Ghosted (gxgxgxg)

Chapter 3

A week later, Talia and Elise had finally finished moved in, and they had started to make every room more livable. Elise had started getting her classroom ready at her school and was getting excited about starting her new job. Talia had demolished the master bathroom and was awaiting the new fixtures to arrive before she finished it, but in the meantime was out working on the back porch. She had already added a new screened in roof and was now repairing the steps that led down from the porch to the back yard.

"Excuse me!" called out a high pitched voice.

Talia looked around for a moment before she saw the head of a woman peeking over the fence between their yard and the house next door. The woman was somewhat attractive, but with a bleach blonde beehive hairdo that did her no favors. "Yes? Can I help you?"

"Hi there!" came the syrupy sweet voice. "Do you know when the new owners are going to be moving in?"

Talia cocked her head at the woman, then let a fake smile play across her lips. "Oh, we already did. Last week."

"You're the owner?" the woman asked disdainfully. It was plain to Talia that she didn't want to see anyone of a different color living next door to her.

Talia knew things like this were possible. There weren't too many people of Mexican American descent in the Boston suburbs, but she had hoped that her neighbors wouldn't be quite so obvious about it. "Yes ma'am. I'm one of them."

"Ah. Yes. You're one of them. And your husband lets you do that... Hammer... work thing?"

Talia stood and stretched, smirking while looking the woman in her eyes. "Actually, my wife really loves it when I do the hammering. Strong hands and all." Talia raised her hand and wiggled her fingers at the woman.

"Uh... your wife?"

"Oh yeah. The sexiest woman I've ever had the pleasure to be with in every way imaginable."

"Oh lord! I need to go!" the neighbor yelped, and her face dropped down, though not her hair, as it bounded back towards her house. Talia just chuckled under her breath at the retreating hair and grinned to herself.

At that point, the back door opened, and Elise came out onto the deck, smiling at the progress that Talia was making. "Hey there hot stuff, who was that?"

Talia took two quick steps, pulling her lovely girlfriend into her arms and giving her a gentle kiss as a welcome home. "That was our racist and homophobic neighbor, who was probably raised in a 50's style household for an added whiff of misogyny. She's delightful, and I can't wait to ignore her as long as we live near her! How is my preciosa?"

Elise giggled, holding a rolled up piece of purple paper with a rubber band around it out to Talia. "Well, we might see her at the neighborhood block party, so I hope she isn't really that bad! These notices are on all the mailboxes. And I'm good, I missed you!"

Talia unrolled the paper and checked it out. Sure enough, there was a scheduled block party for the Saturday of the upcoming Labor Day weekend. "Damn, they block off the whole street here, that should be fun. Should we plan something to make and share?"

"Yes! We can make a big batch of cupcakes! Everyone loved those at my folks' house back on the 4th of July!" Elise suggested. She was right, they'd come out great and would no doubt make the neighbors happy.

"You're the best girl in the world, you know that?" Talia said in between kisses peppered all over Elise's face while the taller girl giggled uncontrollably.