Outside, the garden is lush and well tended, the secluded and sheltered landscaping one of its strongest selling points when I viewed the property. I stare out at it for a long while before turning back to the room.
I carefully pick up the broken glass, then finally wipe the floor dry and deposit the offending shards into a neat, nonlethal package for the bin.
Blue emits a long and drawn-out meow. He wants his breakfast. I fill his bowl and hop upstairs to find a plaster. In my room the cat camera lies, its charging light no longer flashing, ready for use. Once I’ve bandaged my cut and pulled on some socks, I hop back downstairs, camera in hand.
I check the back door again. It is still locked.
I attach the new cat camera collar and let Blue out for the day. No one is messing with my cat and getting away with it.
I make coffee, distracting myself with the ritual of it, the giant expanse of another day completely alone and jobless opening up before me. My mind flits skittishly over the strange feeling I have here: the scaffolding creeping up the front and back of the house next door; the woman gesturing in the window last night; the words on Blue’s collar; and the open back door.
When I finally look back into the garden, Blue is gone, off to explore. And I, too, need to start my day. I pop the little broken glass package into the rubbish and take the whole bag out the front to place it in the bin store.
Outside, I notice full recycling bags, left by front gates in neat bunches, two or three per home. Even the rubbish here is tidy. I wonder when they all came out and did this, because I’ve neither heard nor seen a single neighbor this morning. There are various gaps in the parking bays, though, where the gleaming Porsches and G-Wagons and silver Aston Martins were last night. The Bentley from yesterday, with my hot gray-haired neighbor, is gone wherever it is he goes, and Arabella’s gate has its bags arranged and ready, too.
I note the small number of bags per household, the economy of waste here. I hustle back inside and grab as much cardboard and packing rubbish as I can fit in three bags, then lug the recycling out to rest neatly by my gate.
I am admiring my handiwork when a voice comes from behind me, so close and unexpected that I leap from it.
“Looks like someone’s discovered Little Napoli.”
I yelp, spinning around, my cut heel throbbing painfully as I do.
A man has stopped by my railings. He, I am relieved to see, is not the angry man from yesterday. He is handsome, and smiling at me.
“Sorry, sorry,” I bluster at him, taking in his soft, tousled hair, intense brown eyes, and strong jaw. There’s something disconcertingly amused about the way he looks at me. “You snuck up on me,” I explain, though we both know he did no such thing. His smile broadens.
“My apologies,” he offers, kind eyes twinkling at me. “Sorry for busting in on you. I love a good ‘disassociate’ in the mornings, too.”
“Tricky first night,” I find myself saying, gesturing to the empty moving boxes stacked high by the bin store. “I just moved in,” I continue, apropos of nothing, even pointing back to the house I am clearly standing in the front yard of.
He’s tall. Well over six feet. Thirties, I would guess—too young for me. Maybe. The times have changeda lotsince I last dated. I snap myself out of my reverie, vaguely aware that I have instantly sexualized this man.
“Ah, the newbie. You lost your cat, right?”
“He actually came back last night,” I clarify, a warm, fuzzy feelingfilling me. This man is on the neighborhood group; I technically already have his number.
“I was just saying, you’re a fan of Little Napoli,” he continues, pointing to my recycling; through the translucent plastic, two broken-down pizza boxes are visible. Pizza and a garlic flatbread—it is what it is. Displayed for all to see.
Whose idea was it to usetransparentgarbage bags so that the whole world can see every packet you’ve used, everything you have eaten, the pizza boxes and bags of crisps, the bottle of wine you have drunk, the Nair hair-removal cream you’ve used?
“To be honest,” I say, “the biggest perk of moving to the city so far has been the superior delivery options.”
I’ve been reading a lot about “making new friends as an adult” since deciding to leave Oxfordshire. Confessing something emotionally neutral and bonding over shared likes and dislikes is a helpful way to build bonds,apparently.
“I was addicted to delivery for a month after I first moved here,” he says. “I’m back into cooking now, though…saving a small fortune. And my waistline.”
I desperately try not to think about his waistline. I wonder if this is sexist, if what I’m doing issexistright now. Can women even be sexist, in such a male-dominated field?
A sudden thought occurs to him. “Hey, if you haven’t found it yet, there’s an amazing deli just around the corner from here, on the main stretch. They do freshpastéis de nataevery morning, but you’ve got to get there before the drop-off rush.”
I flick a glance at my watch—dear God, how is it already past nine?
“Oh, that sounds great. I’ll check it out,” I say.
His eyes crease at the corners. I try to work out what it is about him that is so attractive—that barely-there stubble, or the way his hair peppers ever so slightly at the edges, or his expensive and lived-in preppy clothes. Or maybe it’s just how unusually approachable he seems to be, in spite of being a clear 10? Ben, my ex, was neither hot nor approachable.
I have the urge to drop everything. To ask this stranger if he wants to go to that deli with me right now, tell me all his hard-earned secrets of the area, hold my hand, co-parent my cat.
