MyGirlsNext Door
Note to the Reader:
This novella encompasses 40 book pages (4 chapters, 20,000 words), with all 4 chapters published here.
Chapter 1
Sue Bradley lived with her mother and two very cute daughters in the marginally maintained, post WWII rancher on the lot south of my old farmhouse. As close as I could tell, she was divorced and both those kids were his, whoever he had been. But maybe there really was no ex at all. In those days you couldn't always tell because out-of-wedlock pregnancy still carried quite a load of unsavory stigma, and even myth was better than that. But twice? Her kids certainly weren't twins.
I never saw him around, you know taking those girls for weekend 'custody with Daddy time' or anything like that. Maybe he had died or been killed, but I suspected he'd simply abandoned the two of them, their mother, and their grandmother.
Raising two daughters? Well, that's a full time job, even with a good man helping out. I don't know what they lived on. Maybe Sue's mother got some social security as well as her minimum wage from bussing tables at Swifty's Pizza over on Washington Avenue.
For short periods I'd see evidence Sue was working, then later not working, then after a while, working again. Off-handedly at our common mailbox stand one day, I asked how work was going, only to learn she'd had to quit. Seemed with her mother working as well, meant she had to put her girls in daycare, and once she paid that, so little remained she was far better off to quit, take welfare, and spend the time helping her girls grow up instead. Tough situation. I could tell she preferred to work, but what could she do? I didn't ask again, but I observed the continuing
work-quit-work-quit-work
cycle from my vantage point next door.
I've always been one of those handyman type guys, working on my vehicles or welding up something in my shop. So I guess Sue and her mother figured I might have use for the furnace oil tank taking up space in their basement after they converted to natural gas. It was one of those 325 gallon oval ones most people used during the heyday of oil heat. It took up lots of basement space, and overall it made sense they wanted it out of there.
But what a situation! No way in hell to get it up the stairs and out of the house in one piece, and a mess--and dangerous--to cut up and remove piece-by-piece. But as a result of scoping out that job, I got a brief look inside their home. It looked mostly
inexpensive normal
for a young woman, two kids, and grandma on minimum wage. I decided to pass on the tank; nothing in if for me, and a fair amount of risk. Last thing I wanted was an explosive fire that left them with no place to live, and me possibly lying dead on their basement floor. After all, the tank was benevolent as it sat, although remaining an annoying space waster.
I had long before noted that Sue, although not blessed with a ravishing beauty's face, wasn't homely by a long shot, and filled a pair of tight jeans and a blouse quite nicely. Her kids made no nuisance of themselves--unlike many of the neighborhood spawn--so that, too, worked in Sue's favor. But there was the nagging matter of her missing ex. Three years out of college, I'd already dated a few divorcees, and quickly discovered most of them carried around much more old baggage than just their kids. I'll never know if their ex's deserved it--lots probably did--but many outright hated the guy they'd promised to
love, honor, and obey 'til death do us part
. Being a guy, I had troubles enough understanding women without looking for additional grief in places where it had already shown itself likely.
Sue's driveway--or should I say, that of her mother--entered their lot somewhat shrouded from my place by a hedge and stub fence. So usually where they parked, I could only see the rear corner of their car. But one morning the car sat closer to the street, so it caught my attention as I headed out for work. The flat tire had gotten them somewhat closer to the street before being discovered. The car, a big, well worn Ford product, remained thus for the next two days, only to stand on three legs with a jack under the fourth corner the following day.
That evening my doorbell rang.
"Hi," Sue said, her voice pleasant, but obviously frustrated.
"Hi, yourself. Car troubles?" She hadn't gotten that dark smudge on her arm cooking supper.
"Damned flat tire."
"Oh, I thought you were doing a jack test over there. Can I help?"
"Would you please? I can't get the nuts loose to get the wheel off." Her smile broke with the taint of her frustration.
"Sure. Know what size wrench it takes?"
Sue gave me one of those
you expect a woman to know that?
looks. I sort of smirked to let her know having that answer wasn't critical to her evening project's success.
"I'll meet you over there in a few minutes with wrenches?" I said.
"I'll help you bring them over if you'll let me."
"Sure." I mean, why not? I had no secrets in my shop, or my house--or my pickup truck, for that matter.
She followed me through the living room, kitchen, and out the back door into my garage/shop. Odd, I thought, how close she followed, not quite bumping into me, but not lagging much behind either, like a woman normally would. Well, what of it? I didn't really mind.
I tossed two jacks, some cribbing blocks, wrenches, and the other likely-needed tools into my truck, invited her to ride over with me, and we went. All of a hundred yards, maybe. Ridiculous, I know, but we just had too many pieces to hand-carry in one trip. At the other end we piled out, and I'll have to say this for Sue, she chipped right in and helped carry the stuff to where we needed it.
"Thirteen-sixteenths," I said, sticking the appropriate size wrench socket on my flex handle socket driver.
No wonder she couldn't get that wheel loose. The wrench handle I had was at least half again longer than her OEM Ford wrench lying next to the wheel, and still I had to give it almost all the strength I had before even the easiest nut turned loose. Damn those tire shops and their air-wrench carelessness about over-tightening wheel nuts! But soon we had success, the tire off, and ready to get fixed.
"So what next?" I said.
"Spare's flat, too, so I guess wait for tomorrow morning and take it to Montie's Tire over on Dentry Avenue. It's the closest, I think."
"How you getting it over there?"
"Roll it, I guess."
"That's a half mile, at least."
Sue looked up at me with
no other way
written on her face.
"Come on. If we hurry, we can still get to Evergreen Tire before they close. They're no farther and I think they're open 'til seven."
"Mr. Strong, I don't want to put you out."
"Not putting me out." I mean, how could a handyman guy like me be put out by a little thing like this damsel in distress? "Come on. Get in while I put this in back."
At the tire shop, though, we discovered her situation wasn't so simply solved. Not only was her tire's tread worn well below government mandated limits, but its casing was failing as well. So, business liability insurance, company policy, and DOT regulations being what they were, left Sue with no usable tire for her car. When they quoted her a new, budget-level tire, I saw her cringe. Even the price quote for a good used tire caused a wince. She looked up at me with
Help? Suggestions?
on her face.
Well, here was my chance to prove myself a worthy knight in shining armor.
"I may have a usable tire that size at home. Let's take this wheel back and see. There, Sue, pay the man for removing your old tire and we'll go check."
"But, even if you have one, they'll be closed before we can get back."
"Yes, but we'll see."
Well that worked out well all around. They didn't charge Sue for stripping the dead tire off her wheel. Maybe it had something to do with them recognizing me as one of their many times, repeat customers. I had no tire machine in my shop, but I sweated my stiff, half-worn tire onto her wheel the old fashioned way: tire irons, soap, and lots of grunts and swear words. So we--Sue, I mean--had a workable solution. She pretty much took over reinstalling the wheel once I got the tire and wheel back to her Ford. I only watched, thinking all the time it's really nice to see a woman who doesn't just throw up her hands in the face of minor adversity and expect a fix handed to her on a silver platter.
"There,' she said once the last wheel nut was on and tightened as best she could. "Check those, will you please?"
I gave them a quick check, and all five were plenty tight. "Good," I said, nodding as I looked up at her.
"So if they're tight enough, now, then why couldn't I get them loose before?"
"Tire shops get careless and over tighten them. Sometimes I think they do that so they can rake in another road service call."
"That's expensive, right?"
