April 4 (Day 103)

Black coffee, blue mug

Organic granola, yellow bowl

Banana

Large spoonful of peanut butter

Lillian sat back and sighed, her eyes glued to the paper. “I should probably take more precise measurements,” she muttered to herself, adding a check mark beside the listing for granola. “Granola was fine, so was banana and peanut butter, but coffee? Definitely not.” Next to that one, she put a big black X. “I’ll have to figure out how I can drink coffee without it upsetting my tummy,” she said, looking at her cat as if he understood.

The cat just stared back with his usual unimpressed expression.

“Lunchtime for you, isn’t it?”

This time he did understand, and peeled himself off the kitchen table. He was a massive cat, and when he leapt off the table he landed with a heavy thud.

Lillian looked outside. The sun was shining, but dark storm clouds were beginning to darken the sky in the distance. “I think it’s going to storm, Black Cat,” she told the animal again. The sound of cat food clattering in the bowl brought the other feline running full speed into the kitchen, skidding to a stop in front of the other bowl.

“You’ve got some, too, don’t worry.” Another scoop, another clatter, and both cats were happily chowing down on their food like they hadn’t eaten in years. She looked back outside at the gently swaying treetops. “Hopefully this storm will stop what’s-his-name from having a crazy concert next door again.”

Who am I kidding? she thought. He’s going to have those parties, rain or shine. Weather can’t put a damper on fun, I guess.

Her gaze settled on the corner of the living room, where several thick blankets were nestled snugly in a huge comfy chair. A matching ottoman sat in front of the chair, and she felt herself being beckoned to the corner to spend some quality time with her current novel. Or, rather, the three she was reading at the same time.

Later, later. There was work to do around here, and she couldn’t get distracted. The sun was shining and she wanted to go on her walk before the rain came. Reading and hot tea would happen then.

After checking to make sure the litter box was clean, she pulled on her shoes and slipped out the back door. Quietly.

Everything was quiet, even how she gingerly closed the screen door and stepped lightly across her back porch.

It was always quiet. Lillian hated noise. She liked her life discreet and safe, especially now that she was figuring out how her new diagnosis was affecting her. Spontaneity was the last thing she wanted in her life at this moment.

Afternoon walks through the forest were her solace. Back in college, she had a couple of friends she would hike with on the weekends. They always talked about how lonely they’d be in nature if they didn’t have someone to be with. Lillian always thought she would like it better without other voices interrupting her thoughts and the sounds of nature.

Now there were no voices to disturb her meandering, and she relished the silence. It’s not that she hated people. She did like people; after all, her job was all about helping people. But she rarely let anyone into her inner life. Keeping a distance was her forte. A friendly distance...most of the time.

Thinking about it, her bitchy moments weren’t uncommon, only occurring when incompetent people were involved in the situation. A lot of people were incompetent, though.

Lillian took a deep breath and tilted her head back, feeling her neck muscles stretching. Oh, the only thing that could make this day perfect is if I could sleep without the pounding bass from next door.

She wandered along the narrow, worn path through the forest that led to the small lake. Here, the distant storm clouds were much clearer, and she noticed from the small waves that the wind had picked up. The rain was blowing in fast.

Disrupting the peaceful moment, pain ripped through her stomach. She lowered herself to the ground, doing her best to take deep, even breaths. Her insides burned like fire, and she realized with dread that she forgot to take one of her pills this morning.

I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. The pain’ll subside. She sucked in ragged breaths, trying to control something...anything.

After a few minutes the cramping eased, and she wiped a few drops of sweat from her forehead. The wind blew against her just right, and she cooled off quickly. Her strength was sapped, but the weather felt so good right now that she hated to go back home already.

Half an hour won’t hurt, right? She knew it was stupid to stay out with such little strength, but her eye caught so many flowers she hadn’t noticed before.

For a little while, she traipsed along the edge of the forest, collecting flowers to take back to her drying station. That one might do, she occasionally thought, turning a bud over in her palm. Aside from drying the plants for fun, she hung them in shadowboxes and sold them at a local florist. They were wildly popular in town, and since spring had officially arrived they were selling out fast.

Another tiny, sharp pain pricked her stomach, and she sucked in a breath. I shouldn’t be pushing myself so much. It’s time to go home. Her nose caught a whiff of storm air on the breeze, and she reluctantly ripped herself away from a lovely patch of spider lilies. Weeds or not, these are some gorgeous flowers. She quickly uprooted a few before hurrying back home.

As she closed the door behind her, the rain pounded down on the roof as hard as the bass from next door’s parties. She listened closely for a minute, but when no noise came from the party house a wave of relief swept over her.

It’s way too early for the music, she admitted, still hoping maybe tonight would be different than every other weekend since her neighbor had moved in about six months ago. Part of her kept hoping that she could sleep in peace tonight, but the other part knew the partygoers would arrive in a few hours.

“Maybe the rain will flood the street and no one will be able to drive here.” She laughed at Black Cat. “That means no party!” She scooped the cat into her arms and looked him in the face. “Right?”

He gave her a sarcastic look, as if to say, Yeah, but if they couldn’t drive, they would walk.

She stuck out her tongue at the cat, who kicked against her stomach and launched himself onto the floor. “Take it easy, jerk; that hurts,” she murmured, turning her attention to the spider lilies. “Let’s go set you up for drying, shall we?”

* * *

AT 10 P.M. SHE FELT the first thump.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she growled, easing herself out of the corner chair and setting her book down. She’d been reading the same two pages for the last ten minutes, trying to fight off sleep but badly losing.

Pushing aside the drapes, she peered next door. The windows were mostly dark, except for what looked like some moving colored lights in one room and a strobe light in another. People were walking up the front steps and laughing loudly as they invited themselves into the house.

Someone had a good time pre-gaming, she thought sarcastically.

She felt the vibration from another thud and turned to look back at the cats, who were sprawled out on the couch. Gray Cat was looking around droopy-eyed, her ears twitching once when the next thud came. She put her head back down.

“Are you more used to it than I am?” Lillian asked, wishing the cats could talk back. “I wish I could sleep as hard as you two do.”

There was a brief silence before the next song started up, louder than before. The sound of a small crowd cheering reached her ears, and she felt her blood beginning to boil.

Something’s gotta be done. She plopped herself down on the chair a little too hard. Her lower back popped in a rough way that froze her for a few seconds. She cursed under her breath and lay back, head propped up on a pillow.

More cheers drifted through the air. She stared blankly at the ceiling, wondering what on earth she could do about the situation.

I just want to sleep. Why can’t they go to a bar and burn the energy there? Why a house party? How old is this guy anyway?

When she moved in several years ago the house was unoccupied, as the family who owned it was renovating it to resell. This neighborhood was one of the most beautiful in the whole area. Behind all the houses were lush forests, and most of the homes on this side of the street had part of a lake beyond the woods.

This wasn’t a cheap neighborhood by any means, which cut down on the noise level compared to other places she had lived in. Before she got her current job working with wealthy clients she lived in a few different cities, in apartments that somehow were always in trashy areas of town.

As she lay there, staring at the ceiling, she remembered the time she lived above a cluster of dirty nightclubs that boasted huge crowds of equally dirty people. Every night was at least ten times as loud as the parties the guy next door held, but that constant cacophony was almost easier to deal with. And she wasn’t sick back then. Here, the whole neighborhood was quiet, so any party sounds stood out like a sore thumb. Especially when, before this guy came, everything was always so serene.

Except, no one else minded, because either they were too far away to hear or they were joining in the fun at the house parties. Plus, what’s-his-name over there appeared to be somewhat of a master gardener. The bushes and trees in his yard were all perfectly trimmed. Within two months of moving in, he had taken the decent work the prior family had done and transformed it into a totally different place. He had already won the neighborhood’s Most Beautiful Trim award for his row of box bushes.

The blatant innuendo in the name of that award made her giggle every time. She remembered she was supposed to be figuring out how to put a stop to the noise once and for all, so she made herself sober up.

Black Cat flinched at a thrilling scream that came from next door, and for a split-second Lillian thought something was wrong. Then she heard manic laughter and something that sounded like a cork popping out.

She and the cat looked at each other. “It’s not that I want the noise to stop completely. I like that they have fun,” she reasoned, trying to not feel like a total jerk. She never wanted to feel like a complete bitch, but she didn’t mind feeling 75% one. “I just want them to be considerate. Is that too much to ask?”

Black Cat blinked slowly and Lillian swore she saw a scowl pass over his face. “Okay, maybe it is too much to ask. People—am I right?”

The cat lowered his head and immediately closed his eyes.

She was officially at a loss. Her heart thudded with every vibration of the sub-woofers next door. Don’t people usually have those in their cars? Does he have them inside the house, or is it just some really advanced sound system? I didn’t think this was a sub-woofer kind of neighborhood.

Well, it wasn’t. Before, at least. But this guy seemed to have brought the subs with him.

With a groan, she stood and dragged her feet to the kitchen, wracking her brain for another way to passive-aggressively ask the guy to quiet down his parties. She had tried giving him the death glare when she saw him, or coughing loudly to act like she was sick. Once she brought her portable speaker outside while she was pressing flowers and played her music loudly enough to be audible next door, and when he got home she turned it down to a more personable volume.

None of those worked, so she tried something different: taking a nap on the front porch for a whole afternoon while he was clipping his bushes. He had smiled and waved, but she was so angry at his obvious cluelessness that she just turned and went back to sleep.

Clearly, this guy wasn’t getting the memo.

He must need an upfront, clear discussion. I guess most men are that way. She started to get some flashbacks from years past that she had buried in her mind for a reason: they weren’t welcome to resurface. At the first sign of them she shook her head to clear it, and opened the cabinet to find a teabag.

Back to the neighbor. Talking to him was obviously the last resort. She didn’t want him thinking she was hitting on him or was upset that she’d never been invited to the parties. Her life now—minus the party noises—was exactly how she had worked so hard to design it. She had spent far too long struggling, and jumping from lame job to lame job to get to this place.

This nice, quiet, well-to-do neighborhood, with elite neighbors and freshly waxed cars in every driveway within a mile.

She didn’t know the guy next door. He had a nice car, kept up his yard better than anyone else in the area ever had, and didn’t do anything out of the ordinary other than these wild weekend parties. But, again, no one else seemed to mind because his shrubbery was so immaculate. That had to be the reason.

I can’t be the only one who has a problem with this, she thought desperately. Her stress level was rising rapidly, and her stomach wasn’t handling it well. She heard it gurgle and felt the nausea sweep over her like a tidal wave. Steadying herself against the counter, she closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. After a minute or so, she could feel her body again.

Little attacks like that were so unnecessary, and irritated her every time. They aren’t adding anything to my life. Why do they happen so often? A year ago, she only had them every couple of weeks, but when they came upon her more often she decided something wasn’t right inside her. She spent a couple of months having tests and blood work done until they finally reached a definite conclusion.

Calm down, Lillian. What was the trigger? Stress. Absolutely stress. The doctors had warned that stress was a big factor in keeping these small flare-ups at bay. She could still hear the doctor’s voice, asking her if she had a stressful lifestyle. To which, of course, she responded no. Not anymore, at least. She had a stable, well-paying job and lived in a beautiful house in a peaceful neighborhood.

Then that guy moved in.

She sighed. “Tea,” she reminded herself. “Tea. I need to make tea, then figure out what to do about the noise.”

Slowly, she made her way to the sofa and sat in between the cats, who draped their front paws on her lap and continued their oblivious nap. She sipped slowly, thinking about ways to indirectly talk to the guy without taking it too far into the drama zone or without him suspecting something romantic.

He certainly wouldn’t think anything like that, would he? They hadn’t even talked to each other. They had barely seen each other. He had no reason to think that she had any sort of interest in him or his ridiculous parties.

Well, it’s happened before. Again, the unwanted memories. Several times before there had been men who convinced themselves Lillian was in to them, when she had never really spoken to them or spent time in the same vicinity. Luckily, each of those times, she was around friends when the guys confronted her, trying to persuade her of how in love with them she was.

A few times, her personal space had definitely been breached.

Her stomach gurgled just a bit and she shut off her mind. What was it with tonight and all the old thoughts? There were much better things to think about in life now, and what good did dwelling on the past do anyway? She had never heard of anyone who was motivated by toxic memories.

A pause in the music next door brought her back to reality. Moving forward. Her tea level was getting dangerously close to the bottom of the mug. She made a mental note to add it to her food journal and put a check mark beside it. A big, happy, positive check mark that meant she could have no worries about drinking it.

For the time being.

Still at a loss for what the almost-last-ditch-effort should be, she glanced around the room in search of some physical object that might inspire her. Over there, on the desk, was a pile of sticky notes.

“That could work,” she said slowly, her mind racing for the next course of action. Suddenly excited that her troubles might soon come to an end, she grabbed Gray Cat and held her up. “That might be it, kitty! We might be able to sleep in peace soon!”

Startled by the abrupt movements Black Cat flinched, and in one motion was standing stiff on the arm of the sofa. “It’s okay, baby,” Lillian put down the gray cat and rubbed the black one’s ears. “I just got excited. Chill out.”

She swore Black Cat rolled his eyes at her before jumping down and plodding over to the water bowl.

What should I say...what should I say... She resisted the old habit of biting her nails when she was thinking. Another pause in the bass gave her a moment of silence, propelling her mind forward to plan her move. When the next song began, the bass was such a powerful vibration that she jumped in fright. Every beat thudded so strongly she felt her ribs tremble. An antique plate on the wall in the living room rattled loose from one of its two hooks.

“NO!” she screamed, and bolted over to the plate as the next vibration shook the air. Back in the kitchen she heard cups clink against each other in the sink, but didn’t care. She had to get to the plate.

Another tremor loosened the plate and she dove forward, catching it just before it fell onto the fireplace mantel.

“If I wasn’t so angry, rrrghh!” she yelled at the cats. “I just pulled a ninja move! To save a plate! This guy’s so going down.”

A million things to write in the letter whirled through her mind as she stomped back to the writing desk, and she fought to avoid exploding on paper. “How can I say this concisely?” She tried to make a mental list of the most important things she needed to tell him, but that lasted about ten seconds. “Screw conciseness!” she shouted, banging her fist on the desk. “This is ridiculous!”

Lillian grabbed a pen.

PLEASE. QUIET. DOWN.

Your music made my great-great-grandmother’s plate come loose from the wall and I almost lost it forever.

My cats and I can’t sleep. My work is suffering because I can’t sleep.

I have a health condition that requires me to be as stress-free as possible.

I’m all for having fun, but seriously, man, this is too much.

If I weren’t this nice, I would call the neighborhood association on you, or worse, the police. I mean, what the heck kind of sound system is that loud? Did you get it off the black market or something? It’s insane!!

Keep having fun, but remember there’s a neighbor next door who has a different weekend schedule than you.

Also, I’m so tired of hearing the Top 40. None of those songs are even good. At least find some decent music for your (quieter) parties.

Please don’t make me have to write this again.

Feeling a little better, she threw the pen into its jar. Three sticky notes’ worth of ranting and she didn’t regret one word.

“Okay, the part about you two not being able to sleep is sort of a lie. Also, the weekend schedule.” She waved at the cats, who were sitting in front of the food bowl, watching her intently. “I do work from home on Saturdays and Sundays. Who cares, anyway? I think he’ll get the point. If this isn’t straightforward enough, he’s totally hopeless.”

Gray Cat meowed.

“My great-great-grandmother’s plate! I know!” She looked at the ceiling and let out a groan. “Why does it have to be like this?”

The cats paced around the bag of food and stared at her, their eyes as wide as saucers.

“I’ll feed you after I get back. I’ve got to go take care of this for us.” Lillian snatched up the notes and walked out the front door. She stopped before going down the steps.

“Shoes,” she muttered. “There’s no telling what kind of fluids are on that front porch.” She slipped on her old sandals and marched down. The rain hit her and she let out a string of curses before ducking back under the porch. Growling, she grabbed an umbrella inside the foyer and battled with it for a minute before it finally opened.

“Is that all you’ve got?” she shouted at the sky. When there was no response, she proceeded into the yard. The trees behind her house swayed violently; the storm wasn’t going to let up anytime soon.

There used to be a tiny pathway between the bushes on the edge of her yard and next door’s. When this garden diva guy moved in, that was the first thing he covered up with the scarily symmetrical box bushes. That little shortcut would have been great right now.

Do I cut through the bushes or walk all the way to the street and back through his yard? If she did the latter, maybe someone would see her. His front lights were super bright, and from here she could see the rooms inside were full of people dancing. The music was louder out here, obviously, but she wasn’t expecting there to be this huge of a difference in the volume.

Ridiculous. She studied the creepy square shrubs and couldn’t find even a small gap in them. Especially with how hard the rain was pouring down, there was no way she could get through without soaking her legs.

“If anyone comes out and tries to talk to me,” she grumbled as she circled back around into his yard, “I’m not going to say anything to them. I’m not even going to look at them. And if it’s the owner, I’m just going to shove the note into his hands and get back home as fast as I can!”

With no hesitation, she climbed his steps and stuck the notes onto his front door with a little piece of tape. Satisfied, she crossed her arms and stuck out her tongue at the door. Her ears buzzed from the loud music.

Someone suddenly started singing at the top of their lungs right behind the door, and she flew back down the steps. “Seriously? Why are drunk people so annoying?”

Just as she reached her porch, his front door flew open and a guy and a girl spilled out, obviously intoxicated out of their minds. Trying to walk, they bumped against a chair and fell onto the porch, laughing like idiots.

With a gagging noise, Lillian shook off her umbrella and retreated into her warm, safe house. This was the first time she had gone outside during one of those parties, and suddenly the noise didn’t seem nearly as bad as before. After a few minutes, though, it wore on her nerves again.

She lay down her yoga mat on the floor of her bedroom and did some deep breathing meditations to calm down. It didn’t work, but made her feel like she had done something proactive.

The cats wandered in later as she was covering up in bed. The music was still going strong next door.

“Come here, babies,” she called her pets, and they jumped onto the bed. “He’ll get the note tomorrow when he’s hungover. I’m sure he’ll understand. These loud weekends are going to be over soon.”