The Day She Kissed Me

The Day We Met

The day I met my nosy neighbor, Miss Marlene, was one of the first days of summer. How could I forget it when it was the day my wife would watch her summer hat, roll a mat and pack snacks for us to have outside under a tree shade and read a book of our choice—hers, of course, there's nothing like a woman's power to influence your choices after marriage.

June twenty-first wasn't like the past year for me as I stayed inside my house and away from the house, just wanting to be alone. I didn't care about the goddamned flowers and the varieties of butterflies but did my new neighbor care? No, she did not as she knocked down my door with vigor and cheerfulness.

It happened to increase with every passing moment forcing me to walk down from the top floor on my bad leg.

"Who's there?" I gritted out, moving to door but midway, half-growling and cursing the daylight out of that pest.

"It's me." The voice said, backed up by the noise from my other neighbor, Mrs. Tolleson, who liked to her grandson to trim the yard for extra money. The fool probably had his earphones on as he tidily earned his keep.

"I don't know this you," I replied back, but the voice didn't say anything and continued the torment.

I wobbled to the door, unlocked the door and creaked it open to see a woman with a terrible shade of blonde with brown hair at the root. A mess.

"Who's this?" I asked rudely, eyeing her distastefully.

She didn't take the hint or the unwelcoming tone of my voice reaching her ears. She was either half dead, dead or dumb.

She shook her head delighted at my pretense and smiled. "I'm your new neighbor, Miss Marlene, nice to make your acquaintance. You call me Freda, my friends and just about everyone do." she said, giving bits of a New Yorker trying to be nice kind of voice.

I would say she wreck me and further my undying need to close my door and be away from reaching fairly dressed, yet crazy lady's reach.

"You're?" she asked. I didn't remember telling her it was her turn to do away but take her feet off my property.

"None of your business." I informed her and expected to be about her way.

"I'm also known as Miss-be-interested." she did a funny face like she had a stroke and did an awkward shrug.

That was it, I had enough of this being nice time. I grabbed my door handle and shut the door—tried to, but it didn't close fully and I moved my head to the front to investigate. Only to see her pointed flats between the door space. .

"Can you get your . . . ?" I grudgingly nodded to the door.

"My what?" she said, batting her eyelashes and pretending to be clueless.

"Your fucking feet off my door, before I slam it in." I thickened my voice to a darkly threatening one, capable of carrying out my promise.

As I counted one to ten, backward. She raised her forehead as if requesting a middle school teacher for permission. "Before that, I just want to give you this." she showed me a round pie. I realized that was why she was behaving like a homeless veteran.

So, I didn't answer her and let her say her worst and get off my property before I called the cops, or took matters in my own hands with my ever trusty gun.

"The kids and I," she pointed to three brats between the ages of eleven, seven and five, who ran opposite the house that previously unoccupied. "Made you an apple pie after kind Mr. Gael let us know."

He cursed the young man even more than he did before the talkative agent sold, whatever he did to the place. He knew he was right about not letting that man be his agent for his house. He hoped the man get a bad back in his old age.

"I was just trying a new recipe." she added.

"I don't care if your food taste like shit, or brick. I want you to leave my property this instant and don't ever come back." I warned her.

"You haven't taste the pie, Mr. Homer." she said.

Resisting the urge to scratch my bushy beard or comb through my long, I glared her at enough to kill. "Get off my porch, little Mrs."

"I'm not married, Mr. Homer."

"Leave my house!" I bellowed at the woman who wanted nothing to make my day much worse and did a successful job.

She looked shocked at my reaction that her smile died on her face as she searched through the small space I let part of my face show

"I will be on my—"

I slammed the door the moment her leg left the door, not interested in spending another minute with a walking disaster. Had three kids without a man, she was no way responsible in my eyes and I didn't like nosey neighbors. I didn't like the deaf and nearly blind, too.

"I will be back, again, Mr. Homer.  Another time, I promise!" the woman's cut through my door.

I heaved a sigh as I walked to the fridge on the creaking wooden floor and pulled out a cold bottle of beer. Went back to my recliner, drank and listened to the silence, waiting for the longest day of my life to pass. Like it was another normal day in summer.

That was the first day I met the bright Missus and I was nowhere homely. I remember, hoping that she won't come back and forget her little promise that bothered my peaceful days alone in the large house. Boy, I was wrong as the mother of three came to pay me another visit—triple that. And believe it,  or not, I did the unthinkable. My own special way of getting rid of human fleas.