I part the blinds with my pointer finger and thumb. She's carrying a Jug of Lemonade some nights. other nights cigarettes, and most often a few beers. Using Her older sister's ID. I have never met Trista, but I feel like I have known her all my life. She's sixteen, and beautiful. Her long blond hair is past her shoulders and straight. She always wears eyeliner and black mascara. She has Coral lips that are as thick as her voice which has turned melancholy from her time alone. Because of her complicatedly beautiful face, she has no need to wear exquisite clothing. She cannot afford it anyway. She wears long White shirts that look like men's. And some simple tights underneath. Sometimes she dresses up for the walks to CVS and wears these fire engine red stilettos that look dangerous. I want them. She's always alone, because she left Chicago once and got married. Her husband is rarely home. He's older. maybe twenty. He works away from home, and comes home tired and mean. His work killing him. When he's home Trista never leaves. Sometimes she gets the mail, but I never see her wear red stilettos when he's home. When he goes out and comes home drunk and loud, I get scared and shut the blinds quickly. only listening to there fights. Not looking into there Kitchen which has a light on all the time. I hear screams. They crack and break at points. Dishes strewn against walls. And When he leaves, she walks to the store with a cast or bandages. Still smiling.
The shouts still linger in the hollows of my ear, "give me a child!"
When Trista's Sister visits, her stomach fat with maternal bliss, they talk about hope. They talk about dreams. About things they wish would happen.
one day while I was raking leaves i hear them talking, "I wish, that while he's out I might get a job. Maybe in a department store, at the perfume counters. I might meet someone."
Her Sister laughs loudly, "Why don't you then? You can meet anyone anywhere. But not cooked up inside a house."
then Trista sighs, "I could find some sweet guy. I wont care if he's fat or has back hair. Just that he's sweet. And he'd take me away from here. He won't care if I'm damaged goods. We'll have a big house with beautiful things in it, and two cars."
Her sister grunts at this, "If you find a man like that, make sure he has a brother."
They laugh, out of synchronization. Her sisters laugh loud and hefty like garbage bins being pulled across gravel driveways to the curb. Trista's Laugh is like the tinkling of bells, or a watering can.
When Trista's alone, she sits on the porch, lighting up a back of Newport's. She sings loudly to herself, a song which I had heard once on the radio stations that play old songs. I can't remember what song exactly, but some lyrics were, it's so easy to fall in love, oh its so easy to fall in love.
This was the time I could see her best.
She's waiting. For someone to pass by, to talk to someone other than her sister and husband. Someone to relate to?
I consider walking over there. Young dumb boys in my neighborhood, pass by there jeans hanging low, whistling at her. She smiles and waves. Sometimes they stop and she goes inside with them. They don't leave for an hour or so. But then when they come back she tells them to leave and not come back. So many,
baby I love you or
I don't want anyone else other than you
but as much as we all know she wants them to stay and shelter her, she cant let him. She knows her husband won't stop to look in their eyes when he has a gun to their head.
The last Sunday of summer, I was reading a book in my room, just relaxing like every Sunday. I heard our front door creek open and slam shut slowly. Again, I sat up and peered through the blinds.
My mother was at Trista's house. My curiosity was to strong and I hopped down the stairs onto the porch to watch at a better place. Trista was inside her car bending on her arm out the window talking to my mom. A trailer that sat, all broken down in her yard was now hitched to the back, and i could see through her kitchen window, that the house was empty. My mother must have known something was going on.
"Are you leaving Trista?"
Trista smiled her crimson lips blending into the summer sunset.
"Yeah, I'm headed to new york city. Ron has a better job down there."
Ron. That must be her husband's name. It seemed to me my mother new quite a bit more than i did about Trista.
"Well, good luck. You've been a nice neighbor."
strangely enough, my mother said it sincerely. Even though Trista and her husband were loud and boisterous, a nuisance to the neighbor hood. I suppose it wasn't her fault he hurt her. But, what else was my mother supposed to say. We weren't close neighbors, and this trashy neighbor hood, and the people living here hardly deserved those words.
"Thanks" She waved goodbye and drove off into the line of buildings, graffiti and red sky.
That neighbor, is the one i wonder about most, because, her mystery is dark and uncanny. I lay in bed imagining her in a big house with a large and happy family. The husband, looking at her face always. smiling lovingly into her face like the sun. The type my mother watches in Saturday afternoon soap operas. The type that never have existed here on my street. But the biggest reason I think about her is because, as she drove off passing by me, just as my mother walked inside the house, calling after me, to not be alone outside was, she pulled her sunglasses slightly down her nose, winked at me and said like a whisper, and like she was kissing the air,
"I'll miss you, watcher."
That made me blush and like frozen peas, trudge up the stairs. And then like so many times, when something unusual happens to people, they think about what they should have done or said. I should have said,
"I'm here for you."
or even goodbye.
I can still see her dancing around the avenue, waving at people. Waiting for the sun to rise,for all the pearls of planets to drop onto the ground, waiting to make a car stop, waiting for her dreams to come true. Part of me think, she ran away. That she wasn't going to be with her husband in new york. I wish she might turn around her car a drive the opposite direction, if she means to be with him. Drive far, far away from my neighborhood, far from him, and just stop when she reaches an end to anything. instead of waiting for someone to take her there.
she was waiting for her life to change.
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