Me and Mom Fall for Spencer by Diane Munier Read Free Book Online Page B

side of Frieda’s and then we get to the rental
house with the revolving door, the long line of renters. It’s empty now, but it
won’t be for long. They come and go, come and go. I get closer to this place, make sure it’s still empty. I circle it, all the way
to the yard. My cat Muffins comes out from the back porch and scares me to
death. “Get home,” I say, and she stops and licks her paw and whines at me a
little. I shoot the beam over the yard, then back around the front, all the
while Spencer follows, and back to the porch and I see the empty bottle. It’s
whiskey. Someone was drinking on the porch. It could be workmen, but it wasn’t
here last night. I take that bottle to keep it clean and so I can know if there
are any more later . I’ll be watching.
    Next is Mike
and Tammy’s. Mike is still at my house, but many nights he’s on the front porch
smoking. We don’t wave. He’s already charged my fence and he knows I’ll never
open the gate. I don’t date. I’ve known him all my life, since before his dad
left, all the way back. He needs to cut the grass.
    Two doors down is Merle and Pearlie’s. I flash my light at the bedroom window, three clicks. I
wait and count to five, and a light flashes back from same window, three
clicks.
    A car passes, and music pours out the
windows, leaving a trail of sound that quickly dissipates and it’s just our
feet on the sidewalk then, it’s just the cicadas.
    A dog sets off barking. The Coopers
still haven’t taken their trash cans to the back. Next to them the Strands
aren’t home and papers gather on the lawn. That’s almost a week. They didn’t
tell me they’d be gone. But they don’t have to. They don’t have the money for a
vacation. Even though it’s late, I walk up to their front door and knock. I put
my ear against the wood and listen. There is nothing, no heartbeat in this
place. Like every night before I walk around, trespassing some might call it,
but I have already struck a deal, they know I’m watching and it is quiet in
back, the barbecue pit quiet, the shed in back still. On
the front lawn I, we, gather the papers and pile them in a corner on the porch.
Who gets the paper anymore? The morning paper? The Strands.
    We cross the street. I smell the dryer
going in front of the house there. The windows are open. This is Leeanne . She needs to get to bed, for market in the
morning, but she’s a night-owl. She dries her clothes
at night to save on electric.
    “You ever afraid?” he asks me. He’s
breaking my rule, but it holds on this side of the street too, and I don’t
answer him, just click my light once, not in his face, but on his chest.
    “Okay,” he laughs a little.
    But I’m thinking about it, and already I
see the distraction. I’m not paying attention. What I want to say is yes, yes
I’m afraid sometimes. But not of the street. Crime out
here…there’s room to run.
    It’s what people do inside their houses,
where they think no one sees, I fear that, living beside it and never knowing,
watching TV while a neighbor fights for her life just a few hundred feet away. That’s
what I fear.
    Next house, next house, until we’re
across the street from my house again, and the party has broken up, and Jason
is on the porch saying goodnight to Mom, but I look Cyro’s way, at the window closest to his chair and I see the light click, and my light
answers.
    And Jason, he knows not to talk to me
now, he knows, but his hands are in his pockets, his shirt unbuttoned all the
way down, a cleaner white undershirt underneath. He
sees me walking with Spencer. He’s worked all day and he’s been drinking. He’s
always mad about something.
    “I figured you snuck out to walk with
her.” He’s talking to Spencer.
    I click my light in Jason’s face.
    He puts his hand up. “Cut it out.”
    I don’t know when I put my hand on Spencer’s
arm, but it’s after I move around him, curb-side so I’m closest to Jason. We
have to keep