No sooner had the key turned off in the ignition than I saw disaster about to strike. Snatching open the car door, I raced across the street.
"Wait!" I yelled as I Olympic-hurdled a lawn sprinkler.
Three feet up a ladder, Mrs. Kemp turned to look at me. She smiled and stepped back down. "Hey, Jimmy. When did you get home?"
Panting to catch my breath, I gave her a grin. "Came in... late last night." I pointed over my shoulder at my car. "Mom had me to go grab a few things at Wally World for her."
Mrs. Kemp nodded then looked back up the ladder towards her gutters.
"Well, if I had known I would have asked you to get me a few things for me as well. Save me the trip in the rain later." She sighed. "I hate to rush you off, Jimmy. I would love to talk, but I have got to get this corner gutter cleaned out before the rain gets here. I had a waterfall on my roses this morning!"
It was easy to see what she meant. Her rose bushes, long prized for their massive flowers, were stripped of every petal, and the ground under them showed signs of new dirt being added. As I looked, she started back up the ladder with her left hand clutched around a garden trowel.
"Let me get that," I urged, catching one side of the ladder to steady it. "I know you hate heights."
"I do hate heights, but I love my roses more than I fear anything." With shaking hands she took another step up the ladder. I saw her pause, close her eyes, and take a slow breath. She was all of five feet from the ground, with fifteen more to go to get to the corner gutter.
"Mrs. Kemp, come back down here. Let me do that. I'm not afraid of heights."
Her hands and legs shook with fear she slowly did as I asked. When her feet touched the ground she turned away with tears in her eyes. I heard her mutter a curse word under her breath.
"I'm sorry ... Here you are. And thank you."
Taking the trowel she handed me, I shot up the ladder as the first drops of rain were starting to fall. Quickly, I gave up on the garden tool though and started to pull soggy handfuls of dead leaves from the drain. A tangled mess, soon revealing itself to be a bird's nest. I unblocked the drain hole, and even as the downpour started, I was done.
"Come down here before you get struck by lightning!" she yelled up to me as the sky lit up above us. I was down when the thunder rumbled off the siding in front of me. I pulled the ladder back down, laid it on the grass, and then we scrambled to get out the rain even as the bottom fell out. We didn't make it.
Laughing, and getting soaked, Mrs. Kemp and I ran up onto her porch.
Slicking my hair back, I looked at her smiling face as she used the palms of her hands to brush back her hair. I had to do my best to not look down as I could see that she was plastered wet. She noticed, and with a blush, pulled her T-shirt out from her chest a bit.
"Didn't mean to get you soaked like this," she apologized.
"I'll live. It's just water."
"Let me get you a towel," she offered, her hand going to the door.
"No point. I still have to get the groceries out the car," I said.
We both flinched as lightning popped off in the distance a bit.
"Maybe you should wait."
"I have butter and frozen fish sticks. And ice cream. If it melts it will be all over my back seats." With a shrug, I looked up at the pouring sky. "Oh well."
"Wait. Here."
Stepping inside, she handed me out a large umbrella from the ceramic urn just inside her door.
"Thanks," I told her as I shook it out. "I'll get it back to you just as soon as I'm done."
Her face fell a bit. "There's no rush. It was Mitchel's. I don't use it."
Opening the umbrella, I nodded understanding and looked her in the eyes. Those sad, blue eyes that look so much like her daughter's. Her face isn't that different either. Given how badly my heart had been broken, I should resent anyone with that face but ... no. Not Mrs. Kemp. Through all the crap I got handed to me by her child, she had been there for me. On my side, or so it had seemed at the time.
"I'll get it back to you, soon."
Leaving my ex-girlfriend's mother standing there, I went across the street.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
Mom was pissed that it took me so long to go get a few things. I blamed the lines at Walmart for that.
"It's those stupid self-checkouts!" she said; now mad at someone other than me.
Mom, busy with dinner, went into her normal rant about the ills of Walmart. I tuned her out as my mind fell backward into memories of the past year. Looking around the kitchen, it felt surreal that I was back home. The long months living in the dorm, study till my eyes burned, seemed far more real than this place. My home.
When Lynn, my high school sweetheart, decided that we could not stay together with us at separate colleges and had broken off a three-year relationship with me, I simply crashed. Emotionally, mentally, and physically. It took me a few days to realize that drinking till dawn then drinking till dusk was not going to take away the pain. When the hangovers cleared, I buried myself in my studies. I hid myself in books.
Like I always had.
"I heard Lynn is coming home for break as well."
I ignored my Mom's eyes on me as I felt my hand tighten into a fist under the table. The pain tried to swell up, but I pushed it down.
"Good for her," I muttered.
"Maybe you should ask her out. Take her to a few of the old places." Mom's hint hit like sledgehammers, but then they always had.
"She broke up with me," I reminded her as I got to my feet and grabbed a soda from the fridge. I eyed my dad's beer supply with a hungry feeling but stuck to soda.
"Yes ... but maybe ..."
"Mom. Drop it." I looked her in the eyes to let her know I didn't want to discuss Lynn. "She and I are done. She made it quite clear that she was going to be seeing others and that I should do the same."
There was a small pause then a sigh I was not supposed to hear.
"Have you been? Seeing others?" she asked.
Looking over the rim of the soda can, I let a cold sip wash over my tongue. "Did you get laid last night, Mom?"
"Jimmy!"
I gave her a few seconds then smiled. "Till you want to answer my questions about your sex life, don't ask me about mine." I grinned at her blush. "Okay?"
Her face still aflame Mom nodded. Her embarrassment told me I was probably right about the low moan I had heard when I was trying to get to sleep last night.
"I just worry about you," she said after a moment. Her back to me, she had resumed cooking. "You're my only son, and I worry. It's what moms do."
Getting up, I placed a hand on her shoulder. "I'm fine. It hurt. I got over it, and I'm fine. I just want to give it some time till I look for another girl to break my heart." I grinned a bit at the look she gave me. "Besides, if you want someone to worry over, I would nominate Dad."
She looked back at me confused.
"Well, from the sounds he was making last night, I think he needs to see a doctor."
"Jimmy!"
"Sounded like he was choking on a fish bone," I said as serious as I could.
"JIMMY!"
Grabbing my soda, I went to see what was on TV.
** ** ** ** ** **
The rain drifted east just as the sun was starting to set. The sky behind me a beautiful red to purple, I walked across the street to Mrs. Kemp's. Her house, once the pride of the neighborhood, was showing the results of two years without a man's hands. I could see that she was doing her best to keep it up, but there were things that she could not do. Anything evolving heights were of course at the top of the list. Trees were starting to overhang at the tops. There were even ivy plants hanging from one corner where the gutter there had become even more filled than the one I cleared earlier.
I rang the doorbell. Her dog, Gypsy, began to bark frantically. I looked around as I waited.
Still her rose bushes were healthy. The grass along the driveway was trimmed neatly. There was maybe not fresh mulch under the trees, but what mulch there was had been raked into a near-perfect circle.
I heard movement behind the door even as the barking went to apocalyptic levels.
"Back, girl. Oh, hey Jimmy, come on in." She leaned down and caught up the little Chihuahua-mix even as the dog tried to make her escape past my leg. "Give me just a second to deal with her."
"She's fine. She and I are old friends. Hey, girl," Kneeling down, I caught the little ball of fluff, tongue, and energy just as soon as Mrs. Kemp put her back down. "Who's a pretty girl?"
All wiggles and tail, I lifted her and dropped the borrowed umbrella back into the urn at the same time.
"Brought this back."
"That could have waited," she said. I could see that she was torn wanting to take back Gypsy and embarrassed by the dog's efforts to lick my face. After a second she looked up at my eyes and smiled. "Jimmy, would you like a cup of coffee?"
The look on my face must have been ecstatic because she started to laugh even as I said yes. I set the little dog down before it had a joy-gasm coronary and follow Mrs. Kemp towards her kitchen. The clicking of little-nailed feet both preceded me and followed me as she ran back and forth between us.
"So I take it your Mom is still on her
say-no-to-coffee
long life crusade?" Mrs. Kemp asked me as she filled the kettle with water.
"Oh, it's starting to take on legendary proportions." I pulled one of the tall stools out from under the kitchen island and watched her. "I heard her talking on the phone about wanting to go protest the new Starbucks they want to open."
I almost wanted to moan as the smell hit me when she started to grind the roasted beans. A true coffee connoisseur living across the street from the queen of
