Maybe
that’s all I need.
I touch the fence. It needs to be sanded down and repainted. It’d look just like new.
I watch the house, willing any sign to come from it to show me I shouldn’t just leave.
There’s nothing.
That’s it. I’m gone.
“What are you doing?” a voice asks from behind me.
I turn.
Standing near the driveway of my mother’s house is a young girl of maybe eleven or twelve. She’s pretty, her dark hair braided and falling on her shoulder. She’s dressed in shorts and a white shirt streaked with dirt. There’s no fear on her face as she watches me, just curiosity.
“Uh, just… looking at houses,” I say lamely. “I like… fences.” Oh, because that doesn’t sound creepy at all.
“Oh?” she asks. “How peculiar. Is there something about this particular fence that does it for you?”
“What? No! I’m just going for a walk. Around the neighborhood. To see the sights.” Yeah, that sounds so much better. Good job. You’re doing great!
She shrugs. “Free country, I guess. Though I don’t know what sights there are to see here. It’s pretty bad.”
“Nah. I used to live in worse. The apartment my brother and I used to have had bugs all the time.”
“Like cockroaches?”
“Sometimes.”
“I don’t care about cockroaches,” she says. “Did you know they can survive a month without food?”
“I’d be okay if they didn’t survive at all,” I say.
“I like bugs,” she says. “I’m going to be an entomologist when I grow up.” She points down to her shirt. “I was digging back in the woods, trying to find Rosalia funebris.” She looks me up and down. “That’s a banded alder borer beetle, in case you didn’t know.”
“I knew that,” I say, even though I had no idea. I’m not going to look like some rube in front of a child. Who the hell does she think she is?
“Sure you did,” she says, rolling her eyes. “You totally look like the type that gets dirty.”
“I get dirty!”
“You nails sure look manicured,” she points out.
“Goddamn Kori,” I mutter as I hide my hands behind my back. “That was thanks to my ex-girlfriend. Well, sort of. Not sort of she gave me a manicure. Sort of she’s my ex-girlfriend. She’s also my ex-boyfriend. Wait, that doesn’t sound right either.”
“You’re a mess, huh?” she says. “Almost offensive too. I think the term is transgendered. Are you transphobic?”
“No! I’m not phobic anything.”
“Well, entomophobic, anyway.”
“I’m not scared of bugs! I just don’t like them.”
“Most of them won’t hurt you,” she observes. “Especially if you leave them alone.”
“I know that!”