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“lovely” by Billie Eilish and Khalid
“Shake It Out” by Florence + The Machine
“A Case of You” by Joni Mitchell
“I Can’t Feel My Face” by The Weeknd
“Hallelujah” by Jeff Buckley
“Stars” by Grace Potter and The Nocturnals
“Meet Me At Our Spot” by Willow, THE ANXIETY, and Taylor Cole
“Permission to Dance” by BTS
“You Right” by Doja Cat and The Weeknd
“You Send Me” by Aretha Franklin
My new neighbor arrived at midnight on a Thursday. First came the moving truck, followed by a black SUV. Mrs. Cooper, the former owner of the house, passed away a while back. A damn shame. The woman was not only nice, but she made biscuits like you wouldn’t believe. For years the grand old Victorian house sat empty at the end of the cul-de-sac. Not unusual for a small town. Few people wanted to move to the middle of nowhere in Northern California, no matter how picturesque it might be. While the house had been sold not long after listing, there’d been no sighting of the new owner until now.
Who the hell moved in the middle of the night? It seemed covert and suspicious. Like something a criminal or government agent would do. Maybe this just happened to be the time they arrived. But most people would stay at a hotel and wait for daylight. Surely.
The only things ever happening at midnight in Wildwood were: 1. Harry, the town drunk, performing Bob Dylan classics in the middle of Main Street. 2. Me, an insomniac, wandering aimlessly around my house. That was it. Everyone else in the whole wide world—or our corner of it—was fast asleep.
Half hidden behind a curtain, I watched the truck being unloaded. A full moon shone down through the pine trees as the moving men hauled stuff inside. The guy who drove the SUV went straight into the house. He was white and tall and wore a ball cap. That was about all I could see. Maybe he was setting the place up for his wife and family. Maybe he had a boyfriend. He couldn’t possibly be single, heterosexual, under sixty, and emotionally mature. My luck just wasn’t that good. Not that I intended to date again in this lifetime.
Whoever he was and whatever he was doing, it would all be known in due course. Such was the joy of small-town life.
Once the furniture was moved inside, things got a little dull. There’s not much you can tell about people from their boxes.
I took the opportunity to once again check the locks on all my windows and doors. Then I made a cup of chamomile tea. Neither of these things helped me sleep, but the rituals were soothing. Mom always said I had a busy mind. I didn’t necessarily think about anything useful, I just thought a lot. At night, I tended to think about books, bad memories, and ex-boyfriends. The last two were often one and the same. Along with a mixture of random embarrassing moments throughout my life just for fun.
As a child, I was the daydreamer who got busted humming in class when everyone else was concentrating. (Like anybody actually needed algebra. If you can work out the discount at a shoe sale, you’re good to go. Then again, this attitude might explain why my life had gone approximately nowhere.)
I returned to the window just in time to see my mystery man reappear. The new neighbor strode out to the Range Rover and opened up the back. When he once more headed toward the house, the ball cap was gone and his shoulder-length hair was on display. In each hand he carried a guitar case.
I perked up. Musicians were cool. Unless he owned electric guitars and believed in turning the volume up to eleven. That could get old fast.
