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HAVE you ever wondered why they have mirrors at gyms?
Let me tell you. It’s all part of a marketing scheme. No one looks good after exercising. Have you ever seen someone after they climbed off the stair stepper? They look like they got caught up in a tornado. When you step off of a machine and glance at yourself in the mirror, you see how bad you look, and then you assume that you need to go to the gym more so that you can start looking good. The mirrors are simply a reminder to not cancel your gym membership.
On Fridays, no one went into the office except Susan and me. Even then, we only worked a partial day. Unfortunately, Lyle had more questions about accessing the accounts, so he stopped by the office, and I was stuck answering roughly five thousand questions. You would have thought that, as the social media manager, it wouldn’t have been difficult to log into the employee portal.
I was wrong.
Finally, at noon, I told him as politely as possible that if he couldn’t start figuring these things out, maybe media management wasn’t for him.
I still got part of the day off, though. Three o’clock in the afternoon and I had already made it to the gym. The gym was nearly empty except for a few senior citizens and Jason, the gym rat, who was wiping down a weight machine.
That was the problem with working out earlier in the day. There weren’t any young people there. I missed my chance to scout around for Mr. Right. I mean, it wasn’t like Mr. Right was going to show up on my doorstep. I was going to have to put myself out there so he could find me. Which was why I usually planned my gym time strategically for when other young people were getting off of work and heading to the gym.
Maybe, one of these days, Mr. Right would decide to come to my gym, we’d make eye contact over the sea of treadmills, and know, without a doubt, that the other sweaty one was our soulmate.
It was only a matter of time before I experienced love at first sight, like my parents did. Until that time, I was going to keep coming to the gym to keep this body fit so that my Prince Charming recognized me at first sight, too.
My best friend, Carmen, thought I was insane for believing in love at first sight. I thought she was cynical. She didn’t have a romantic bone in her body.
Turning up the resistance on the elliptical, I watched as Jason—who was always at the gym—helped an elderly lady climb onto a treadmill and start it at a slow pace. He even leaned the woman’s cane against the wall for her.
Nice guys like that weren’t easy to find. I wished I was attracted to him, because he seemed sweet and caring. He was at the gym no matter what time I was, but he didn’t have that “full of himself” attitude that some men—ahem, my neighbor—had when they looked as good as he did. Unfortunately, I wasn’t interested.
Two strikes on love: no on Jason, and no on Not-Hot Neighbor.
I shouldn’t have let my neighbor’s behavior affect me. Instead of engaging him, I should have ignored him and walked away. Oh wait, I did that, and now he probably thought that he could get away with anything. He was insane if he thought he could harass me like that.
How did you get even with a complete stranger who thought you were a joke?
By being sneaky, of course.
It couldn’t be something that he could catch me doing, and it couldn’t be illegal. Being raised in the Boone family meant I could come up with something to remind him to keep his big bare feet on his own property.
It only took me three more minutes of high resistance on the elliptical to come up with a strategy. With evil plans rolling around in my mind, I wiped down the machine and gathered my things.
As I grabbed my keys from the front desk, Jason met me at the door with an easy smile.
“Mind if I walk you to your car?”
I smiled at him, even though I looked like a hot mess. “Sure!”
He held the door open for me, then followed me into the parking lot. Chivalry wasn’t dead after all.
“I noticed you helping that woman on the treadmill; that was sweet of you.”
“That’s Ethel Carver. She’s been jogging every day for the past fifty years—or so she told me.” He grinned and opened my car door for me. “Work been going good for you?”
“It’s been good. We have a couple new employees we’re trying to help get settled.”
“It’s always tough teaching new employees the ropes. It’s probably my least favorite part of a business,” he said with a grimace.
This was it. This was my opportunity to be nosy without it being too obvious. “So, what do you do?”
His eyes twinkled. “I own this gym.”
“Huh.” I didn’t know what to say. I’d never been accused of being observant—for example, my neighbor using my trash can for a couple weeks—but you would have thought I’d have realized why Jason was always at the gym. “Now it makes sense why you’re here at all hours.”
He looked amused. “Did you think I lived here?”
“Yes, actually. I was beginning to wonder if you slept on the weight benches.” I winked as I climbed into the car.
“I actually have a house,” he said in mock excitement. “With a bed and everything. I only spend twenty-three out of twenty-four hours a day at the gym.”
“I knew it. You’re an obsessive exerciser.”
“Ah, now you’re just hurting my feelings,” he said as he put his hand over his heart. “I’ll try to forgive you before I see you next.”
I grinned at him as he stepped back and closed my car door. He looked through the window with an attempt at a puppy-dog face. He failed, and we both ended up laughing as I drove away.
I grabbed my phone and put it on speakerphone as I called my friend, Carmen.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?” she answered.
“Yeah, I do. You’re only an hour ahead of me, crazy girl.”
“I was napping,” her grumpy voice filtered through the line. “That’s what people do on vacation.”
Carmen and I had been friends since third grade. We’d even survived the awkward teenage years and cutting our own bangs together.
“Meh, you can sleep any old time. You should be out enjoying Cancun!”
“I was napping on the beach. Best of both worlds. I’m still mad at you for not coming with me.”
“I couldn’t exactly take vacation time when I’ve only been at this job for a year.”
“You’re annoyingly responsible,” Carmen said.
“Yes, I know, but I finally got your room cleaned out this week. It’s ready for when you get back.”
“Perfect! I called my mom last night, and she’s hiring some movers to bring all of my stuff there from the studio, but that probably won’t happen for another few weeks.”
Carmen lived in a studio apartment above her grandparents’ garage. She spent most of her time traveling, so she wouldn’t even be at the house that often, but it would be nice to have a part-time roommate, especially since she insisted on paying rent. Maybe I’d be able to knock a year or two off my mortgage with the extra income.
“How are things at work and the house?” Carmen asked. I turned onto my street. It only took a few minutes to drive from the gym to my house—one of the main reasons I chose that gym.
“I had to go into the office today. We have a new media manager, and he asks a thousand questions a day. He asked me out this week, so I had to bring up Landon.”
I heard Carmen cough on the other end of the line. “Why don’t you just say no?”
“I don’t want to hurt his feelings!” I noticed that my neighbor wasn’t home yet. I still didn’t know what he did for a living. Probably took candy from children and loosened screws on wheelchairs. That would have been something right up his alley.
“Kylie Boone. Grow a backbone and say no. It’s not your job to protect everyone’s little feelings. If you don’t start standing up for yourself, you’re going to be miserable the rest of your life.”
“I am not miserable,” I muttered as I pulled into my driveway and parked the car.
“Oh, so you like trying to make everyone feel good about themselves twenty-four seven?”
“I don’t want to hurt their feelings.”
“I know, but that’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it. You bend over backwards just so you never have to say the word no. You’re a jellyfish. I bet you haven’t done a single confrontational thing since high school.”
“That’s not true! I locked my garbage can yesterday.”
I couldn’t believe she thought I was a jellyfish. Come to think of it, that might not have been a bad thing. I learned from a nature show last week that jellyfish were one of the deadliest creatures. Maybe I didn’t have much of a spine, but when pushed too far, I went in for the kill. Like the time the most popular girl in school kept calling Carmen fat and embarrassing her in front of the entire cafeteria. She was a couple years older than me, but that didn’t change the fact that her hair fell out with that Nair shampoo.
“What do you mean you put a lock on your garbage?” Carmen snapped.
“My new neighbor was putting his garbage in my garbage can.”
“You mean the rude neighbor you took the cookies to?”
“Yeah, that one.”
“He sounds like a piece of work. Wait, so you had to put a lock on your own garbage can? I’m glad you did something. You’re standing up for yourself, girl!”
I mumbled into the line as I watched out my rearview mirror as said neighbor pulled up in front of his house. He backed his truck into his driveway. He climbed out, and I could almost feel him staring at me where I sat.
“Hello? I didn’t catch that. The connection must be bad.”
“I said that he put a lock on my garbage can after I did. I had to use bolt cutters to get it off, and the entire time, he stood there watching and laughing at me.”
Silence.
“Please tell me you didn’t let him get away with that.”
“I didn’t let him get away with that?”
“Is that a question?”
“Maybe. I mean, really, what am I going to do, march over there and give him a piece of my mind?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what you should do!” Carmen exclaimed. “Give me the story from the beginning.
I obliged her and told her about discovering my full garbage can every week and how I locked it.
“Where are you right now?” Carmen asked me.
“Sitting in my car in a pool of my own sweat.”
“Is your neighbor home?”
“Yes...”
“Good. Go over there and tell him to shove off.”
“Shove off? What, are we sailing?”
“Do it.”
“No. He’d probably kill me and stuff me in his basement.”
“Do it. You can’t let people run over you like this, girl.”
While some women viewed “girl” as a derogatory term, Carmen viewed it as a term of solidarity. Like she’d have your back because you were her girl. It was nice. You always knew who Carmen’s real friends were based on her use of that expression.
Unfortunately, Carmen had a point. I couldn’t always be diplomatic. It exhausted me trying to keep people happy. Well, today would be different. Today, I would stand up for myself.
“Fine. I won’t let him get away with it. But I’m going to have to figure out what to say.”
“Good. Call me after you’ve done it.”
“Okay, will do. Got to go. Bye.”
I turned the car off and grabbed my phone and bag. My thin hair felt greasy from sweat, and the majority of it had slipped from my hair tie and was sticking to my face. Before I went inside, I walked to the end of my driveway and opened my mailbox that sat next to the road. It was mainly junk mail, along with a postcard from my grandparents who were on a senior cruise. I glanced across the street and noticed the neighbor unrolling hoses in his yard. He stopped and stared at me, then slowly dropped the hose and walked to the sidewalk. He shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against his mailbox. He must have taken a class on mastering a casual pose.
“You okay?”
I glanced around, looking for any reason why I shouldn’t have been okay. I couldn’t find one. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
He pointed to my head. “Looks like a blender got a hold of your hair.”
I growled as I slammed my mailbox shut and marched up the sidewalk into my house. I could have sworn I heard him chuckling the whole time.
* * * * *
IT was close to midnight when I snuck outside my house and tiptoed across the street. The lights had been out for a couple hours, so maybe what I had planned was a little sneaky. It might have even been considered a little devious, but Not-Hot sealed his fate when he made fun of my crazy, post-gym hair.
Now I knew he had a name other than Not-Hot. His electric bill had been in my mailbox along with my junk mail.
The little trespasser had a name: Hagen Ragland.
I wasn’t sure if I hated it or not. Ragland was unfortunate, but Hagen wasn’t so bad. Oh well, it didn’t matter if I liked it or not. He probably wouldn’t be rushing to change it just to please me.
Hagen’s house was a cookie-cutter version of mine: single story; sprawling, high eaves; and a large front porch. The most obvious difference was my house was creamy yellow, and his was gray-blue. I hurried to where he had set up his sprinklers in his front yard. Watching him set up the sprinklers earlier that day had reminded me how grateful I was to have an underground sprinkler system. Thank goodness for small mercies and large investments.
I picked up the first sprinkler and dragged it close to the side of his house. I knew this was where the master bedroom was. I may or may not have peeked through the windows of the house when it was still for sale.
I had a little of my mother’s nosiness—no surprise there.
I pushed the sprinkler stake into the ground close to the window. It was a three-sixty sprinkler, and I made sure it would hit the window just right. I connected the hose to a Y on the faucet, then walked back around to the front of the house where there was another sprinkler.
It was the kind that you ran through as a kid. The wave would go back and forth, and you could set it up to spray in one direction. It was the type of sprinkler childhood memories were built on.
I changed a few settings on it before setting it on his front porch. Then, I ran back to the faucet and attached the second sprinkler’s hose to the Y. I cranked the faucet on as far as I could, then I sprinted all the way back to my house and sat on my front porch steps. This was a show I didn’t want to miss.
The sprinkler rotated in a circle, and the loud spray hit the master bedroom window every three seconds. The timing was absolutely perfect. It sounded like a symphony to my ears, hearing the spray against that window.
Three minutes later, Hagen’s front porch light flipped on. The door swung inward, and Hagen stepped outside, wearing a pair of sweatpants and nothing else, as he shut the door behind him. I watched with glee as he was sprayed with the second sprinkler I set up. He tried to shield himself from it, but it looked like he was tap dancing on the porch. Finally, he darted across the porch and away from the water’s reach. I could see his dripping wet hair and soaked sweatpants from across the street.
There was a certain sense of accomplishment when you woke someone up from a dead sleep with a sprinkler and then got that same person soaking wet. I felt no remorse. He shouldn’t have been so rude today. Or yesterday. Or the day before that. Or—well, you get the picture.
Hagen turned the water off, then started back around the house to the front door again. He stopped in the middle of his yard as his gaze landed on me. “You!”
His voice cracked across the empty street in the quiet of the night. Then, he started running for me. With a yelp, I scrambled up the steps and fumbled as I opened the front door. My heart was hammering in my throat, and my eyes were bugged out of my head. I hadn’t thought about the repercussions of sitting outside and watching the event unfold.
I opened the door just as he bounded up my steps. I slipped inside then slammed and bolted the door. I slid to the ground on weak legs, pretty sure I’d left my stomach outside in my panic.
A fist hammered on the door and jolted it against my back. That was it. I’d have to call Carmen in the morning and tell her what a terrible idea it was to stand up for myself. Now, I was going to be dead. Killed by an irate neighbor in sweatpants.
“Open the door.”
“Nobody’s home!” I squeaked out.
I could hear a choking sound on the other side of the door.
“I don’t know the Heimlich, so please don’t start dying out there!”
“If you think I’m going to let that go, you’re wrong.” His deep voice shook the door and made my toes tingle.
“If you thought you could lock me out of my own garbage can, you’re wrong.” My attempt at an intimidating voice sounded more like a teenage mouse.
“Just wait.”
I heard his footsteps echo across the porch then down the stairs. Dropping my head to my knees, I sighed with relief. I still didn’t feel guilty.