I can't believe that I'm celebrating the 20th anniversary of being Andrea's neighbor. It's not something typically celebrated. It is nice to have a neighbor for a long period of time, but since we've been such close neighbors, a celebration of 20 years of coffee together in the morning is so fitting and so precisely correct for us.
It was that long ago that Andrea moved next door to us with her husband Paul and their daughter. It was perfect since their daughter was the same age as our daughter and they would be going to school together. They would be in the same class and ride the same bus to school. Having next-door neighbors ride the bus was extra convenient since it guaranteed that the bus would stop at the end of our driveway, making the trip to the bus stop as short as possible. Gathering at the bus stop each morning provided the opportunity to get to know Andrea a few minutes at a time.
Since I am a real estate agent, my schedule is generally pretty flexible in the morning. I could leisurely hang out at the bus stop after getting the kids ready, taking a cup of coffee out to the curbside. Andrea has the same flexibility; she is a local attorney, working in the family office doing fairly easy work. Some property transactions, wills, simple contracts, etc. were her main business items. Very little is ever so pressing that it kept her from having a similarly leisurely morning. While time has passed and our children are grown, we've continued to have the ease of no time pressures on most days.
So, it was over those morning chats 20 years ago that we got to know each other. As the school year started, we would all gather on the curb. Our daughters talked and quickly becoming friends, Andrea and I sipping our coffee and similarly building a friendship. We talked about the other neighbors, cooking dinner, occasionally there would be a work topic and we would share complaints about some other real estate agent or attorney involved in property transactions. Nothing like a little professional gossip over morning coffee with the chance to complain about those crazies that we dealt with every day.
In the middle of the second week of school, all the parents received an invitation to an "end of summer, get to know the other parents" dance at school. While the school thought they were doing us all a favor by giving us an evening out from the kids, I actually believed the real purpose of the evening was to give all the high school kids a baby-sitting assignment. There were usually enough good babysitters to go around, but on the nights when everyone needed somebody, most had to go to their second or third choices if they didn't call quickly enough. The day after we received the invitation, I commented to Andrea that I'd need to find a dress for the evening but that I'd been quick enough to line up my favorite babysitter as soon as I saw the announcement.
As we were talking about the dance, our daughters asked if they could have a sleep-over sometime soon. Andrea and I immediately agreed to that idea, proposing the Saturday evening of the big dance. Andrea's concern about finding a babysitter on this side of town was immediately addressed. In return for sharing my babysitter, she offered to share one of her dresses. She told me that she had too many dresses for events like this and couldn't wear them all to this dance.
I'd never done more that take a quick glance at Andrea's body as the attractive women moving in next door. As she suggested sharing a dress, I took another look, thinking about imagining how our bodies compared to gauge if I could wear one of her dresses. As I looked at her body, I was suddenly struck by her breasts, something that had never happened as we had spoken on any previous day. She wasn't wearing a bra. I'd never noticed that she would be bra-less at our morning bus stop gatherings, but this day, I saw that. I didn't know if it was just that this was the first time I'd noticed or if she generally was dressed that way. As I thought about it, I just assumed that she had gotten dressed a little more quickly than usual in needing to get her daughter ready for school. I also wondered what kind of pervert I had become, noticing that another woman wasn't wearing a bra.
But, more importantly, it did give me a good look at her chest and upper body. Her body was similarly sized to mine, so borrowing a dress just might work. All I'd need to navigate was the potential that our taste in dresses was so different that I'd have to decline the offer and be embarrassed to tell her I didn't like any of her dresses.
I couldn't stop focusing on her bra-less chest. Once I had it in my mind, it was all I could think about as we talked. Did she do that on purpose? Why would she do that, I'd never looked at her chest before so why was she showing it off to me. Was she showing it off to me? I'd never been attracted to women. I had no such experience in my entire life and her I was, fixated on another woman's body.