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“Deal!”
“I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
Henry is waiting for me near the door to his utility room attached to his carport and gestures me in ahead of him. As soon as I step in, something warm and dark streaks past me, and I jump back with a strangled cry.
“Sorry,” he says. “That’s Cat. He must have been hanging out in here.”
“You have a cat namedCat? I would have pegged you for a literary reference. A Tolstoy or at least a moody Poe.”
“I’m more into the Greeks,” he says.
I shine my light on him, hoping there’s enough for him to see my irritation. “Fine. Euripides.”
His eyes widen.
“What?” I snap. “You’re surprised I know my Greek dramatists? Your cat made a dramatic exit, didn’t he?” We’d done a whole unit on the origins of theater in drama my senior year. I remember stuff like that.
“No, not surprised.” But he sounds faintly guilty.
I let it go and shine the light into the utility room, spotting the breaker box. I tug the cover open and give him the same short lesson I gave Evie. I peer out his door to his house as he flips them, nodding when the kitchen light comes on.
“Looks like that worked.” I’m about to add an apology for tripping the circuit in the first place, but he speaks first.
“Thanks for helping.”
“No problem.”
“For what it’s worth, I do think your yard has reached levels that won’t please the neighbors.”
Is he for real? He says it like he’s doing me a favor. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
“You’re welcome. I can walk you back to your place. Not much moon tonight, so a second light will help.”
“Actually, I’m not going in yet,” I say, making a sudden decision. Instead, I cross his yard diagonally to reach the Santa face.
“What are you doing?” he asks from beneath the protection of his carport.
“I suddenly want this done tonight.” I know he takes my meaning. Every time he looks out of his side windows from now until New Year’s, he’s going to see a Santa made out of lights.
There’s a long silence as I scoop up one of the unused light strands and pretend to check its placement in our display.
Then barely loud enough for me to be sure I heard him, he mutters, “Bah, humbug,” and disappears into his house.
I almost feel bad about my antics when I wake up on Monday. Henry’s judgy “won’t please the neighbors” had gotten so far underneath my skin that I’d let Evie do whatever she liked decoration-wise in the yard while I’d finished painting her room yesterday.
I probably would feel bad if Evie hadn’t declared it the “best day ever” as she joyfully looped even more strings of lights around everything she could reach.
But she had, and since we’d never been able to do Christmas up big as renters, I wasn’t about to shut her down. I have a full week of work and won’t be home to do more lights before dark, but I can do lights around the window interiors after work. We have bins and bins of them from Bill, and since their house is two thousand square feet bigger than ours, chances are good I won’t be able to use them all. I’m definitely going to try though.
I climb out of bed, smiling as I go to wake Evie and get her ready for school. No, I definitely don’t feel bad. The huge grin on her face when we flipped on the lights—working correctly this time—had been totally worth it.
She chatters about the next phase of her decorating plans on the short walk to school, and as I walk to work, I figure out how to subtly revise her chaotic aesthetic and bring some cohesion to the Christmas explosion in our yard.
Our yard. Man, that feels good to say.
Mondays tend to be slow in the store since most people tackle their projects over the weekend. I spend a couple hours reconciling the books and taking care of the two customers we get. By midmorning, I’m wondering what busywork project to tackle next when the bell over the door chimes to announce Lily Greene.
She’s always a delight, but I’m happier than usual to see her. I have questions.
