Girl Next Door

  Girl Next Door

  By Erik Schubach

  Copyright © 2014 by Erik Schubach

  Self publishing

  P.O. Box 523

  Nine Mile Falls, WA 99026

  Cover photo © 2014 By Wallenrock / ShutterStock.com license

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, blog, or broadcast.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  FIRST EDITION

  ISBN 978-0-9911072-6-1

  Chapter 1 – Moving In

  The group helping me move laughed as mom and I dropped the corner of my queen sized mattress on the lawn. Mother and Lessa chuckled at us. Then mother mocked, “Come on you weaklings, this thing isn't getting any lighter.” The puppies ran all around my new yard while we unloaded my things. I smiled inwardly as mom would absently stomp her heel every time the dogs strayed too far away and they would come scampering closer to us. I doubt she even realizes she is doing it.

  I slapped the mattress before mom and I hefted it up again and we backed toward the open door of my new house. Wow, that still amazed me. I must be growing up. I have my own house now. I really hated moving out of our family home, but it was time. My twin sister, Lessa, had moved out last year with her fiance, Devon.

  I was a production intern at the studios over at Cornfed Potatoes, working for our mother's friend, Kylee Nelson, as I put myself through college. Yes, the same Kylee Nelson who shoots those damn cool movies and music videos under the pseudonym, Babette Stevenson. I guess there is a long story about that, but I haven’t heard it yet.

  I had to fight with my parents to let me pay my own way through college, they kept trying to pay until I said I wanted to prove I could make my own way in the world. My adoptive mom, Sandra, perked up at this and effectively put an end to mother's attempts, saying she understood completely. Gawd I love my new mom.

  So here I was, an old lady of twenty-two, halfway through my freshman year, moving into my own house. Fine whatever, I'm a late starter but hey, I'm the brainy one, Lessa decided to follow in mother's footsteps and go into music. I envy her courage trying to fill the shoes of a legend, Penny Franklin of Leather and Heels.

  We all started laughing again as I backed into the door frame and the evil ones didn't stop in time and squished me with the mattress which I promptly dropped again uttering a squeaky sound that most closely resembled, “Bleek!”

  My giggling doppelganger on the other side of the mattress teased, “Graceful much Brandye?” It caught everyone's amusement. I rolled my eyes and mom and I re-hoisted the mattress, and started backing into the house.

  I paused a second as I saw my next door neighbor on her porch, she was looking over at us with a smile on her face. She was painting when we pulled up in a rented moving van. Damn she was pretty.

  I totally understand people who are attracted to others of the same sex like mom and mother, but that really wasn't my thing... much. I liked my men, just like Lessa did, but my heart did skip a beat looking at that cute blonde on her covered Victorian porch. Just because I comically “came out” to my parents back in my senior year of high school that I was “straight," didn't mean I couldn't appreciate a pretty woman. Besides, isn't sexuality a lot of fuzzy shades of gray anyway? I smiled back at one such fuzzy shade next door as I disappeared into the house.

  Lessa, looked back in confusion, wondering what I was looking at, then saw the woman and smiled her goddamn signature smirk to herself. As we forced the mattress around the corner into the hall, I asked everyone. “Remind me again why we didn't let Devon and his friends or Leo and some of Mom's people help us out?”

  Sandra did that cute nose scrunch she did that was far too cute for a middle aged woman and said, “Because Bran, it was YOUR idea to give us some 'bonding' time.” Oh yeah.

  I snorted at the smug looks on the other women's faces and defended myself. “How the hell was I supposed to know you'd all pick that one moment to actually listen to me?”

  We all started laughing and the mattress started slipping from my grip a bit. “Not helping!” I chimed out as mother and Lessa just kept pushing like an unstoppable force.

  We made it to my master bedroom without further incident. And we flopped the mattress onto the bed frame that took us all almost an hour to figure out how to assemble. As we adjusted the mattress in the frame, the dogs jumped up and indoctrinated it by rubbing their cute little faces all over it, mom leaned over and whispered in my ear, “How do we know it's right-side up?”

  I grinned at her and leaned in and kissed her cheek and whispered, “It doesn't matter mom.” Some people try to tell Lessa and I that our mom isn't all the way there in the smarts department, which is bullshit. She just uses her brilliant mind for more important things like running the Callahan charitable foundation, I'd love to see any of those asshats try to accomplish that. She brought our family back together, we owed her so much. Lessa got into so many fights defending her in our senior year, my sis has always been the brave and strong one of us. Then again she is older than me by seven minutes.

  The rest of the morning went that way, moving furniture in and arranging it in my bedroom. I would wave at my new neighbor from time to time whenever I caught her looking up from her canvas and towards us, but she would just ignore me and go back to painting. Wow, she just keeps snubbing me, I guess we won't be close neighbors. Maybe my other neighbors are more friendly.

  Once everything was in and unpacked I looked at my bedroom, just like home. I chuckled to myself since it IS home now. We walked out into the comically empty living-room with its lawn chairs and television. The Home Trappings furniture store would be delivering my budget ensemble tomorrow. Between the down-payment on the house, furniture, and supplies, I pretty much decimated my savings account. I wouldn't have attempted this if I didn't still have the trust fund that my two moms set up for Lessa and me.

  I walked into the kitchen and opened the almost empty refrigerator and pulled out four bottles of water and tossed one to Lessa when I thought she wasn't looking, which she deftly caught one handed. Then gave mom and mother one. I looked at my empty cupboards with their open doors as I closed them all and snorted at the three things I had... a noodle strainer, a baster, and a whisk. Don't ask. Seriously, don't ask.

  Fine whatever, it was a makeshift Dalek costume I whipped together for a party Lessa and I attended last year. When I found out, it was a costume party and Lessa hadn't bothered telling me, I hit the dollar store on the way to the party. I duct taped the baster onto the strainer and put it on my head, held the whisk in my hand, and said “Exterminate!” I said that almost a hundred times that night. I won the costume contest and had the pleasure of sticking my tongue out at my sis.

  I looked at my three favorite people, well maybe not my twin sis... fine whatever, her too, then said, “Unless we want to have boiled water I suggest takeout for lunch? Wait, I have no pots and pans until I go out tomorrow after school so I can't even boil water.”

  This got some chuckles and mom said with comedic timing, “Oh Penny, our little girl is all grown up.” After the giggle fits subsided I called for Thai, just to be evil, we all loved Thai except Less, who merely tol
erated it. Hey, it isn't like that. We love each other to bits, it is just fun to give each other a hard time. She basically read my mind and stuck her tongue out at me then scrunched her nose with a small smile. It must be a twin thing, but we always seem to be on the same wavelength.

  Then it was like we just all decompressed suddenly as we flopped into the reclining lawn chairs. I turned on the TV for background noise and Fang jumped up on my lap and curled in. He's been slowing down in his old age. He's retired from his duties as a therapy dog but still makes an occasional appearance in the children's cancer wards. He is still a favorite amongst the kids there. But mostly he leaves it for the younger dogs. I think he missed the mutt, Daisy. We lost her last year, mom must have cried for a week.

  The other three King Charles Cavilers watched him and seemed to decide in their bubble-headed manner that it was a good plan and two piled into mom's chair with her. The last one, Monster Junior, made sure his fuzzy ladies were comfortable before he did one of his gravity defying leaps into Lessa's lap. I swear his floppy ears deploy like little wings to give him some glide time.

  Even though Sandra didn't have to, since she ran the entire foundation, she always kept four therapy dogs that she personally toured all the wards with. There were more than enough animals, volunteers, and workers to do it now, but it is her life. She loves those children and the people on the streets more than life itself. We wouldn't change a hair on her head.

  Fang was the last of the Old Guard. Sandra has a habit of giving one of her dogs to any child from the terminal ward who by the grace of the gods goes into remission against all odds. It has only happened three times in the decades she has volunteered in the wards. She says her children can be together that way.

  I can't tell you how thrilled we were when she adopted us right after she married mother. I know it is unorthodox for seventeen year olds to be adopted, but we are an unconventional family. That sorry excuse of a father we had, Victor, didn't even try to fight it. He had squandered most of mom's millions that he got from the divorce, and suing for custody again would cost him too much especially since we were a year away from becoming adults and he knew we would have left his ass the moment we were.

  I am so proud of Sandra, and that she had carved out a life for herself, on her own, to prove to herself and her father that she could. She never relied on his money from the Callahan Shipping empire to support herself.

  Grandma and Grandpa Callahan keep trying to get Lessa and I to work for the Seattle branch of Callahan Shipping, but corporate life really isn't us. We were born with the creativity gene thanks to our rock star mother. Less is the singer and I am an artist.

  Sorry, didn't mean to bore you with the details of my life, but that's sort of the Brandye Penelope Franklin-Callahan 101. Stay tuned I'm sure I'll yammer some more about it later.

  I was knocked out of my musings as the other ladies chitchatted about the upcoming wedding of Lessa and Devon by the chiming of the doorbell. Eww... that needed to change, that was an old man who keeps his socks that have holes in them in a box, chime. I added that to my mental checklist of things to do to make this house my home.

  I hopped up with Fang under one arm and paid the delivery man then returned and put the food in the middle of the floor on a large empty overturned box. I sat cross-legged in front of it and looked at the others as Fang curled into my lap and promptly fell asleep. I smiled and said, “Lunch is served ladies!”

  They exchanged silly eye rolls and joined me on the floor, the fuzzy children redeposited themselves as they saw fit and we dug in.

  We slipped easily into our family banter as we ate, avoiding the topics of work and school. I took note of all the empty packing boxes littering the living-room and grinned. I'll get with Leo to help me seed my old neighborhood with them for the homeless. This early in the spring, the nights were still a bit chilly and a little insulation goes a long way for a person on the streets.

  When we finished up, we loaded all the boxes into the moving van and I told mom my plan. She grinned a grin at me that said, “I'm three hundred and sixty seven steps ahead of you, but boy are your shoes pretty! Oh look, a puppy!” Then she said, “I already told Leo to expect us today at the dumpsters behind the apartments on Anchorage today.” I giggled at my tiny blonde mom. I noticed my neighbor look up with a smile before she went back to painting.

  Fang showed the other dogs the proper way to indoctrinate my lilac bush over at the corner of the house... ewww.

  My family and fuzzy friends all loaded up into the moving van and fired the beast up. Of course mother was driving, she's the only one of us who had ever driven a vehicle that large when she first started Leather and Heels and they were touring all the local bars and dance halls. They all said their goodbyes and drove off. I turned back to look at my house... my house... That's right, it's mine!

  I spread my arms playfully and ran into the front door, shutting it behind me. I ran to my bedroom and spun with my arms wide then dove on the bed and screamed in excitement into my pillow as I kicked my legs. This is where I start a new chapter in my life! I'll call it Brandye Take Two!

  Chapter 2 – Housewarming

  The next week went past like a hurricane, I didn't even have a chance to breathe. Between school, work and shaping my house into something that sort of resembled a home, I was exhausted! It didn't help that the confusing woman next door was up all hours of the night. The side window of her living room looked into my bedroom window.

  I'd catch her looking over as she sat on her couch in the dark sometimes, when I would get up to use my restroom. She never had her lights on unless she had company, she had a strange procession of people over all the time using the side door by her garage, and she never had her drapes closed.

  I tried to wave a couple times. She was extremely cute, but she lost points for rudeness as she would always ignore me and go back to the tablet in her hands. The light from the device highlighting the angles and smooth curves of her face. I swear, her mouth was in a perpetual smile and the light from that tablet glistened on her lips. Maybe I'll go over and introduce myself one day. After all, we are neighbors.

  I wound up buying heavy curtains for my bedroom window for some privacy, but I always left them cracked for some reason. Did it make me a creeper that I was trying to figure out that blonde's unusual habits?

  Every night I would just lay on my bed and realize how much I missed living at home and how isolated and alone I felt when it was silent like this? Damn... I needed a dog or boyfriend. A dog would be more loyal. Sorry, just sour grapes from my last botched relationship. I guess it never occurred to Albert that sneaking off to sleep with his ex while dating me was a deal-breaker. Why was I even surprised? All relationships end.

  I shook Al out of my thoughts, then smiled, tomorrow was my housewarming party! I had been looking forward to Saturday all week long.

  I heard the forecasted rain start falling on the roof. I loved Seattle! Tomorrow it was going to be clear and warm, around sixty five, a perfect spring day. These short rain showers were a treat after living in drought laden Cali most of my life. There was no shortage of these showers here, this is after all, as I already pointed out, Seattle.

  I heard the screen door close next door and glanced at the clock, it was three in the morning. What the heck? I peeked through the opening in my drapes and didn't see the neighbor lady on her couch. I don't know why I was so curious, but I walked out to my livingroom and peered out the window toward her house.

  I was mesmerized by what I witnessed. There was my neighbor, walking out into the middle of her front yard in her night clothes, a pair of shorts and a light flannel top. She was peering up into the sky with a look of amazement and joy. Then she spread her arms wide and just slowly turned with her eyes closed and the prettiest smile on her face. After a minute, she stopped and hugged herself, shivering. It was a cold night, it couldn't be more than fifty degrees out there.

  Then it looked like she chuckled to herself
as she looked around with a silly, slightly confused look on her face. Then she walked slowly at an odd angle until she came to the sidewalk. She walked along it until she laid her outstretched hand on her mailbox at her walkway, then turned and walked back to her porch like she was counting her steps. That was kind of like Mia Jacobs, always counting things... I wonder if Goldilocks is obsessive compulsive too. Yes... I had named my neighbor Goldilocks the day my furniture arrived, she had her golden hair curled that day instead of straightened like normal. With her cute looks, the name seemed quite fitting. I watched as she disappeared back into her house.

  I shook my head, I haven’t seen someone experience the rain like that, it was almost sensual the way she basked in it... until she realized she was freezing. I felt kind of self-conscious just standing there, so I turned and went back to my bedroom. I glanced out my bedroom window but didn't see her on her couch. She was probably drying herself off and warming up.

  I went back to bed and finally slipped into a cozy, pleasant sleep.

  The next morning I sprang up with a smile on my face when my alarm went off. It was party day! I'm pretty sure I'll never outgrow the excitement that comes over me when I go to parties. As a little girl they always seemed so magical like someone's wish was coming true. I get that same feeling with every party I attend. I get a little extra excited when those parties are for me. Hey, don't judge.

  This housewarming party especially so, it was not only for me, but arranged by me. I know technically I have been an adult for four years now, but this made me feel a little grown up. Almost like I was hosting a tea party. Well without the revolutionaries and the harbor and all, I mean, not like that kind of party, though the ladies did have some spectacular dresses back then. What? Oh yeah, sorry. It was time to prepare.

  The morning air was crisp with the promise of warming as the sun rose, there were tell tale signs of that spring shower from last night, with little water droplets on the blades of grass on the lawn and wet spots still on the road and sidewalks. I knew it would be short lived as the day warmed and the sun shone down. I took a moment to stand on my porch, leaning my legs against the railing and could just see the teasing glints of sunlight reflecting off of Lake Union just down the street. The white sails from the numerous sailboats lazily floating along in the light morning breeze, and the Aurora Bridge soaring high above, brought a wistful smile to my lips.