Chapter 5 Uh-Oh
Uh-oh
I dreamt of fire. I can’t remember exactly, but the sound of flames licking and crackling stays with me, the heat still in me.
My thoughts are bleary from lack of sleep, I rise reluctantly, well aware that Blue will not leave me in peace until I get up and feed him.
I look at his unbothered face as he burbles out a happy meow, pleased that I am now standing.
“Who wrote on your collar yesterday, Blue-Blue? Which human?” He holds my stare a second, then loses interest and trots to the bedroom door. There are more important things on his mind.
Downstairs at the kitchen sink, I gulp down a half-pint of water and then refill, the splash of the tap holding my focus until I hear the rustle of wind in trees coming from the end of the kitchen, strangely loud.
I turn, a frown creasing my features.
The glass slips from my hands and smashes onto the slate floor, inches from my bare feet. I reel back from the flying glass and cold water.
“Shit,” I yelp, a thick spike of glass lodging under my heel. “Ah, fucking hell,” I groan, hopping around the smash site toward the kitchen roll and administering a sheet to my foot.
As I do, I look over at the back door. It is wide open, swaying gently in the summer breeze. I can hear the sounds of the garden crisp and clear, birds, leaves rustling like packing materials, the hammer-hammer-hammer of workmen a street away.
My heel throbs as I pull loose the shard and stanch the slow ooze of dark blood, but it is hard to peel my eyes away from the door. The gaping open door.
One thing certain: I did not open it.
I hobble toward it, Blue moving to higher ground.
I close the door. I test the handle. I lock it. I inspect it. I try the handle again. It is secure. It could not have just opened by itself. In which case, I must have left it unlocked and physically open last night. And yet I remember checking it twice.
But I must have left it open. I must have. There is no other plausible solution.
What are the chances that the first night I spend alone, in my first single-person house, someone breaks in? I will not allow the thought.
I scan the kitchen. Nothing is gone. everything is as I left it.
Outside, the garden is lush and well tended, the secluded and sheltered landscaping one of its strongest selling points when I viewed the property. I stare out at it for a long while before turning back to the room.
I carefully pick up the broken glass, then finally wipe the floor dry and deposit the offending shards into a neat, nonlethal package for the bin.
Blue emits a long and drawn-out meow. He wants his breakfast. I fill his bowl and hop upstairs to find a plaster. In my room the cat camera lies, its charging light no longer flashing, ready for use. Once I’ve bandaged my cut and pulled on some socks, I hop back downstairs, camera in hand.
I check the back door again. It is still locked.
I attach the new cat camera collar and let Blue out for the day. No one is messing with my cat and getting away with it.
I make coffee, distracting myself with the ritual of it, the giant expanse of another day completely alone and jobless opening up before me.
My mind flits skittishly over the strange feeling I have here: the scaffolding creeping up the front and back of the house next door; the woman gesturing in the window last night; the words on Blue’s collar; and the open back door.
When I finally look back into the garden, Blue is gone, off to explore. And I, too, need to start my day. I pop the little broken glass package into the rubbish and take the whole bag out the front to place it in the bin store.
Outside, I notice full recycling bags, left by front gates in neat bunches, two or three per home.
Even the rubbish here is tidy. I wonder when they all came out and did this, because I’ve neither heard nor seen a single neighbor this morning.
There are various gaps in the parking bays, though, where the gleaming Porsches and G-Wagons and silver Aston Martins were last night.
The Bentley from yesterday, with my hot gray-haired neighbor, is gone wherever it is he goes, and Arabella’s gate has its bags arranged and ready, too.
I note the small number of bags per household, the economy of waste here. I hustle back inside and grab as much cardboard and packing rubbish as I can fit in three bags, then lug the recycling out to rest neatly by my gate.
I am admiring my handiwork when a voice comes from behind me, so close and unexpected that I leap from it.
“Looks like someone’s discovered Little Napoli.”
I yelp, spinning around, my cut heel throbbing painfully as I do.
A man has stopped by my railings. He, I am relieved to see, is not the angry man from yesterday. He is handsome, and smiling at me.
“Sorry, sorry,” I bluster at him, taking in his soft, tousled hair, intense brown eyes, and strong jaw. There’s something disconcertingly amused about the way he looks at me. “You snuck up on me,” I explain, though we both know he did no such thing. His smile broadens.
“My apologies,” he offers, kind eyes twinkling at me. “Sorry for busting in on you. I love a good ‘disassociate’ in the mornings, too.”
“Tricky first night,” I find myself saying, gesturing to the empty moving boxes stacked high by the bin store. “I just moved in,” I continue, apropos of nothing, even pointing back to the house I am clearly standing in the front yard of.
He’s tall. Well over six feet. Thirties, I would guess—too young for me. Maybe. The times have changed a lot since I last dated. I snap myself out of my reverie, vaguely aware that I have instantly sexualized this man.
“Ah, the newbie. You lost your cat, right?”
“He actually came back last night,” I clarify, a warm, fuzzy feeling filling me. This man is on the neighborhood group; I technically already have his number.
“I was just saying, you’re a fan of Little Napoli,” he continues, pointing to my recycling; through the translucent plastic, two broken-down pizza boxes are visible. Pizza and a garlic flatbread—it is what it is. Displayed for all to see.
Whose idea was it to use transparent garbage bags so that the whole world can see every packet you’ve used, everything you have eaten, the pizza boxes and bags of crisps, the bottle of wine you have drunk, the Nair hair-removal cream you’ve used?
“To be honest,” I say, “the biggest perk of moving to the city so far has been the superior delivery options.”
I’ve been reading a lot about “making new friends as an adult” since deciding to leave Oxfordshire. Confessing something emotionally neutral and bonding over shared likes and dislikes is a helpful way to build bonds, apparently.
“I was addicted to delivery for a month after I first moved here,” he says. “I’m back into cooking now, though…saving a small fortune. And my waistline.”
I desperately try not to think about his waistline. I wonder if this is sexist, if what I’m doing is sexist right now. Can women even be sexist, in such a male-dominated field?
A sudden thought occurs to him. “Hey, if you haven’t found it yet, there’s an amazing deli just around the corner from here, on the main stretch. They do fresh pastéis de nata every morning, but you’ve got to get there before the drop-off rush.”
I flick a glance at my watch—dear God, how is it already past nine?
“Oh, that sounds great. I’ll check it out,” I say.
His eyes crease at the corners. I try to work out what it is about him that is so attractive—that barely-there stubble, or the way his hair peppers ever so slightly at the edges, or his expensive and lived-in preppy clothes.
Or maybe it’s just how unusually approachable he seems to be, in spite of being a clear 10?
Ben, my ex, was neither hot nor approachable.
I have the urge to drop everything. To ask this stranger if he wants to go to that deli with me right now, tell me all his hard-earned secrets of the area, hold my hand, co-parent my cat.
It is only then that I notice the object that is, quite literally, between us, beneath the line of the railings. A pram with a sleeping infant inside it.
He is a dad. He’s taken, obviously. He’s more than taken. He’s in that heady, blissful, baby-bonding oxytocin bubble my old friends used to try to describe. He’s probably only talking to me right now because he’s lost the run of himself.
“So, still unpacking?” he continues, seeming not to notice that my soul has slipped from my body. “How’s it been going?” he asks, in that way that is polite and only requires a “great.”
“Yeah, great,” I autofill. In the back of my mind, I think: Help Me.
“I live three houses up.” He points farther along my side of the street.
“Oh, right. Okay. You’re actually only the second person I’ve spoken to on the street,” I tell him, in a tone I hope expresses merely platonic, civic affability.
“I’ve been here around five years and I hardly know anyone. I see them come and go but, you know…I think they save all their energy for the yearly fundraisers. But the group chat’s pretty active.”
I am already planning to find his name on it and Google him.
He gestures to my shame-filled recycling bags. “I’ve got a flyer on the fridge for the bin days—it’s week on and off for general waste. Might be helpful?”
“Maybe, yeah, might be worth a look.” I smile, and wish upon wish that our conversation was about anything in the world but general waste.
I’m an attractive woman, I’m told by my few remaining friends. I could make a killing picking up divorcés on Bumble.
“Sorry—I’m being rude,” he says, stretching a hand out over the metal railings. “I’m Matt, Number Twenty-six.”
I take his hand and we shake.
“Frankie Green.” I smile.
His skin is cool to the touch, in spite of the warmth of the day. I shiver as we shake hands.
“You have kids?” he asks, brightening at the prospect that we might have that in common, too.
I feel the old ache. I try not to let my smile slip. You can’t answer that question with an “almost.”
“Nope, just a cat for me,” I answer, keeping it light.
An eruption of high-pitched cries suddenly cascades from deep inside the pram bassinet.
Matt looks at me with an apologetic smile.
“Milk. That’ll be it. Better get back and get a bottle on the go,” he declares. He starts to push the pram away and panic flares in me: I might not run into him again. His house number has already flown from my memory.
“Post me the flyer on the group chat,” I call after him.
He looks back over his shoulder and flashes a quick wave. “Sure,” he calls back, then stops. “No, wait, just, just, come with me,” he offers, pushing the pram on. “We’re right here. I’ll pop her in and grab it for you.”
The idea of bursting in on his postpartum wife while they try to calm their screaming infant sounds sick-making, but I find myself following him.
Once we get to Number 26, I watch him gently lift the pram, baby and all, up the steps while I wait.
I catch only a peek of his hallway as he disappears inside. It is large and bright and immaculately presented. He hurries back, disheveled from the chaos of a baby’s cries, and hands me a brightly colored flyer on which the bins have faces.
For a moment, he hesitates on the steps, runs a hand through his hair, then says,
“Do you want to go for a coffee sometime?”
My brain short-circuits; I open my mouth to reply but I have too many questions.
The baby bawls on from the hallway inside and Matt can’t wait for my answer.
“Got to go,” he says. “Let me know, yeah?”
And with that, he’s gone.