𝐖𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐍. ˢᵗᵉᵛᵉ ʰᵃʳʳⁱⁿᵍᵗᵒⁿ ¹

009

009. 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗲
𝘀𝗹𝗼𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗼𝘄.

"𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐋?" 𝐌𝐀𝐔𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐀𝐒𝐊𝐄𝐃, from the far end of the kitchen.

Lori heard the voice as she stepped into her house, her eyes low and stomach swelling with multiple emotions that she couldn't even identify. Her head felt a bit heavy, and she didn't know why, but it felt like that all the way home and now only intensified when she'd walked down the Harrington driveway. She thought it baffling that merely moments ago, she was standing there with him, not hating every second of it. Not every second. Mostly because she had her cassette back, and the mention of new Bowie tapes lifted her displeasure a tiny bit.

She'd walked down his driveway and up her own driveway with her eyes unfocused— which was unusual because she always had her eyes pinned on something, at least— and her shoes pounding on the pavement. She'd walked up the front steps, trying to pretend she wasn't at least a little bit distracted by what had happened. Steve, was standing by his garage door, staring at the ground, until he heard her front door close. And then he had walked around the bend of his house, swirling the wrench in his hand and thinking. He glanced up to her window on his way.

On the way up her driveway, Lori had noticed something outside her aforementioned window. It was a ladder, a long ladder, leaning on the exterior wall of their house, reaching her windowsill. She had narrowed her eyebrows, but she was too busy thinking of other things to wonder about it.

Lori paused in the entryway of her house, her eyes heading right for Maureen, who was sitting at the head of their small dinner table. She had a mug in her hand, and a large newspaper spread out on the table, along with the cable phone.

"Aren't you supposed to be at work?" Lori questioned, it was the first thing that came to mind. She was standing by the door, beginning to kick her shoes off.

"Aren't you supposed to be dropping your cousin off," Maureen replied back, her tone of voice casual. "Lor, you promised you would wait for him at least a few minutes." Her shoulders slumped. "Please tell me you didn't forget— what did we talk about?"

"I didn't leave him there and I didn't forget." Lori narrowed her eyebrows, a dumbfounded look on her face. "The little shit nearly threw his shoulder out telling me to go home from all the way down the lot." She said, not harmfully. She was walking over to the kitchen, away of the living room.

"Don't call your cousin a little shit," Maureen said, flipping through a page of the newspaper. "And what was the commotion, did you find out?"

"No." Lori said, simply, as she stepped over to the fridge. "Why's there a ladder outside my window,"

She scoffed at Lori's lack of attention span. "A handyman came to fix it— remember it wouldn't open? Go try it out later."

"Why'd he leave the ladder," She asked, more to herself than to her mom, her eyes searching. She made a face.

Maureen suspired. "Well, then." she said, her lips forming into a tight line. "I might have to call Claudia and see what was up."

"You should," Lori mumbled, as she grabbed the jug of cold water. "We never got a pumpkin, by the way." She spoke, while pouring water into a clean glass. Her voice was sarcastically casual, emitting that she would still like to have one.

    She didn't really know why she was still on about the pumpkins. It came to mind as soon as Maureen mentioned Claudia, and it was a topic that automatically just spilled out from curiosity, whether Lori wanted to talk about it or not. It was always racking on her brain.