When in Rome(4)

Whatever, not my problem.

I let the blinds snap closed and pace away from the window.

And then I pace right back and open them again.

Dammit, get out of the car, woman.

I look at the clock. 11:30 p.m. I shoot up a prayer to anyone listening above that Mabel won’t be too pissed at me when I call and wake her up. After dialing her number, I have to wait six rings before her scratchy forty-years-of-smoking-but-recently-quit voice answers. “Who is it?”

“Mabel, it’s Noah.”

She grunts a little. “What do you want, son? I was already dozing in my chair for the night, and you know I have insomnia so this better be good.”

I smile. “Believe me, Mabel, I wouldn’t be disturbing your beauty sleep unless it was an emergency.”

She acts tough but her heart is mush for me. Mabel and my grandma were best friends—more like sisters really. And since my grandma was the one who raised me and my sisters, Mabel always treated us like family, too. Lord knows we act related. We look different, Mabel is Black and I’m white, but we both share the same general dislike for people being up in our business. (And yet she’s always more than happy to be all up in mine.)

“Emergency? Noah, don’t string me along. Your house on fire, son?” She’s called me “son” since I was in diapers and continues to despite the fact that I’m thirty-two years old. I don’t mind. It’s comforting.

“No, ma’am. I need you to speak to a woman for me.”

She coughs with disbelief. “A woman? Honey, it’s good to hear you’re looking again, but just ’cause you’re lonely in the middle of the night doesn’t mean I have a list of ladies on speed dial ready to—”

“No,” I say firmly before she continues with what I’m sure would be a string of words I never want to hear exit her mouth. “The woman is in my front yard.”

I hear the squeak of a chair and imagine Mabel snapping her EZ Boy recliner shut, sitting bolt upright. “Noah, tell me now, are you drunk? It’s fine if you are, I’m not the judgy type, you know this. I’ve said many of my best prayers to the Good Lord after a night with Jack Daniel’s, but I need for you to call James or one of your sisters when you’re drunk, not—”

She’ll go on and on if I don’t stop her. “Mabel, a woman’s car broke down in my front yard and the engine is smoking but she’s scared to get out because she thinks I’m going to hurt her. I need for you to act as my character reference so she’ll get her ass out of there.” I would call one of my sisters but they would definitely say something off-color about how long it’s been since I’ve slept with anyone and then ask the woman what her relationship status is. Definitely not calling them. Definitely don’t care what that woman’s relationship status is.

“Oh, well, baby, why didn’t you say so! Get out there and let me talk to the poor girl!” I hear a twinkle of excitement in Mabel’s voice that I don’t appreciate or want to encourage. This whole town has been on my back lately to give dating another try, but I’m not interested. I wish they’d leave me alone about it and let me live in peace, but that’s not their style. And now that I think about it, I’m not so certain Mabel won’t say something similar to what my sisters would say.

I peek through the blinds again and see the woman fanning herself aggressively with her hand. I swear, if I have to call a paramedic and spend the whole night in the hospital losing sleep with this strange woman because she gave herself heatstroke out there, I’ll never open my front door again. I’m one more woman wrecking my life away from boarding up all my windows and turning into a hermit that yells profanities at Christmas carolers.

“Don’t get any ideas, Mabel. This isn’t a romantic thing. I just don’t want her to die in the heat out there.”

“Mm-hmm. Is she pretty?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose and shut my eyes against the annoyance building up my spine. “It’s pitch-black outside. How would I know that?”

“Oh, please. I asked you a question. I expect an answer.”

I groan. “Yes.” So damn pretty. I only got a brief look at her with my flashlight, but what I saw had me doing a double take. She had dark hair piled in a bun on her head, a pretty smile, thick lashes, and sharp blue eyes. The odd thing is, I feel like I’ve met her even though I’ve never seen her car in town before. It must have been one of those weird instances of déjà vu.

“Well then,” she says with a pleased sigh. “Take me out to our fair beauty.”

“Mabel…” I use a warning tone as I open the front door and step outside. The summer heat immediately threatens to strangle me, and I wonder how the woman has survived this long in her car with the windows rolled up and no air-conditioning.

“Oh, hush! It’s not every day a woman is dropped into your lap like this, so zip your lips and hand the phone over.” This is what I get for living in Rome, Kentucky, most of my life. My neighbors still treat me like the boy who ran through town in his Superman underwear.

Leaving the front door cracked so the phone cord doesn’t get pinched, I walk through the yard toward the little white car. It’s too dark out here to see her features without shining the flashlight at her again, but I do see the silhouette of her face turn my way. And then she immediately throws her seat back. She’s trying to trick me into believing she’s not in there. I refuse to smile at the ridiculousness of it.