As the moving truck pulled away, I stood in the front yard surveying my new home, a small ranch that had been on the market for a while. My dog ran around the yard sniffing and rolling in the bushes. It was a fixer-upper and had been reduced in price a few times. While I was aware it was on the market, my interest wasn't really piqued until it really came down from the initial asking price. The neighborhood was good, the location was semi-secluded without being in the sticks and I finally made my move to speak with the owner. We haggled a little but I had pretty much made up my mind that this would be a fine place for me for the next few years. So we came to an agreement and I began the paperwork process. Within a few weeks, I was moving in.
While I moved the boxes and all my stuff inside or into the garage, I noticed a few curious looks, from behind drawn curtains of my new neighbors, but no offers of help came. I really didn't have that much stuff, so I finished dragging things in quickly and then went inside to begin the unpacking.
After what seemed like an hour or so later, I had a good rhythm going with emptying moving boxes and stashing the contents roughly where they would go in the room. The doorbell interrupted me, and I realized I had a good sweat going, but was more-or-less presentable, so I answered.
"Hi there neighbor!" said a trim man and his cute wife, both apparently in their early forties. His hair was thinning but he still had a full head, in jeans and a polo shirt. She was slim and similarly dressed and carried a small baking pan topped with aluminum foil. "Welcome to the neighborhood," he continued cheerily.
"Hi, thanks. I'm Jerry," I said, wiping my hands off before extending it to shake his.
"I'm Tony, and this is Phil,"
"Hi, Phyllis actually, but Phil is just fine. We have some lasagna, since you must be starving and, to be honest, the local take-out places aren't so great!" She raised the pan in salute and I asked them to come in.
"Please don't mind the mess," I said, referring to the debris blown all over my living area, like a tornado had touched down to devastate only my downstairs. I took the still-warm pan from Phil and showed them my basic layout as I moved towards the kitchen. Basie, my basset hound ambled in from the back yard where he had been playing and exploring while I was unpacking with a couple multi-syllable woofs and yelps through the pet door. I made introductions but Basie went right over to Phil.
"Oh, isn't he precious!" she cried, bending over to play with Basie's long floppy ears. "It must be near your supper time too." After a generous sniff or two, my hound could not have card less about Phil, since he had scented the lasagna on the counter and began his song-and-dance routine to get at the food. I checked my watch and time had slipped; I must've been in a groove with unpacking as it was much later than I had thought and both Basie and I did need to eat.
"Wow! I guess this will come in really handy," I said gesturing towards Tony and Phil's gift of food. I'll have to find his kibble although he'll be awfully upset if he doesn't get the pasta. He loves pasta"
"Oh, we had a beagle that loved kiwi fruit," Tony said. "Aren't they funny with what they'll eat?"
"Do you still have him?" I asked, looking for a potential pet friend for Basie to keep him socialized.
"No, unfortunately Abby passed a few years ago, and Maddy, our daughter, hasn't brought herself to get a new pet. They grew up together so it was pretty traumatic for her." Tony explained. Maddy, he said, was their eighteen-year-old daughter who had not joined them to visit, since she was still at field hockey practice at the local high school. We chatted briefly about family, and since I had no kids and was divorced, there wasn't much input from my side of the story.
Once we finished, Tony and Phil excused themselves and I thanked them for the food as I showed them out. Tony and I spoke quickly about the renovations I was going to be doing and offered help if I needed it. They headed back to the larger split level home one house down across the street.
Once they were gone, I found Basie's chow and a dish and fed him and grabbed a fork for myself and ate directly from the pan. Ah, bachelor life. No need to pretend about things like plates, table settings or even manners for that matter when the meal was right there for the taking. My hound got a few bites of lasagna, but no more despite his vocal protests and mugging for sympathy. I went back to work for a while before taking him out for a walk around the neighborhood.
Getting back from our stroll, the sun was almost down, but there was that early fall glow and there was still enough light to see a car idling in front Phil and Tony's house with a teenage girl leaning into the passenger's side window, if I was correctly judging the attractive pair of legs in medium length gym shorts. Basie pulled at the leash, since he loves attention, and made a beeline for the car with a jingle of his ID tags.
When we were about 20 yards away, the owner of the legs pulled herself out of the car and turned to look at me questioningly but more at the dog who was ambling towards her. She was cute and athletic looking, in a typical teenage athlete way in shorts, t-shirt and dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, holding book bags and a field hockey stick. She melted seeing the loveable slobbering wreck that was my dog. "Oooooooh look at him!" she squealed, kneeling down to prepare herself for Basie's arrival.
"Hi, I'm Jerry. I just moved in across the street," I said with a wave. Basie was happily grunting as she scratched his head and chin at the same time. "And sorry about the drool. His drool, not, uh, mine." I added as an afterthought. Her grin was wide and easy.
