Page 21 of Seven Summer Weekends

WeekThree

Chapter Eleven

Addison tossed and turned all night, her firing playing over and over again in her mind, along with the unfortunate interaction with her neighbor that night at the block party. When she couldn’t take it anymore, she turned on the light, opened her laptop, and pulled up Zillow. After checking off all of her preferences in the real estate app, images of ideal apartments filled the page. She hearted half a dozen of them and fell asleep dreaming of parquet floors and river views. While falling asleep mulling her urban options was pleasant, she had to admit that waking up at the beach was pretty delicious. She de-escalated, to simpler decisions—should she brew a pot of coffee or ride to the market for an iced version and a fresh-baked corn muffin? She was wary of leaving the house, not wanting to bump into Ben now that she knew he lived next door. It had been a while since she had allowed an untrustworthy man to fool her with his charm. But she really wanted a muffin, so defiance won. If she saw him, she would just ignore him.

With that in mind, she threw on cutoffs with the tee she sleptin and hopped on her bike, barefoot and braless, like a real Fire Islander. She felt light—possibly even airy—and noted that her brief experience of practicing meditation was perhaps the source of her newfound buoyancy. The feeling, however, was short-lived.

“What the fu—” she began, but was quickly cut off by a flurry of curses from You Again right outside her house. Holding on to the dwindling lightness that was Paresh’s gift to her, she quickly renamed him—Not You Again. She smiled at her own wit—but that too was short-lived. It was clear that some kind of animal had gotten into her garbage cans.

Not You Again’s pails were sitting off to the side without a speck of garbage around them. The nameSilverwas sharpied on their sides.

Not You Again—real name Ben Silver, apparently—was furiously picking up her trash from the sidewalk while his dog, Sally, looked on anxiously. Of course Sally was his dog! Probably a part of the play—maybe there was a bug in Sally’s collar.

As much as she wanted to run back inside, she addressed the situation.

“I’m sorry. I clicked closed the covers, I’m sure of it,” Addison asserted.

“You didn’t use the bungee cords correctly! It’s so freaking…irresponsible!”

She helped pick up the trash, but was not about to cower to his tantrum.

“Take a moment,” she said patronizingly.

He held an empty box of tampons in the air and matched her sarcasm.

“ ‘Take a moment’? What are you, an Apple Watch?”

It was funny. Addison pressed her lips together, suppressing a smile.

Ben looked up at the tampon box in his hand, then back to Addison. His face turned a bright shade of red.

He looked back up at the box and tossed it in the can. “I don’t want to be picking up your shit.”

“Then don’t. I got this.”

“Obviously you haven’t. You know, you may not care about this block, but we all do—very much.” He motioned to the surrounding houses. His anger clearly went beyond Addison’s not properly securing the garbage.

“Is that your dog?” she asked.

“Yes. Sally.”

“So you think I should be able to control the raccoons and the deer, but you can’t even control Sally?”

Sally sighed and lay down on the sidewalk, clearly insulted by Addison’s tone, if not her words.

Shep observed the hoopla from his window and thankfully arrived, interrupting the heated argument. He attempted to bring down the temperature with a joke. It seemed to be his go-to tactic.

“What does a deer with no eyes call themselves?” he asked Addison.

“No idea,” she said with zero enthusiasm.

“Exactly,” Shep laughed. Addison did too. She couldn’t help herself. Ben did not.

“C’mon, son.” Shep put his hand on Ben’s shoulder. “It’s a rookie mistake. I’ll teach Addie how to use the bungee cords.”

“It’s Addison,” she mumbled uselessly under her breath.

Ben turned and walked away with little more than a grunt.

---