Like Before

A knock on the door lures me out of a deep sleep. Maria is yelling for me from the hallway. I can hear a man in traffic shouting for somebody to get out of the road, followed by the rowdy laughter of teenagers. My neighbor’s dog is barking over their radio. It’s another hot summer morning like yesterday and the day before. I turn over; bury my face into the mattress and allow myself a second to ignore the whole world. I imagine the city is quiet, that Maria is quiet and for a moment I feel the weightlessness of sleep start to creep back into my body. My legs disappear; my thoughts become fluid and swirl around me. Long lost memories are flashing in front of my eyelids and are gone before I can acknowledge them. I start to feel the sense of falling when another knock pushes me back up. “I’m up” I yell and roll out of bed.

Outside I jump over the crack in the sidewalk and almost slip into the street. Maria is a few steps behind me and rolls her eyes into the back of her head. She thinks she is grown now. It’s only been a couple of blocks and I can feel the sweat leaking out from under my hat, contouring the edges of my nose and pooling above my lip; burning my eyes along the way. The sign outside of the bank across the street is flashing between 12:40 pm and 103 degrees. I’ve lost count of how many days we have already spent in this heat wave but it feels like forever. Summer break has been an endless string of doing the same thing as the afternoon before while each day is hotter than the last. It’s the summer before Junior high and we feel brand new in a city that we have lived in our entire lives. Grade school is behind us and the summer holds endless possibilities. We are excited, confused and bored. All that matters though is this time of freedom we have before we have to grow up so I need to soak it all in: The smell of summer that is always fresh, the sound of the heat bugs that comfort me and the air that feels like hot cotton candy in my mouth.

We’re walking to the corner store on 32^nd. It’s three blocks further than the closest one but it always has air conditioning and the store owner, Lee, doesn’t mind if we stand inside for a little while. When I open the door the bell rings and we are hit with a wave of chilled air and a sense of relief. I stand just inside the door for a moment, close my eyes and let the cold corner store air wash over my face, neck and ears. It smells like deli meat, floor cleaner and old coffee just like always. There is a faint sound of a song I think I know but can’t quite remember coming from the speakers in the corners of the ceiling. You can barely hear it over the hum of the coolers but the songs ends and the DJ says something about the weather. When I look at Maria, she is smiling with her eyes closed. She opens her eyes and without looking at me, heads directly to the top slide cooler with the freeze pops. She opens the door and sticks her face in close to the frozen air as she contemplates which flavor she wants. She breathes hot breath into the window and frosty waves are wrapping all around her head as if trying to pull her in. My favorite flavor is watermelon but today I’m in the mood for grape. She selects two purple pops, stands up, hands me one and pulls me towards the cashier by the hand. It’s not Lee, the owner, and he seems unhappy with us. He glares down at us from behind the counter so Maria hands him a dollar and we run back out into the heat laughing. I open my pop with my teeth, we sit on the sidewalk in silence and we watch the traffic go by. Old people driving old cars, middle aged men driving shiny cars, cool kids in their parent’s cars and average kids in beaters. Suddenly my pop is done, my teeth feel dirty and fuzzy, my tongue is dry and we continue on down the street to the water fountain.

We wander through neighborhoods with no destination in mind, nowhere to go and nobody to see. We cross through the park and suddenly find ourselves in a part of town where the houses have space in between; most of them have driveways and small yards with fences. I don’t know this neighborhood per say but I think I came here before, maybe for a barbecue? Maria stops in her tracks, nudges me with her elbow and nods cooley at an old two story blue house with brown shutters. The grass is manicured, there is a small garden with little garden gnomes. There are no trespassing signs at the picket fence gate and on each window on the first floor. A sense of nervousness rises in me but a bubble of excitement flutters in the pit of my stomach. I think back to my mom’s voice following me out the door this morning “stay out of trouble!” We haven’t broken into an empty house since last summer. I feel out of sorts but also obligated to my childhood, my summer and to Maria who will make fun of my being scared. I quickly I look around, see nobody and whisper “Hurry, let’s go”. We hunch over and do a tip toe sprint towards the house, slide cautiously passed the door, careful not to disturb it’s peace.

When we get inside our laughter erupts from the exhilaration of getting away with something we know we shouldn’t be doing. When we start to calm down we look around in shock, taking it all in. Normally the houses without their people have dirty floors, maybe some holes in the walls and smell like old smoke. This house though! It looks like somebody was going to be home any minute. The furniture was arranged around a small TV, there are books organized neatly in a tall brown bookcase and porcelain trinkets in the window seats. Maria immediately walks into the kitchen and picks up a pile of mail that had been neatly stacked on the corner of the small two person table.

“Mrs. Bach” announces Maria, matter of factly.

“I don’t think we should be in here, maybe we should leave.” I suggest.

Maria ignores me and starts opening cabinets.The name sounds familiar but I can’t remember where I’ve heard it. Did something happen here? Did I hear it on the radio? Did I read it in the paper? Before I can remember, Maria is moving on to a cornering room that I suspect is a bathroom. It must have been the paper. Maybe she passed away? Yes, it was probably an obituary. “I’m going to check out the upstairs.” I say.

I spin around on my heels and walk back through the living area. I walk back passed the front door and come to a stairway that leads to the second floor. The floor boards creek loudly with every step I take, just like you would expect in a house like this. Upstairs there is a short, mud green shag carpet. It feels soft and clean under my shoes. There is a door open to what looks like the main bedroom. As I enter I’m hit with oppressive heat and stiff air; I can hardly breathe. Quickly I draw the curtains back and open the windows, allowing sunshine to pour in, illuminating the room. There is a music box open on the dresser next to some perfume and a framed photo of an old man, perhaps Mr. Bach. I can see dust standing still in the room, stuck in time with the rest of Mrs. Bach’s possessions. As if the blue house started to breath, a gentle breeze flows into the room, whirling the dust and dancing the curtains. Something feels oddly familiar. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. There is a scent that brings me to something I recognize from my past but can’t quite remember. I take another deep breath and the feeling is gone. I open my eyes and look around. My grandmother’s house? The library? I try to breathe it in again but nothing comes.

I walk back to the top of the stairs; Maria is waiting for me by the front door. Before she says anything I think to myself “It’s time to go, I’m hungry.” Then she looks up to me and repeats “It’s time to go, I’m hungry.” I hurry down the stairs two at a time and get that strange sense I got from the bedroom but instead of the smell it’s the view of rushing down this narrow stairwell towards Maria. It left as fast as it came and I run out the door towards the street and back into the spotlight of the sun.

Back on the sidewalk we walk side my side imagining what it were like to be the grandkids of Mrs. Bach. Are they and their parents coming back to clean her house? Do we know them? Will they be in our class next year? We talk about my grandmother who passed away last year and Maria says she’s afraid of everyone she knows someday dying. We talk about how we will be friends forever and she will never tell anybody about my parent’s divorce. Maria tells me about her older cousin who had sex last week and I have a lot of questions but I keep them to myself out of embarrassment. We can see the waves of heat rising from the asphalt at the top of the hill in the distance beckoning us home to our building on the other side. City blocks feel like they are miles long, my hair is wet and my face is boiling under the surface from a sun burn. Maria opens the door and waves casually over her head as she walks straight to her apartment on the first floor “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I climb the stairs back to my apartment on the fifth floor.

I walk in and without saying “Hi” to my Mom I head straight for the bathroom. I turn the cold water on in the shower and just stand there letting it run over the back of my head and neck while I take my clothes off. I stand in there for as long as I can take it before having to go back into our hot apartment. Mom is still making dinner and I go into my room, sit on my bed and stare out into the city. The sun is sinking behind the buildings and the sky is bright orange and pink. I think about if people will like me at school. I hope that I’ll remember where my homeroom is. I wonder if Maria will really want to be friends forever if she’s cooler than me. How does time work and why does it feel still and fleeting at the same time? People are sitting outside at the bus stop talking and laughing, a woman is walking her dog; a young couple is arguing in the street, an old couple is holding hands and not saying anything. I can hear the muffled sound of the neighbor’s radio and sliding dining room chairs and their dog is quiet. I decide to lie down for just a minute. The heat pushes my eyelids down and all the noise becomes a dull hum. My legs disappear; my thoughts become fluid and swirl around me as I gently drift into sleep.

A knock on the door lures me out of a deep sleep. Maria is yelling for me from the hallway. I can hear a man in traffic shouting for somebody to get out of the road, followed by the rowdy laughter of teenagers. My neighbor’s dog is barking over their radio. . It’s another hot summer morning like yesterday and the day before.