Come Inside

You were always so worried about parking in the disaster of my driveway, always so worried that once your hand slipped off of the parking brake, you would still end up sliding down that steep hill of pavement. But you let your car sit there anyway as we walk around to the back of my house to break into the screen door on my deck. No one is home, or at least no one is answering the doorbell, and no one remembers that when the back door is left unlocked, someone else in the house left it like that for a reason.

You subconsciously test the temperature of the murky pool water that no one uses anymore, dipping your fingers in lightly, skimming the edge. I wonder if it’s warm. I wonder if there’s a spider dancing on top of the water. You like spiders.

You ask if you can come swimming sometime, you’re a little fish, you say, you can live in the water, all day, every day. And I giggle as I think about going swimming in the pool in my backyard that no one uses anymore with a grown woman whom I used to work with. You called me your friend earlier in the car today when you were talking on the phone to your real grown-up friend who you’re dog-sitting for this week. You have no idea how wrong it would be to let someone use this murky pool; the laughter and the splashing that would be bound to arise would be so out of place in this house that, even in this mid-summer sunlight, always feels so cold.

I’m fidgeting with the locked screen door, trying to jiggle it just right to give way and finally let us inside. You’re wearing a tube-top dress that you keep pulling up and sandaled heels that make you taller than I am. I wish we could have a photoshoot right here on the deck in my backyard just to have proof that it really happened. Letting someone come inside through the back screen door of our house. Letting someone so important come inside our life.

And you say you love my house because it’s homey, and you “awww” at the pictures from prom and graduation sitting in brand new frames on the new spare table that sits in the once-empty spot of our kitchen floor that used to be the place where I would curl up with finger paints and markers and crayons and create masterpieces for hours on end, even after I accidentally scribbled on the white linoleum floor.

And I say it’s just a cookie cutter house, and you say no no no it’s not, and I think that I must be the only person in the whole entire world who never looks in the mirror when other people are around, because the walls of this house are made of them, made of big big mirrors that reflect our every move for everyone else to see. Everyone else is watching, always watching us. And I feel like mirrors are ranked highly on the Living Room Scale, yes, the Living Room Scale that I learned about in Sociology. It can determine your social class. And if we walk a little bit further into this house, stand right here by the counter, we can see one, two, three, four mirrors all at the same exact time. Reflecting our ever move for everyone else to see. Everyone is always watching us. But I try to never look in them because I do not believe in vanity.

You scoop my cats up, one at a time. You remember Pickles, the calico you met last summer when she was still a little kitten. I tell you watch out, you’ll be covered in cat hair and you laugh so hard, say, Maggie, I’m used to cat hair by now. And you’re talking to Annie like she’s your own newborn baby, fragile and perfect in your eager hands. “You’re so cute, you’re so cute, oh yes you are, look at your little whiskers, awwww, yeah, you have little whiskers, don’t you?” And then you suddenly remember that you’re in my house, my cookie cutter house that is always cold, even in July, with the murky pool in the back that no one uses and the locked doors that no one remembers to leave open, and the steep driveway out front that is the earliest Do Not Enter sign there ever was.

And you tell me about your own cats and the movies you’ve made of them when they’re sleeping and you tell me that you’ll send them to me, but you never do. You brag about being a cat lady and I am so jealous that you’ve made it that far in your life. I am so jealous of the simplistic life you seem to live, outside of the house you once grew up in. I wish you weren’t just trying to be nice when you called me your friend, on the phone earlier when you were talking to your real grown-up friend. I wish I was out of this house of mirrors by now.

I’m sorry, do you mind? you ask as you go to the kitchen sink to wash your hands. I turn the faucet in the opposite direction of what you already have. The water runs backwards in this house. We all run backwards in this house. That’s how my brother once broke his arm. And there’s a spider by the potted plant on the windowsill, but I don’t say anything, I don’t point him out to you. Because I don’t want you to see me being afraid of something so innocent that you seem to like. I wonder if you like the mirrors. I wonder if you like the locked doors. I wonder if you like the coldness.

And I warn you of the musty hand towel hanging by the sink. Dressed up to look so fancy, but so unused and mistreated. I don’t know when the last time this place was cleaned, which is the only reason no one else can know that you’re here right now, seeing our house in its everyday condition that is only swept and cleaned away when there’s news of possible company.

You give me a hug when you walk out the front door and you say it won’t be the last time, you say it’s not a real goodbye. And you get into the car that you so cautiously parked on the disaster of my driveway. When you release the parking brake, you instantly slide away, slide down that hill of pavement. It’s hard to tell if you were ever even here, standing inside my cookie cutter house that is always cold. I wonder if you felt the chill. I wonder if that’s why I haven’t seen you since, haven’t spoken to you, haven’t heard. I want to tell you that this isn’t my home; this is only the place where I live. And I want to tell you that you were the only one to see it. You were the only person who I ever let come in.