Stop the presses
Bliss was pretty goddamn bored. She was pretty fucking bored. She was goddamned, fucking bored because she’d recently learned how cool it was to swear and her parents had moved the family to the Five Cities. It wasn’t just that they’d left the East, where she had perfectly good friends, but they’d moved to the stupid, shitting, Bridge, of all places.
“We’re getting in on the ground floor, ha, ha,” her dad said. And continued to say. Bliss wanted to think her mom was secretly on her side, but ever since they’d arrived she’d heard nothing but ringing praise of “how modern” and “can you believe it!” Yes, her dad seemed happier setting up shop than when he was travelling to do it. Sure, Bliss had her own room above the store, instead of sharing a caravan with her folks. But hell and damnation! The whole place was so new there was nothing to do.
Bliss flopped onto her bed, kicking over on her back to stare mournfully at the ceiling. On top of everything, the Bridge had a ‘school’. This was a thing that, from what Bliss had gathered, could not be any more boring. She could read just fine and write, even. Sitting in a room with a bunch of other kids did not seem like an improvement over sitting by the fire with her mom to read or perching on a stool next to her dad when he balanced accounts.
“Fucking stupid,” Bliss told her ceiling.
When I’m at home alone I’m rather careless about where I kick off my shoes. I figure, if I trip over them, it’s my own damn fault. So when the front door eased open a few inches before hitting my little Miami Vice slip-ons, my first thought was, “Oh shit, Chase is trying to come in and I’m an ass.” But instead of barrelling though and pushing them aside, the door suddenly jerked closed and I heard a lady stranger’s voice.
“Oh.”
Our building is the result of a particularly unique house reconstruction. In another era our apartment and that of our closest neighbour would be the servant’s quarters, accessible by side stairs and situated above the garage and the expansive two-bedroom flat below. It makes pizza delivery difficult, trying to explain how to find the side door that opens into a narrow, knotty pine panelled stairwell. So I figured this lady, whoever she was, had to be lost.
Trotting over to the door, I kicked aside my shoes and opened it just enough to poke my head out and lean a shoulder against the jam. It’s not so much that I’m paranoid, I just really hate people.
At the sound of the door opening, the woman in our entryway-mudroom spun around, in an off-putting mix of surprise and mild terror.
“Oh!”
Her easy-to-care-for short hair was plastered down from the rain, matching her coat, which was so saturated it might as well have been black. She had a little damp scarf peeking from the collar, one of those frizzy, foofy things seen around the necks of middle-aged coffee shop knitters. Quiet clicking nails brought my attention down to a small dog at her feet. The two of them had been out in the rain for a while.
“Can I help you?” I tried out my nice voice. I figured, the lady got turned around or something, no reason to pull out the solicitor sternness, even if she’d attempted to open my door.
I did not expect what she said.
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