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Maura was flittering about her sun-soaked kitchen in her happy, distracted way. Bright winter sunlight was blazing through her windows, the wood boards warm underfoot. Rich, earthy coffee bubbled and hissed in its final descent into the carafe. The mini-monolith Alexa stood watch on the counter, awaiting the opportunity to suggest something useful.
Lindsey was still staring at her — it — pointedly when Maura slid a steaming mug between her hands. Lindsey cupped her hands around the thick ceramic, relishing the warmth spreading through her fingers, and darted her eyes back to her friend.
“Go ahead,” Maura goaded, her perky grin stretched tight, “ask her something!” Anything!”
Lindsey smiled, a tired, lackluster version of her friend’s, “I’m good.”
Maura leaned back with a wave of her hand and a playful “Pschaw. You’re so…so…averse.”
“I’m here to visit you,” she said pointedly, her smile warming up. They were about to have the same conversation they did when Maura bought her first keyless car, and when she got her first Nest, and Fitbit, and Apple Watch, and, and…
“You’re my favorite Luddite, Linds. And not just because you live right across the street.”
“I’m not,” she lifted her mug to her lips, tentatively, then set it down. Still too hot. “I have an iPhone,” she protested.
Maura giggled, a high, lilting sound. “That doesn’t count anymore. Everybody has one.”
“Not Paige.”
“Paige builds PCs. P…C…” she enunciated, as though naming an ancient epoch. “She’s practically an archaeologist.”
“Huh,” Lindsey mused. She poured a thin stream of half ‘n half into her cup with the hopes of cooling it further.
“Huh, what?” Maura prodded, watching her friend stir lazy circles with her spoon.
“Archaeologists. They go digging for old relics, forgotten objects. Makes me think of you and Amazon. Except you don’t go digging for old, forgotten objects, necessarily. But you do dig.”
Maura sat back, sipping from her own mug, “I like that! I’m an Amazon Explorer. I should get one of those hats, those hard-topped tan hats. I wonder what they’re called?”
“Google would know.”
“PschAWW!” Maura said again, more emphatically. Her eyes glittered, “Alexa!” she barked, “what are those hard-topped tan hats explorers wear?”
“Mm,” a demure voice drifted from the counter, “I don’t know that one.”
“A pith helmet,” Lindsey answered triumphantly, waving her iPhone.
Later, back in her home of average intelligence, Lindsey found herself scrolling through Netflix with increasing dismay. Where did all the movies go? Wasn’t this the place where she had stumbled upon Withnail and I for the first time? And the lost seasons of King of the Hill that had kept her company many a morning while she was getting ready for work?
Defeated, she slumped back into the pliant grooves of her couch and put Frasier on, like usual. Scrolling through her phone — iPhone, she corrected herself with a smirk —on her way to 2048, she realized that she rarely ever checked Prime Video for movie offerings. “Weird,” she said aloud, and tapped over.
“Mad World?!” her eyes sparkled. She hadn’t seen that in years. Had hated it, in fact, her twelve-year-old self feeling as though its demands on her time had been crueler than botany camp. But it had been her father’s favorite movie, and seeing the kitschy old title art again brought a smile to her face. “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World,” she explained to her cat Maxwell, who yawned.
It’s not so much better, she thought, continuing to scroll, novelty effect and all that. But a lot of these movies were, well, the movie equivalent of Frasier. Non-threatening and familiar, like Niles and Maris’ relationship.
“Ugh. How many more times am I going to watch that show? I should buy Fargo off iTunes.”
Maxwell re-burrowed into the gap between the armrest and cushion, confident he had nothing to offer this conversation.
Lindsey had always assumed that she would buy the next season of Fargo in dead-frigid-winter. This year had been unseasonably warm so far.
Shrugging, she queued up Mad World, excuse me, It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, and trotted off to make popcorn.
The next morning Lindsey was staring at the rime of frost that coated and crisped her lawn. The sun was just starting to rise, and the slick blades of grass twinkled blue with the fading night.
Shivering, she stepped from foot to foot with her arms crossed, exhaling white breath in great billows. Maura’s headlights swinging into her driveway broke her reverie.
“Consarnit it’s cold!” Maura gasped, “why the hell are you standing outside? Anna’s teacher wanted to chat. You’d know I’d text when I got here.”
Lindsey smiled warmly, “I know you’d text on the way here. And I hate it.”
“Well, voice-to-text…” she protested.
Lindsey shook her head, not having it, “Any way, I like it when it’s still a little dark. And this cold. It feels…clear. Quiet.” Her mouth turned down in a brief frown, “still no snow, though.”
“Thank heaven for small favors,” Maura replied, the car beginning to roll backward, “I hate driving in snow.”
“That’s true.” Lindsey had returned her gaze to her lawn, her neighbor’s lawn, other lawns, as they rolled away.
Maura knew Lindsey liked quiet in the mornings; what she used to think was a mood was, well it was still a mood, but not one that needed to be remedied.
She couldn’t help poking, though: “Buck up, kid, I bet it’ll be snowing on Easter again.”
Maura caught Lindsey smiling to her reflection in the window at that as she replied, “it’s not the same as actual winter, though.”
“Well, whatever you call it don’t call it global warming.” She caught the eye roll.
“Changing the subject,”
“Sure.”
Maura braked at a stop sign. A U-Haul box truck lumbered past.
“Pretty early for moving,” Lindsey remarked.
Maura swung her head back and grinned, “I bet that’s mine! Went a little crazy on Amazon last night.”
“They use U-Haul, too? My deliveries are usually in a beat-up white van.”
“They use anything. They’re Amazon.”
“Hum.” The thought distressed her for a reason she couldn’t immediately identify, so she moved on. “Speaking of, I watched Amazon Prime last night instead of Netflix.”
“Did you? About time. I cancelled Netflix over a year ago.”
“That doesn’t count; you still use your mother’s.”
Maura pouted, “Not really!”
“Watch the road, Maura.”
“Okay, okay. What did you watch?”
“It doesn’t matter.” The thought of explaining the charm of old movies, of most things that she liked, to Maura proved too exhausting in the morning. “The point is that I am starting to see the allure of it. Besides the shipping of course.”
“Sheesh! There’s so much more! You pay for it, don’t you?”
“The shipping pays for itself.” Maxwell would agree, whatwith his faithful deliveries of Hills Science Diet in all the flavors that the neighborhood pet store didn’t stock.
“I wouldn’t put it past you to get the most value for your money,” there was a sweetness in Maura’s tone now for her friend, Luddite or no, “you’re thrifty without being cheap.”
“Awh, thanks. And yes I did pack enough lunch for both of us.”
“Phew! I didn’t even think ahead to lunch last night. Anna was giving me a time.”
“Oh?”
“It’s that baby tooth of hers. Wiggle, wiggle. Mama, it’s stuck! Mama it hurts! No, don’t touch it! And she’s at that testing age, you know? I want to do the whole Tooth Fairy thing but gah, one more thing to stay awake for, plan for, be vigilant about.”
“I’ve never heard anyone talk about Tooth Fairying with such seriousness.”
Maura wrinkled her nose, “If you had a kid you would; you’re serious about everything.” The sweetness of her earlier tone had a sour edge to it now. Lindsey supposed any friend who was a mother kept it at the ready for any conversation with a friend who was not a mother.
“Sorry, Mo.”
Maura waved her hand dismissively, eyes not leaving the road.
A contrite gesture if ever there was one.
Maura and Lindsey worked in a drab office of about ten people with varying degrees of skill and apathy. The actual work was sparse, the subtext of all job descriptions being to make the boss feel like a successful small business owner. In truth, perusing Youtube for tutorials on everything from Microsoft Office to Quickbooks would render most of their duties obsolete. No one considered it their job description to inform him of this, however.
The health insurance was decent, the definition of sick time generous. The lighting was terrible. The employees chased daylight from one end of the room to the other, visiting cubes as they went to chatter and shuffle papers around, digitization being some unimaginable period of time away.
Morning began at Maura’s and, by lunchtime, most people had paid their daily visit to Lindsey’s cube and moved on after making cursory suggestions on font sizes to whatever spreadsheet was the day’s work. The last visitor was wrapping up as Maura arrived with their sandwiches and seltzers.
“Oh, are you guys lunching here?” Tracey asked, hopping off the side of Lindsey’s desk that was cleaned most frequently, and with some exasperation.
“Don’t we usually?” Maura asked sweetly, pointedly placing their brown paper bags and drinks as far away from Tracey’s backside as possible.
“True, true, I just didn’t realize how late it had gotten!” Tracey replied with the good nature of a happily distant acquaintance. “We’ve been working at this for awhile. So, uh” she turned her attention back to Lindsey, “I’m thinking maybe try a Vlookup?”
“Sure, yeah, I’ll look into it” Lindsey replied mildly, reaching into her bottom drawer for the tube of Clorox wipes that would be employed as soon as Tracey had left.
“Great! I’m going to head out, then.” She left, sliding out sideways past Maura, without another word.
Stretching her neck pointedly over the top of the cube, making sure they were alone, Maura grinned and sat down in the chair she had wheeled over, “Is it okay if we lunch? Should you…should you use the Vlookup?”
Lindsey groaned dramatically, “It’s a 4x4 table. I could have written it on a Post-It. How long did it take us after being hired to chill out?”
“Pfft, I came here chill,” she replied, opening her bag. “Linds, why don’t you use reusable lunch bags? And why use wax paper?”
“Why do you always ask me that?” She smirked, cracking open her can of seltzer.
“It’s not like you, is all.”
She shrugged, sipped at her drink, “I kinda like the nostalgia, I guess. Makes me feel like a kid a little bit? And wax paper. I’ve always liked the sound. But you’re right. It’s wasteful. Maybe I’ll keep the wax paper,” she crinkled it for emphasis, “but get a reusable lunch bag.”
“Let’s check Amazon! And oh my God is this baloney?”
Lindsey rolled her eyes, “Of course you’d say that. And yeah. Had a hankering. But that’s mine; I packed you tuna salad.”
Maura was crinkling the wax paper thoughtfully. She unwrapped the top of the sandwich and sniffed. “It is like feeling like a kid again.”
“Do you want it?”
“I kinda do, yeah.”
Lindsey smiled, “Have it, then. I bought too much at the deli so I’ll have some later.”
“You’re solid gold.”
“Save your words, find a lunch bag that defines me as a person.”
“Will do,” Maura agreed, and took a large bite out of the sandwich, “Mmm!” she muffled, “white bread! That electric-yellow mustard! Baloney!”
“Chew, Mo.”
Maura chewed with cartoonish intensity and took another bite, “Did I tell you I solved my tooth-fairy problem?” Her mouth was still full.
Lindsey shook her head laughing. Wax paper crinkled. “Do tell.”
“I kinda want to wait and see,” she said seriously, muffled through baloney.
Back home that evening Lindsey padded around the near-dark of her home. She stood in the kitchen, pausing before flipping the switch. Small, familiar lights glowed from their machines. The green-digital numbers on the microwave. A soft amber dot on the programmed coffee machine. Lindsey imagined Alexa on the end of her counter. Un-imagined it.
She walked to the refrigerator and opened it, cold blue-white light settling in a pool around her.
“Pretty bare,” she muttered. Leftover spaghetti in red-topped Pyrex. Baloney wrapped in butcher paper, fixed with a sticker. 36 cans of seltzer in unremarkable flavors.
Closing the door she saw the curved outline of a bottle of wine on the counter, bought on a whim some weeks ago. Taking her phone from her back pocket, she had a brief, spiky thought: there was a time her phone would not be in her pocket. Or anywhere near her. It would be left on the table with her keys, in her purse, wired to the wall with a sproingy, coiled cord…
She shrugged it off and opened an iMessage to Maura: Movie night? Wine and popcorn! Anna can snooze with Maxwell.
She left the phone on the counter, easily within reach, and stretched up on tiptoes to retrieve a bag of microwaveable popcorn from the cupboard.
It buzzed as she lay the package down: Raincheck — tomorrow? Tooth came out! Tooth fairy time!
Lindsey smiled. It must have been an okay removal or there would be a flurry of emojis. Maura would see the read receipt; no need to reply.
Lindsey put the popcorn back in the cupboard and decided on the spaghetti. She poured herself a glass of wine while it spun lazily in the microwave.
Lindsey walked to the window and looked out into the night. The streetlamps shone with their cold, LED light. Across the street Maura’s house was warmly lit, gauzy curtains obscuring the inside. A flash caught Lindsey on the periphery of her vision, a car? The streetlight catching a bit of frost?
The microwave beeped insistently behind her as she registered movement on the side of Mo’s house. Her heartbeat became an obvious thing, thudding with greater urgency in her chest. What is that? A shuffling shape, another flash.
She felt her throat tighten, her wine turn to vinegar on her tongue. She pressed her face up against the cool glass, straining to see. Ready to scream, ready to run, ready to do something! She forced herself to take a deep breath and see…
The flash coming from reflector strips on a fluorescent yellow-green vest. The shuffling shape a, what the hell? person scrambling over a windowsill.
Who robs a place wearing reflector strips?
Incredulous, Lindsey was turning to retrieve her phone from the counter when she saw it: a dark blue van with light blue lettering parked two doors down. Amazon.
Tooth fairy time!
