Wherever the Wind Blows Me.... Laurie Jr. Murphy

like me! Is this her idea of a joke? Is she mocking me? How rude! I should turn around and walk away. I should call the newspaper and stop delivery immediately. She has no social graces. No social etiquette. You just don’t sneak up on someone like this. Hi, she says. Hi, Julie, I say.

      This morning ritual goes on for the better part of a week. If I get the paper at eight, she’s there. If I wait until nine, she’s there. If I don’t pick it up until well after ten, there again. Four mornings in a row, we exchange greetings. Four mornings in a row she wears her nightgown. I know she and her deceptive husband are laughing at me. Behind my back. Laughing over my nightgown. I am completely offended. Then, on the fifth morning she announces that her name is Jill, not Julie. But you can call me Julie if you want to, she says.

      I am mortified. And angry. Her husband did not say her name was Jill. At least, I don’t think he did. Unless he mumbles. That could be a possibility. He looks like a man who might mumble. Or it is certainly possible that he is playing some sort of trick, a cruel joke, to make her not like me. A family of tricksters, that’s what they are. Maybe he is getting back at me for thinking he is a handyman. But in order to know that I actually believed him to be a worker, rather than an owner, he would have had to read my mind. Is it possible that he is not only a spoon-bender but also a mind reader? That must be it, I think. A family of mind readers, vagabonds, spoon benders, and who knows what else? Still, I can’t avoid them entirely. I am not about to place myself in a position that would be interpreted by them to be oppositional, not if my fate rests in their hands, their spells, their wizardry.

      As a protective measure, I decide I will call her Jill. After all, it is her name. Just as it should be.

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      Strangely, I feel some inner longing trying to break through. Something familiar from another time. Something I can’t put my finger on. It’s disconcerting. Jill has taken up lodging in my head, an uninvited resident, snarling my brains. A resident with one name I have to erase, and another that I have to remember.

      I want to mind the rules. Neighbors are neighbors, not friends. Otherwise, the next thing you know, they make comments about your comings and goings. No sooner did I have that thought, than that is exactly what happened! On the ninth week, Rod is outside playing with his son. He waves. Then he comments about how I take the garbage cans to the street late at night. The gravel driveway amplifies the sound, he says. So what? I think. There’s no garbage can curfew. There’s no law about the time of night you can take out your garbage. I don’t comment about his hammering all night long. Mind your business, I think.

      If they know about my garbage can ritual, what else do they know? What about my schedule? My predictable schedule. Should they assume that I have no plans on a Saturday night if my car remains in the driveway? Will they talk behind my back on Sunday morning if I don’t go to Church? Should I start being more faithful about going to Church just so that they don’t talk? No, I think. That’s how Jill will control me. It’s already starting. But I should go to Church, I want to go to Church, but now I don’t know my real intentions. Am I going because I want to give them nothing to talk about, or because I really want to go? Does it matter? Does it count, with God, I mean, if I go to satisfy my own paranoia?

      I feel conflicted. And crazy. They really are making me crazy. I don’t need this. I am going to do the exact opposite of what I think they think I should do, to defy their super-powers. This has gone too far. They are sucking the air out of my space.

      Still, I wonder if there is any chance that she could be my friend. If she would like me. I feel so torn, twisted by my own sanctions. It is tempting to let her into my life. I feel embarrassed that I am so desperate to have a friend. I wish they never moved here. I was doing fine without them. My head hurts. My heart hurts.