Love Street - Emily, Marla and Mitchell

by Liz Zuercher

Since it's been a few months since my last Love Street post, I'll take this opportunity to catch up and introduce three more residents of Love Street - Emily Wilson, Marla Winterberg and Mitchell Roberts.

Emily

Emily Wilson pulled out of her garage slowly, looking all around for children who might be playing in the cul de sac.  She’d chosen her lot because the yard was small and the floor plan was the one she liked.  Being on a cul de sac hadn’t been a consideration, though she had thought it might make for a quieter location without much traffic.  She’d been wrong about that.  The kids at this end of the street all played in the cul de sac as if it were a grassy park, and the parents limited their supervision to putting up an orange Children-at-Play sign in the shape of a stick figure in mid-stride. 

Across the street Jessie and Chad Grissom had spread out an assortment of large gaudy primary-colored plastic toys that were never put away at night.  The kids had built forts in the dirt and threw rocks around regularly, so that it looked like a giant sandbox from the front door to the street.  They hadn’t mowed the grass parkway strip since they moved in and weeds had overtaken the little patch of grass in front of their house.

If that weren’t bad enough, Emily had the neighbor from hell next door.  Eddie Petrocelli had plunked that outrageous alligator in front of his house the day he moved in, and while it had been mildly amusing when Emily thought it was there for a day while Eddie unpacked, the longer it remained, the angrier she became.  She had asked Eddie politely to move it to the back yard, but he had laughed in her face.

“Don’t you think he’s kinda cute?” Eddie had said.

“No,” she’d said.

“Tough,” Eddie replied, turning his back on her.

To add insult to injury, Eddie had turned his entire garage into a gym, with weights and a treadmill and stepper and elliptical machine.  He’d put mirrors along one wall of the garage and that rubber sport court stuff on the floor.  Then he’d put in a sound system and a flat screen TV so he could entertain himself while he exercised.  If he could have kept to himself while he used his gym that would have been okay, but he turned the volume up on the surround sound and the hard rock beat rumbled through her house at all hours.  When she’d tried to ask him to turn down the sound, he’d said “Sure, Em,” and cranked up the volume.  What a jerk. 

She couldn’t imagine that other neighbors weren’t annoyed with him, too, so she’d asked Dan across the street about it one day when they were putting out their trashcans at the same time.  Dan had said a group of the neighbors decided he would approach Eddie about the alligator and see what could be done.  They’d tackle the matter of the music once they saw how it went with the alligator.  So far Emily hadn’t seen any results and wondered if Dan had gathered his courage yet.

All this was on Emily’s mind as she backed out of her driveway, glanced over toward Eddie’s house and saw the new plastic critters that had joined the alligator overnight.  And the tacky little fence.  And the picnic table.  Good grief.  What next?

She was beginning to regret her move to Bella Vista.  In some respects it had been good for her.  She was tucked away in a place her ex-husband would never look for her, a place he’d never expect she’d want to be.  In truth, she didn’t want to be here, but it was so far from the kind of surroundings she was used to that it made it the perfect hiding place.  And she needed to be hidden.  She’d changed her name, changed her job and moved to escape him.  As long as she kept a low profile and had an extensive security system in her home, she hoped she’d be safe.  She hadn’t made friends in the neighborhood on purpose, not wanting anyone to know too much about her.  She’d just as soon they wonder who in the world lived in that house.  But Eddie Petrocelli was making it difficult for Emily to keep to herself.  He was threatening her sanctuary and she was afraid she was going to have to come out of her shell and join forces with the neighbors.

Marla

Across the street from Emily’s house, Marla Winterberg sat on her sheltered front balcony in her favorite redwood Adirondack chair with the green and white striped cushions and watched the comings and goings on the street.  She liked this place because she could see everything and everyone on the whole street, but no one could see her in the shadows of the Tuscan style stucco arches. 

Her attention had been drawn to Eddie’s house across the street when Emily’s car had stopped midway out of the driveway.  Marla watched as Emily got out of the car and with hands on her hips stood looking at her neighbor’s yard.  That’s what made Marla notice the new assortment of critters that had come to accompany the alligator in Eddie’s yard.  And there was a new little fence and a wooden picnic table.  Cute, she thought.  Who would have thought such a macho guy would like all those little animals. 

Eddie must have put those out there in the dead of night, because Marla knew they hadn’t been there at ten o’clock last night when she and Edgar took their two little Shih-Tzus, Punkin and Pie, out for a walk before bedtime.  Punkin especially liked the alligator as a place to relieve herself, which she had done last night right there on the alligator’s foot, so Marla would have noticed if all that other stuff had been there then.  Punkin would have a field day with all this new stuff. 

Marla wasn’t sure what all the fuss was about with the alligator.  It was just a silly little joke, she was sure, but people were getting tired of seeing it and had started to talk in groups at the mailbox in the evening or on Wednesdays when they put out the trash.  She wondered if anyone had whispered about the ceramic frog she had at the front door.  It was so cute.  When someone came close to it, it would say, “Ribid, ribid”.  It made Marla smile.  Willis thought it was stupid, but she liked it and didn’t care what Willis said.

Eddie reminded Marla of her son, George, who lived all the way across the country in New York City.  Eddie was bigger than George and had a darker complexion, but she figured they were about the same age and they both had a certain bravado about them, a swagger that she found appealing.  Willis, of course, had never had swagger, and Marla wasn’t sure where their son came by his.  Maybe from Marla’s father.  Now there was a man’s man.  He certainly had swagger.

Anyway, after Emily got back in her car and drove off, Eddie came out of the house and walked to the curb.  He turned and looked back at his house, nodding his head.  He looked from side to side, then up to the little Juliet balcony above the garage and went back in the house.  Pretty soon Marla saw the Juliet balcony door open and Eddie set out a stepladder and mounted a video camera on the light fixture beside the door, pointing it down to his yard.  When he had it where he wanted it, he took the ladder inside and came back with a full-sized painted carousel horse, which he positioned on the tiny balcony with its front legs resting on the railing as if it were ready to jump onto the driveway.  Eddie went back inside and closed the door behind him.

Marla sat and watched a little more, wondering what Eddie had up his sleeve next.  After a while he came out the front door again, stood by the alligator and waved his arms up at the camera.  He went back inside, then appeared on the Juliet balcony once more, adjusting the camera.  After several trial runs with the camera placement, Eddie must have gotten it where he wanted it, because he didn’t appear again until the garage door opened, the music started up and Marla could watch Eddie working out in his gym.  She liked when Eddie worked out.  She liked watching him move to the music, flexing his muscles as he hefted the weights.  She liked the heavy bass of the music.  She felt the beat of it in her chest.

Mitchell

At the other end of the street, Mitchell Roberts stood out on the deck off his master bedroom, coffee cup in hand, looking out at the dry hills.  He liked to start and end his workday on this deck.  This was why he’d bought this house in the first place, other than the investment value.  As a single man in his forties with no plans to marry, he didn’t need this much house.  What he did need was a place that was quiet and secluded, but part of a larger community at the same time.  He’d thrown a lot of money at it, but he had a lot of money that needed spending.  It was best to spend it on things that were easily visible.  To his surprise, he was beginning to take pride in the house.

He felt a waft of dry air against his cheek and it made him shiver a little bit.  He was afraid of one thing in this location.  He was afraid of fire.  When he bought the house, the hills were a riot of green and yellow and he never imagined it being anything but full of life.  He’d watched the deer play on the meadow across the way and he’d seen the coyotes lope by at dawn and dusk in their search for food.  Then he moved in and the summer heat came.  The vegetation died and the hills turned from green and yellow to brown.  Now the landscape was gray and tinder dry, and he worried that the smallest spark would set off an inferno that would engulf his neighborhood and destroy his beautiful quiet home.  He’d taken extra precautions, from special sprinklers to fortifying the eaves to installing a pool and a special fire hose that could suck water from the pool if necessary.  He was ready to take a stand if need be.

It felt like the Santa Ana winds might be kicking up, and that scared Mitchell most of all.  A power line could blow down and a spark could start a fire.  A carelessly tossed cigarette butt could be fanned into an inferno, with sparks blowing across hills and houses to neighborhoods far from the flash point.   The exhaust of a motorcycle illegally riding the hiking trails could…well this could drive him crazy, he thought.  He’d done what he could to protect his property.

He leaned against the railing and watched as a young boy with a camouflage hat sneaked across behind the neighbor’s fence, stopped at the top of the hill then started running headlong down the hill.  About halfway down, the boy tripped on something and catapulted head over heels down the rest of the hill.  Mitchell thought the boy might be hurt, but he jumped up and pumped his fist in the air.    Mitchell grimaced as he watched the kid tug at his pants then aim a stream of urine at a nearby bush.  Apparently, the coyotes and mountain lions weren’t the only wildlife in these hills.  People should watch their children more closely, he thought, as he downed the last of his coffee and went off to work.