A Lady Under Siege

2

Derek was drunk again. He leaned against the rickety old picnic table in his backyard and lit a couple of dollar-store candles shoved into wine bottles. He and his bud Ken had managed to lure two college girls home from the bar, and he was trying to create a little atmosphere, hoping to bring a cozy blush to a tabletop littered with empty beer cans, bottles, paper plates and chicken bones.

“You can’t beat candlelight,” he crowed. “It makes you girls look straight out of some Renaissance painting. But girls, girls, girls! In the bar you said you were up for just about anything, am I right? Padding your bohemian resume by slumming with older eccentric-type guys, am I right?” He gestured to a derelict hot tub in the back corner of the yard, filled for the moment with dusty old tires. “Wish my hot tub was up and running—we’d be bobbing for panties by now! Assuming you wear panties—I should check that—”

“I do, but not into hot tubs,” said the drunker of the two girls, Kaitlin by name. She made a playful little show of lifting her short skirt and pretending to wriggle out of her underwear. Derek was mesmerized by the candlelight flickering across her thighs.

“Good answer! I’m liking you more and more,” he grinned. “Shit—I wish that hot tub did work. Have a drink, there’s wine I think”—he rummaged around the table, shaking various bottles experimentally—“two shots of Limona here if we’re lucky, half a bottle of Peppermint Schnapps if we get desperate, there’s Bourbon around here somewhere, and I know there’s more wine in the house—”

“Drop the voice, Derek,” said Ken, busy rolling a joint on the underside of an overturned plate. “You’ll wake the neighbours.”

“F*ck the neighbours! Hurry up and spark that sucker, the girls are getting impatient, aren’t you girls? Remind me your names again—you’re both brunette and gorgeous, I’m having trouble telling you apart.”

“Violetta. She’s Kaitlin.”

“Fantastic names—love em! Look at that beauty of a moon, you two. Matched by you! Oh Luna, Oh Isis, or Toth, or Thoth, or whatever the hell the ancient Egyptians called you, bestow us with your blessings!”

“The Egyptians had ten moon goddesses,” Kaitlin said.

“Whatever!” Derek hooted. “Bloody goddess gridlock was their downfall. Monotheists kick ass, you understand? It’s human nature—big eat small till one God rules all. How do you know about goddesses, anyway? You study them at that high-priced college of yours?”

“She’s on full scholarship,” said Violetta.

“Hurray for you! These days only an idiot would pay for an education, when you can get it for free just going to Google Books and reading the classics. Epictetus, Cicero, de Sade, Dostoevsky, all there, all free!”

“That’s not exactly how it works,” said Kaitlin. “In our course packs they give case studies that aren’t online or anywhere. Like, I’m majoring in development—”

“Development? Of what?”

“You know. The Third World, how to help them, how to improve conditions in places where—”

“Hail Mother Teresa here! Ken, what the f*ck! Spark that motherf*cker and pass it around!”

“I’m not Mother Teresa,” Kaitlin protested, “But I can’t look at suffering and inequality—”

“Have a glass of wine, my dear. It’s an old joke, but children in Africa are going to bed sober.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Fate handed me this life, I didn’t choose it, just as the starvelings of Somalia didn’t choose theirs. Better luck next time.”

“Next time I’m coming back as Penelope Cruz,” said Violetta.

“I thought you were her,” Ken said, handing her the unlit joint. “Do the honours.”

“Aren’t you sweet?” she purred. “But I do honestly believe in reincarnation. It’s like a karma redistribution mechanism.” She held her long hair back gracefully with one hand while she lit the spliff from a candle.

“Good for you,” Derek applauded. “If it brings you comfort, cling to whatever flotsam bobs along the ocean of your mind. May we all live forever among the harp-playing angels of heaven, and may the afterlife be one giant after party. For now, we’re still in the party party, and let’s all get down in the earthly, earthy, deliciously dirty dirt of it.”

Violetta held out the joint to him. He took it from her and inhaled ferociously. The girls watched his face puff up pink as diaper rash. He held it in for an eternity, then unleashed a smoky explosion of phlegmy hacks and coughs, exaggerated for comic effect. “Smooooth,” he croaked.

THEN FROM A HEIGHT, from the shadows, came a woman’s voice. “Excuse me, can you be quiet? I have a ten-year-old with school tomorrow.”

It took them a moment to locate her. A second story window in the townhouse next door. There she was—a face, pretty but scowling, thirtyish, blonde hair. Derek extricated his legs from under the picnic table, stretched himself unsteadily to his full height, tilted his head back and snarled, “So who asked you to procreate? The planet’s overpopulated and it’s your f*cking fault! Get the kid some earplugs!”

For a moment there was silence. An ambulance could be heard faintly in a distant street. The woman answered, in a low, level voice, “I’d love to keep shouting, but I don’t want to wake my child.” She added, with a quiet, whispered fury, “You’re a monster. You’re not human.” Then she closed the window, and was gone.

“Just ignore her,” Derek said.

“New neighbour?” asked Ken.

“Yeah. Uptight bitch.”

“Cute though.”

Derek shouted up at the empty window, “You’re cute when you’re angry!” In a softer voice he muttered, “Uptight bitch.”

Violetta said, “Maybe we should go.”

Kaitlin made a pouty, disappointed noise.

“You wanna stay?”

She nodded.

“You don’t have to win.”

“What’s that mean?” asked Derek.

“We had a bet—that she was going to get some tonight,” Violetta said.

“Vi!” Kaitlin yelped.

“That’s the spirit,” Derek cried gleefully. “I’m the last man standing, and by candlelight and moonlight on this gorgeous night I could almost be mistaken for George Clooney, don’t you think?”

“Maybe,” Kaitlin murmured.

“George Clooney doesn’t live in a junkyard,” said Violetta.

“I’ve got grand ambitions for this night,” said Derek, ignoring her. “I’m going to tip all the shit off this table, and you’ll see. Before sunrise, I swear!”

“You want to do it on the table?” asked Kaitlin, giggling doubtfully.

“Oh yeah! There’s something about doing it outdoors, I love it! I’ll put down a blanket. Or get a sleeping bag to crawl into—ever tried it?”

She shook her head.

“Al fresco!” he hollered joyfully. “It’s like hot chocolate on ice cream, only the ice cream’s on the outside and the heat’s all in the middle. Frozen outside, hot inside—I’ve never yet seen those f*ckers on the Food Channel pull that one off.”

“I think I’d rather be in the house,” said Kaitlin, glancing up at the window, “so no one’s going to start yelling down at me.”

“Inside can be arranged too,” Derek said. He tilted his head back and cupped his hands for one final shout toward his neighbour’s darkened house. “Thought you killed the party, did you? I don’t think so!”