In a fashionable suburb of Santa Barbara, three lives are lived. Captured and contained within four brick walls and an old shingled roof; separated only by some planks of oak. Three free flowing spirits, diverse and in opposition of each other but bound together all the same by a street address.
Chapter 1
Her eyes burst open. She peered up at the ceiling and it appeared to be almost pulsing rapidly in a repetitive beat. The same beat vibrated her skull thanks to the blaring music that was passing through the ceiling like it was paper mache. Stucco from the ceiling shook loose and misted over her face. Her eyes slammed shut and her spitting reflex kicked in. She violently threw the blanket and sheets astray as she moved to wipe her face clean.
“Stupid girl! Her and her stupid Taebo exercise crap. Every single morning. And always at six in the morning. The only people who have any right to be awake at this hour are paper deliver boys and bakers. One of these days I’m going to call the cops on her so help me god. I swear!” she shouted, although with the music playing as loud as it was, no one probably heard her.
With a frustrated sigh she leaned forward, swung her legs off the bed and set her feet on the floor. The wooden floor panels creaked as she hoisted herself up, although not as loudly as her knee joints. She lifted her glasses off one of the bedposts and put them on as she made her way to the kitchen.
She went straight to the refrigerator and opened its paper covered doors. A single green sheet of paper floated to the ground as she opened the door. She bent over and picked it up. It was a flyer for a national bookstore that had recently moved in to the area. “I don’t know why I even have this here. I guess its good to know the competition. They’re just going to fail like the rest. Isn’t that right Samuel?” she said as she petted her old grey Persian cat who had just jumped up onto the adjacent counter top.
“Yep, just going to fail,” she said, to herself this time. She slid the flyer back underneath its magnet on the refrigerator door. “I suppose you want your breakfast too,” she said looking down at Samuel. “Meow,” Samuel sounded as he began a gentle purr.
She removed a Tupperware container with some pancakes she had made a couple days ago and set it on the counter next to Samuel. Then she went to the cupboard above the sink and opened it. Samuel gave the Tupperware container his customary sniff to make sure it hadn’t changed since yesterday morning before running across the counter top to his food dish by the sink. She took out a colorful bag of cat food that proudly advertised across its front,” Make aging cat feel like kittens again.” She poured some into Samuel’s food dish and returned the bag as Samuel dove into the food. “Eat up Samuel so you can become strong and healthy again. I don’t know what I would do if I lost you.” She slowly stroked her hand across Samuel’s full length before turning towards the Tupperware container. Samuel just continued to devour his food.
The pancakes were calling her name and her stomach was certainly listening so she returned to them. She removed a paper plate from a nearby cupboard. Ceramic plates with a lovely floral pattern rims sate next to the paper ones, but she saved those for guests. She popped the plastic lid off the Tupperware and took out two pancakes and put them on her plate. She popped the plate into the microwave and set it for sixty seconds. While she waited, she took out a glass from the same cupboard as the plate and filled it with water from the sink.
She stood by the sink and slowly started to sip the water. Her mind began to wander and her eyes fell fixed on the bookstore flyer on the refrigerator door. “They’re going to fail. I’m sure of it,” she said to herself. Abruptly she put her glass down on the counter and walked over to the refrigerator. She ripped the flyer back off in one swift swipe of her right hand and began to crumple it in her fist. “I don’t know why I even have this,” she remarked as she tossed the wadded up flyer into a nearby trash can. Her mind wandered off again.
She was jarred back to reality by the alarm of the microwave. She took her pancake plate out of the microwave, took a fork from a drawer, retrieved her glass of water and sat down at the kitchen table. She had just begun to eat when she paused. A piece of fork-impaled pancake was held suspended in mid-flight and then started to slowing spin. “Have I ever told you about my mother’s pancakes Samuel?”
Samuel continued to eat.
“Well, every Sunday my mother would make homemade buttermilk pancakes. A huge stack of them that she would place on the table for my two brothers and me. We would always manage to ravish that plate clean. They were the most delicious thing. I never could make pancakes like hers.” She put the hanging pancake piece into her mouth and began to chew, taking her time doing it.
“She never did like how I ate those pancakes though. She felt that pancakes should be eaten coated in butter and drenched in syrup. She acted like it was God’s will that pancakes should be eaten that way. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had searched for the bible for that passage either. She thought that I was missing out on her pancakes full potential by eating them dry. I liked them just fine, thank you. I don’t remember one week in which she didn’t tell me how blasphemous my pancake eating was.”
“She always thought that there could only be one right answer and that her answer was it, especially when it came to Jonathan.”
She stopped talking after saying that and finished eating her pancakes.
After breakfast, she began to get ready for the day. She showered and then dressed in a long navy blue dress with a high collar and longs sleeves and put on a pair of Saucony tennis shoes. She tossed on her fake leopard skin, grabbed her purse and headed for the door. Between the door and one of her bookshelves sat a picture frame on a small table. She picked up the picture frame, kissed the picture and said, “Goodbye Jonathan. Have a good day. I’ll see you tonight dear.”
With that she set the picture frame down on the table, opened the door and stepped out onto a small landing at the bottom of a long staircase. She opened the door to the outside to the sound of a loud smack and a vocal “Ouch.” She immediately stepped out of the door and peered around the door. There behind the door stood an old man holding a cardboard box labeled “Figurines.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” said the man. Hello. I’m Charles Johnston.”
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