Every time Mimi moved a chair across the patio she’d drag it to make the most sound possible announcing her presence.
Sarah just on the other side of the fence would lift a chair so as not to make a sound.
It was the difference between them.
But the smell of the honeysuckle from the tree that divided their territory encompassing and enwrapping the porch was what Sarah tuned into to tune out.
It would have been Sarah’s style to say “good morning ” especially as the two had been neighbors for over ten years and the only ones outside in the early morning. Sarah knew if she had bad feelings about Mimi it wasn’t really about Mimi it was about herself. So she went inside to call a friend to complain to shout about how she could never have that peace she so needed in the garden wanting to shift the blame. “She’s so selfish ” she heard herself say. “She’s so hard ” she moaned. And as she said the words she knew she’d heard them before like echoes in a closed chamber.
Sarah knew the test and her job.
Like her old seminary roommate the dreaded Dori always on Sarah’s side of the room always wanting to talk to take to borrow wanting and wanting. Thirty years later it’s Sarah’s neighbor.
Sarah went back outside drawn to the honeysuckle like a bee needing to smell the honeysuckle to take in the strong smell of sweet warming happiness to use later as a coating like fresh paint over a painful moment.
But as Sarah sat there she could already feel the intrusion coming. The invasion. Sarah was afraid. Afraid to sound or feel so selfish as to need privacy. If she didn’t feel like a selfish person it’d be easy to just say hello.
No needing privacy wasn’t selfish it was allowed. She’d set the boundary again nicely because the test was about not hating anyone because ultimately that meant she’d hate herself.
Mimi headed toward the fence clunking and dragging her feet.
Sarah tensed. She told herself to breathe in the scented air and she forgot about Mimi for a few seconds. She’d never expected to experience honeysuckle; she thought that was only for Southerners shampoo or large estates. She didn’t even like the smell at first; it was too thick and sweet. What had changed? Her or the honeysuckle?
Sarah looked over as she heard Mimi coming and noticed how the dark orange sun umbrella over the picnic table was now closer to a faded peach and the new glassed-in porch’s metallic beams weren’t shiny anymore. How had time passed so fast?
And the more Mimi’s husband asked her to be quiet reminding her that his father was sleeping the louder she got.
“Can I borrow your hose?” Mimi asked half shouting with the casualness of those who think everything is theirs.
Sarah’s hose was there but the nozzle wasn’t. Lending Mimi the hose now meant spending 20 minutes finding the nozzle and ten minutes more unwinding it and detaching it. Not lending Mimi the hose meant 20 or so words of explanation and there Sarah was caught in the net again.
But she breathed in that old Southern air and said “I’ve got to go in but you’re welcome to take it if you want.” She said it with such plantation grace that she liked herself because she was blunt but kind.
When Mimi realized that she wouldn’t succeed in entangling Sarah in an episode with the hose that’s when she started making a lot of noise on her side dropping and banging tin pots until she managed to wake her husband’s father. Her husband’s father opened the window to ask in a louder voice than Mimi’s for a phone number she’d already given him eight times as she told him very clearly. But he didn’t let it go at that and he kept Mimi busy so busy.
Sarah relaxed. The deeper she breathed the more she noticed how the honeysuckle’s fragrance had gotten so much better though its florets had begun to brown with the ending of its season and how some things and some people can get better with age like good wine and honeysuckle.