Page 12 of The Woman By the Lake

Mr. Cutoff Shorts who forgot how to get to his barber just as he’d forgotten he had a neighbor who didn’t listen to metal (I was a Swiftie, and damn proud of it, not that he knew that, still). And I might no longer have a job, but I liked my sleep, and I didn’t find Limp Bizkit good at lullabies.

The only fortunate thing was the scratching from that first night hadn’t come back. I’d checked out that window and the area around it. It had a tree close, and maybe I was wrong about it being pine needles, because they didn’t touch the window, but there was no other clue as to what it might have been.

In my ruminations, I hadn’t realized the noise was lessening, so when the music cut out entirely, I turned and looked at my cute, blue Echo Dot (something else the mailman brought to me).

It was 3:57 in the morning.

Immediately, I grabbed my phone and snapped a photo of the time.

I did this because I was good with a grudge, even better with revenge fantasies.

And worse than that for Mr. Cutoffs, I was third generation American, but Russian flowed unhindered through my veins. Mom taught me some, Dedulya taught me even more. And his papachka was hardcore, from the motherland, so the man who taught my dedulya was the real deal.

Thus, I lay in bed, bided my time, and at exactly a quarter to six, I threw the covers back and got up.

I washed my face, brushed my teeth, flossed, and then headed to the walk-in closet.

I pulled off my sleep shorts, pulled on a pair of faded jeans, left the skintight shelf-bra cami I’d slept in, but shrugged on a light cardigan.

I then shoved my feet in the pink velvet Birkenstock slides with the gold buckles I bought before I moved, because I thought Birkenstocks said, “Washington State,” but if I was going to do them, they were going to be velvet with a gold buckle.

So far, I hadn’t worn them.

Today was the damned day.

I then took my phone and marched out the back door to the trail that led to my neighbor’s house.

When I suddenly emerged into a clearing after what could only have been a five-minute walk (if that), I was stunned immobile for a number of reasons.

First, his house was extraordinary.

A mish-mosh of stories with a timbered roof and siding painted an attractive midnight blue with polished wood accents around the windows.

There was no rhyme or reason to it. I couldn’t place it in an architectural era either. I wasn’t even sure how it was standing, with this bit sticking out and that bit rising high and windows everywhere.

Yet, it wasn’t fanciful.

It seemed solid, sturdy, like it sprouted out of the earth because it was meant to be placed right there, and when humans eradicated our own species through our pride and avarice, taking many other species with us, this house would remain.

Forever and ever.

Topping that, it gave me another eerie feeling, the first I’d felt since I’d arrived at that lake, but this one was further complicated by being both peaceful and exciting.

I didn’t understand that sensation and was in no mood to try.

The other thing that threw me was, off to the side, there was an attractive area with a built-in grill, handsome seating made of logs, a table and chairs for eating outside, and not far from that was a fire pit with logs around it to sit or lounge against, covered in heavy, colorful wool blankets that were so big, they also draped across the ground.

This wasn’t what threw me.

What threw me was the sheer number of spent cans and bottles everywhere. Three opened coolers that still had drinks floating in the now melted ice. Ashtrays here and there filled with cigarette butts and the blunt ends of spent joints. There was a lone football resting in the dirt not far from the area, and I noted two Frisbees also left where they’d fallen when the people using them lost interest.

Several massive Bluetooth speakers were scattered around, and it didn’t take a techie to know they were synced. My sleepless night told me that.

And there were three bras drunkenly hanging from a pine tree, and what looked like a pair of panties tangled with a pair of boxers sat on one of the wool blankets by the firepit.

At least the massive garbage bin that had been rolled out had its lid firmly in place, or every critter near would be running amok. In fact, I didn’t know how the lingering scent of hops and cooked meat didn’t call to them.

I didn’t need this visual representation of what had gone down at my neighbor’s place, I’d heard it, but it looked worse than what I’d heard.

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