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1
BRENDAN
Isip my coffee slowly. It’s freshly brewed and just short of scalding. The clock ticks to my right as I sit in my worn but comfortable side chair and stare across the street. My wooden blinds are slatted just enough for me to look out but not be seen, and my house is dark. By all appearances, I’m sound asleep, perhaps knocked out from too many Thanksgiving leftovers and a hit of eggnog. That’s what she’ll think, anyway.
Charlie jumps onto my lap and curls up, his fluffy orange tail serving as a pillow for his chin. He doesn’t seem perturbed even though I’m not in bed where I’m supposed to be.
“How you doing, old boy?” I scratch the top of his head and take another sip of coffee.
He purrs in answer.
The clock ticks, the wind blows, and the sliver of moon sits high overhead.
It’s quiet.
Peaceful.
Then the clock ticks over to 12:00 am, December 1.
A light flicks on in the cottage across the street, its neat shrubs all in a row like pawns on a chessboard, ready for war.
“Here she goes.” I can’t stop my smile when I see her front door pop open and the porch light go on.
She’s wearing a dark sweater, gloves on her hands, a red pompom knit hat, and jeans. It’s frigid outside, but she’s coming out here to work. Her effort will keep her warm.
Glancing my way, she pauses for only a moment before reaching back inside the house and hauling out an enormous Christmas wreath.
“I bet she made that herself.” I scratch under Charlie’s chin.
The wreath is round and perfect, the holly leaves just so, the red berries decorating it at the perfect angles, and two cardinals perching along the top. She has a knack. I’ve never doubted it. In the three years I’ve lived here, she’s never failed to impress me.
Scurrying back inside, she closes the door for no more than a minute, then she reappears with a large box in her arms. She’s so small, it’s a wonder she doesn’t topple over, but she manages it, setting it gingerly on her dormant grass and opening the top.
What happens next is a dance that I watch every year—one that warms me even as it vexes me. This woman, Ariadne Morton, is relentless. Her hair is tucked neatly inside her knit cap, but I know it’s blonde and long. Her hips flare out, her waist narrows just a bit, and her breasts could be considered small by modern standards. But to me, they’re perfect.
I watch her the same as always. She carefully lifts out string after string of lights from her box. She’s run an extension cord from the plug to the right of her red front door and tests each strand before unfurling it on the “good” side of the yard or dropping it into a heap on the “bad” side of the yard, reserved for lights that refuse to do their job.
Meticulous and exacting, she assembles her troops. Each strand of lights, each window wreath, each bow—she’ll work them all into her design.
The first year I lived here, she didn’t get up at midnight on the first day of December. Back then, she decorated on the first, but wasn’t quite so rigid about it. She waited until the sun rose and hung her wreath and strung her lights.
Then I put up some lights of my own.
She put up more.
Curious, I added a snowman.
She added two.
Even more curious, I strung lights along the roofline of my house.
She strung digital icicle lights that looked like white starbursts of snow falling along her eaves.
Everything I did, she did more of. Each decoration I put up, she one-upped. Naturally, I kept adding more to tease my cute, if reclusive, neighbor. I’d even knocked on her door one day, hoping to break the ice over a hot chocolate, but she didn’t answer. She was home, probably glaring at me through her peephole as I waited patiently with two steaming cups of chocolate in my hands. That’s when the competition became a bit more serious for me. She won’t meet with me? Fine. I can get her attention in plenty of other ways.
Back then, a few houses farther down the lane put out a smattering of lights, but she didn’t seem to react to those. Only me. Only my lights. And so it’s been every year since. An arms race of holly, and trees, and LED lights. One I’m going to win.
I smile into my coffee and reach for the homemade remote on the side table.
