Rockaway by Diane Cardwell

Author:Diane Cardwell
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780358067825
Publisher: HMH Books
Published: 2020-07-07T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

“Hi, neighbor!” The voice boomed from behind the fence as I walked along the alley toward the house, masked by the tall, weathered wood pickets and Virginia creeper vines, which hadn’t yet begun to bud. “I kept wondering if you were ever going to move in!” As I reached my steps, where the fencing stepped down to chest-high chain-link, the source of the voice, loud and deep and redolent of the neighborhood, became apparent: a tall, broad, middle-aged man with three dogs—a chunky black Lab, a lanky tan mutt, and a boxy white terrier who was obviously the boss.

“I’m Buddy,” he said. “My sister used to own your house.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, but that was a long time ago. Now she’s down in Florida.”

“Good for her! Is this your place?” I asked, indicating the three-story white house looming behind him as the dogs roamed the concrete yard, sniffing around a big screened-in cage with a large, twisted tree branch rising from its center.

“Yeah, I grew up here. I own it with my mother.”

“Wow, a Rockaway native. Well, I’m Diane. It’s nice to meet you.” I turned toward my stoop. “I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

It was the middle of April and I was moving into the bungalow full-time—a decision I’d made suddenly, after only a few visits to camp on the vinyl tiles and rough out a floor plan with blue painters’ tape. I’d quickly learned that while the neighborhood lacked many conveniences, it wasn’t nearly as bereft as the guy I’d met on the train had made it out to be. There wasn’t much in the way of cute little bistros or wine bars or specialty shops or coffeehouses, but there was a decent deli and a fish market on the corner, a perfectly adequate grocer a few blocks away, drugstores, discount shops, and a liquor store. So what if it didn’t have the small-village charm I’d become accustomed to in Brooklyn? There wasn’t a place to pick up an organic morning glory muffin and an extra-shot cortado on the way to work or to tuck into a bowl of meatballs and a glass of prosecco when I came home at night, but there was what I needed. I was back and forth to Manhattan every day anyway. My work commute from Bed-Stuy to midtown Manhattan was already a good hour door-to-door; another fifteen or twenty minutes surely couldn’t be all that much worse. And in exchange I’d be responsible for one less monthly payment and get to live by the beach—maybe fit in a surf session before work in the morning—and close to Bob, so I had a built-in friend base. I hadn’t thought I had all that much furniture: most of what I had kept after the divorce was stored at the family house on Cape Cod, and I’d given my living room set to a friend. But it still took the movers all day to bring everything in, including books, a mattress, assorted furniture and shelving

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.