Nurturing Cindy 01 Introduction

I had just moved into my house a few weeks before. The house remodeling took more time and money than expected. It was in an older neighborhood that 50 years ago had been the new, upcoming, fancy la-tee-da development. Today it had charm, mature trees, flat perfectly sized yards, and a great mix of neighbors. I bought it because in the back yard was a large garage I could turn into a photo studio. I was glad to be moving into a neighborhood that was not abandoned during the day when everyone was off to work.

I was getting to know my neighbors better. Bill and Vi, retired teachers who traveled a lot, lived to the one side of me. Cindy, a nursing supervisor for a home health concern and her salesman husband Ed lived on the other. Cindy was petite and wispy, with a quiet demeanor and a markedly feminine style of dress. Ed was Ed, Square jawed, curly salt and pepper hair, deep-voiced. I was convinced he could sell ice to Eskimos. But most of the time he just tried to sell me on his ultra-conservative Christian world view. Ed was home often during the day, Cindy not so much.

I was puttering around the yard trying to decide what to plant where while waiting for my favorite person the UPS guy. Ed was home along with their Monday cleaning lady which was not unusual when Cindy drove into the driveway. She waved at me as she entered the house. Not more than 2 minutes later I heard her screaming as she left the house slamming the door as hard as her little self could. Calm, quiet, mild-mannered Cindy pulled a fast U-turn in her car, ran over the curb at my house, leaving a deep tire track in my yard, and sped thru the stop sign without so much as a flicker of brake lights. Ten minutes later both Ed and the cleaning lady left. No one came home that night.

When I woke up that Saturday Cindy's house was a beehive of activity. Cars everywhere, people coming and going, and teenage boys carrying stuff to the garage. Finally, I spotted Cindy, looked at her inquisitively holding my arms out palms up in the universal symbol of what's going on. She walked over to me slowly and standing close to me she said "that bastard was fa... fa... doing the cleaning lady." Leslie Lepidus could say fuck, Cindy could not. I was surprised she got bastard out.

By late afternoon almost everyone was gone from Cindy's house, and around 6 I saw her leave with another woman. Cindy was dropped off about 90 minutes later, and I was sitting on my porch still trying to decide what to plant where; no need to overexert myself by needless walking. About 15 minutes later she strolls up to my porch wine bottle in one hand and two glasses in the other. Looking at the divot left by her tire in my yard she asked in the worst Urkle accent ever "did I do that?"

I'm sure it was a wide grin, but I am only going to admit to a slight smile as she placed the wine glasses on a wooden crate that substituted for a table and poured the burgundy-colored wine into the glasses. "I kept the wine glasses," she said, "he got the beer mugs."

"Oh, and by the way" she continued "he will be back for his stuff. It is all in the garage, let me know if he goes into the house."

It was then I realized that I had never heard her in conversation before. Usually, she just sat back and added a quiet acknowledgment. I found that she was charming, and funny and could turn an innocent phrase into something more. It was difficult keeping a gentlemanly demeanor. We had not killed the bottle of wine yet but it was definitely on life support when the wind started howling.

I invited her inside so she could give me her opinion on my almost complete house. Since the last time she had been in I had gotten some more furniture and started to hang my photographs and some art I owned. She razzed me about the size of my television saying "I guess every man needs at least one big thing in his life."

I handed her the iPad control and told her to see if she could find anything interesting to watch. I went to the kitchen to open the second bottle of wine. When I came back into the Living Room I knew any more attempts at gentlemanly behavior were going to be dismal failures. You know that 'markedly feminine' style I said she had. When she came over she was wearing a 50's style shirt dress with buttons only about an inch apart, a few were undone at the neck but the rest, all the way to her hem, were buttoned. When I came around the corner she had undone another 3 or 4 at the top and maybe 8 at the bottom. Her kitten-heeled shoes laid on the floor and her legs were tucked under her as she sunk into the corner of the couch. I saw the barest trace of lace surrounding her one thigh. She looked at me and asked, "can you help me with one little thing?"

"What is that," I asked?

She smiled and said "revenge."