Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
Rolling over, I pull the pillow tighter over my pounding head, but when the incessant noise doesn’t stop, I realize someone’s trying to break down my door versus my brain trying to escape my skull.
“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter under my breath, then hurl the pillow across the room.
I get out of bed and snag a sweatshirt off the floor, pulling it over my head as I walk and yell, “Someone better be dead!”
Jerking the material down so that it just covers the full curve of my ass, I whip open the front door, shielding my eyes against the light.
“Did you hear that? She’s threatening me!” Lois jerks back, and throws a dramatic look over her shoulder to where her minion, Pam, stands behind her, phone up and filming.
“Lois,” I say, voice saccharine sweet, “if I was threatening you, you’d know it.”
I flutter my lashes at her, a wide smile plastered onto my face, more teeth than lips.
“Well, I never,” she sputters, mouth opening and closing like a fish.
“Why are you on my property waking me up at this ungodly hour?” I ask.
“It’s noon missy,” she smirks, thrusting a paper at my face.
Missy? I’m in my forties. But rather than engage in a debate about my age, I snatch the paper out of her hand, dread already pooling in my stomach like I ate a full bucket of Halloween candy.
My eyes quickly scan the paper, zeroing in on words like “emergency meeting” and “obnoxious Halloween decor.”
“You can pry Mr. Bonejangles out of my cold dead hands, Lois. Just because you’re a puritanical shrew who celebrates ‘Autumn Harvest’ or some bullshit doesn’t mean the rest of us are dried up husks of a human who have had all the joy sucked out of our marrow like some B-movie sci-fi film.”
My heartbeat thunders in my chest like the hooves of the headless horseman chasing poor Ichabod Crane. I can feel the heat blooming on my face as I vehemently shred the paper and let the strands flutter away in the October breeze as if they were no more important than scuttling leaves.
I may be red, but Lois’s face blanches white, her thin lips clamped together in a hard line until she looks like the dried up husk I just accused her of being.
She narrows her eyes and spits, “No wonder your husband left you. Life isn't some big Halloween party, Tori. Decorations don't love you back.”
I’m left gaping at her retreating back. Now it’s my turn to stare after her like a fish. For once, I don't have a comeback.
Because standing alone in my yard, surrounded by plastic decorations and a towering skeleton, the words settle somewhere deep and uncomfortable.
And for one terrible second, I wonder if she's right.
Pam gives me a snarky smile as she walks backwards, still filming.
Doubt gives way to white hot anger, so I give her a little show to film, fueled by my anger and indignation, raising double middle fingers complete with a little dance.
I snap out, “You think you can take me down when I got a twelve-foot skeleton on my team? Try us, Lois. Try. Us.”
And with one final jig step and flourish of my double bird, I stomp off into the house to pull on some pants, and then out into the garage to get today’s outfit for BJ.
I’m still muttering under my breath about Lois and Pam as I snag the accessories out of the garage and drag the ladder across the lawn.
“Left me. Left me? I kicked his ass to the curb. I didn’t want that loser anymore.” The tirade of hurt spills from my lips as the anger gives over to a feeling that’s not so hot. And feels far, far worse.
“Why would I want to be like that old hag anyway? Married to some old douche canoe who mows stripes in his yard. I bet they play bridge or some shit,” I continue as I climb the ladder and start changing out accessories.
I carefully tuck yesterday’s name tag into the plastic bag.
Sure, it’s silly to feel nostalgic over a fake sticker, but this was BJ’s first accessory, and it feels somehow special.
Wrapping the giant plaid scarf around his neck, I say, “No. I’m not going to let them ruin this for me.
We’re going to enjoy this weekend together, and then Monday I’m going to go to that meeting and fight for you. For us.”
Laying my hands on top of the scarf where it’s carefully wrapped around his neck I stare into his LED eyes and say, “The world is a shitty enough place. My life is shitty enough. Can’t anyone just have fun anymore? Can’t I have some damned fun?”
Mr. Bonejangles just stares back, neither confirming or denying a word I’ve said.
But they sink into my soul like stones. I’ve been lonely. Like really lonely. When all your friends are couples and most of them have kids, who do you hang out with after you’re divorced? It’s just so… awkward. I didn’t just lose a spouse. I lost the life we built.
As I stand on my tiptoes to pull the enormous beanie over his head, I drop my forehead to his and whisper, “Oh, Mr. Bonejangles. I didn’t leave him. The truth is, he left me. That fucking Lois was right. And here I am, a lonely, sad woman pouring my heart out to injection molded plastic.”
I look over my shoulder quickly and, not seeing anyone, take a step down so I can bury my face into the soft scarf and wrap my arms as far as I can reach around the enormous rib cage. Hot tears trail down my cheeks, and with a little snuffle, I say, “I could really use a hug.”
The tears come faster, harder, until my shoulders are shaking and my nose is running.
“I’m so fucking pathetic. Begging an inanimate object for a hug. Bloody hell, Tori.” I’m blubbering so hard I can hardly understand myself now.
The sobs wrack my frame so hard at first I don’t quite feel it. But when I’m certain that I do, even my tears seem to freeze in their tracks.
The faintest trace of a soothing finger, or I guess a phalange, traces up and down my spine.
My heart stutters in my chest. When the slow trace turns into a gentle pat, it kicks back into gear, great thumping beats that mirror the soft pats on my back. My chin tips up to look at him in shock, moving more slowly than molasses in January.
A giant skull, complete with slouched beanie, gazes down at me.
“BJ?” I squeak, my voice a faint whisper in the October breeze ruffling the golden leaves around us.
The LED eyes flicker as if in acknowledgement.
“I should go,” I say, working to keep the faint note of rising panic from my voice.
The giant skeletal hand tightens around my waist. In possession? Wait, is he possessive or is he possessed? What is going on here?
“Please, let me go,” I rasp, eyes wide.
In an instant, he returns to the exact pose I created mere minutes ago. Scarf and beanie perfectly in place. PSL latte raised in a salute to the neighborhood.
“Tori, you are losing it,” I whisper to myself as I scramble down off the ladder.
“Get a grip, girl,” I mutter as I gather up the bags and snag an empty beer bottle off the ground at BJ’s feet.
My steps halt halfway to the recycling bin next to the garage door. I look down at the beer bottle and dig through my memories. I know I didn’t leave a beer bottle lying in the yard at BJ’s feet. I wasn’t drinking out here.
I specifically remember—oh. Oh. I recall in vivid clarity exactly what I did with a beer bottle last night before carrying it out to the bin. I whip my head over my shoulder and shoot BJ a questioning look.
“Mr. Bonejangles?” I retrace my steps to face him and hold up the bottle. “Was this you?”
Do I want it to be? Because what would that mean?
My twelve-foot skeleton came to life and fished the bottle I had used to, well, pleasure myself, out of the recycle bin? And then gave me a hug just now?
Or was it that damn Lois? Maybe she and her little helper Pam were spying on me and doing things to mess with me.
Just as revulsion at the thought of someone seeing me in the privacy of my home starts to ripple through me, BJ winks at me.
My mouth falls open. “BJ?
It morphs into a smile that splits my face.
“Cheeky fellow,” I say and then head back into the house.
I’m not quite sure what’s going on, or how. But I do know I need to mount a response to this HOA meeting on Monday now more than ever. Because I need to see what happens next with my new obsession.