, "to win something like that."

  Blinking, his head jerking in his daddy’s direction, Jeremy looked at him funny. "But, Daddy, it was the ring toss?"

  Barking out a surprised noise that quickly dissolved into a snorted giggle, I busted out laughing as Toby chucked Jeremy under the chin and ever so discreetly made a shushing motion.

  Rita walked up then—or more accurately, waddled—supporting her pregnant belly with one hand, holding onto Josiah's hand with the other.

  "Mama and me pet a pig! And a goat! And a kangaroo! And a lion!" Josiah cried out happily, practically dancing beside his mama, he was so excited.

  "A lion?" Jeremy asked, clearly not believing him. "They don't gots no lions!"

  "Yuh-huh, big ones!" Josiah insisted, nodding enthusiastically, his little brown mop of hair flopping over his eyes with every enthusiastic bob.

  "What did the lions look like?" Toby asked, smiling at Josiah's exuberance.

  Josiah paused and thought about it for a minute, his little brow wrinkling in concentration. "Lots of hair and he tried to eat my shirt," he told his father eventually.

  "Was it hairy all over? Kinda like a sheep?" I asked, guessing at what he meant.

  Josiah pivoted, smiling up at me sweetly. "Yeah! How'd you know, Auntie Bit? You been petting Lions, too?"

  "Are you sure it wasn't a llama?" I asked, trying to hide my laugh.

  Josiah’s little mouth worked for a moment while those little wheels in his brains started turning. With a small nod from his mother, who he looked to questioningly, as if to ask for confirmation, he nodded but shrugged. "Ooooh. Huh. Lions... llamas... What's the difference?!" he huffed out loudly, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

  "Hot dogs!" Jeremy whooped out of nowhere, spotting the food vendors, quickly distracted from his brother’s lion/llama dilemma.

  Rita grinned and followed as Toby and I were promptly ditched by both boys, who’d suddenly lost interest in the current thread of conversation in favor of sustenance, tugging their mom towards the food stands eagerly.

  "Go find a table, Tobes, we'll be right back!" Rita ordered teasingly, glancing over her shoulder at her significant other and offering Toby a saucy wink.

  "Yes, ma’am!" He mock saluted, rushing up to peck her cheek and smack her rump before quickly ducking out of the way when she would have reached back and whacked him.

  Lending a helping hand, I whacked him one for her. Catc
hing it, and my grin, Rita pointed at Toby as if to say, “Ha-ha.”

  "It's not fair. Girls always take each other's sides," Toby complained.

  "Stuff it, Tobes, you married her knowing she was my best friend, didn't you?” I said matter of fact-ly. “So, technically, you put this on yourself."

  Toby just shrugged like, eh, maybe, and headed for the picnic tables.

  Making to follow, we quickly found an empty table before it could be snatched up, and sat down.

  "So… how's it going with the pretty boy?" he asked, all casual-like.

  "It's going. We haven't spoken much since the whole Snuggles incident, and that was four weeks ago. It's mostly been us taking cheap shots at each other as we walk by. Other than that, our interaction is minimal. Dude has a pole up his rump."

  Shrugging my shoulders while Tobes made a noncommittal noise, I took off my glasses and cleaned them on my shirt. Darn smudges. If I wasn't so paranoid about putting something on my eyeballs, I'd have contacts by now.

  "Do you want me to slap him around a little for you?" big bro asked, a tease to his words, imitating a boxer with a one-two punch.

  Watching as he showed off his ‘moves’, I smiled and laughed. "No, I can handle him.” Fingers wiggling, I waved it off. "You know he thinks we're all a bunch of local yokels, right?"

  Waiting for me to elaborate and realizing that was it—the idiot next door simply thought we were all hillbilly townsfolk, slow talking, laid back, mild mannered, to the point he felt we were all somehow too stupid to live—Toby busted up laughing.

  "His words, not mine," I sighed, shrugging, holding my hands up. One of many words he’s tossed my way as of late, but not for a lack of eloquent replies on my end.

  "Local yokels? Wow... I would love to see the look on his face when he figures out Elliot has a degree in engineering, or that old Ben owns Bensons' hardware and has more money than Midas. That’d sure shut him up."

  He chuckled and ran his hand over his hair.