She looked out her living room window and saw the young man standing on the corner. There he is again she murmered to herself. Eating potato chips and dropping the bags on my lawn.
Why doesn't that guy have a job?. She pressed her face closer to the glass, trying to make out his features. I wonder how old he is. Maybe I could get him a job at the rectory, cutting the grass or trimming the hedges.
Her job at the church afforded her the opportunity to do nice things for people. She was a church lady, a "goody two shoes" most people thought. Ha. If they only knew. But she loved her job and she loved bringing people closer to God, or at the very least, a higher power, if that's all they would accept. She would have to help this poor man, if not for himself, but at least to get him the hell off her lawn.
She lived in the house by herself, a recent divorce claiming most of her finances and energy. All she did right now was work and sleep and write. She loved to write poetry. She wasn't sure if she was any good at it, but it gave her peace. That's the most she was looking for right now, was peace. And quiet. Her children grown up and on their own, she had waited for that moment when she knew they would all be able to handle it, especially her husband.
"I need to go on my own now" she had said to him.
"I've taken care of you long enough. I need to take care of myself now, all right?" Although it really wasn't that simple, he didn't seem to be too upset. It was almost as if he expected it.
So she gave her children all her furniture and he moved to Wyoming.
She sold the house they had all lived in together and moved to the house on the corner, two streets over, a smaller version of her previous residence. A tiny piece of the familiar, yet something totally new and different. A place that was completely hers.
It was empty. She had taken a mattress and a desk, two bureaus and all the pictures. Her computer and stereo were old, he didn't want them, so she took them too. She was able to purchase a tv and a kitchen table, and also brought with her most of the dishes and the linen. She was all set. She could fill in the empty places later.
What was harder to fill was the empty space in her heart.
She had gotten involved with a saxaphone player, remembering old feelings of romance and lust. He worked alot and wasn't in town much. This isn't going to work she thought, and cut her losses. It was exactly what she had left.
But she was tough. She would move on. There was a cop and a couple of firemen that had asked her out before the musician, but she wasn't ready, still a little gun shy. But not anymore. The musician had broken her open, she was ready to rock again.
She wished the guy on the corner would move on. Looking out the window again, she noticed he was just about to move on, spying one long leg getting into the green car driven by a blonde woman. There was something vaguely familiar about the way she held her head, as she swung the car around to face the other way, passing the house again to go onto the main road.
I've seen that face before, the woman thought to herself. She looked in the mirror and checked her makeup one last time before going outside to pick up the scattered potato chip bags left on her lawn.
"Where have I seen that face before?" she said out loud, to no one but the face in the mirror.
I know that face.
To be continued............
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