My neighbor mocked my old Honda, then egged it for blocking his brand-new fountain. He thought I’d quietly move the car. Instead, I sent him something I’d kept for twenty years.
At fifty-seven, I had learned there were two kinds of people worth avoiding before eight in the morning: people selling something and my neighbor Richard.
That Monday, I managed to meet both.
My lisp had followed me since childhood.
I was standing on my porch in slippers with a mug of coffee when a young man waved a roofing flyer at me.
“Ma’am, we’re doing free estimates.”
“My roof’s fine, sank you.”
There it was.
My lisp had followed me since childhood.
Most days, it was barely noticeable. But when I was tired or nervous, certain sounds betrayed me.
The young man didn’t react.
Then I heard Richard.
“Sree?”
“Linda! Come see this.”
Across the street, three workers were lowering an enormous stone fountain onto Richard’s lawn.
At sixty-one, he still had thick silver hair, a straight back, and the remarkable ability to make khaki shorts look expensive.
“I’m pretty happy from over here.”
He crossed the street anyway.
“Still an ass?”
Richard had been improving his house for years.
Imported flowers.
Decorative stone.
Outdoor lighting bright enough to guide a plane home.
Apparently, the fountain was his masterpiece.
“Custom design. Natural stone. Three tiers.”
“Sree?”
His mouth twitched.
I immediately regretted opening mine.
I wasn’t ashamed of it.
“Sorry. How many?”
“Richard.”
“Come on. How many tiers?”
“Still an ass?”
His smile disappeared. Good.
Richard had known about my lisp long enough to remember which words embarrassed me when I was younger.
His eyes dropped to my faded blue Honda. “You ever think about replacing that thing?”
“Wait till the lights come on tonight.”
“Nope.”
The Honda wasn’t pretty, but it was paid for. I’d bought it after my divorce, when I knew which gas station was three cents cheaper. I wasn’t ashamed of it.
At least, I didn’t want to be.
Richard glanced proudly at his fountain. “Wait till the lights come on tonight.”
“Sue would’ve laughed at sis.”
He stopped.
I wished I could pull the sentence back.
“You leaving that there?”
“You don’t need to tell me what my wife would’ve thought.”
Then he walked away.
Susan had been gone almost twenty years. My best friend. Richard’s wife. And the reason Richard and I could live across the street from each other while pretending we were little more than neighbors.
***
That evening, I drove home and found only one open parking spot.
Directly in front of Richard’s house. Of course.
I parked.
His front door opened before I’d even gotten out. “You leaving that there?”
Then she died.
“For a few days.”
“Linda, you’re blocking the view.”
“Of what?”
“My fountain.”
I looked past him. Water cascaded down all three illuminated tiers.
“Oh. I can still see it.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t sink I do.”
His eyes flicked toward my mouth. “You know how much that fountain cost?”
“Move it.”
“No.”
“Eight thousand dollars.”
“And?”
“I’d rather not have that sitting in front of it.” He pointed at my Honda.
There had been a time when Richard counted every dollar.
When Susan was alive, he didn’t need everyone to know how much things cost.
Then she died. And somehow, the man I’d known became this one.
My Honda was covered in eggs.
I locked my car. “Good night, Richard.”
“Move it.”
Normally, that would’ve been enough. I hated confrontation. But I looked at Richard standing beside his eight-thousand-dollar fountain, pointing at my car like it was garbage.
“No.”
His eyebrows rose. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
I walked home. Back then, I hadn’t understood why he looked at me as though I’d taken something from him.
I’d spent twenty years pretending not to notice. But something told me Richard was done pretending.
No witnesses.
***
The next morning, I looked out the window and nearly dropped the mug.
My Honda was covered in eggs. Yellow streaks ran down the windshield. Broken shells clung to the hood and roof. One egg had splattered across the driver’s-side window.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
I grabbed my phone, hurried outside, and took pictures before touching anything.
Richard’s fountain burbled peacefully behind my car. Of course it did.
I looked up and down the street. No kids. No witnesses. No cameras that I could see.
“I did it.”
Then Richard’s curtain moved.
Well, well.
I crossed the street and knocked.
He opened the door wearing a pressed polo shirt. “Morning, Linda.”
“Someone egged my car. I was wondering if you saw who did it.”
Richard smiled. “I did it.”
“You?”
“Yep. Figured I’d teach you a lesson.”
“You egged my car because I parked on a public street?”
“What was that?”
“Your junky car was blocking everyone’s view of my beautiful new fountain.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the fountain, then back at him. “Sat’s your reason?”
His eyes flicked toward my mouth. My face warmed.
Richard smiled. “What was that?”
I slowed down. “That’s. Your. Reason?”
His smile widened. “You heard me. I spent good money on that fountain. Nobody wants to look at your cheap car instead.”
“Still can’t say it, huh?”
The Honda was old. I knew that. But hearing Richard say cheap as though it described more than my car hit a nerve I wished it didn’t.
“You damaged my property.”
“Oh, it’ll wash off.”
“Sen you can pay to have it washed.”
He laughed. “Still can’t say it, huh?”
For a moment, I wasn’t fifty-seven anymore. I was younger, sitting at a kitchen table with Susan while Richard teased me about the same sounds. Back then, Susan had always made him stop. Now she wasn’t there.
“Move your car,” Richard said. “Or I’ll mess it up again.”
It had worked.
Twenty years ago, I would’ve gone home wondering what I’d done wrong. Apparently, fifty-seven-year-old me had finally gotten tired of that.
I had the Honda professionally cleaned that afternoon.
On my way home, I made one more stop.
There was something I’d kept for almost twenty years. Something Richard had never seen.
I sent it to him.
“What the heck did you send me?”
After the way he’d spoken to me that morning, I thought it was finally time Richard saw it.
When I pulled into my street later that afternoon, my Honda was clean again. Richard’s fountain was still sparkling in the sun. And Richard was running across the street toward me. I’d never seen him move that fast in my life.
Whatever he’d found inside my package, it had worked.
***
Richard reached me before I could shut the car door. His face was red, and for once, there wasn’t a trace of that smug little smile.
“I don’t owe you anything.”
“What the heck did you send me?”
I took my purse from the passenger seat and got out. “So you got it.”
“Why would you send me something like that?”
“You know why.”
Richard stared at me as if he were trying to decide how much I knew. “You knew about it?”
“Of course I did.”
His mouth fell open slightly.
“You took her from me.”
I locked my Honda and faced him. “Richard, you’ve known me for over twenty years. You can pretend we’re strangers for the neighbors, but don’t do it with me.”
“I don’t owe you anything.”
“I didn’t ask for anything. I want you to leave my car alone and start acting like a decent neighbor.”
He let out a bitter laugh. “Decent. That’s rich coming from you.”
The old Linda would’ve let that pass. I didn’t. “What is sat supposed to mean?”
Richard looked toward the neighboring houses before stepping closer. “You know exactly what you did.”
“You should’ve left this buried.”
For a second, neither of us spoke.
Then he said the thing I’d suspected for almost twenty years. “You took her from me.”
My stomach tightened. Susan. So that was it.
“She left me because of you,” he continued. “And now you pull this?”
“No, Richard. Susan left because you were obsessed with money.”
His face went still. I’d hit something.
At 10:43, Richard’s porch light went out.
“You don’t know a damn thing about my marriage.” For a moment, I thought Richard might finally tell me everything he’d blamed me for all these years. Instead, he backed away. “You should’ve left this buried.”
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