Orchard Grove

by Vincent Zandri

  Bolstered by my crutches, I stood as straight and upright as possible inside the dining room, my eyes looking out the rear picture window onto the backyard and the invisible pot patch beyond the privacy fence. I inhaled and exhaled to calm my nerves, like I was only moments away from picking up my date for the junior prom.

  When I felt good enough about “me,” I carefully negotiated the two steps down into the den and opened the sliding glass doors. I stepped out onto the deck, leaned my bodyweight onto the crutches, looked up to the sky, felt the good warmth of the morning sun shining down upon my clean-shaven face. It was then that I heard the distinct and pretty sound of chirping and I was almost ashamed of myself for having forgotten what for the past two springs and summers had become my, let’s call it, fatherly duty.

  Nested inside a small hole up over my head in the aluminum soffit was a pair of robins that had been coming to this house to birth their babies for years now. The robins were so used to Susan and me at this point, they didn’t even fly away when we came outside onto the deck. Some of that had to do with familiarity and some of it had to do with the fact that I often fed them birdseed, especially when the momma robin was clearly with child. But since my foot operation, even a simple task like feeding the birds had become a project. Sometimes Susan fed the birds, but more often, she forgot all about it.

  Susan was a working girl after all.

  Now that I was outside however, I had no trouble with grabbing a scoop full of seed from the fifty pound bag that leaned up against a small metal shelf to my left, and reaching up into the round hole, gently depositing the food inside it, onto the flat interior aluminum panel. Almost immediately you could hear the robins pecking at the food, like I was their life savior, and I guess, in a way I was. But I’d grown to love those birds over the years, and who knows, maybe they loved me. This might seem a bit silly, but they are what we had in the place of children, and to be further honest, I sometimes worried about what would become of them when the day finally came for Susan and I to move out, and move on with our separate lives.

  I wiped my hands off on my jeans and once more inhaled and exhaled.

  Shifting my gaze over my right shoulder, I caught sight of her. With the wood stockade fence surrounding the perimeter of our property and a similar fence surrounding hers, I could only make out the upper portion of her body. The portion that enticed me the most since it was naked. The back of her head, the erect nipple-tipped left breast, her bare shoulders and arms.

  My breath escaped me. It was all I could do not to pass out on the spot.

  Shifting myself on my crutches so that I faced her property directly, I started to make my way across the wood deck in her direction. It was only a walk of maybe fifty or so paces, but it seemed like fifty miles.

  By the time I got to the other side of the house-length wood deck, I knew I’d crossed the point of no return. Lana was not only sexy and alluring, but she was intuitive too. I’ll say that for her. Because my deck was a good two or three feet higher than hers, it allowed me to peer over the tops of both privacy fences, down on her. All the time I had been hobbling my way across the deck, I sensed she knew her morning sunning routine was suddenly about to be intruded upon. It was as if I could see the fine hairs on her pretty little neck standing up at attention the closer I came to the edge of my deck, and the fence gate just beyond it.

  Then, just like that, she lifted up her head, rolled over on the chaise lounge, and looked up at me. Even though both our fences and a narrow strip of grass in between separated us, the distance between us could not have been more than fifteen feet. I was that close, but considering the relative difficulty of using the crutches on uneven ground, I was also that far away.

  Quickly, but somehow gracefully, she snatched the Japanese robe from off the empty lounge beside her, and tossed it over herself. Sitting up, she tied the drawstring around her narrow waist. Did it in one fluid, natural, if not panic-free motion.

  “Can I help you?” she said loud enough for me to hear over both fences. When she spoke, a slight smile formed on her face. I took the smile as part embarrassment, part taken-by-surprise, part happy for the unexpected company.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my now sweaty palms squeezing the rubber-gripped crutch handles. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” Which is to say, our relationship began with an apology of sorts. My apology for sneaking up on her.

  She raised herself up off the lounge, stood up on the deck looking as smooth and beautifully shaped as she did lying down.

  “You’ll have to pardon me,” she said. “We lived in Southern California for ages. I’m soaking in the sun while the getting is good.”

  “The sun has been shining on you ever since you moved in,” I pointed out. I started to laugh nervously, and I felt the blood’s warmth as it filled my cheeks and made them blush. “I hope you don’t think I’ve been spying on you.”

  She casually crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, have you been?”

  I felt a slight start in my pulse.

  “Me?” I said. “Not a chance.”

  “You’re the screenwriter. I’ve met your wife Susan. She’s very attractive.”

  “You both attend the same sweat shop, or so I’m told.”

  “P90X,” she said. “Susan knows how to use her body, let me tell you.” I sensed her shooting me a wink under her sunglasses. “You’re one lucky boy.”

  Reaching with both hands around the back of her head, she pulled out the rubber band that was holding her hair in a tight ponytail, allowing it to fall to her shoulders. Running both her hands through the thick hair, it came to veil her face.

  She added, “I just assumed I was the only one on Orchard Grove who stayed home during the day.”

  “Used to be I was the only one.”

  “So you get to hang around the house all day and ahhh, spy on the new neighbors?”

  Another start in my heart. More intense this time. Already, she knew how to play me.

  “Screenwriters always work from home,” I said. Then, looking down at my black-booted right foot where it rested on its heel on the edge of my wood deck. “I’ve tried the Starbucks thing and it just doesn’t work.”

  “You step on a landmine in some faraway war zone?”

  Her question took me by surprise since I was sure she couldn’t see it from where she was standing. But then, I’m sure that at some point during the many weeks she and her husband had been living on Orchard Grove, she’d seen me getting around on a rare venture outside with my crutches. Or, more realistically, perhaps Susan had let her in on my operation.

  “Nothing so romantic, I’m afraid,” I said. “Hammer toe and bunion surgery. Plus a crack in the foot plate.”

  “Ouch, that sounds worse than a landmine injury.”

  “You make it past forty, the parts start to wear out. One by one.”

  “But once you replace them all, the vehicle is as good as new. Besides, from where I’m standing, the body looks as though it’s still in mint condition.”

  Her compliment sent a wave of warmth shooting up and down my spine. Thank God for the sun shining down so brightly on our backyards, because otherwise, she might have noticed how red my face must have been by then. I don’t think I’d blushed over something a woman said to me in ten years. But in the span of two minutes, Lana made me blush twice.

  “But where are my manners?” she said. “I’m Lana, and I was just about to grab an iced coffee. Would you like one?”

  Thought she’d never ask.

  “I’m Ethan, Lana,” I said, gingerly making my way down the deck stairs, then hobbling toward the fence gate. “It’s really great to meet you, and if it’s okay with you, I like my coffee hot.”

  “Like my women,” I wanted to add. But I didn’t want to seem too forward to a woman I’d already fallen head over heels for.

  Once I’d made it across the narrow strip of brown sunbaked grass without falling on my face, I entered into her yard by way of a wood fenc
e gate that was identical to my own. It was then that I was able to capture my first up-close and personal glimpse of her. She was even more stunning from only a few feet away. But there was something else that made being in her presence so much more special than staring at her through the bedroom window.

  It was the way she smelled.

  The scent was distinctly lavender, like the scent I smelled in my dreams, and it was carried in my direction by the light breeze that blew from out of the west against my face. It was as if she’d washed her entire body in lavender before coming outside to sun herself on the deck. She held out her hand and smiled warmly. I was able to catch a quick peek inside her robe then, as it opened and parted when she moved.

  As I stood there, propped up on my crutches, I began to imagine her naked body bathing in a tub of hot steaming bathwater and lavender scented bubble bath. I had to watch out or I would give away my enthusiasm for my new neighbor by growing hard in a place that would not only be noticeable considering my rather snug fitting Levis, but also considerably more embarrassing than a face that was once again, blushing bright red.

  Looking into her deep blue eyes, I wanted to drown inside them. It felt strange sharing the same air with her, but it also felt marvelous. Sensual even. I took her hand in mine. It was soft, petite, and warm. Together we focused our eyes on our hands as they joined, my hand the larger and her hand the more delicate and frail. Like a child’s. I have to admit, I felt electricity pulsing in my synapses, as though she were in the possession of far more energy than the average woman. It was an energy that she was able to transfer not onto me when we touched, but into me. Deep, into my bones, heart, and soul.

  “Would you like to come in while I make the coffee?” she asked politely.

  “Sure you don’t want me to wait out here?”

  “A man who answers a question with a question,” she said. “How did I know you would be like that?”

  “How do we know anything about the people who live only a few feet away from us?”

  “You’re doing it again. “ She laughed. “Come. Keep me company while I make coffee.”

  Pressing my lips together, I nodded.

  Opening the sliders, she stepped inside with her bare feet and me right behind her with my crutches and bad foot. Like I already said, the layout of her house was the same as my own, so that as soon as I stepped on through the door into the television room, I looked to the left for the dining room and beyond it, the kitchen.

  I stood there for a second or two, resting my shoulders on my rubber-padded crutches, while I took a quick survey of the pinewood paneled walls. There wasn’t a whole lot to see, but what I did see spoke volumes about her cop husband. Occupying the long far wall so that it was the first thing that drew your eye’s attention, was a series of framed photographs of the Albany Police Detective.

  The wall was like a “This Is Your Life” layout of the officer’s career thus far.

  Besides at least a half dozen framed diplomas and citations for marksmanship and courage in the line of duty from Los Angeles Police Department, there was also a picture of him as he graduated from the police academy. He was a young, wiry, black-haired new recruit who enthusiastically shook the hand of a much older formal-uniformed cop who was wearing white gloves and handing over a diploma.

  Then there was the picture of the young officer book-ended by an American flag and the California state flag, a bright but cautious smile planted on his face. The photo beside that one was of the now maturing detective dressed in plain clothing with thinning hair and a face having become ruddier and puffier as will often happen when you drink a little too much whiskey day in and day out. He was standing in front of an unmarked cop cruiser, his sidearm prominently clipped onto his belt buckle, arms confidently crossed. The plates on the car were New York State and the signage mounted to the glass and brick building behind him read, Poughkeepsie Police Department.

  There was a wet bar set up against the wall directly below the pictures. Several bottles of whiskey occupied the bar-top, along with a bottle of vodka, one of gin, another smaller green bottle that contained vermouth, and an empty decanter beside those.

  Lana must have noticed me noticing her wall because as she reentered the TV room with a mug of hot coffee in one hand and a tall glass of iced coffee in the other; she also turned to view the wall.

  “John’s wall of fame,” she commented, along with a distinct exhale. “He’s worked very hard to get where he’s gotten.”

  “I can see that,” I said. “He’s done well for himself in a hard, dangerous business. He’s got the plaques, the house in the burbs, and the beautiful wife to show for it.”

  She turned quick, caught my eye.

  “You say the sweetest things, Ethan,” she said, “even if you won’t make many feminist friends with that kind of talk.”

  “I try,” I said, “even when I’m not trying. If you get my drift.”

  “Oh, I get your drift. You must be one hell of a writer.”

  “I’m sorry. Sometimes I’m too frank. You’re allowed to kick me in the shins whenever I get out of hand.”

  “If I had shoes on, I just might. In the good leg, of course.”

  “You’re not wearing much of anything.”

  “Does it bother you?”

  “Not in the least.”

  She bit down on her bottom lip, nodded slowly, thoughtfully.

  “What do you say we take our coffees outside,” she said after a beat. “I’m missing the sun. Hope you like black, no sugar because I’m fresh out of dairy and sweetener. Later on I’m heading to the grocery store so I can make some cookies for the neighborhood kids. It’s kind of a pet project of mine. Would like some?”

  “Cookies or kids?”

  “Cookies, silly,” she said, giggling. Then, “Now, can we head outside before I drop this stuff and make a mess?”

  “I’m right behind you,” I said.

  “Lucky you,” she said, strutting herself to the already open sliding doors. “Lucky me.”

  Outside we sat as a round stainless steel-topped table that was empty other than her smartphone, sunglasses, and the remnants of a Granny Smith apple that she’d probably munched on for breakfast. We sipped our coffees and looked at one another and smiled self-consciously. At least, I did.

  Lana put her sunglasses back on and positioned her face up toward the sun so that she could soak it in while we chatted. We engaged in small talk mostly. I asked her the usual questions you ask anyone who has just picked up, lock, stock, and barrel, to move to a new city where everyone is a stranger. I asked her why her husband decided to come to Albany, and she told me he was offered the job by the APD Chief of Police himself.

  “It was a deal he couldn’t possibly refuse,” she said, making quotation marks with the fingers on both her hands when she said the word “deal.”

  I asked her how she felt about it, or was that too personal a question. She didn’t mind telling me that she’d originated from Albany and to be truthful, hated like hell to have to come back to its forever-long winters. What she truly wanted was to be back in LA, but John wouldn’t hear of it. They’d first met in LA, in fact, when he was still a young officer for the LAPD. She was waitressing at the Venice Ale House down on the boardwalk when he came in with his buddies. He didn’t stop pursuing her until she agreed to spend her life with him. That kind of attention and love doesn’t come around so often, she pointed out. So she married him, despite the fact that he’s five years her junior, and would always be five years her junior.

  “How unusual,” I said, sipping some of the coffee, squinting in the sun’s rays, wishing I hadn’t forgotten my Ray Bans. “Robbing the cradle.” Then I told her that I used to frequent the Venice Ale House. That I lived not far from it in a duplex on the beach road. Back when I was actually selling scripts.

  “Maybe we’ve met before,” I said. “But then, I think I’d remember a woman like you.”

  “You’re a lucky boy and Susan’s
a lucky girl,” she said. Then, after drinking some of her iced coffee, “Why do you say it’s unusual I married a younger man?”

  I cocked my head, scrunched my brow.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m just more used to the traditional, man marries the younger woman, dies a lot earlier. Then the wife remarries and pisses off the adult kids who are in debt up to their ears and depending sorely upon the dead dad’s inheritance… an inheritance that may now go to the new husband.”

  She laughed. “Well back then, John and I were both in our twenties, so my being older than him didn’t really seem to matter. But now that I’m in my forties, it seems to matter.”

  “How so?”

  She raised up her smooth, bare legs, relaxed her feet on the empty chair beside her, lowered her head just enough to get a look at me through those thick square sunglasses. Just the sight of her made my breathing labored.

  “Aren’t you the nosy one,” she said.

  “I’m a film artist. It’s my job to be nosy.”

  Slowly, thoughtfully, she raised her eyes back up to the heavens. “In that case, I’ll suggest you use your imagination to guess how the flame with John has diminished in its intensity over the past few years.”

  I felt yet another electric spark jolt my body. It seemed to originate in my stomach and spread out from there, like the waves from a pebble tossed into a pond. I focused on her. Her bare neck and the suntanned skin on her chest, the sweet spot in between her two pert breasts.

  My spell suddenly broke when her phone rang and vibrated at the same time, making the entire table vibrate. She leaned up straight, not like her phone was ringing, but more like an alarm had gone off. She picked up the phone, looked at the number, bit down on her lip.

  “John,” she said.

  “Aren’t you going to answer it?” I said.

  She shook her head. “No.” Then she pressed something on the phone that made it stop ringing. Tapping in her entry code, she checked something else. Her texts, or so I assumed. Still biting her lip, she put the phone down, but her hand knocked into her coffee, nearly spilling it over. Some of the coffee shot up and out of the cup however, and stained the sleeve of her robe.