"Jim, check it out. There she is.” Sean’s voice floated out of the darkness of Jim’s driveway.
Jim grabbed a red shop towel and wiped his hands. Satisfied, he picked his beer up off the edge of the truck bed and walked out of the bright garage to where Sean stood in the dark. Across the street, illuminated in the window by the light over her kitchen sink, was his neighbor. She worked in a steady rhythm, cleaning the dishes and, he presumed, loading them into the dishwasher. A pale pink t-shirt with a deep v-neck displayed her smooth, tan skin and round breasts.
Reaching into his shirt pocket, Jim pulled a pack of cigarettes out, flipped the top open and shook one free. Lifting the pack to his mouth, he grabbed the cigarette with his lips. The pack went back in his pocket. He thumbed the wheel of his lighter, drawing a quiet snick and a flame. Squinting against the glare, Jim dipped the cigarette into the lighter’s fiery heart. A deep breath made the tip flare briefly before morphing into a dull orange coal. Jim savored the hit a moment before he exhaled.
His attention moved back to the faint sounds of music drifting across the street. He watched her move in time to the beat. Night after night, he stood in the shadows and watched her work. Until she’d moved in, he never knew that a woman might actually enjoy doing things in the kitchen. His mother hated cooking, cleaning, anything domestic. One of his mother’s favorite sayings was, ‘Every damn day you people get hungry! And you want something different every damn day!’
But, this woman, his neighbor, put music on and danced her way through her chores. She got into it and she played it loud. Those hips of hers, they had a life of their own. And a smile, always a smile on her face.
Jim leaned against one of the cars in his driveway. With his thumb hooked into his pocket for support, he held his beer against his thigh, fingers curled around the neck of the bottle. He stood deep in the shadows, smoking and just watching.
‘What would it take?’ he wondered. ‘What could I do to get her attention?’
“Man, I’d almost live with your mom just to come out here every night and watch her,” Sean said.
Jim’s reply was another drag on his cigarette.
“Almost,” Jim said after a moment, never taking his eyes off the window across the street.
“What?”
“I said, ‘almost’. You’d almost live with my mother.” Taking a final drag, Jim flicked his cigarette to the concrete and crushed it under his boot.
“Yeah, I don’t think there’s any chick out there worth living with your Ma for, Jim.”
Jim chuckled in agreement and finished his beer.
“Hey, man. I gotta get going. I gotta be at work at seven tomorrow morning,” Sean said.
“Alright, thanks for the help, man. We’ll have the truck running by the end of the month.”
Sean pushed himself off the tarp-covered vehicle in the driveway and gave Jim a jive-style handshake.
