This drought ranked sixth on Peter Grady’s list of reasons to stay in his room and add another sweat stain to his pillow. Peter created lists regularly—it was his way of putting his feelings on paper. He treated his lists like pop music charts with entries changing positions often. The major difference between the pop charts and his lists was the number of people polled. Peter’s lists had only one.
Through his locked bedroom door, Peter heard the muffled, fake laugh of his mother. Her bogus chuckle was easy to detect; it sounded like the added laugh track of an old television show. When his mother laughed really hard, things found a way of shooting out her nose—water at the dinner table, snot during the winter, stuff like that.
Peter would bet his Mike Piazza–signed catcher’s glove that his mother’s nose would lie dormant for another full hour at least. Mrs. Keeme, the next-door neighbor, was visiting. She was funny like the chicken pox.
Earlier, Peter made it out of the living room just in time. Before the doorbell had even rung, a whiff of Mrs. Keeme’s powdery scent—like something you’d use to cover the stench of an old, damp sneaker—entered Peter’s nose. He took flight to his room and started formulating this new list of his at his desk. He gave Mrs. Keeme today’s top honors, subject to change depending on how the rest of the morning turned out.
It was not like Mrs. Keeme was mean. She just complained on and on, usually about her husband, soon to be ex-husband, Bernie. From her visits, Peter learned too much about Bernie. He was fat, lazy, and stupid—pretty much a slug with black socks. Peter never had a problem with Mr. Keeme. He was one of the few neighbors who would wave to him.
No matter how much Peter tried, it was nearly impossible to escape Mrs. Keeme’s every word. Their new house had no hiding spaces. Her voice tumbled down hallways, crashed down doors, and smothered Peter’s ears and weighed down his shoulders until he felt his knees turn to jelly, as though he and Mrs. Keeme were partners in a chicken fight and Peter had the unfortunate bottom position.
There was a bang on the door and the knob rattled—CJ.
“Peter, the door is locked,” she said.
“I know.”
“I want to come in.”
“I know.”
After a pause, CJ said, “Are you going to let me in?”
“I moved,” Peter said, glancing at the globe on his desk for a reference, adding, “to Bangladesh.”
The knob rattled again then stopped, followed by a jarring thud pushing out the bottom third of the door. Peter pictured the pink-and-white sneaker slamming into the door. It had happened a thousand times before.
Peter waited, watching the door. CJ never gave up easily. She was relentless in her pursuit to drive her brother nuts. It was her calling. The ensuing silence had a slightly unsettling feel, similar to a horror movie when you’re waiting for something to jump out, but the door remained still.
The window shades were closed as they had been all summer, blocking the sun and heat during the day and anything (or anyone) from looking into his room during the night. Mrs. Keeme continued to drone on, but she said something that now had Peter’s undivided attention. Mrs. Keeme told Peter’s mother she was moving out of “the Creek”—the pet name that residents gave their gated community, Willow Creek Landing.
Peter stared impatiently at his bedroom wall. He wanted dates, a time frame on Mrs. Keeme’s departure, but as she so often did, she went off on another complaining rant, this time about her son, Joshua. Apparently he would be staying in their home until it was sold. Mrs. Keeme said she already rented an apartment for herself outside the Creek. Bernie was already gone. It was like a jailbreak.
Peter didn’t care about this Joshua. He had never even seen him before, though due to Mrs. Keeme’s visits, he felt like he’d known him for years. When Peter’s family had moved into the Creek a year ago, Joshua was away at college. Through a succession of home visits, Peter learned Joshua had run into some sort of trouble while away, and then Mrs. Keeme stopped mentioning him altogether. Until today.
Thumps and scratching noises came from outside Peter’s window. He stood and sighed. He pushed aside the shade and shielded his eyes from the ever-present sun, then saw the familiar, gold tiara with a red star in the center covering a mop of yellow curls. A leg kicked over the window sill outside, and Peter saw the full getup: a sparkling, red-and-gold top, white stars on blue shorts, and golden, plastic-coated lasso wrapped around the shorts like a belt.
“You know the screen opens only from the inside, right?”
“Right,” CJ grunted, trying to hoist her body up to the window with her elbows.
Shortly after coming to the Creek, Peter came to the overriding conclusion that the move was a horrible mistake, but one easily rectified if he could convince his family of their erroneous ways. So he made a list—“Reasons Why Willow Creek Landing Sucks Rocks”—and supplied this four-page document, complete with bullets, to his parents.
Nothing happened.
“Living on a ranch” was reason twenty-seven. Peter felt a lot more secure living in his old home where you needed at least a ladder to get to his room on the second floor. Here he was as accessible as a McDonald’s drive-through.
He opened the screen to help CJ inside. Though the fall was no more than four feet, the height would still be a hard fall for CJ.
“I can do it,” CJ said, slapping away at his hand.
Peter helped her anyway. “I know, I know. You’re Wonder Woman.”
The Great Willow Creek Race
It’s only fair to note that Peter had never been in favor of the move to Willow Creek Landing. He liked his old neighborhood where he had friends on his block and friends in school. Though Willow Creek Landing was only a twenty-minute car ride away, it might as well have been Iceland. There was a whole group of unfamiliar neighbors and a new school district. It was no big deal for CJ; she was entering kindergarten at the time they moved. Peter came in at sixth grade, a year before middle school, when groups of friends were already established.
Peter’s skepticism of his new neighborhood was born when his father, Nick, had brought home a glossy, full-color brochure advertising Willow Creek Landing, “a community for the twenty-first century.” His old neighborhood didn’t need that sort of promotion. Peter wasn’t impressed with the private golf course (he hated golf), luxurious new homes, on-site restaurant and catering facilities, or the general store where you can shop without leaving the wrought-iron gates. Big deal.
The community also hosted several events throughout the year for the residents, which was the reason Mrs. Keeme cut short her visit earlier. Today was the Great Willow Creek 5K, a 3.1 mile run through the development—which the residents made into this huge deal. Mrs. Keeme wanted to get outside the gates before the community’s security team closed the streets to traffic.
When the front screen door slammed shut, announcing Mrs. Keeme’s exit, Peter unlocked his bedroom door and walked down the hallway to the living room with CJ at his heels.
Their mother, Abby, was in the kitchen loading the dishwasher and going over the conversation she had with Mrs. Keeme in her head. Abby would miss the cranky, old lady; in a strange way, she enjoyed her company. There was a part of Abby that understood and felt for Mrs. Keeme. The urge to drop everything and start anew was not groundbreaking—Abby had felt it several times standing at this very spot, loading or unloading the dishwasher. The damn machine required the attention of an infant.
“You can come out now, the coast is clear,” Abby said, hearing the kids’ footsteps.
“Is Dad coming to the race?” Peter asked.
“He’s hiding in his room too. You can tell him she’s gone. He’ll be happy to hear all the news.”
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