“You’re a day early!” he shrieked. “And I need exercise! I have a path I follow, you know! And I stick to my path! If you had put your trash out on the right day, I wouldn’t have had to push it down!”
Maye was stunned speechless as she looked at the trash that was strewn everywhere. Mickey’s dog-food cans, paper plates, the cartons from last night’s takeout, packing materials, and old, rock-hard pizza crusts. Scattered in the street like the debris field from the Titanic.
“Here is your mail,” he said as he handed Maye a stack of envelopes and then unbuckled a square package he had strapped to his body with a long leather belt like a suicide bomber and tossed it at her. “I’m reporting your dog. You’re going to get that dog trained or he’ll be classified as a dangerous animal and I will no longer deliver the post to you or anybody else on this street!”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re going to report my dog? You knocked over my trash! Are you going to pick all of that up?”
The letter carrier scoffed and sneered at her. “You’re a day early!” he huffed. “Learn your trash schedule!”
Maye fought the urge to bum rush him and knock him down again.
“And I thought I’d never miss the Republicans!” the letter carrier shouted before he leaped across Maye’s yard and ran off down the block, his footsteps thudding behind him.
Maye was still shaking her head as she crouched in the street, picking up the remnants of last night’s dinner and throwing them back into the bags, when she heard a voice behind her. “Would you like a hand?”
She looked up and saw a tall, lean woman with refined features and a mostly-salt-with-a-few-strands-of-pepper updo smiling down at her.
“I’m beginning to think I need a backhoe,” she replied with a little laugh.
“I’m Cynthia,” she said, extending her right hand. “I live just across the street.”
“I’m Maye. I don’t mean to be rude, but I have sweet-and-sour-chicken-glazed hands,” she explained. “But it is very nice to meet you.”
“I’ve been meaning to come over and introduce myself,” Cynthia said. “But I was waiting until you got settled.”
“Our mailman doesn’t sense such things, does he?” Maye grinned. “I’m a little less settled now than I was six minutes ago.”
“He’s a stickler for schedules, that’s for sure,” Cynthia said. “I guess that’s how he got to be Letter Carrier of the Year three years running now. And I really mean running!”
“That man, the one who pushed my trash over and who has been trampling my dahlias for days now, is the Letter Carrier of the Year?” Maye said, shaking her head again.
“He has a path,” Cynthia said with a shrug. “I guess we’ve all learned to respect it. I’d move your flowers to the other side of the porch if I were you.”
“Duly noted.” Maye nodded. “I will do just that.”
“I’m having an afternoon tea with some neighborhood ladies next week, and I’d love for you to join us,” Cynthia said as she held out a white envelope with a question mark written in broad, swooping script on the front. “I didn’t know your name, I’m sorry!”
“Oh, that’s all—” Maye was suddenly interrupted by a loud, shrill shriek.
Cynthia was covering her mouth with one hand and pointing frantically with the other. “That…that…over there…what is that? Oh my goodness, oh my goodness!” she said, backing up in fear.
“Oh my God,” Maye said, searching the ground with her eyes, looking for something…horrible. “What? I don’t know—what was it? Where is it? Where did you see it? What am I looking for? A rat? Is it a rat? A mouse? A raccoon? In daylight? What was it?”
“Behind…” Cynthia stammered, barely able to get the words out. “Behind…the trash…behind the trash bin…right there! It’s right behind it!”
Maye took a deep breath and walked over to the trash bin, still on its side in the street, reached out her sweet-and-sour hand, and prepared herself for a full-on cootie experience, complete with cootie dance to follow. With one quick move, she shoved the trash bin and then immediately jumped back. Cynthia whimpered.
There, behind the trash bin, was a can. A silly old empty dog-food can. Maye sighed heavily, then started to laugh as she leaned over to pick it up. “It’s okay, it’s fine,” she said, trying to comfort Cynthia. “It’s just a dog-food can. I’m sure it rolled behind there and the movement made it seem like something else. It’s just a can. See?”
The horror on Cynthia’s face did not ease, fade, or disappear. Instead, her eyes got wider and her expression took on the proportions of a teenager in a Wes Craven film who had just had dirty sex with her horn-dog boyfriend and was about to get her head ripped off her body like a grapefruit plucked from a tree by a psychopath.
“What,” Cynthia asked, her voice just above a whisper, “is it doing in your trash bin? That’s recycling. That can needs to be recycled. Is it washed out? Did you even wash it out? They can’t recycle it unless you wash it!”
Maye decided to do what she was best at: blaming Charlie.
“It must have been my husband,” she lied. “I told him that recycling is the blue bin, trash is green. How can I blame him, though? He’s completely colorblind. Do you know that the man can’t even see a rainbow? It just looks like a giant comma in the sky to him. It’s a tragedy. It’s the reason we don’t have kids. I just can’t pass something like that on to a baby! What kind of life is that?”
“Oh my,” Cynthia said, regaining her composure. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I had no idea. Maybe signs taped to each bin would help. He can read, can’t he?”
Maye nodded. “As long as the letters aren’t in color,” she said sadly. “I will try that, Cynthia. Thank you.”
“Of course,” Cynthia said, then suddenly gasped again. “I have to go. I’m standing on a paper plate! It’s a paper plate! Blue bin. Blue bin!”
“I’ll see you at the tea!” Maye added as she waved, watching her neighbor scurry back across the street to her house, where the trash was washed first, then sorted properly.
She scooped up the remaining debris, returned the bin to an upright position, picked up her package, which was sitting on the curb, and looked through the mail as she walked up to the house.
There, against all odds, was her second invitation of the day. It was from the dean of Charlie’s college, Dean Spaulding, inviting Charlie and his Significant Other to a faculty mixer hosted by himself and his wife the following weekend. Maye’s appointment book, it seemed, was suddenly filling up.
And of course that, despite the sweet-and-sour fingerprints on the invitation envelope, made her smile.
3
Fair Warning
“I can’t believe the bastard really turned Mickey in,” Maye said angrily, brandishing the letter she had received that afternoon from the post office. “They’re giving us two weeks to comply with the order for obedience training, otherwise Saruman will stop all delivery to our whole street because Mickey is now considered a ‘hazardous animal.’ Our neighbors are going to hate us!”
“No, they won’t,” Charlie replied as he turned right down a shaded, elegant street lined with stately old homes. “They won’t hate us because we are going to do it and get Mickey into a training class. We can call a couple of places on Monday. There is a simple solution to this. Please don’t worry. I think he’ll really like training. He loves treats.”
“I think the mailman needs to go to obedience training, that’s what I think!” Maye cried. “What kind of nut knocks over a trash can because it was in his running route?”
“What kind of nut blinds the first nut with a camera flash because she wants to prove to her husband that an urban legend is sprinting across their front yard? I think it’s important that we avoid making enemies, Maye, particularly of anyone on the government payroll.” Charlie checked the address on the invitation and pulled into a long, sweeping driveway. “We haven’t been here very long, and so far your r
atio of friends to enemies isn’t looking so good.”
“That’s not fair,” Maye said, pouting. “I might make some friends today.”
“I’m sure you will,” Charlie said confidently as he drove and drove and drove up the drive. “Everything is going to be fine. Just be yourself. Everyone is going to love you. I bet before the night is over you’ll have lunch dates lined up for all of next week.”
He parked their sedan at the end of a long line of cars that hugged the circular driveway. Maye looked up at the grand house—really a mansion—with its tall white classical columns on stone piers, arched Palladian windows, a generous, wide stone wrap-around porch, three-story angled turret, and meticulously sculpted topiaries that flanked each side of the glossy black double doors.
“How do you get to own a house like this?” she wondered aloud.
“How do you think, honey?” Charlie said, chuckling. “Your grandfather makes all the sewer pipes for most of the continental United States when indoor plumbing is becoming the rage, builds his Monticello on a hill, then leaves it to your father, who then leaves it to you.”
“This is the house that doody built?” Maye laughed as she got out of the car. “Glad I brought matches.”
“Maye,” Charlie said sternly. “While this may be the house that doody built, we need to keep that as our little joke. It is a very funny little joke, but I would appreciate your not repeating it to any of the other guests. Please don’t embarrass me. I beg of you.”
“Charlie!” Maye replied, more than a little shocked. “Why would I say that to people I don’t know? I would never embarrass you like that in front of your colleagues. I bought new clothes for this thing. I spent next week’s grocery money on this expensive pink sweater at the best vintage shop in town, along with the button-down shirt underneath it. The sweater is incredible and I love it, but I’ll never wear the shirt again. That’s how much I didn’t want to embarrass you. I’m telling you, fill up on whatever food they have here tonight, because it’s gotta last until your next paycheck. I sacrificed food so I wouldn’t embarrass you.”
“I know, I know,” her husband said, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I’m just nervous. Making a good impression on Dean Spaulding is important. This could be pivotal for my career at the university.”
“If he’s such a big shot in this town, why isn’t he the president of the university instead of the dean of the English Department?” Maye asked curiously. “Is he the black sheep of the family? Did he do time?”
“He’s a very humble man, you’ll see,” her husband explained. “He could have anything he wants in this place. He decided he loved literature and he loved the English Department. He’s very down-to-earth, very unassuming. I like him very much and it’s important, I repeat, to make a good impression today. Capisce?”
“Everything is going to be fine,” Maye said as they walked up to the door and Charlie lifted a big brass lion’s-head knocker. “We’re going to have a delightful evening. I promise.”
Maye was so relieved when the front door opened that she almost squealed like a sorority girl after one beer on an empty stomach.
“Hello and welcome,” Mrs. Spaulding said with a big, genuine-looking smile.
“Hi, I’m Charlie Roberts, the new assistant professor in the English Department, and this is my wife, Maye,” Charlie said as they stepped inside.
“Nice to meet you, Charlie,” the woman said, shaking Charlie’s hand and then moving on to Maye’s. “Maye. Please come in.”
The dean’s wife was not what Maye expected at all. She had short, cropped, low-maintenance hair, full, fresh, ruddy cheeks, and an informality about her that radiated a certain kind of ease.
She was also younger than Maye had thought she’d be by a good twenty to thirty years—Maye pegged her at about her own age, the lines at the corners of her eyes reflecting enough good laughs for early-to mid-thirties—and she seemed so warm and inviting, not stuffy and reserved as Maye had shamefully predicted she would be. She was a naturally pretty girl; she wore not pearls but a modern silver-wire-wrapped chalcedony nugget on a plain silver chain, and no makeup other than a subtle, matte lipstick. Although the woman’s nails were short and cleanly scrubbed, Maye knew she was shaking the hand of a gardener. She wouldn’t have called Dean Spaulding’s bride a trophy wife, not at all; she wasn’t plastic-looking and didn’t have more pieces of gold and diamonds on her hands than a sunken armada ship. Mrs. Spaulding instead looked more like the award delivered for Best Sportsmanship or Nicest Manners.
Maye liked her instantly.
“What a lovely house,” she commented.
“Isn’t it?” Mrs. Spaulding smiled unpretentiously as she looked up and around at her own foyer, and Maye could tell that she was earnest in her reply. “It’s been in the Spaulding family for generations.”
“Is it a Queen Anne?” Maye asked.
“You’re right! I believe it’s Free Classic Queen Anne. I took a little bit of architecture history when I was at the university—I swear I’m not a know-it-all!”
“Really?” Maye exclaimed. “I did, too! I didn’t do much with it after I got a journalism degree, since all it’s really good for is mentioning the style of the house when you’re reporting the meth-lab bust, and that’s easy, slum or trailer.”
“Ah, reporter,” the woman grinned. “I’d love to hear your stories! Remind me never to tell you my secrets, though.”
“Oh no,” Charlie abruptly chimed in. “Maye wouldn’t tell your secrets, would you, Maye?”
“Oh, it wouldn’t do me any good,” Maye replied with a smirk. “I’ve been in reporting retirement for a couple of weeks. I’m writing freelance now that we’ve moved here.”
“I hope you like Spaulding,” their hostess said.
“I do,” Maye replied. “We’re just so happy not to live in a place where my biggest talent was sweating.”
The hostess laughed. “Oh, wait,” she warned. “You just missed the Sweat Season. Wait until next August when the humidity invades like the Mongols and everyone becomes very shiny. You’ll think you’ve sprung a leak or at least developed adult incontinence. But it’s great for the weight-conscious and budget-minded; you can lose fifteen pounds in a weekend just by sitting in a lawn chair, and it’s far cheaper than liposuction.”
“I’d happily wear a diaper to start a new life as a size twelve,” Maye said with a chuckle.
Their hostess turned to Charlie. “How are you finding our university as new faculty?”
“It’s wonderful. I couldn’t ask for a better position at a better school,” Charlie said. “Is the dean around? I’d love to say hello.”
“He is.” His wife nodded and pointed toward a large formal room where a round of choppy laughter had just erupted. “Can I get either of you a drink? Gin and tonic is the drink of the house.”
“That would be perfect, thank you,” Maye replied.
“Make that two.” Charlie smiled.
“I’ll be right back.” Mrs. Spaulding smiled. “Please make yourself at home—I believe everyone is hanging out in the library.”
As Maye and Charlie crossed the cavernous marble-floored foyer, a distinct sound—chh chh, chh chh—floated along with them.
“Is that a cricket?” Charlie whispered, looking around.
“No,” Maye whispered back.
“I swear that’s a cricket!” he insisted. “Listen—chh chh. Chh chh.”
“It’s not a cricket, Charlie.” Maye insisted. “Can we just drop it?”
“Stop,” he said as he pulled Maye’s arm. “Listen.”
The foyer was quiet, with only the sounds of a happening faculty party drifting in from the next room.
“Listen,” he repeated as he cocked his ear and concentrated firmly, as if listening to voices from beyond. “It’s stopped.”
“Charlie, would you quit it?” Maye asked.
“How do you know it’s not a cricket? You’re not a cricket expert!” Charlie reto
rted.
“No, I am not,” she said between clenched teeth. “But I do know the sound that chunky inner thighs bound like a hostage in a girdle and then strangled in pantyhose make when they are rubbing against each other causing enough friction to melt a nuclear plant to a bubbling, toxic puddle!”
“Oh,” her husband said, then suddenly understood. “That’s what fat sounds like?”
“Fat is silent if there’s background noise or sounds of nature or something to override it,” Maye cried defensively. “But in a mausoleum, yes, that is what fat sounds like!”
“Charlie Roberts!” The intimidating tenor voice boomed through the foyer as Dean Spaulding spotted Charlie approaching the library. “Come in, come in!”
Maye followed Charlie into a room filled with high, dark mahogany bookcases teeming with antique bound editions, long, slim leather couches and chairs, fresh flowers—most of which were not in season—sprouting from crystal vases on side tables and on the broad, sweeping mantel of the imposing, carved-stone fireplace. Maye had never been in a room like this that she didn’t have to pay to get into and then gawk at from behind a velvet rope. She felt the sudden urge to curtsy like a Cockney chambermaid but instead tried to follow Charlie’s lead, despite the overwhelming feeling that she had quickly shrunk to the size of the phantom cricket that chirped from between her thighs.
Maye was overwhelmed.
“And this is my wife, Maye,” Charlie said as Dean Spaulding extended his hand and Maye gave it her heartiest shake.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” she said as she tried to smile, noticing that the rest of the attendees had suddenly hushed and were all paying attention. “Thank you for having us.”
Whether he sensed her unease or it was his regular party protocol, Dean Spaulding gently took Maye by the elbow and introduced her to every person there—Charlie’s colleagues and their, as the invitation read, Significant Others. There was Professor Martin Oberling and his wife, Christina; Dr. Maria Albertson and her S.O., Julie; Dr. William Hummel and his charming wife, Meg; Professor This and Dr. That, and this wife, that husband, that life partner, that fiancée. Dean Spaulding went around the room and approximately said, “I’d like you to meet Maye Roberts, Charlie’s wife,” around thirty times. Maye had always been bad at names, but this was impossible—she tried desperately to match faces with traits but just plain gave up around number eight when she met a perky, tiny blond S.O. named Melissabeth, which was completely unfair, Maye thought to herself. That’s a two-trick name. Go with one or the other, but this double-duty name is like a Hummer—no need for something that big and that takes up two parking spaces.