Idiots.

All of them.

Blocking the street my house is on.

How did it take the police THIS long to finally apprehend my neighbor, Mrs. Wilson?

It was obvious from the start and yet, as I drive by, all I see are gawking and chattering neighbors watching who they thought was a sweet old lady being taken in.

As I parked and left my car, I ignored the fact that Mrs. Wilson was crying about being a poor widow on the other side of the tall hedges that separated our homes. As I heard police officers walking towards her backyard wtith the familiar click of shovels against pavement, I entered my home.

How our neighbors never noticed I will never understand. A house that never had visitors while Mr. Wilson was alive, but then the moment he died, very young women began to show up on her eldery doorstep. Perhaps the Joneses-less residents of the quiet cul-de-sac thought they were her grandchildren, but if they actually paid any attention, those women looked nothing like her.

I wonder how she managed to pull it off for this long as I dropped off my briefcase and made my way into the kitchen. Did those girls casually stride up to her house like this? How did she lure them to her place?

I wondered if she poisoned any of them as I made my evening tea. Perhaps she slipt rat poison into their teas. She would serve them and watch them drink it. Watch as it took them over.

I wondered if maybe she stabbed them from behind as I sat down to watch tv. Perhaps the girls sat in front of her tv set, promising them her famous chocolate chip cookies, unknowning that she was approaching them.

I wondered if maybe she pushed them so they would hit their heads on a side table next to her couch, as I set my tea on my own. They would innocently look around and she'd shove them with all the strength that a cheater's wife could have.

As the sirens took off and grew hushed, silence settled back down over my home.

I cleaned my cup and prepared to go out.

There was another woman to arrive at her door tonight.

And, after all, it's my duty as Mr. Frank Wilson Jr. to watch my mother's back.

Lavender.

All I want is to give her lavender.

Well, I actually want her hand in mine and to hear my name from her lips: "Zoey".

And yet, here I stand on her doorstop, afraid to ring her bell.

We have been friends and neighbors forever and my heart races thinking about the only two possiblities. Dating or never hanging out again. There was NO way she talk to me again if she rejected me.

I found the smallest courage and raised my hand to the bell, only for her to open the door first.

She smiled. "Hi."

"Hi, Liz."