I squint harder and hold out a hand like Darth Vader even more intent.
The vacuum remains immobile.
Dropping my arm, I scowl.Witchtits. That would have been fantastic.
The task is daunting, but I've faced disappointment and heartbreak before. Each room I clean, every stain I remove, will be a testament to my strength, my resilience. I'm not waiting for some man to come and rescue me—I'm rescuing myself, one scrubbed tile at a time.
Then a cheerful thought occurs to me. Maybe my powers will manifest as death rays I can shoot from my eyes at my jerk neighbor.
And if that doesn’t work, I’ve already got a plan B for the NFH in the works.
Chapter8
The Gingerbread From Hell
TED
My breath hitches as I step onto my porch and my toes instantly squish into something soft and gooey. Lifting my barefoot with pink gunk stuck to my it, a growl of irritation rumbles through me as my nostrils flare. The sticky frosting fills the space between my toes and if I put my foot down anywhere else on the front porch, I’ll step in it again.
Cake—pink heart cakes with strawberries crowd around my door, a menacing army of confections.
They are identical to the first cake I rejected from my neighbor.
Disgusted, anger rises in me like heat from burning embers. Everywhere I step, I’m reminded ofher. This is Goldie’s fifth, or is it sixth, attempt to be the ‘best neighbor ever?’
Day by day, she’s been subtly altering the world around my cabin. Like the birdhouse she installed right on the divide of our property lines. Every morning is now filled with melodious distractions. Anyone else would find it enchanting, but it reminds me how close she is.
I learned to ignore the knock at the door when she is on my steps. Even through the walls of my cabin I can smell her, taste her unique sweetness. It makes my mouth water and my blood pressure rise.
Inevitably, there will be something left on my porch—a basket of peaches I know came from one of the trees on her property, a pink ribbon tied in a bow around the handle with a note wishing me a good day and how glad she is that we are neighbors.
I left them on the porch where the squirrels and hot sun could ravage them.
Then came the clippings of fragrant lavender and wildflowers, again, tied up in a pink bow.
Those too, I left on the porch where they dried up in the heat until they were crumbling bouquets.
A pink envelope appeared in my mailbox with a handwritten invitation to come by the Poison Apple—the bar she works at—for a drink on her. The paper crumpled in my fist before I dropped it in the waste bin. But then the bright color mocked me from the corner of the room, so I had to take the whole thing out to the recycling in the garage.
I have never hated a color so intensely in my life like I hate the color pink. I can’t even see it on a billboard without feeling my blood boil and white-hot tingles sweep through me, conjuring the image of my neighbor’s brilliant smile.
But the more I resist her friendly advances, the more persistent she gets.
Just as I reach down to move one of the many cakes meant to intimidate me into friendship, someone pops out of the bushes.
Nothing could have prepared me for the sight before me.
At the base of the steps, stands an adult woman dressed head-to-toe as a gingerbread cookie. Glittery gumdrop buttons twinkle under the afternoon sun, and her icing-lined smile stretches too wide, almost grotesquely so. It's like one of those ludicrous nightmares where logic takes a back seat, only, I'm wide awake.
Before I can utter a word, her shrill voice begins to blast a modified version of Rick Astley’s, “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
‘Never gonna stop the cheer,
Always gonna be right here,
Gonna make you love this neighborly tune!
Never gonna fail to try,
