Chaos In The Wake

The First Splash: New Boy In Town

            It should have a perfect morning. The soft breeze seems to be carrying not only the salt off of the crests of the waves, but the sunshine along with it. It's warm out, just warm enough to assure you of a great day ahead, but not enough to cause you to sweat in your sheets. I'm serious: it's a great day. It's got this whole, "Your prince will appear and propose to you and you will run away from your evil stepmother and be happy forever" feel to it, which I would probably enjoy a lot more if I had a wicked stepmother. Oh, and if the banging stopped.

            The banging. It had started early – before coffee early - and managed to remain annoyingly constant ever since. It would occasionally stop, and I would finally remove the pillow from on top of my head and snuggle back into my fluffy sheets. But, just like clockwork, it would reappear, emanating from a different spot above my head. The real frustrating thing was that no matter how loud I shouted for it to stop, it didn't stop. So I do what a normal, mature, independent woman of 18 years would do. I call my mom to complain.

            I stumble out of my bedroom, crashing into the doorframe and letting out a few colorful words. My feet hit the gritty hardwood floor and my first idea is that I have to clean before Bev comes. No matter how powerful your vacuum is, no matter how carefully you clean out your beach bag, it is a universal truth that you will perpetually have sand on the floor of your beach house. Or, for me, beach condo.

            I'm not going to lie: it's rather small. Two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen deprived of an oven and a dishwasher, and a breakfast nook that my family squeezes into for every meal. It's still bigger than my dorm at college, or I assume from my visit in November, so I'm not really complaining that much. I head over to where the phone is hanging on the wall, a sure sign that my parents had bought this place in the eighties and hadn't changed much of the original format. The plastic's faded and cracked, between the ever persistent sun streaming through the windows and my klutzy and frantic hands whenever I drop the phone, which was more of a regular activity than I would like to admit. I pull it off and consider yelling at my neighbor that seems determined to wake up the whole building. I punch in the numbers for my mom's phone and slump down to the floor with a defeated thump. It takes her a few rings to pick up, but relief settles on my shoulders once I hear her groggy hello.

            "Hi. Are the Stevensons supposed to have construction today?" I cut her off mid sentence.

            "Oh, hello my lovely daughter dearest. How are you doing this fine, early Sunday morning?" She asks, irritation slipping into her final sentence.

            "Yeah, right. You've been up by now, walking with your hand weight... thingys." My mother attests that carrying around her four-pound weights as she walks actually helps her burn calories, but I just think it's – ahem – a load of crap.

            "Actually, no. You managed to wake me up early on the one time I take a day off from exercise."

            "Yay for me," I say, impatience clouding my compassion. "But, really, did the Stevensons tell you anything about any construction? Or, like, suddenly learning tap dance?"

            "What are you talking about, Carrie?"

            I sigh and continue. "It just like... banging."

            "Banging?"

            "Banging," I agree.

            She pauses for a moment, and I assume she's trying to listen for it. I wait patiently, rubbing the top of my head as if it will take away the seed of a headache that my neighbor planted in my brain.