Suburbia
All Vanessa ever did was look out the window.
Her life was encompassed in its narrow view, behind the milky shade of her curtains.
She watched people come and go. She counted her neighbor’s grocery bags. Standing over the sink, she clattered her dishes as she washed them. She stopped to scream at someone over the phone or her children, breaking the quiet of the neighborhood.
The children never minded her. And whomever she spoke with never agreed. At least, that’s the impression that you would get from her tone. The smallest thing was enough to get her screaming to the top of her lungs.
When she was still, or quiet, it was only because she was trying to remember something. And then, in frustration, she returned to her fussing. And then came her cravings. The want of beer or a joint. She could refrain from these things, but became a more miserable person than usual when she did.
One day, she almost dropped a wineglass in the sink.
Someone was staring back at her.
On the street, a young, tall woman, wearing a long dress and a coat, with her hands in her pockets. Her dark eyes were obscured by the hat she wore… a little tweed cap. There were hoops in her earlobes. The sunlight shined on the gold. Vanessa felt envy well up in her chest. She hadn’t bought any clothes for herself in a long time.
“What do you want?” she yelled out the window.
The woman turned and continued down the street, her heels clicking softly as she drifted down the sidewalk.
Nosy bitch, Vanessa sniped. That will show her, coming staring in my window.
Then she heard the kids acting up in their room, and went to see what they were doing.
It took a while for Vanessa to realize that she had seen the same woman more than once in a week.
Perhaps it was the clothes that threw her off, as they were different each time she saw the woman. It was the same thin frame, long neck, sort of upright posture.
There was something disturbing about her. Uppity. Overdone.
Vanessa snarled something under her breath. A sound of disgust, not even real words.
She shouted, but the woman did not hear her. Though she was standing on the sidewalk, Vanessa was sure that the stranger was looking into her window. She watched in amazement as a man in a suit joined her.
The woman, Melanie, stood on the sidewalk, crossing her arms. Her heels were beginning to hurt—the autumn sun was mild, but she didn’t want to stand beneath it for too long.
“So tell me,” she asked the man. “What is it about this place?”
Mr. Charles smiled, and ran his fingers through his salt and pepper hair. “You haven’t heard?”
“No.”
“Oh, I forget you just moved up here. The locals all know. Used to be a woman with a couple little girls that lived in that house. The mother was a nut job. Got a couple calls from children’s services that she was beating the kids. Whoever owned the place finally evicted her.”
“And. There’s a lot of evictions these days.”
“Yes. But not before she turned her oven on. And left it open.”
“Oh my God… the children?”
Charles shook his head. “Nobody survived. And those kids were gorgeous. It’s too bad about them. She put the girls to bed and they never woke up. At least they weren’t in any pain.”
Melanie shrugged. “Well, I pass here all the time. I was thinking if it were on the market it would be a nice little fixer upper, maybe a rental property,” she frowned, staring at him in the sunshine. “Now that you’ve told me this, never mind.”
Vanessa saw the man and woman walk away, unaware of her yelling.
She picked up her wineglass, and washed it again.
