It was unseasonably warm and sunny, a perfect day to get a jump on the outdoor work. She separated the twinkling lights from the other decorations and opened up the garage door. She turned the stereo high, left the door to the house open and let the music drift all the way to the front yard. The first thing she did was put the plastic wreath on the mailbox.
Jasper Conklin was tinkering in his garage when the music drew him to the front yard, where he observed his next-door neighbor positioning her ladder beneath the eaves of her house. He simply watched, mystified. Could she be putting up Christmas lights in April? Could that be “We Three Kings?” He watched her for a while. She was remarkably spry for her age, but then, as long as he’d lived next door she had lived alone and always did her own yard work—mowing, pruning, digging, planting, hauling. He hadn’t been surprised to see that, while she’d hired a painter for the outside of the house, she did the trim herself. Even the eaves.
Now there she was, standing atop the ladder, stapling lights to the house.
Jasper had never had much of a relationship with Lois or her family and it was entirely his fault. He was unfriendly and solitary, a manner brought on by the long infirmity of his deceased wife. And though she had been gone for four years now, he was just barely coming out of his shell. This—his elderly neighbor putting up Christmas decorations in April—was urging him out of his garage and across the lawn.
“Well now, Lois, what are you up to?” he asked.
She jumped a little in surprise and looked over her shoulder at the gentleman standing there. She frowned. Though he looked familiar, she couldn’t remember his name. It was maddening; it happened to her all the time lately. “I thought I’d get a jump on it this year,” she said, turning back to her work, the heavy stapler weighty in her hand.
“I’ll say,” he replied. “Nice day for it, isn’t it?”
She not only couldn’t remember his name, she couldn’t seem to remember if they were friends. But they must be for he spoke with such cheerful familiarity. He looked like Albert Finney, and she wondered if that was his name. Albert? She turned back to him, looked him right in the eye and said, “Well, Albert, you must think it’s a nice day, the way you’re dressed.”
Jasper smiled at her kindly. He had had absolutely no idea Lois was suffering from delusions. In the end his wife had had quite a terrible time with dementia. She had been considerably younger than Lois, the dementia was worsened by drug psychosis resulting from years of taking pain medications and sleeping pills. But although that had been perhaps the most difficult part of her illness, it had also been sweet in its vulnerability, precious in its unexpectedness. He smiled again, remembering with fondness some of the things she’d come up with.
“Lois, why don’t you get down from there and let me put up the lights,” he said.
“Oh, Albert, you don’t have to do that. Anyway, it makes me feel so accomplished to do it myself.”
“There must be something you can do that doesn’t involve a ladder,” he suggested.
“Well, I could get the Christmas dishes out and make us a cup of tea or hot chocolate.” She grinned mischievously. “Or maybe a nice spiked eggnog.”
“Hmm. We better stick with the nonalcoholic libation. How about coffee?” He ran a finger around the collar of his shirt. It was getting warmer by the day. He wondered when she was going to come out of it and discover that it was April. But more important than that, he wondered if the realization was going to prove painful for her. “Are the Christmas dishes handy? You won’t have to go to a lot of trouble, will you?”
“Why, not at all. I’ve already got all the boxes out. I have decorations all over the living room, waiting to be hung, strung and put about.”
“You haven’t, by any chance, gone looking for a tree, have you?”
“Not as of yet,” she said, getting carefully down from the ladder. He put out a hand to help her descend. “I’ll do the house decorating first, then go.”
“Now, if memory serves,” he said, “last year your daughter helped with the decorating.”
“Yes, but I thought this time I’d surprise her,” Lois said proudly.
“Oh, something tells me she’s going to be surprised. Incredibly so. I was just thinking to myself, that neighbor of mine, she’s never passed on the work of the yard and garden to hired hands or offspring. You’ve always been such a workhorse, Lois. I think it’s kept you in shape.”
“Thank you, Albert. You’ve always been so kind. So thoughtful.”
Beyond casual greetings across the yards, they’d had very little contact in thirty years. Certainly they had never been social or relied on each other. He sheltered his poor sick wife and their piteous lives behind drawn blinds and sullenness. Was it odd that he’d come out now, friendly and helpful? Probably not, he considered. A vulnerable woman in need of help, in need of caretaking—this was a situation he understood. In fact, this was as good, as familiar as he’d felt in a long time.
“Run inside then, Lois, and find those dishes and get the coffee brewing. This shouldn’t take me but a minute, then I’ll come in. By the way, do you have today’s paper?”
“I’ve already tossed it,” she said. “Why?”
“I didn’t get mine,” he said cagily. “If you didn’t toss it far, may I have it?”
“Certainly!” she said, and went into the house through the garage.
Jasper stood there a moment and then, for better or worse, got on the ladder and completed the job of attaching the twinkling lights to the eaves.
Lois stared into her poinsettia-decorated teacup, her hands beneath the table and folded in her lap. She was completely morose.
“Come, Lois,” Jasper said. “Decorating out of season is a completely harmless thing. Don’t let it ruin your day. The sun is shining and you don’t have chest pains.”
She looked up slowly and regarded him thoughtfully. “We’ve never before shared a cup of coffee and we’ve been neighbors for thirty years.”
“The shame of it,” he said. “It’s my fault. My wife was ill, you know. For some twenty-five years I tended her.”
“One would think you could have done with some friends, particularly neighbors,” Lois said.
“One would, wouldn’t one,” he said, and laughed with embarrassment. “I didn’t start out stupid, Lois. I evolved. I was thirty when I found and married Jean, thirty-one when a car accident left her with a spinal cord injury and limited range of motion. A quadriplegic for all practical purposes, and all this before our first anniversary. I cared for her with the help of nurses and aides.”
“So you were too busy for friendships,” she said.
“No, Lois, I was too angry. Enraged! I’d been completely cheated of a wife, of a family. Never mind the cheat Jean suffered, in terrible pain most of the time. So I had all this rage and couldn’t show it. Then there was shame. There was never a time I let a person into our world of disease and dis-ease that I didn’t see pity. And, of course, we were lonely. The strange thing about loneliness is that instead of reaching out, the lonely withdraw.” He shrugged. “It makes absolutely no sense.”
“What brought you out today?” she asked.
He grinned at her and patted her hand. “I couldn’t resist, Lois. If it had been just the lights, I might have thought it was a party. But ‘We Three Kings’ gave you away.”
She brought up a hand from her lap and, with her fist, gave the table a heartfelt pound. “It’s the most maddening goddamn thing!”
“Christmas lights in April is not so bad,” he said.
“If you know that’s what you’re doing it’s not,” she barked. “But, if you’re dead sure it’s December, it’s a giant pain in the you-know-what!”
The garage door squeaked open. “Mom?” Charlene’s voice called.
“Shit,” Lois said.
“Shh,” Jasper comforted, patting her hand. “Just act natural,” he said.
Lois blinked in confusion of a new sort. Act natural?
“Mom, what are you—Oh! Mr. Conklin. How are you?”
“Very well, Charlene,” he said, standing. “And you?”
“Fine,” she said slowly, perplexed by the scene before her. She took in the table, the Christmas dishes. “Mom?”
“You stopped by, Charlene,” Lois said patiently. “Did you want something?”
“I…ah…Mom, what’s the Christmas stuff out for?”
“Oh, that,” Lois said.
“My doing,” Jasper said. “We got talking in the yard, your mom and me, about putting up lights for a party. I offered to help her—”
“Just a hen party, Charlene, nothing that will interfere with your wedding plans. I won’t even invite you, how’s that?”
“Of course the lights were in the last box we opened,” Jasper said.
“I used to be more organized.”
“Then we got to looking through all the decorations and talking about swapping some. Just for variety. Get something new and different, you know, without spending a nickel.”
“What a splendid idea!” Lois chirped, forgetting for the moment that she shouldn’t act as if she was hearing this for the first time. “Every time I think about it, I like the idea more.”
Charlene had that look on her face. She wasn’t buying it.
“Wonder if any other neighbors want to get in on this?” Lois asked Jasper.
“Not too many, Lois. At our ages, we’ll forget who we loaned what to.”
She burst into laughter. “Isn’t that God’s truth!” Then she sobered slightly. “But Jasper, you’re just a kid.”
“Fifty-nine this November. I just took early retirement from the post office and I’m bored to tears already. I’m thinking about getting a job.”
“Fifty-nine, hmph. I could be your—Well, Charlene. What can I do for you? It’s not like you to drop by in the middle of the day like this.”
“I had a deposition in Fair Oaks and he canceled, which put me in your neighborhood in actual daylight. I wondered if you’d like some company for grocery shopping.”
Lois leaned toward Jasper. “She’s afraid I’ll get lost in the parking lot.”
“I was trying to be helpful!”
“Thanks, Charlene, but I’ve just been to the grocery. You go ahead.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Besides, I have to go over to Jasper’s now and check out his Christmas stash.”
“Lois is fond of poinsettias and I’m pretty much a Santa man,” he said, plunging his hands into the pockets of his shorts and rocking back on the heels of his sandals.
“Well…” Charlene said doubtfully, helping herself to a sugar cookie from the Christmas plate on the table. She chewed for a moment. “I guess I’ll get back to the office then.”
“Have a nice day, dear,” Lois said.
“You, too. See you again, I hope, Mr. Conklin.”
“I look forward to it, Charlene.”
As she was leaving she could be heard to mutter, “Retirement. Shew.” And the door closed.
“That went well,” Jasper said.
“Except for one little thing,” Lois replied. “I can’t for the life of me remember when I last went to the store.”
“Not to worry. We’ll take care of that.”
Grant had midterm exams coming up. He had packed his class schedule because he was so close to finishing, to getting his degree. That meant two classes three days a week and four classes two days a week—on his days off. Usually he worked until 2:00 a.m., then got up and went to school. He had a three-hour break around noon, in which he would go back to the apartment he shared with Stephanie to make himself a sandwich and pack a gym bag. He often could have used a nap, but would end up spending the time cleaning up the apartment. It was a perpetual mess. Housecleaning was not one of Stephanie’s gifts. She never contributed to the household chores and it had become a huge bone of contention in their relationship.
He would then head back to the university from two till four, then to the campus weight room. He was diligent about his exercise routine because he was determined not only to pass the police exam and physical, but to breeze through the academy—which many claimed was as difficult as marine boot camp—when he was hired as a police officer.
That pretty much put a cap on his energy level. Most nights he just looked forward to going home to a nice tidy apartment where he might have a beer—something he couldn’t indulge in on nights he tended bar—put his feet up and maybe nod off in front of the news. After a rest, there would be more studying.
What greeted him as he entered the apartment put the skids on his plans.
“Hi, sweetie,” Stephanie said. “I thought you might be working out. I was thinking about going down to the exercise room myself.” She laughed at herself. “I guess you can see how far I got.”
Her books, purse, sweater and a stack of student papers from the eighth grade sat on the dining table that he had earlier cleared off. She wore her sweats and fuzzy slippers, had pinned up her long, curling hair, and the clothes she had worn to work were lying in a heap in the middle of the bedroom floor, except for the panty hose and shoes, which she had shed in the living room. The middle of the living room.
She had obviously had a snack. A glass, plate and bag of chips littered the coffee table along with the mail; chip crumbs speckled the freshly vacuumed carpet. She had the newspaper spread open on the sofa while she read it.
They lived in a small apartment and it didn’t take much out of place to make it look a mess. How Stephanie managed to scatter so much stuff through a tiny space in such a short amount of time was amazing. And annoying.
“I thought we’d get dinner out and maybe see a movie,” she said.
Grant ground his teeth. Don’t, he told himself. Don’t get mad. She just doesn’t get it.
“How about that, sweetie?”
“I can’t, Stephanie. I have to study. I have exams coming up.”
“You’re running a 4.0. Aren’t you?”
“And I’d like to keep it.”
“But it’s your night off!”
“I’ve had a really long day. I’m tired, and I still have studying left to do.”
“I worked all day, too, you know. I’d like to have an evening out. I’m alone every night of the week.”
“Be my guest,” he said. “Maybe while you’re out, I’ll fix myself some dinner and clean the apartment…again!”
“That was totally sarcastic!”
“Look at this place! Stephanie, I used my break today to clean the apartment!”
“I worked all day. I’ll clean up later.”
“But you won’t. You didn’t work all summer and you never cleaned up!”
“Grant, are you going to harangue me about that again? Because if I want to be lectured about tidiness, I can go spend the evening with my mother.”
He gritted his teeth against telling her that that would be a good idea. Instead, he said, “I’m going to take a shower.”
Grant returned to the room a little while later. He felt better after the shower, but there would be no relaxing with a cold beer tonight. “I’m sorry if I was sarcastic, Stephanie.”
“It’s okay. Now, how about the Olive Garden? We can have a little pasta, salad, wine…and then to put us in a better state of mind, let’s see a movie that makes us laugh.”
“Tell you what, I’ll go to the restaurant with you and then I’ll go over to the library to study. I’ll have to skip the movie, but I won’t be late.”
“Is that the best deal I’m going to get tonight?” she asked teasingly.
“’Fraid so,” he said. “Get cleaned up and let’s go.”
“Now?”
“It’s almost six. I’m hungry. And, for the hundredth time, I have studying to do.”
“But I just ate,” she said, indicating her dirty dishes on the coffee table. “I didn’t know you were going to want the early-bird special.”
“What di
d you have in mind?” he wanted to know.
“How about in an hour…hour and a half?”
Maybe it was being tired, or the pressure of work and school, or the irritation that was becoming commonplace in their home. Whatever it was, he had had it. He grabbed his jacket from the hall closet and swung his book bag over his shoulder. “It doesn’t look like this is going to work out, Stephanie. So I’ll grab a bite on my way to the library and you do whatever floats your boat. Okay?”
“Grant! Where are you going?”
“I just told you! I’ve told you twenty times already!”
“If you walk out on me like that, don’t expect me to be here when you get home!”
“Stephanie, if you’re not here, maybe the apartment won’t get any messier!”
By the time he reached the bottom of the apartment-building stairs, he completely regretted his short fuse. It looked as if they were on the rocks and he had no idea how to mend their ailing relationship. It made him feel inadequate, like a failure. He loved Stephanie, but at some point she had stopped being the kind, happy girl who he wanted to marry.
Stephanie sat on the floor of the apartment and flipped the TV channels with the remote. She had stacked sixty essays from eighth-grade English on the coffee table, but she doubted she’d start on them tonight. Her tiff with Grant was bothering her; her concentration was off. She was distracted. Bored.
What did he want from her? To be waiting at his beck and call, ready to jump in the car and go to dinner when he was hungry? Where did this tidy-apartment stuff come from? When she met him he had lived with a couple of guys and they were slobs, all of them. So how was she to know he’d turn into a neat freak when they moved in together? Neatness wasn’t in her nature, that’s all. But she put her dishes in the sink, kicked her clothes into the bedroom closet and punched up the couch cushions.