Moths

I casually kick the door, but an unobserved screen door replies louder than anticipated. I balance the pizza on the palm of my hand and reach for handle with the other. I swing open the door and hold it with my foot. I give the real door three crisp knocks. When I remove my foot, the screen door swings back, making another crashing sound.

As I wait, I stare at the moths bouncing off the round, buzzing light. Moths aren’t exactly the smartest beings on Earth, are they? They don’t even notice all the other moth bodies clumped in the bottom of the light fixture, all the moths that actually managed to get in; what evolutionary advantage possibly came by instinctively running into bright things? I suppose they would be good at getting out of tunnels: I suppose.

I look back to the door and perform the knocking maneuver on it again. What’s taking so long? Maybe this is a prank call; the porch light is on, though: I don’t know. I check a window, but all the lights are off; all I can see is my reflection: I need a haircut. It’ probably a good thing, though, if needing a haircut is the only thing I can complain about when it comes to my looks; The hair isn’t really bad looking itself either: I’m just bad at remembering to wash underneath my bangs; my forehead gets oily and it’s a prime acne spot; the hair also hides it, though, so it’s not that bad, I guess; but it’s still gross.

Heavy, frustrated air forces itself from me. This is taking way too long: I’m leaving. I start to walk down the stairs, but jump when I hear the scream of a woman from inside the house. Why did I jump? That wasn’t scary; it was surprising, but not scary. I walk back up the steps and knock on the door, telling myself this is their last chance to answer. “Hello?” I ask the door.

I don’t know why I’m bothering. Who cares if someone screams? I should just leave. On the other hand, if I don’t do anything I’ll dwell about it all night; I’ll feel bad for not helping when I know I ought to: I guess I should investigate. More frustrated air escapes me. I open the door just enough to look inside. I wrap my head around the door until I can see a room that’s actually lit. Tile: It’s probably a kitchen. “Hello?” I ask with the expectancy of a response.

“Hello?” asks an old voice voice. “Come in, please. Help me.”

One image after another blast their ways through my head, depicting terrible things that could happen here; I’m not usually invited into houses by screams and calls for help. Despite all the thoughts that force themselves upon me, I know they’re all absurd: I circle around the door and close it shut. As I walk toward the kitchen, I call out, “Are you OK?”

I enter the kitchen and see an old lady lying in a puddle of water. “Yes, yes, I’m fine,” says the old lady, “I was just coming to the door when I slipped on this water.” I give her an exaggerated “oh” sound in acknowledgment, and then she adds, “Now I can’t get up with all this water still on the floor.”

I set the pizza down on the counter. “Here,” I tell her, reaching out with both hands to help her up. As she rises, I place my hand on her shoulder until she grabs hold of the counter. “So you’re OK?” I ask again.

“Yes, thank you. I’ll be just fine,” she assures me, smiling the way only old ladies seem to be able to do. Her trembling hands reach for the purse sitting on the counter and then fumble through it, looking for money.

“Granma? Is everything OK?” Footsteps can be heard beating down a set of stairs, and then a woman, looking just barely 20, walks into the kitchen with towels wrapped around her body and hair. Maybe it’s just because she’s very clean, but she looks like she’s glowing. “Oh, wow,” She announces purely for herself, “pizza’s here.” She pulls her towel up to her neck as she turns away from me.

She must be uncomfortable: Instinctively, I tell her I’m “sorry.” I create a visual wall by placing my hand flatly upon my temple. The problem with trying to make someone feel more comfortable by not looking at them, though, is that you have no way to check if it’s working.

The old lady didn’t seem to notice the awkward moment between her grand daughter and me, or else just didn’t care. The old lady looks up from her things for a moment, just to check that her grand daughter is in the room when she responds; “Yes Jenny, I’m fine dear.” Jenny, I note in my mind. “I fell over, but the nice pizza boy helped me up.”

Pizza boy? I’m 23! I mean, not that I care; I'm mature enough to not care how old someone makes me sound. But still, doesn't everyone say "Pizza guy" these days? Old people always know how to embarrass you in front of a pretty girl, even if they've only known you for about 4 minutes apparently. I tilt my head and hand only slightly to look at Jenny again. Indeed, she’s smiling, but looking at her makes me feel better anyway; it’s the kind of smile that tells me she finds the remark itself funny, rather than me.

Am I trying to convince myself that she’s laughing with me, not at me? Yeah, I’m sure that that’s what she’s doing: My eyes automatically roll backward, so I try to hide it, to some degree, by blinking. I still feel better looking at Jenny, though; my tired eyes feel at ease when she fills them; it’s like that soothing feeling you get when you close your eyes after a lot of reading: It tingles backwards, cooling the nerves.

“.....................ave change?” I hear.

What? That didn’t make any sense; my eyes blink stupidly while I turn toward the origin of the sound. The old lady looks to be waiting for a response. “Huh?” Instinctively leaps out of my mouth; That wasn’t the response I intended to give her. I repeat what I heard in my head, and realize that I could have guessed what it was. Unfortunately, I’ve already said, Huh?

“You have change?” the old lady repeats.

My eyes do a little stretching routine while my head completes its descent from outer space, “Yeah, yes. I do.” Panic and regret make a quick pact and try to drown me: Ogling the customer’s grand daughter? Pull it together, man: Be professional! I take hold of the $30 and place it on the counter and begin searching my wallet for correct change. I try to smile professionally, but I don’t know how professional it really looks at this point. Er, wait. Why'd she give me a ten and a twenty? “Uh, ma'am, it's only 14 dollars."

“I know. The ten's for you. The change is for me,” she tells me, still smiling the way only old ladies seem to be capable of.

“Oh,” I say, surprised. “Thank you.” I think this old lady is just really nice; it’s possible she might have not noticed me staring at her grand daughter at all, but it’s more likely that she’s just nice.

“Alright, well,” I start walking, “I hope you two have a good night.” I head toward the room with the front door. Jenny backs out of the kitchen doorway and circles around the frame as I approach. The old lady follows me past Jenny toward the door.

Halfway across the room, the old lady insists, “Let me get that.” I can’t believe how nice this lady is. I glance at Jenny and wonder if it’s genetic. I turn back to the old lady as she loudly forces on the door; “It sticks on this side,” she explains, “There’s a certain way you need to jiggle it.” I watch the old lady try to open the door with mounding failure: Maybe I should offer to help her; she doesn’t look very strong: It would probably be a lot easier for me to do it. Although, she did say that it needs to be jiggled a certain way, not pulled really hard: I suppose I probably wouldn’t actually be able to help much: I guess I can just wait: It’s fine.

My eyes wander toward Jenny, who’s still standing by the kitchen door. She never stopped smiling: Always, always smiling; I can’t help but smile when I look at her; it’s infectious; seeing that much happiness clumped in one person, I just can’t help it; God, that’s irritating. I mean, I’m not sure I’m complaining; I like smiling: Happiness is a good thing; It’s just weird realizing how easily she can make me smile.

She makes a momentary glance toward me, but then she focuses when she realizes that I’m staring at her: Shit, stop staring! Look at something else; pretend you’re looking at the picture to her side or something.

I glance back at her for a moment: Yep, she’s still staring; Well, maybe I can pretend I just noticed her staring at me; try staring back at her quizzically. …I don’t think this’ working: She just looks confused; probably trying to figure out why I was staring at her: Why was I staring at her? Idiot, stop staring!

She’s not mad, though: Still smiling. Why is she raising her hand now? Is she- ? She’s waving. Well don’t just stand here, do something! My hand rises and waves, identically delicately. After completing the gesture, I realize that, although the gesture looked cute when she made it, it probably looked really lame when I made it.

“Uh,” I declare as I turn towards the old lady, “is there a back door I can just use?”

“Yeah, but it would be a lot easier if I could just get this stupid door open,” the old lady gripes.

Jenny starts to explain and my eyebrows become genuinely quizzical; “All the houses on this block have back doors that just lead to an alleyway, which goes through the center of the block. You’d basically have to walk around half the block.” Then she added, with a big smile, “I’m sure Granma can get the door open for you.”

The old lady comments, “It makes people feel safer about their cars if the only way to get to them is through an alleyway and a garage.”­­­­­­­­­­­­

Something is limiting my thought capacity, allowing enough to listen to the women, but not to generate a coherent response. I generically agree, to be polite, “Not a bad idea I suppose.” In the time it took to say that, though, I miraculously thought of something funny to say so that I can actually be part of the conversation: I start laughing a little when I say, “Unless –of course– your front door doesn’t work,” I look to Jenny to see if she’s laughing at my comment, but she wasn’t smiling any more than before; I suppose it wasn’t much of a joke; actually, I’m not sure it was a joke at all: Why did I think that would be funny?

The old lady might have been discouraged by my comment or might have just seen it as a good opportunity to give up: “Must be the cold,” she mumbles. She turns to me and admits, “Maybe you should just go around after all. I’m sorry about this.”

“Oh, No, it’s fine,” I say, while thinking about how much I really don’t want to walk around the block. “Don’t worry about it.”

I’m a terrible liar; not like: I lie a lot, but like: I suck at lying; I’m sure Jenny and the old lady both saw right through it. Although, I doubt anyone could have said: Yeah, I love to go walk in the cold, and made everyone believe it; still, I’m a terrible liar, I just can’t do it;

I need to be more careful with my thought tangents, because I ended this one in the middle of a conversation that concerned me:

“Granma,” Jenny is saying, “I’m wearing a towel.”

“So?” The old lady replies.

“I’ll freeze.”

“You don’t have to go outside,” the old lady says, “just show him to the shed, I’m sure he can get out from there.” The old lady ads, “can’t you?” in my direction.

“Yeah,” I say, shrugging and turning toward Jenny, “I can probably figure out your back door.” The words echo in my mind: Oh god: I hope they didn’t hear that the way I heard it. I focus so hard on searching for something reasonable to say that my eyes stop. “I can, uh…” I swallow to counteract my surprisingly active saliva glands, “Don’t worry about it.” Oh boy, good recovery, doofus. It doesn’t seem like either of the women noticed the atrocity that flopped out of my mouth, though. I didn’t mean for it to be a euphemism, but it sure sounded like one: I can probably figure out your back door; why would I say that? Oh well, I said it innocently enough that, I think, neither of them really even noticed.

“Are you coming?” I must’ve gotten sucked into another thought tangent trap: Jenny is standing in the kitchen, waiting for me to follow her. She seems like she’s over her awkward spell, but I think I might’ve caught something. I walk into the kitchen, where Jenny reminds me to watch out for the water. I follow her through another doorway into a laundry room. I fixatedly watch her weave past the piles of clothes. She holds up her towel from the front, but it drapes in the back, making a wonderful arc as if it’s a fancy dress.

“It’s, uh,” she pauses to step over a basket while keeping hold of her towel, “right through here.” My eyes finally separate from Jenny’s rear, only to notice bras hung from all the walls, which seemed especially odd since all the other clothes were just in baskets on the floor. “Uh,” Jenny says, also taking note of the littered undergarments, “Don’t look around too much, we’re doing laundry.” My eyes shut a little, but they manage to find their way back to Jenny’s butt.

“Hey,” I start to ask, trying to walk over baskets without looking, “why do you put all your bras on-“

She groans when she hears bras, “I said don’t look!” Despite her groan, though, there is a light laughter to try to hide her embarrassment.

I find her reaction is extremely amusing somehow, so I continue with my question, “…Why would you put them at eye level and then tell me not to look?”

She keeps moving forward, but says, “It shouldn’t matter, should it? I told you not to look.”

“Yeah,” I laugh shortly at her, “But you’ve hung them on the wall.”

Her voice flattens and calmly states, “Well they need to be dried.”

“Ohh.” I’m unsure to press the topic further, but I continue anyway, hoping that she will laugh more. “Well, then why don’t you hang up the other clothes too?”

By this time we’ve entered another room. She stops and turns around to tell me, “Other clothes can just go in the dryer.” I was worried the topic was irritating her, but she’s still smiling.

“Well,” I automatically break eye contact so that I can concentrate on getting my sentence started, but I circle around after I’m past the first word, “Why don’t the bras just go in the dryer?”

She exhales at my perseverance, still smiling, and then looks at the floor, “could you please stop asking about my bras?” she finally asks: The eye contact must’ve made her too embarrassed. She looks back up and says, “You’re a guy,” tilting her head sideways, painstakingly adorably, “you just can’t understand.” She turned around and kept on walking: She walks as if she had won an argument; I don’t think so: I think she just ran out of answers.

It just doesn’t make any sense: If she can put her bras in the washer, shouldn’t they be able to go in the dryer? Why wouldn’t she just put her bras in the dryer? Maybe she set up the room on purpose to let people see her bras: A trick to seduce guys she liked: Guys like me. I bet her grandma was even faking that the door was stuck so I’d have to walk through the laundry room; I didn’t notice anything weird, though, that Jenny might have done to signal her grandma to do that.

Hold on, this can’t be right: It just sounds ridiculous. It would be pretty awesome, but there’s no way it’s right.

Ah, why am I even thinking about this? I should be thinking about what to say to the woman that’s in front of me; there’s not exactly a lot of time left. But why is you look incredible the only thing racing through my head? I can’t say that! You don’t just tell someone that they look incredible randomly. Besides, she may seem more comfortable than earlier, but she probably still feels pretty vulnerable in just a towel; she’d probably think I’m being judgmental or something.

I need to say something, though: Something: Anything: You look incredible. Damn it: Is there nothing else? Maybe I should just say it; I doubt she would be angry for being judgmental, it’s not like I know anything else about her; it’s not like I can say, ‘you are so smart’ or ‘funny’ or anything like that, because how would I know!? I do know, though, that she looks incredible; maybe I should just say it: Yeah, say it; do it: Say it: Tell her she looks incredible.

“Just go through this door,” she tells me, bringing me out of my own head. “Please make sure to close the shed door when you leave,” she says, smiling, holding open the door that leads into the shed. The cold air makes her shiver, but she doesn’t say anything to hurry me up. “There’s a handle on the door,” she says, “the garage door. It’s at the bottom.”

What? No: No, no, no; this isn’t goodbye yet: Do something: Alright, if I can’t make words, just look into her eyes really intently; if I can’t tell her how I feel, maybe she’ll see it in my eyes: I don’t know what to say to you, Jenny, please say something to me: One of us needs to say something. Ohh, Shit: I’m completely blowing this chance; I’ll never get to see you again; Why aren’t I doing anything? I need to do something! Oh God: How long have I been just standing here? This is probably really awkward; I really need to say something: …Hello? Earth to my corpse! Say something! Say something!

“Th-” Instead of words, I forcefully gulp down a bundle of air; I must’ve been holding my breath while in my thoughts. I’m so eager to push out some words that I try to speak again before I’m really ready; I can feel my face contorting stupidly as I try to speak without any air, yet I manage to muster up a mighty, “Thanks.” Jenny widens her smile in response, and she gives me a small nod. I breathe deeply through my nose to try to catch my breath, still smiling stupidly at her.

I want my eyes to break from hers so that I can think, but unlike before, my eyes are locked into Jenny’s: It’s a challenge to look away, and I have to battle it. When I finally do manage to wrestle my gaze to the floor, they don’t circle around; I stare at the floor and walk down the stairs. Thanks? That’s the best I could come up with? That’s not even close to what I wanted to say!

Thanks: How perfect, I have such a way with words: It’s not like I was aiming to ask her to go on a date, or compliment her, or –no, nothing like that. I just need to be sure that I thank her: Stupid, stupid, stupid. A cleanly voiced “Good night,” interrupts my thoughts: I halt and sweep myself around to watch her smile as it disappears behind the closing door.