“He went that-a-way,” I say and point between two houses.
“Thanks. Chester? Chester! What are you doing back there?” I hear her scold him, so I keep walking.
As I near the church, I can see a car out front. The Danvers’ car. Great. I think I’ll just go the other way so I don’t have to take the chance of passing them. I still haven’t gotten over what Reverend Samuel pulled on me. What was that about? I’ve never really understood, but I can tell you I didn’t do anything like what he accused me of!
By the time I get back home, I’ve seen half the neighborhood, but I still haven’t gotten a good glimpse of the Owens. I have this feeling there’s something going on there that no one knows about, but it’ll take me a good while to figure it out, I’m afraid, unless they come right out with it.
And if they do, trust me, I’ll be watching.
9
Lily
I know that Gloria person was watching us when we got home. We hadn’t been here any time and I saw her walking down the street, staring at everyone’s houses. Boy, she’s snoopy! We’ve really got to watch for her.
I love my piñata. It’s a big star and it’s all different colors. Before I even got home I’d already decided that I’ll save it for when Bonnie comes to play. We can have a party with tacos and chips and salsa and enchiladas, and we’ll break open the piñata. But first, we’ve got to get a fence.
It’s almost six, so when Brock wanders into the room, I’m really not surprised that he asks, “Do you want pizza? I can call it in.”
“Yes, please! Thank you, thank you! I love pizza!” I shriek and head straight to him for a big hug.
“Good girl. How ‘bout you go ahead and get changed into your pajamas? We can relax tonight. Tomorrow I’ll be at work and you can do anything that needs to be done. Today’s been fun; let’s just enjoy the evening, okay?”
“Okay! May I bring my books and colors in here, please?” I love to color.
“Sure. That’ll be fine. I’ll turn on the TV and when the pizza comes and we’ve finished it, maybe I can read you a couple of stories. Would you like that?” he asks, and I grin.
“I’d love that. Could you maybe read me some poems too?”
He nods and smiles. I love that smile. Everything he feels for me is there, and I feel safe and loved. “Of course. We can get that big book of poems out and I’ll read to you.”
“Yay! I’ll go change now. Can I bring my brush? Will you brush my hair?” I love it when he does that.
“I’d really like that. Bring it and your books and crayons. Get your blankie too. You might want it if you get sleepy,” he says, and I know he’s right. Sometimes after I eat I get sleepy.
The pizza is delicious―my favorites, pepperoni and sausage with extra cheese―and then we settle down on the sofa. I sit in the floor while he brushes my hair, and then he pulls me up on the sofa and reads to me. I get my two favorite poems out of him, “Hiawatha” and “The Highwayman,” and then he reads me some of my favorite stories, like “The Hare and the Tortoise” and a couple of chapters of “Gulliver’s Travels.” Those are so good.
It’s really hard to concentrate because I’m so sleepy and so tired. My eyes close and his voice sounds far away, and I smile. Then it gets quiet. “Daddy?”
“Yes, angel?”
My heart is so happy it feels like it’ll burst. “I love you, Daddy.”
“I love you too, baby girl. I love you with all my heart.” His hand strokes my hair and I feel like the mightiest princess in the land. “Come on. You’re tired.” I feel him rise, and then he picks me up and carries me.
The minute he puts me down, I know where I am―I’m in his big bed. In a couple of minutes, he climbs in behind me and pulls the covers up, then scoops me up in his arms. My daddy. He’s big and strong, and he loves me.
No matter what that bad neighbor does, I’ll be safe with him.
The alarm clock goes off and it startles me. When I roll over, I see Brock there, his eyes barely open, smiling at me. “Good morning, sleepyhead!” he whispers to me.
“Good morning yourself.” When he reaches for me, I slip into his arms and run my fingers through the lock of hair that’s fallen onto his forehead. “How soon do you have to be at work?”
“In an hour and a half. I’d like to stay here for a little while longer, but I can’t. Gotta get up and get ready to go. But I intend to get hold of that ridiculously hot body tonight, baby girl.” He kisses me, a light little kiss. I go in for a deeper one, but he pulls back. “Morning breath for both of us!” he laughs.
“Yeah. Sorry.” I grin at him, then kiss his collarbone. “Can I stay here for a bit?”
His lips feather a kiss onto my forehead before he says, “Of course. Want Mr. Teddles?”
“Please.”
He slips from the bed in nothing but his boxer briefs and disappears down the hallway, then comes back in seconds with Mr. Teddles. The big bear fits perfectly against me. “Getting in the shower now. You two have some sleepy cuddle time, okay?” he murmurs to me as he brushes his lips against my cheek.
“Okay. Love you,” I whisper back.
“Love you too.”
I doze for awhile, but voices outside wake me. Footsteps come near the bed and I heard him say, “Lily?”
“Um, yeah?” I answer, my voice thick with sleep as I rub my eyes.
“The guys are here to start on the fence. You might want to get up and throw some clothes on before I leave, then check with them so they know you’re here and can answer questions if they have any.” He’s tying his tie and I watch, my eyes roaming over his tall form. God, he’s built.
“Okay.” I’m still in my pajamas from the night before, and I can feel Brock’s eyes on me as I head out into the hallway. “I’ll just pull a tee on over this top and go out to talk to them. Will that be okay?” I call out as I drag into my room.
“Sure. Soon as you know they’re settled and at work, get yourself a shower and do whatever needs to be done today. I left a list on the island of some things I noticed.”
Great. A honey-do list. Oh, well, at least he’ll know what I’m up to, I suppose. Tee slipped on, I saunter out into the hallway and step into the living room to tell him goodbye. “You’ll be okay with them here, right?”
I nod. “Yeah. I’ll be fine. I won’t interact with them unless I have to.”
“Good. If at any time you feel unsafe or shaky, you call me. Okay?” There’s a kiss to my forehead and then he opens the door. “Promise?”
“Promise. I will.” I stand there and watch as he pulls out of the driveway, and his car disappears down the street. I go straight from the front door to the back door, open it, and march down the steps. Three guys look up at me and grin. “Hey. I’m Mrs. Owens. I’ll be here all day so if you need anything, just let me know.”
“Great! I’m Adam, and that’s Craig and Brandon,” the tallest guy says, pointing to each guy in turn. “The guys will be here with the auger in a few minutes to dig the holes, so if you hear a bunch of noise, that’s what it’ll be.”
“Okay. No problem. I’m going in to take a shower and get myself pulled together. Like I said, let me know if you need anything.” Maybe I shouldn’t have told them I’d be in the shower. I can lock the doors. It’ll be okay.
“Great. We should have the posts set by evening. Thanks, Mrs. Owens,” Adam calls out to me as I climb the back steps.
Once I’m inside, I make sure all the doors are locked. I’m sure I’ll be fine. Brock’s so protective of me, and I feel safe these days. I didn’t before. It was hard growing up, no father and a mother who couldn’t afford a decent place to live. Our neighborhood was dangerous and the guys were scary. I was raped when I was fifteen, and I’d never quite gotten past it until I became a Little.
It’s been therapeutic for me. I never got to be a child because with my mother working so much to make ends meet, I spent most of my time alone. I raised myself. It was lonely, and it was fright
ening, and it had a bad ending. When she married my stepfather the year I turned fourteen, everything changed. He was a horrible guy and he tried like hell to get into my pants and, unfortunately, I wasn’t grown up enough to get away. Until I found the Little community, I’d felt old and worn out. But being a Little helped me get back some of that life I’d lost, and having a daddy has built my self-esteem and given me a sense of safety. I know that if any of those guys did anything to me, anything at all, and Brock found out? He’d kill them with his bare hands.
When I put on those ruffled panties, those full skirts and that petticoat, those little Mary Jane slippers, and put my hair up in pigtails, I’m the little girl who never had a dad, but now I’ve got one. My Daddy is the best daddy in the whole world, and I never want to disappoint him or make him sad. As the warm water flows over me in the shower, I hum the songs he and I sing together, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Three Blind Mice, The Farmer in the Dell, and some Sesame Street songs. Finished and dried off, I coat myself in sweet-smelling baby powder, then pull on some shorts and a tee. This time I put on a bra. Daddy’s not home and there are men outside. That means I should wear one.
Brock calls me at lunchtime and I’m so glad to talk to him. I’m in the middle of telling him how many posts they’ve gotten set and about the big thing that’s digging the holes, and we’re chatting away when the front doorbell rings. “Hang on, babe. The doorbell’s―”
“That’s okay, angel. I need to get back to work. Talk to you this afternoon when I get home, okay?”
“Okay, Daddy. I love you.”
“I love you too, sweet girl. Bye.”
“Bye, Daddy,” I call back as I head to the door. Slinging it open, I’m startled.
It’s Gloria.
Oh, shit. No, please, not when I’m here alone. I almost forget to greet her. “Oh, um, hi, Gloria.”
“Hello, dear! May I come in?”
Now I don’t know what to do. “Uh, yeah, sure. Come on in.” I feel like I just let the fox into the henhouse. And I don’t know how to get rid of her.
She stands there expectantly and I wonder why until I finally blurt out, “Oh, I’m sorry! Please, have a seat,” sweeping my and toward the sofa.
“Why, thank you!” I watch as she takes a seat, mysteriously wiping her hand across the surface of the sofa before she sits down. Does she think we have bedbugs or something? That was weird. “So, about to get all settled in?”
“Yes, we are, thanks. Um, I’d offer you something to drink, but … I’m out of everything and I’m going to the store later,” I lie, trying to think faster on my feet.
“Oh, that’s quite all right. So, I was wondering: Are you putting up a fence?” she asks, her eyes bright.
“Yes, ma’am. We are.”
“Why?”
Oh, good lord. Do I have to do this right now? I don’t know what to say exactly, so I’m trying to think of something clever. “Well, um, we like our privacy.” That’s sure true.
“Is someone spying on you or something?” she asks. I want to scream, Really? You’ve got a lot of nerve to ask me that!
But I don’t. Instead, I say, “No, nothing like that. We like to sometimes sunbathe nude, and we didn’t want any of the neighbors complaining, you know?”
“Oh! Yes, well, I think they would too. Probably best then, I suppose.” God, she actually looks disappointed, like she was hoping I was going to say we were cooking meth or something. The only thing I can think about is how to get rid of her, and I’m coming up with nothing. It’s obvious I’m not going anywhere, and the house is almost spotless. And then it happens.
Someone knocks on the door. Hallelujah. “Will you excuse me for just a minute?”
She smiles as I rise and head for the door, and she sings out, “Why, certainly!”
There’s a very attractive woman standing there, a little older than me, and she grins and winks. “Hey, girl! You ready to work on the stuff?” she says, holding up a gift bag and patting it.
I’m really confused. “The stuff? I’m not―”
“Yeah! You know, the stuff that we talked about yesterday. Oh, hello, Gloria!” she calls out and waves, then moves so Gloria can’t see her face and gives me a disgusted look. And that’s it―I decide to play along.
“Oh, yeah! The stuff! Right! Come on in!” I tell her. God, I wish I knew her name.
“Well, hello, Karen,” Gloria says, bitter sap running over her words. So this is Karen. I almost laugh when I think, Well, thanks, Gloria! Now Karen and I can get to know each other!
“I guess I should leave since you have company …” Karen says with a grin.
“Oh, I think Gloria was just leaving, weren’t you, Gloria?” I ask innocently.
She huffs a little and stands. “Yes. I was just leaving. It was nice to see you, dear,” she says to me. As she passes the other woman, her terse voice squeaks out, “Karen.”
“Gloria.” I watch her head down the steps with Karen still standing in the doorway. She gets ten feet down the sidewalk, turns to look over her shoulder at us, then quick-steps away. As soon as she’s out of sight, I close the door.
And that’s when I start to laugh. Karen’s laughing too. “Okay, I have to know: What’s in the bag?” I ask, choking with laughter.
She drops the gift bag in the floor and pulls out two bath towels. “You know, stuff!” she says and shrieks with laughter.
“Well, thank god for stuff! Oh, by the way, I’m Lily Owens,” I say and stick out my hand.
“Karen. But you already know that!” she says and laughs again. “Karen Reynolds. We live at three twenty-six.”
“You saved me,” I chuckle.
“No. Becca Henderson did. She saw what was going on from a block away, but she’s so shy that she called me to see if I’d do something.”
I stand there and shake my head. “I’ve got to remember to do something nice for Becca then. God, I wasn’t sure I could get rid of her.”
“She’s tenacious, I’ll give her that,” Karen says. “So I can just go out the back door and go home. She’ll wonder what happened to me. No, I’m betting she’d start the rumor that we’re lesbian lovers!” She’s laughing again and so am I.
“Probably! No, by all means, have a seat! Would you like something to drink?” I ask, making my way to the kitchen.
“Water will be fine,” she calls to me. I get her a glass of water and, without thinking, get myself a glass of milk. When I hand it to her, she says, “Thanks. I need this. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. Well, I guess it was when Savannah and Martin McIntosh played that prank on her for peeking into their windows.”
“Peeking into their windows?” I know the shock is clear on my face. That woman is peeking in people’s windows? Good god!
“Yeah. They set up a trip wire. Oh my god, it was a quiet evening and all of a sudden lights started flashing and horns blowing and all kinds of racket. And we all looked out to see her running away from their house as fast as she could go! It was hysterical!”
I’m gasping with laughter just thinking about it. “Wish I’d seen that!”
“Yeah! I doubt we’ll ever see anything like that again. Oh, well, it was the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time.” She takes a couple of sips of her water. “So are you guys pretty much settled in?”
“Yes. It took a few weeks, but we are. And now we’re having the fence put up, so that should give us a nice private backyard.”
Karen nods. “Yeah. Good luck with that. She was trying to see over Tasha and Davis’s privacy fence. They found blocks where she’d piled them up to look over,” Karen says, then takes a couple more sips.
“No! You’re kidding! Wow. She’s nosy. I told her it was because we like to sunbathe nude,” I explain.
“Really? Well, hope she doesn’t bring a camera when she comes looking,” Karen says with a sly smile. “She’s really curious about us.”
“Oh? Why?”
Karen leans in. “Can I tell you a l
ittle secret?”
“Sure.” I mean, who am I going to tell, right?
“Brett and I are in a relationship with six other couples.” She takes another sip, wiggling her eyebrows at me from above her glass.
“You mean like … in a relationship relationship?”
“Yes. We all sleep together. Have for a good while now. We all love each other and it’s just one big happy family.” She sets her glass on a coaster on the coffee table. “And we’re not the only ones doing something a little different in this neighborhood. Keep an eye peeled and you’ll figure it out.”
I think about it for a second. This woman isn’t a gossip―she’s not telling me what else is going on, and she’s not ratting out any of the other neighbors. I think I can trust her. “So my husband, Brock, and I, we, um―”
“Do you live an alternative lifestyle?” she asks pointedly.
“Yes. He’s my daddy. I’m a Little,” I say, knowing she won’t understand.
And I get a big shock. “I bet that can be fun,” she says, no judgment present in her voice or on her face. I feel like a huge weight has lifted off my shoulders.
“Not just fun. It makes me feel very secure. I feel very safe when I’m with my daddy,” I tell her, hoping she can understand.
“Oh, I get it, really, I do. When we’re all together, I feel safe. When we’re not, I feel like a part of me is missing,” Karen says, a hint of sadness in her voice.
“Exactly! It’s exactly like that!” She does understand! This is so cool! “So the fence?” She nods. “We’re putting it up so we can install playground equipment back there. The equipment’s already here. We just want the privacy fence so we can go out there and play and people won’t be staring at us.”
“I can definitely understand that. And don’t think for a minute that she wouldn’t either. She’d be right there, staring through the fence, if she could get by with it.” Karen picks her glass back up and takes another sip or two. “It’s best that you have the fence.”
Lily and Brock at 343 Harper's Cove Page 5