Chapter Text
The rain sounded like tinny, faraway music. It failed to relax her as it usually did. The cup in her hand was warm. She had company, but the frown on her face was a mile deep. Her little enclosed patio was sealed shut with glass, but it had no insulation. The chill was seeping in. Her skin prickled. Goosebumps crawled all over her like live and angry mice. The kitchen inside was too small to host a single guest comfortably, because it doubled as the laundry room.
Two women shivered, while they tried to enjoy their tea and company. They were very different, but they got along fairly well.
It's been too long.
I have to change. I can’t let this go on forever. It can’t. She’ll notice the holes in my stories soon, and then I’ll be friendless again.
I'm turning over a new leaf.
A high and smooth voice tried to cut through the cold.
“What are you so mad about today?”
The question contained the hint of a barb.
Am I being that obvious?
I was trying to look nonchalant.
She mumbled, embarrassed about being caught. “It’s nothing. I thought it would be warmer for another week,” Her hands gave away the awkwardness inside her. She couldn’t hold them still. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the movies?”
Her guest lightly placed a chipped china teacup reserved for guests on an age-stained saucer. “None of the movies out now are any good, and it costs more than twenty bucks a person now. It’s not worth it, and also you look freaky. Do you want to bite my head off, or are you mad at someone else?”
Her eyes closed.
Now I have to fix this. Now. I haven’t been looking at her for the past five minutes. I do look like a freak. How do I explain how I feel, and what I've done, without sounding crazy?
The fat freckle on her thumb had melted sugar on it. The dirt cheap snow donuts in the box between them were only half eaten, because they weren’t good.
Gas station snacks never are.
I can’t.
I sound nuts.
I might as well jump in.
Yura’s not going to cut ties with me over one bad hang out session, but I’d leave if I was her. I don’t want to strain my only friendship any more.
She drank from her rapidly cooling cup. She was stalling, even though she should have already jumped in.
I don’t have enough time in the day to make another friend. I can’t even imagine pretending to be outgoing long enough to make one. I’m too old for that shit.
As soon as she inhaled her voice cracked like brittle wood.
“When I was a little girl the house next to me burnt down. It was the best day of my life,” She gritted her teeth and immediately noticed how crazy she sounded. Her hands waved wildly, but her only close friend was not running away.
Yura leaned in closer.
“Wow. That level of bitterness might actually be turning my tea into the coffee. Are you the source of this cold spell? I got shivers from that. That rolled off your tongue too damn naturally. It’s like I’m in a horror movie. Forget going to one. I don’t need the cinema experience as long as I have you around. Rachel, did you set your neighbors house on fire? Do I need to call the police?”
Yura was only about eighty percent kidding. Her friend and former coworker had seen alot of shit, literally and figuratively. They had scrubbed toilets together, as part-time waitresses. Yura had blue hair, and curves. The blue hair was there to ward off the middle aged men who wanted to buy her curves. The more she embraced the rock star look the more they scattered, like frightened flies. Her deep and bright turquoise eyes weren’t innocent. She had successfully scrubbed away the innocent flower of loveliness mother nature had given her. She looked like a bad girl, on purpose. Her admonishing tone was all part of the joke, but every joke has to end, and now it was her turn.
Rachel coughed, and she gave up on her ice cold tea.
“Right. I haven’t told you yet. That’s half a lie. I didn’t want to tell you. I used to have rich neighbors…and I’ve lived here since I was ten. I didn’t just move in, like you. You’ve been stuck here in Podunk, Nowhere for two years but I’ve been here for nineteen. I’m…not a manager at Bellerirs. It’s a cleaning company. They don’t really have middle management. I don’t even go to the main building up the highway. They just text me. They manage it like Udrive for cleaning…anyways the point is I didn’t buy this house. I inherited it from my grandmother, who was mostly mute from the day I moved in till the day she died. Neither of us was very sociable. That’s my problem. That's my excuse. I’m not climbing up the corporate ladder, like you. I'm under it.”
Yura snorted.
“Owning half a dive bar isn’t climbing up the corporate ladder.”
She flinched.
“It is to me. I’m a regular maid. Bottom of the barrel. I make minimum wage, sometimes. Only when there’s calls. Just like when we worked in the café. I shouldn’t have started lying to you…I couldn’t figure out how to stop. The point is that…”
Yura snapped her fingers.
“The fire. You didn’t forget about the fire, did you?”
Rachel swallowed too much of her own spittle. Her frizzy blonde bangs had flopped into her eyes. Her curls were itching her. Her insides felt itchy. It was like all of the freckles on her body were slowly boring into it.
“There was a mansion next to me, before. Imagine a white picket fence, and a plus sized dollhouse. I played with the rich kid that lived there for a while, but then the place burned down and I finally had something to do. The property over there is about five acres of hiking trails, and stars. I set up my telescope back there, and the view of the sky is just magnificent. You can even see Jupiter…right. The fire. I didn’t set it and I wasn’t happy because of the fire specifically, but that house was in the way. I couldn’t see the sky when it was there. The property is kind of a public park right now. Everywhere else is a swamp. Its prime hiking land, and its my oasis. I love walking there just as much as I did when I was a kid. Other people walk their dogs there too. It’s not just me using it. I was so pissed when I saw a development sign go up, and it’s another fucking mansion. Why does every town have to have a mansion, and why does it have to be right next to me?”
Yura blinked slowly.
“Nineteen years?”
Rachel bit her bottom lip.
Of course that’s what she’s latching on to.
“I’m embarrassed about my age, because my job isn’t that great,” The nibbling turned into chewing, and a gust of wind made her square box of a house squeak.
Yura reached forward.
A sharp French-tipped nail poked her cheek.
“You’re thirty? I totally believed you when you said you were twenty-three, like me.”
Rachel tried to smile.
“I’m still twenty-nine. I promise. I don’t look great, but I do look young for my age. I’ve been thinking about coming clean for a while.”
Yura crossed her legs.
“I kind of knew you were a bullshitter, but this is on another level. Your pervy neighbor mentioned your grandma to me, but I didn’t connect the dots. How could I? I thought it was weird when you kept refusing my invitations to go out. Do people in town know you…erm…do this?”
That’s a nice way of putting it.
“No, but my coworkers know I’m not twenty three. Lies pile up. Especially in a town with less than a thousand people. They really do. We don’t hang out that much, but I do want to get to know you. I was thinking we could start over…and let bygones be bygones? I’ll stop pretending to be more successful than I am. I know it’s sad.”
Yura raised one hand. “Let me get this straight. You, Rachel Light, if that even is your real name…have been lying to me since the day we met. Also, you have crippling confidence issues. You just called yourself ugly like twice in five minutes. You live in a hundred year old house, alone, and your neighbors don’t like you. You’ve never risen above a minimum wage job, and you’re either seven or six years older than you said you were. You didn't move in recently. You were raised here in Nowhere. Is this the first time you’ve faked shit to get close to someone?”
Rachel shook her fluffy head.
"No."
Her button up blouse was about to pop open, because she was breathing so heavily. Sweat was seeping through the pure white fabric.
Yura kicked up her feet. Her plastic lawn chair bent. Her kitten heels landed on the plastic table with a bang.
“I’m an orphan,” She said it with a pause. Like it was a line on a grocery list.
Rachel looked at the bottom of Yura’s grey heels. They were weathered with age. Her black coat had an aged grey hue too.
“You…didn’t mention that.”
Yura shrugged.
“Everybody lies. You’re just a freak about it. Living next to a mansion would piss me off too, but its funny that such a mild inconvenience unravelled all of your lies. I didn’t learn how to dance in ballet school, and I think my past is nobodies business. You went too far, but I’ve met worse. Much worse. Do you want to play a prank on the next rich clown that moves in? I've got a hockey mask in my closet.”
She shook her head furiously.
“No, I want to keep my observatory. That’s all I want, and I can’t have that. That's what I'm really upset about. I spent two grand on my telescope, and my house is in a hole. It’s stuck in a canyon, buried under mature old growth forest that is too environmentally protected to chop down. I can only see uphill in that particular direction and I know the mansion is going to block it, just like before. I would love to ask the new family if I could maybe use their massive backyard for monthly observations, but the cops would show up if I did that. There’s no way that someone in a mansion would do such a big favor for me.”
Yura’s eyes sparkled. “You built an observatory?”
Rachel sighed. “I built a shed to keep the expensive stuff in, and now it’s going to get bulldozed.”
Yura kicked her out of her chair, in a friendly way. “I want to see.”
She frowned. “There’s snow on the ground.”
Yura smacked her hands together. “So? You’ve been lying to me about your age and your job. I want to see if your star hobby is real.”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “It is, and you should be creeped out by my shack in the woods.”
They left her porch behind together. Yura had a spring in her step. The profound lack of innocence, and the accusation in her gaze, had become excitement.
“I still think we should vandalize the house, or something. By the way the lying is way creepier than um…liking astronomy? That’s the most normal thing you like. I’m just happy that you’re not into arson. I’d have to report you for that. Arsonists don’t stop.”
It sounded like she had experience with that.
Intimate experience.
Rachel changed the topic. “I have a ton of star charts in the shed. I like to feel small, when I look up. It makes life in Podunk, Nowhere feel like part of the cosmos.”
Yura hummed. “We do live near the mountains. The view is the one good thing we have. Damn the mansion company for stealing that from you.”
Rachel had to laugh, while they walked. “I’m a squatter. I have to accept my eviction notice. In all seriousness I don’t want to get caught leaving. I should have picked up my stuff weeks ago.”
The rain turned into unpleasantly loud ice bullets, at just the wrong time. The construction sight was already ugly. The growing shell of the mansion was less than one hundred steps away from her property line. The giant wooden skeleton was already blocking some of the sky. Her house was jammed against the edge of the only suburb in town, underneath it, in the one spot the developer wouldn't be interested in taking. There was no where to hide. She couldn’t move her secret hideout to another location. Everywhere that wasn’t a house was a swamp.
When she breathed out a puff of white air followed her. It didn’t take long to reach her secret shed. Most of the private property they were trespassing on was swampy too, but it was gloriously silver in the winter. She had very few hideout choices. Her store bought, orange storage unit was hidden behind an oak tree.
“I’m going to empty it out, and let the construction guys crush this box. It was only one hundred and fifty bucks anyway.”
She unlocked it with a tiny key.
“I was hoping for something cuter. More handmade. This looks like it belongs on a construction site,” Yura pouted for dramatic effect before she tapped the metal.
Rachel wrenched the door open. “I’m too cheap to buy wood and tools. My whole budget went into my telescope. If it breaks on the way back I’m crying, and you can’t stop me.”
Yura peeked into the storage unit. The fading light above shone on her only worldly treasures.
“I’ll help you pack up. I was hoping that your astronomy hobby was real. Honestly, you sounded like a stalker for half a second there. If it wasn’t real I would be gone and calling…”
The cops.
She picked up her precious unistellar eVscope 2 digital telescope, which she had purchased used at less than half price. It was her greatest shopping victory.
“I get it.”