“I don’t like loud noises,” she said. She sounded so lost that he softened his tone.
“What’s shrieking?”
“The smoke alarm.”
“Is there smoke?” he asked. Surely she would have called the fire department if something was on fire, wouldn’t she? Until recently she had always seemed like a capable and efficient woman who didn’t need anything from anyone. Now he was learning that wasn’t quite so true.
“There’s no smoke,” she said.
“It’s probably the battery. I’ll go check.”
“You don’t have to. I can call someone,” she said.
He paused, one foot hovering on the top step. “Who?”
She blinked, racking her brain for a solution. “A repairman?” she tried.
“A smoke detector repairman?” His tone dripped disdain and this time she noticed because her nose wrinkled. Cute nose, he thought.
“A handyman then. They fix everything.”
“You’re going to call a handyman in the middle of a Sunday afternoon? Do you have any idea what one would charge if you could even get him to show up?” He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead he left her stewing in speculation as he went to check the smoke alarm. There was no smoke, and the carbon monoxide portion wasn’t blinking. He took out the battery and it stopped squawking.
“I didn’t ask you to do this,” she said. He hadn’t heard her follow him into the house, but then he hadn’t heard anything over the wail of the alarm. He turned to see that her hands were still pressed over her ears. He waved the device in the air.
“You can take those off now.” He watched as she cautiously removed her hands from her ears and stared accusingly at the dismantled contraption in his hand. “It was the battery.”
“That’s not possible,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because I change the battery the first day of every year,” she said.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No. That’s when the fire marshal recommends changing the batteries.”
“Maybe you forgot this year,” he suggested. He knew she hadn’t; he simply wanted to see her reaction.
“No, I didn’t,” she said. She opened the cupboard and pointed to a list of household chores to be performed throughout the year. Everything was checked off up through the current month. “I only check it off after I’ve finished.”
She was so sincere; he wanted to laugh. “You’re certainly on top of things.”
She nodded, her brown eyes as solemn as an owl as she appraised him. “Don’t you do these things at your house?”
“Probably not as regularly. I try to keep up on stuff, but sometimes I forget. My smoke detector, for instance, doesn’t have its battery changed until it starts to chirp.”
“But what if there’s a fire?” she asked.
Public service campaigns were made for people like her. She was the ad council’s dream come true. “Good point,” he said, nodding as he matched his solemn tone to hers. “Maybe you could make me a copy of your list.”
“I will,” she said. She started to pull it down.
“You could do it later,” he said. If he didn’t stop her, she would no doubt run out and make a copy this instant. He didn’t have the heart to tell her he had been joking.
She nodded again, biting her lip. “I don’t understand why the alarm went off if the battery is new,” she said.
He couldn’t believe they were still talking about the smoke alarm. “Maybe the batteries were old.”
She shook her head.
“Let me guess—you always check the expiration date when you buy batteries.”
She nodded.
He sighed. Clearly the malfunction was upsetting her. “It could be that the batteries were mismarked and they were older than the package indicated. Or maybe they were faulty. Maybe your smoke detector is faulty. Put in a new battery, see how it works, and if it messes up again, then it’s your smoke detector. If it works, then it was the battery.” Or you could just not worry about it, he wanted to say. Something held him back though. Her serious approach to life would have been annoying if she projected it onto others. She seemed like a nice person, though, who was the only one affected by her anxiety. For that reason he found her solemnity endearing.
“Okay,” she said. She reached out and took the smoke detector, hugging it to her chest. “I could pay you. Do you know how much something like this costs?”
“Removing a battery?” he clarified.
She nodded.
A week ago, he might have thought she was kidding. Now he knew better. “You don’t have to pay me. This is a neighborly thing to do.”
“I’m not hitting on you,” she blurted.
“I know,” he said. “I get that now. Don’t worry about it.”
The expression on her face told him she was still worried about it. There was nothing more for him to do but go home, but for some reason he was reluctant. Why? Miss Prim was turning out to be everything he said he didn’t want in life, namely a needy female. Yet he felt himself warming to her to the degree that he wasn’t ready to go home, even after her smoke detector was fixed. She was socially awkward to the point of being backwards, but he wasn’t put off. Maybe because she was so different from the other women he had known and dated. She had no hidden agenda and she wasn’t trying to trap him. In fact he got the impression that she didn’t want to have anything to do with him, and that pleased him for reasons even he didn’t understand. There was nothing about her that stood out as being ostentatiously beautiful, but she was so meticulous with her appearance that she was attractive. And she was cute with her big brown eyes and perfectly-styled bob that always looked exactly the same, day or night. She took as much care with her appearance as she did with her house, leaving no detail unnoticed so that her brows were as perfectly manicured as her fingers and toes. Thoughts of her toes reminded him of her perfect feet. He glanced down, but she was wearing shoes.
“I should probably get back to what I was doing,” she said.
“Hint, hint,” he said.
“What?” she cocked her head, trying to decipher his meaning.
“Never mind,” he said. “See you later, Miss P.”
“What?” she repeated.
He realized he had let his nickname for her slip and shook his head again. “Forget it.”
She walked him to the door and watched as he let himself out. She didn’t say goodbye, but when he was almost at his front door, she stuck her head out her door and spoke. “Thank you,” she called.
He waved, chuckling as he let himself into his house. “Oh, Miss Prim, you’re cuter than you know,” he muttered.
Chapter 5
On Monday, two things happened to stretch Blair’s new social awareness to its limits. First Susan called.
“This is Susan. From church.”
The smiler, Blair thought. She wondered if Susan was smiling now. It wasn’t possible to tell by her tone. “Yes,” Blair said. She should probably say more than that, but she didn’t know what. Susan seemed undeterred.
“We have a project at church I think you would be just perfect for. Are you interested?”
“What is it?” Blair asked. Was she supposed to say yes without knowing what she was committing to? Had she failed some sort of test she didn’t know she was taking?
“Oh, duh, Susan. I forgot to say, didn’t I? We need someone to organize the church library. You did such a good job with the pantry that I knew you’d be perfect.”
Blair’s ears perked up at the word “organize.” “I’ll do it,” she said, almost before Susan finished speaking. “Can I start today?”
“Oh, um the staff takes Mondays off, so the church is locked. You can start tomorrow, if that works.”
“That works fine,” Blair said. “Thanks.”
“No, thank you,” Susan said.
There was an awkward pause. Blair’s hands started to sweat so she had to clench the phone to keep
from dropping it. She could talk fine on the phone as long as the conversation was professional. Ordering a pizza was easy, talking to one of the companies she free-lanced for was a piece of cake. But social conversations were horrible, even worse than in person because she had no visual cues to help her along. At least if she was face to face with a person, she could see if they thought she was a fruitcake and wanted nothing more to do with her.
“I should go,” she blurted. “I’ll start tomorrow. Goodbye.” She hung up and took a breath, wishing she had been born before the time when phones were invented. Life must have been easier for introverts before the inception of modern technology.
Almost as soon as the phone landed, the doorbell rang. Blair saw the silhouette of a uniform through the frosted glass and felt immediate fear. Had she inadvertently committed a crime for which they were here to arrest her? She couldn’t think of anything she might have done, but the police always had the same guilt-inducing effect on her tender conscience.
“Yes?” she squeaked as she opened the door. One of the officers who had responded to her burglary stood on the other side. It was the younger of the two officers, the one her neighbor had walked to the door.
“Hi, I was checking to make sure you haven’t had any more trouble, no hang up or suspicious calls, no drive by cars, nothing like that,” he said.
“I haven’t had any strange phone calls. I haven’t noticed any strange cars, but then I don’t get outside much. Sorry I can’t be more helpful.”
“We have extra patrols in the area; I just thought I would check.” He glanced at the glass panel the burglar had broken. “I see you had your glass replaced. That’s good.”
The glazier hadn’t thought so. Blair made him do it twice when the first pane was crooked. He hadn’t believed her that it was crooked until she made him use his level. She was right; it had been crooked.
“You know what you need,” the officer said. “You need a dog.”
“I have been thinking about getting a pet,” Blair blurted. In truth, Tristan had suggested a pet. He thought it might help her practice conversations with someone who couldn’t talk back or reject her. There was no way she would ever buy a cat now, birds were too messy, and fish were too dull, even for her. That left dogs, but Blair knew nothing about them. She had never owned a dog before.
“My buddy’s dog just had puppies,” he said.
“Congratulations?” Blair tried.
He laughed as he took off his cap and rubbed his forearm over his head. “I’ll tell him you said so. I could take you to see them, if you want.”
Should she go somewhere with a stranger? He was a policeman; didn’t that automatically make him trustworthy? Did she even want to go anywhere with him? Yes, she did. She wanted to see the puppies. “I guess that would be okay,” she said. “Do you want to go now?”
“Uh, no, I just got off work and I should probably change first. You know, clean up a little. How’s tomorrow? We could, you know, get something to eat,” he said.
He hadn’t seemed as nervous when he was there before. Maybe professional interaction was easier for him than personal, like her. She sympathized and tried to think of a way to make things better. “Or I could eat here before we go, if that’s easier.”
He took off his hat and swiped his head with his arm again, chuckling. “You’re not making this easy on me.”
“Sorry,” she said. If there was social awkwardness, it was undoubtedly her fault, although she had no idea why this time. “Eating would be fine.”
“Is six okay?”
“Six is fine.” She was ready to acquiesce to anything if it meant stopping him from scratching his head again. Her scalp was starting to tingle in response. Did he have lice? How else to explain the itching unless it was simply a nervous gesture on his part? But why was he so nervous? If asking her to look at puppies with him made him this nervous, he probably shouldn’t do it. Maybe he needed therapy, too. If she were better at knowing what to say, she might suggest it. As it was, she stayed silent. He smiled, looking more at ease now.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Blair.”
She watched as he put his hat back on and walked away, jolted by hearing a stranger use her name. She didn’t know his name. Like with her neighbor, she had neglected to ask. Maybe Tristan should have insisted she start with “What’s your name” instead of “Hi.”
She closed the door and her phone rang. Andy and Rachael had received their present in the mail, and Tanya was calling to say thank you. The excitement over new toys bought her an hour of quiet time, and she used that time to talk to Blair. Blair talked back. Instead of listening while Tanya chattered incessantly about potty training and eating habits of the average toddler, they talked about books. Tanya didn’t have much time to read, but she wanted to start and was anxious for any recommendations. Blair had an entire list for her and was more than happy to talk about literature—one of her favorite subjects.
When the conversation ended, Blair felt jittery rather than exhausted. She tried to pick up her book and read, but she couldn’t concentrate on the words. Instead she puttered around her house, wishing for something constructive to do. At last she took her nervous energy outside. While she loved beautiful gardens, she was not a gardener; she had a black thumb. Her yard was small, and she employed a service to keep it weeded and mowed. Every once in a while, she decided to give gardening another try, usually with disastrous results that the lawn service had to repair. Today she was tempted to plant something or weed something, but she didn’t dare. Instead she stood on her toes and assessed her gutters. They looked pretty good except for one small maple seedling.
Blair decided to remove it herself because the lawn service wasn’t scheduled to come for another month. The seedling might be a full-grown tree by then. If she tried to wait, the image of the tree putting down roots in her roof would keep her awake at night. She had never climbed a ladder before, but how hard could it be? The house was one story, surely it couldn’t be too difficult to remove one little seedling.
Her first difficulty came when she removed the ladder from the garage. It was bigger and heavier than it looked. Contractors always made it look so easy. The last repairman she’d had work on her house had carried his ladder under one arm. Blair used both hands, and she still swayed frantically back and forth in an attempt to keep the ladder balanced. The second time she thought maybe her project wasn’t such a good idea was when she set the ladder against the house. What was the best angle for stability? She had no idea. She placed it where she thought it should go and started to climb.
That was when she realized she was afraid of heights. She was only a foot off the ground when vertigo began to set in. I can do this, she told herself. I am brave. I talk to my neighbors and visit puppies with strange men. I baked for children and handed out treats. This is nothing compared to that. I can do it. Her pep talk worked to get her up the ladder. She reached the gutter and congratulated herself on her bravery. Then it was time to extend her hand and pluck the seedling from its happy home. She stretched and realized her third mistake: the ladder was too far away. What had looked close on the ground was actually a few inches beyond her grasp. Now she faced another dilemma. Should she go down, move the ladder, and go back up? Or should she simply strain and reach for it? Reach, she thought. What’s the worst that could happen?
From the window that faced Blair’s yard, Sully watched in fascination as she retrieved the ladder from her garage. “What is she doing?” he whispered. From the looks of it, she was preparing to audition for a circus routine. The ladder shimmied and swayed back and forth as she tried to hold it upright over her head. “Why doesn’t she drag it behind her?” he asked. She finally got it to the right place and propped it too close to the house. “She’s not actually going to climb it like that, is she?” he asked. He relaxed when she stood there, staring up. She wouldn’t climb it, not Miss Prim. What was she after, anyway? From his angle, he couldn’t see the seedling. All he saw wa
s a woman with a ladder who was apparently on a mission. Just when he began to think the show was over and she was going to give up and go back inside, she steeled her spine and started to climb the ladder.
Don’t do it, he silently commanded. He clutched his mug of coffee in both hands, barely daring to breathe while she climbed. It wasn’t especially high, but he instinctively knew this wasn’t something she did, nor was it something she should be doing now. Nothing good was going to come of Miss Prim on a ladder.
She reached for something to her left before dropping her hand in defeat. Good, she’s giving up, he thought. He would watch to make sure she descended the ladder safely, and then he would quit the Miss Prim show for the evening. Good thing she hadn’t come out much before now or he might not have gotten any work done. She was highly entertaining, especially because she wasn’t trying to be.
He set his mug on the counter, preparing to move away, when she made another try for whatever was out of reach. This time she stood on her toes. ”No,” he said, loudly enough to startle a bird outside the window. He took off running, but it was too late. By the time he reached her, Blair was in an unconscious heap on the ground.
For a minute after Blair landed, everything was black and silent. A man spoke from nearby. He seemed to be saying, “Miss me, miss me.” She didn’t respond until he touched her, and then her eyes flew open before quickly closing again.
“Ow,” she said. His hands were around her neck. She should be alarmed by that, shouldn’t she? But his touch was gentle, almost as if he were giving her a massage.
“Miss P,” he said.
One of her eyes slowly opened. Her neighbor knelt over her, a penlight between his teeth. “Why do you keep saying that?” she asked.
“I’m trying to bring you back to the land of the living,” he said. Or at least that’s what she thought he said. It was hard to tell with the light in his mouth. He took it out of his mouth and shined it in her eyes. She closed them. “Open up,” he demanded.
Won't You Be My Neighbor? Page 5
