Noreen went into the bedroom to get her robe without turning on the light. There wasn't any need; plenty of light came from the hallway.
As Noreen reached for the pink terrycloth hanging on the closet door, something caught her eye. She saw a flash, like a lightening bug only red, over on the neighbor's back deck. Holding the robe, she looked out the window. Then she saw it again, a bright red flash and faint arc. Her neighbor was smoking a cigarette out in the backyard. 'Why, if I'd turned on the light,' Noreen thought on the way to the bathroom, 'he could have looked right in my bedroom window.'
It was Thursday night and Noreen drew her bath. Joe had his bowling. The kids were in the basement watching television. She had this night all to herself.
So, every Thursday she ran a tub full of hot water. She added the very best bathing salt and moisturizer that Kmart sold. Then she soaked. For the next hour she washed away a week's worth of husband and kids, clerking in the Stop'N'Save, just plain life. This was her time to forget she was Noreen Keltsey.
That cigarette crept into her reverie. 'Now, has that man been sitting out there ever since they moved in?' she wondered.
A young couple moved into Old Man Blake's house about three months ago, after he went to the nursing home. From up around Ellington, someone had said. The wife worked nights in the county medical center in Clearview, doctor, nurse or something. Noreen didn't know what the he did.
Noreen flipped on the light as she entered the bedroom. She was all pink, soft, and happy from her bath. Joe would be home in an hour or so. Maybe she would read until he got home.
Then she saw the window.
'Oh, my.' She thought. She had been all ready to take her robe off. Instead, she pulled the curtains closed. 'Wouldn't do to be showing off for the neighbor.'
The next day when Noreen got home from work, the neighbor was washing his car. He looked up and waved as she pulled in the driveway. She smiled and waved back. 'They're nice enough people,' Noreen figured, 'Just not our kind of people.'
Noreen dropped her keys on the kitchen table. She'd tidy up and then start supper.
While she was straightening the magazines on the end table next to Joe's chair, she saw the neighbor through the window. He was buffing the wax on his car. 'He must spend a lot of time in the sun.' she thought. All he was wearing were a pair of soaking wet cutoffs and he was tan everywhere. Sunlight gleamed off his shoulders as he buffed the finish. 'Look at those muscles.' Noreen thought. 'He looks like he could lift the front end of a Buick.'
When the neighbor flipped the towel over his shoulder and picked up his bucket, Noreen realized she had been watching him for a good ten minutes. She fussed at herself for acting so silly. 'Noreen, you have better things to be doing than watching somebody wash his car.'
That night she closed the curtains before she put on her nightie.
It was Thursday night again. A week since she noticed the neighbor through the window. Noreen was lounging in her bath, running the washcloth over her skin and daydreaming.
She and Joe had done the dirty the night before and so tonight, she was feeling especially good. Joe even whispered to her that maybe she should stay up tonight until he got home.
