My Life Next Door

by Huntley Fitzpatrick

“No worries. I’ll give the building manager a ring before we get going carrying the rest.”

  I didn’t know Garrett’s Hardware even did lumber. I know nothing about the Garretts’ business, and I feel shamed by this suddenly, like I should know.

  As he’s calling, I peer over his shoulder down to the curb, where I can see Jase’s distinctive form bent into the back of a faded green pickup truck. My pulse picks up. How is it that my world and the Garretts’ had such sharp boundaries until this summer and now they keep interlocking?

  “Yup”—Mr. Garrett snaps the phone shut—“they want it right here between the two pools. I guess they’re building a tiki bar.”

  Right. A tiki bar will blend in great with the whole Henry VIII vibe going on at the B&T. Bring me a scorpion bowl, wench. I glance through the bushes in search of Tim, but see only a drift of cigarette smoke.

  “Sam!” Jase balances a stack of wood on his shoulder, sweaty in the summer heat. He’s wearing jeans and has a pair of thick work gloves on. The wood drops onto the pool deck with a clatter and he comes right up for a kiss, salty warm. His gloves are rough on my arms and he tastes like cinnamon gum. I pull back, suddenly very aware of Mr. Lennox’s window overlooking the pool and Tim not twenty feet away. And Nan. Not to mention Mrs. Henderson tanning nearby. She’s in the Garden Club with Mom.

  Jase stands back to survey me, raising his eyebrows slightly.

  “You’re an admiral now?” This is not what I expect him to say. He touches the gold braid on the shoulders of my jacket. “Big promotion from Breakfast Ahoy.” He smiles. “Do I have to salute you?”

  “Please don’t.”

  Jase bends in for another kiss. I stiffen. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Mrs. Henderson sit up, cell phone to her ear. Surely she hasn’t got my mom on speed dial…?

  The expression in Jase’s eyes—it’s surprise and a little hurt. He scans my face.

  “Sorry!” I say. “Have to keep up appearances while in uniform.” I flap my hand at him. Keep up appearances? “I mean—keep my eyes on the pool. Not get distracted. The management gets all uptight about ‘fraternizing on the job,’” I say, gesturing toward Mr. Lennox’s window.

  Shooting the Lifeguard Off Duty sign a puzzled glance, Jase falls back and nods. I cringe inwardly. “Okay,” he says slowly. “Is this acceptable then?” He ducks to give my forehead a chaste smack.

  Mr. Garrett calls, “Hey, J, I need four hands for this one and I’ve only got the two.”

  I flush, but Jase just smiles at me and turns to help his dad. Maybe Mr. Garrett is used to Jase kissing girls in front of him? Maybe this is all easy and expected for both of them. Why is it so weird and hard for me?

  At this point, Mr. Lennox hurries out, looking flustered. I brace myself. “They didn’t say when you were coming,” he says. “Nothing but ‘between noon and five’!” I exhale, feeling silly.

  “Bad time?” Mr. Garrett asks, easing the latest stack of wood onto the last.

  “I just like to have Notice,” Mr. Lennox protests. “Did you sign in at the gatehouse? All service people need to sign in with Precise time of Delivery and Departure.”

  “We just pulled up to the curb. I’ve delivered here before. I didn’t think it would be a problem.”

  “It’s Club Protocol.” Mr. Lennox’s tone is urgent.

  “I’ll sign on the way out,” Mr. Garrett says. “Do you want the rest in a pile here? When does construction start?”

  Apparently another sore point for the flustered Mr. Lennox. “They haven’t told me that either.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Mr. Garrett tells him. “We’ve got a tarp to leave in case it takes a while and there’s rain.”

  He and Jase go back and forth to the truck, alternately carrying single loads and hauling them together, a team. Mr. Lennox hovers, possibly needing CPR soon.

  “That’s the lot,” Mr. Garrett says finally. “I just need this signed.” He holds out a clipboard to Mr. Lennox, then stands back, clenching and unclenching his left hand, wincing.

  I glance over at Jase. He’s stripped off the gloves and is wiping his brow. Though it’s cloudy, the temperature’s over eighty and it’s humid as usual.

  “Can I get you guys something to drink?” I ask.

  “S’okay. We’ve got a thermos in the car. Restroom, though?” Jase tips his head at me. “Or do I have to sign in for that one at the gatehouse?”

  I don’t say anything to this, just direct him to the bathroom and then stand there uncertainly. Mr. Garrett bends to the pool, dips his hands and tosses water on his face, running it through his wavy brown hair, so much like his son’s. Though Mr. Lennox has faded away muttering, I feel apologetic. “Sorry about—” I gesture toward the club.

  Mr. Garrett laughs. “You’re certainly not responsible if they love their rules, Samantha. I’ve dealt with these guys before. Nothing new.”

  Jase returns from the bathroom, smiling. “There are, like, griffins overlooking the stalls in there.” He jerks his thumb over his shoulder.

  “Take a second,” Mr. Garrett tells Jase, clapping him on the shoulder. “I have to do some more paperwork in the car.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” Jase murmurs before turning to me.

  “So…will I see you tonight?” I ask.

  “Absolutely. When do you get off work? Aw…I forgot. Not till later. Tonight’s Thursday, so Dad’s training me again. At the beach.”

  “At the beach for football? How does that work?”

  “He’s got me doing his old workout. He had Division Two colleges looking at him until he blew out his knee, so I need to bulk up. It means running in the water knee-deep, and that’s still a killer for me.”

  “Jason—all set?” Mr. Garrett calls.

  “Coming.” He drops his gloves to the ground, sliding his bare palms up my arms, then edging me into the shade of one of the bushes. I want to lean into him, but I’m still tense. Beyond his head, I see Tim, sorting coins in his hand, headed for the snack bar. He looks over at us, takes in the scene, smirks, then wags an index finger at us. Tsk-tsk.

  “I’ll respect the uniform and hold off on the fraternizing,” Jase says, kissing my cheek. “But I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Uniform-free,” I add, then clap my hand over my mouth.

  He grins, but says only: “Works for me.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jase holds his hand against the windowpane, bumping it only gently, but I’m so alert for the sound that I hear it, throw the window open, and climb out all in under twenty seconds.

  He indicates the blanket spread out on the roof.

  “Prepared!” I comment, sliding down next to him.

  He reaches for me, slipping an arm around my neck. “I try to think ahead. Plus, I needed incentive to finish the last bit of training, so I thought about meeting you up here.”

  “I was incentive?”

  “You were.” His arm is warm behind me. I curl my toes at the bottom of the blanket, brushing against the still-warm roof tiles. It’s nearly nine o’clock and the last bit of day is losing the battle against the dark. Another starry night.

  “The stars are different around the world, did you know? If we were in Australia, we’d see a whole new sky.”

  “Not just backward?” Jase pulls me closer, pillowing my head on his chest. I take a deep breath of warm skin and clean shirt. “Or upside down? Completely different?”

  “Mostly different,” I tell him. “It’s winter in Australia, so they see the Summer Cross…and Orion’s belt. And this orangey red star, Aldebaran, which is part of the eye of Taurus. You know, the bull.”

  “So how is it, exactly,” he asks, tracing his finger idly around the collar of my shirt, a mesmerizing motion, “that you became an astrophysicist?”

  “Kind of a roundabout way.” I close my eyes, breathe in the smell of cut grass, Mom’s rosebushes, Jase’s clean skin.

  “Go on,” he says, sliding the finger up my throat to follow the line o
f my jaw, then back down along the collar. I feel almost hypnotized by that simple motion and find myself telling a story I’ve never told.

  “You know how my dad left my mom before I was born?”

  He nods, his brow furrowing, but doesn’t say anything.

  “Well, I don’t really know how it happened—she doesn’t talk about it. Whether she kicked him out or he just left or they had some big fight or…what. But he left behind some stuff—in this big box that my mom was supposed to mail to him. I guess. But she was about to have me, and Trace was really little too, only just over a year old. So she didn’t send it, she just stuck it in the back of the front hall closet.”

  I’ve always thought this was so unlike Mom, not to sweep up every bit.

  “Tracy and I found the box when we were about five and six. We thought it was a Christmas present or something. So we opened it, all excited. But it was just full of random things—old T-shirts with band names on them, cassette tapes, pictures of these big gatherings of people we didn’t know, sports gear. One sneaker. Stuff. Not what we were hoping for, once we realized what it was.”

  “What were you hoping for?” Jase’s voice is quiet.

  “Treasure. Old diaries or something. His Barbie collection.”

  “Er…your dad collected Barbies?”

  I laugh. “Not that I know of. But we were little girls. We would have preferred that to some smelly shoes and old R.E.M. and Blind Melon T-shirts.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Now Jase’s finger has edged down my shorts, tracing the same slow line along the waistband. I take a hard-to-catch breath.

  “Anyway, at the very bottom there was this telescope. A fancy one, but still all wrapped up, like he’d gotten it but never opened it. Or someone had given it to him and he didn’t want it. So I took it and hid it in my closet.”

  “Then you used it? On the roof?” Jase shifts, propping himself up on an elbow now, looking at my face.

  “Not on the roof, just from my window. I couldn’t figure out the directions for a few years. But after that, yeah, I used it. Looking for aliens, finding the Big Dipper, that kind of thing.” I shrug.

  “Wondering where your dad was, at all?”

  “Oh, maybe. Probably. At first. After that I just got hooked by the idea of all those planets far away, all those other stories.”

  Jase nods, as though this makes sense to him.

  I find myself feeling a little shaky. “Now it’s your turn.”

  “Hmm?” He circles my belly button with that light finger. Oh my God.

  “Tell me a story.” I turn my head, bury my lips in the worn cotton of his shirt. “Tell me things I don’t know.”

  So, with nothing to be distracted by, no brothers and sisters bursting in, no crowd of friends, no awkward on-the-job moment, just me and Jase, I learn things about the Garretts I couldn’t by watching. I learn that Alice is in nursing school. Jase raises his eyebrow at me when I laugh at this. “What, you don’t see my big sister as a ministering angel? I’m shocked.” Duff’s allergic to strawberries. Andy was born two months early. All the Garretts are musical. Jase plays the guitar, Alice the piccolo, Duff the cello, Andy the violin. “And Joel?” I ask.

  “Oh, the drums, of course,” Jase says. “It was the clarinet, but then he realized that was just not a turn-on.”

  The soft air smells sweet and leafy. Feeling the slow beat of Jase’s heart beneath my cheek, I close my eyes and relax. “How was the training?”

  “I’m a little sore,” Jase admits. “But Dad knows what he’s doing. It worked for Joel, anyway. He got a full ride at State U for football.”

  “So where are you applying, to college—do you know yet?”

  Jase, who’s again leaning on one elbow, lies back, rubbing the side of his nose with his thumb. His face, usually so alight and open, clouds.

  “I don’t know. Not sure I can apply.”

  “What?”

  He tunnels his fingers through his hair. “My parents—my dad—they’ve always been really good about debt. But then, last year, that new Lowe’s started digging ground. Dad figured it would be a good time to take a loan and lay in inventory. Specialty items, things Lowe’s wouldn’t have. But, uh, people aren’t building. The store’s barely breaking even. It’s tight. Alice has a partial and some money from my great-aunt Alice. She’s got a private duty nurse’s aid job this summer too. But I…well…the football thing may work out, but I’m not my brother.”

  I twist to face him. “There’s got to be something, Jase. Some other kind of scholarship…student loan. There’s something out there, I’m sure.”

  I think of Mrs. Garrett trying to limit how much juice the kids pour. “Duff, you’ll never drink that whole glass. Pour a little, then refill if you’re really thirsty.” Then of Mom, who makes gourmet dishes on a whim after watching the Food Network, food she won’t be home long enough to eat, and that Tracy, and now just me, will never be able to finish.

  “There’s a way, Jase. We’ll find it.”

  He shrugs, looking slightly less bleak as his eyes rest on me. “Sailor Supergirl to my rescue now?”

  I salute him. “At your service.”

  “Yeah?” He leans over, ducking his head so our noses touch. “Could I get a list of those services?”

  “I’ll show you mine,” I breathe, “if…”

  “Deal,” Jase murmurs, then his mouth shifts to mine, warm and sure as his hands pull me close.

  Later, he leans up one last time to kiss me as he descends the trellis, then waits while I fold the blanket and toss it down to him. “G’night!”

  “Good night!” I whisper, then hear Mom’s voice, behind me.

  “Sweetheart?”

  Oh God. I leap back in through the window, so fast I smack the top of my forehead on the frame. “Ow!”

  “Were you talking to someone out there?” Mom, looking chic in a sleeveless black shirt and fitted white pants, has her arms folded, frowning. “I thought I heard voices.”

  I try to keep the flush from flooding my face. Unsuccessfully. I’m blushing, and my lips are swollen. I could not possibly look more guilty.

  “Just calling hello to Mrs. Schmidt across the street,” I say. “She was getting her mail.”

  Incredibly, Mom buys this. She’s already distracted.

  “I’ve told you a hundred times not to leave that window open. It lets out the central air and it lets in the bugs!” She slams the window shut, flipping the lock, then looking out. I pray she won’t see the incriminating figure of Jase heading home, with, God, a blanket! Not that Mom would necessarily put two and two together, but that was so close and she’s not stupid and…

  I feel as though my heart might pound its way out of my chest.

  “Why don’t those people ever put away the clutter in their yard?” she mutters to herself, pulling down the shade.

  “Was there something you wanted, Mommy?” I ask, then grimace. I haven’t called her Mommy for at least six years.

  But the word seems to take the edge off and she comes over, to brush my hair from my face, almost as Jase did, except that she pulls it back, gathering it into a ponytail, then shifts to study the effect, giving me that smile that reaches her eyes. “Yes, I need your help, Samantha. I have a few events tomorrow and I’m stuck. Come help me? We can have tea.”

  A few minutes later, my adrenaline levels gradually easing back to normal, I sip chamomile tea, watching Mom spread linen pantsuits and summer sweaters on her bed. You’d think this would be Tracy’s job; she’s the one who thinks in terms of outfits and lays out her clothes the night before. But for some reason, it’s always been mine.

  “Here’s what I have,” Mom says. “It’s a luncheon at the Garden Club, then I need to go to a one-hundredth birthday party, and straight from there to a harbor cruise.”

  Snuggling back against the satin bolster, I narrow the choices down to basic black dress, casual white linen suit, blue flowered skirt with cornflower-colored wrap.


  “The black,” I tell her. “Goes with everything.”

  “Hmmm.” Her forehead creases and she scoops up the hanger, draping the black over her body, turning to look in the cheval mirror. “My mother always told me not to wear all black. Too stark, and kind of clichéd.” Before I can ask why she bought it, then, she brightens. “But I have the same thing in navy blue.”

  I pronounce that dress perfect, and it is. Mom vanishes into her walk-in closet to pull out a selection of shoes. I burrow deeper into the pillows. Though she’s hardly taller than me, her bed is a California king, one of those outsized deals made for the LA Lakers or whatever. I feel, always, like a little kid when I’m here.

  After we sort through the shoes, discarding the wicked highs and torturous Manolos and the “practical but ugly” Naturalizers, Mom sits down on the bed, reaching for her tea. Her shoulders rise and fall with an indrawn breath. “This is relaxing.” She smiles at me. “It feels as though we haven’t done this in a long time.”

  It feels like that because it is like that. Our tea ritual, choosing clothes, Mom being home at night…hard to remember the last time all that came together.

  “Tracy e-mailed me the cutest picture of Flip and her at the East Chop Lighthouse.”

  “I got it too,” I say.

  “They’re a very sweet couple.” Mom sips her tea.

  “Sweet” would not be the first word I’d use to describe Tracy and Flip, but I’ve walked in on them at inopportune moments that Mom, against all odds, has never encountered. What if she’d come to my room five minutes—two minutes—sooner? The open window would have told her where I was. What would I have said? What would Jase have done?

  “Do you miss having a boyfriend, sweetheart?” This catches me totally off guard. She stands up, scooping up the rejected outfits and heading for the closet to rehang them. I say nothing. “I know that’s important at your age.” She laughs ruefully. “Maybe at my age too. I’d forgotten.…” She goes far away for a moment, then seems to catch herself, returning to the subject at hand. “What about Thorpe, Samantha? Flip’s younger brother? He’s such a nice boy.”

  She’s suggesting dates for me now? This is new, and bizarre, behavior for Mom.