The Family Next Door
There was already a family living next door when Sydney moved into the neighborhood with her parents and two brothers. The only indication that told her this was a screened-in back patio full of toys and playsets because it never seemed like anyone was ever coming or going. And this girl monitored her neighbors, especially the houses adjacent to hers. Not a sole objective, it wasn’t as if she was perched in a tree with binoculars, but more she maintained vigilance of the periphery.
The neighbor’s back patio had three compartments for some purpose. Maybe the former occupants were running a backdoor kennel, this was unclear to Sydney Lagunilla. The far corner that made up a quarter of the outdoor space was completely empty, a waste for all the young girl was concerned. The quarter section closest to the house was a children’s play area that went grossly underused. High-dollar toys never tinkered with; they weren’t brand new, it looked from afar, but not moldy or faded either.
Three steps stretched the length of the back side of the house; a gradual cascade that led to a lake a hundred yards down was the reason for the level change. The screen doors had adjustable latches that kept them propped open, the kind that, if set to the wrong mode, slammed violently behind you clipping the Achilles if not speedy enough to get through the frame. A labyrinth connected by screened portals was how the space looked, and there were two sets of sliding glass doors leading inside the home.
One sliding glass door had access to the outdoor playroom. The other opened to the half of the patio boasting a rectangular pool—always glistening in that recreation area, with a motorized vacuum and suctioning tube doing all the work for the reverse squatters. Now, lakes are a Florida standard. But having a private pool in the state was a special kind of luxury, at least for Sydney it was.
Many months had passed since Sydney’s move to her new house, and on no account did she see anyone domiciling the premises next door. She doubted the utilities usage would even register on the meter. Mail was regularly couriered to the occupants. Sydney knew this because she opened the latch to check on occasion. But there wouldn’t be stacks of postage bulging from the mailbox. Someone was retrieving the deliveries. That had to mean bills were getting paid to keep the lights on.
Sydney had moved from a condo in an Orlando suburb to a house in a strictly residential city halfway between the inland metropolis and the coast when heading east on Interstate-4. Any good apartment, duplex, or condo complex in the state should have a bevy of pools for the residents, along with courts for tennis and shuffleboard, at an absolute minimum, and Sydney’s was no different. Floridians can’t get enough of their outdoor activities, so long as access to misting machines or air conditioning is available on demand, and a private swimming pool is the envy of nearly every Floridian on a scorching day. This was explicitly the case if no other water source was in close proximity or an innovative parent didn’t attach a lawn sprinkler to the garden hose.
Sydney was a swim junkie and found solace in the tepid lake she and her family dwelt on, but only after her mom removed the lake grass from a section to make a humble lounging area. The girl also didn’t mind diving headfirst under waves in the Atlantic. With such precision, she was seldom caught up in a rough tumble, but if her judgment was poor, she wasn’t immune to getting tossed around as if she was in a washing machine then hacking up ingested salt water that entered through her nose.
Going to the beach was a day trip manageable only if Sydney’s mom or dad drove her and her two brothers, Matteo and Wade. The backyard lake, however, was consistently cycled into the girl’s list of activities, despite the murky waters sometimes repugnant in smell. The family lacked a dock to extend beyond the remaining lake grass to jump from, which also might have allowed them to be free from the foul-smelling sunbaked mud on the lake’s edges. A community pool, although chemically enhanced, would have given Sydney the ability to make more of a splash than in a lake, committing to flapping leaps and cannonballs. Regrettably, there was none in her new neighborhood.
No human ever appeared to take care of the neighbor’s pool, yet its contents were perpetually translucent and swirling.
How could it be? Sydney would continuously ask herself.
This kept the girl trolling, an occasional night’s sleep directly affected by it. The neighbors didn’t have to pluck out leaves jamming the filter or floating on the surface because of the protective screen repelling the shedding live oaks and Florida maples that spanned across the back yard. Sydney began to wish the metal frame and screening mechanism wasn’t erected from the get-go so she could solicit pool-cleaning work, should the residents ever appear, and thus solidify free-range use of the pool after gaining their loyalty and trust.
The neighbor’s pool became mysterious, a circulating current keeping the water in motion. Since the pool-per-capita ratio was high in Florida, Sydney had seen her share of stagnant green algae pools—but the neighbor’s pool was pristine, its bottom and walls a hotel blue coating.
The disappointment of blighted pool trips was felt by Sydney and her family a few times during their condo days when the nearby pool was being worked on or when maintenance personnel hadn’t measured the chemicals correctly and turned it a seafoam hue. That’s when the condo’s other swimming hole came in handy, the one attached to the clubhouse; however, that one was highly populated with couples and relative groups. Sydney preferred an empty pool so she could make a ruckus, swim recklessly, and feel that she was part shareholder of an exclusive piscina, along with a few select others. That’s why the family typically frequented the one closer to their sector of the complex toward the entrance.
It wasn’t long before the girl started to become embittered that the neighbor’s more-than-adequate pool was going unused. Constantly outside, she tried to keep the pool in view. She did laps around her house depending on what called to her—solitude by the lake, forts in the woods, rowing her red boat, or out by the street to see what kind of action would unfold.
Down the road from her house, or more directly, across the lake, was Stanbull Park. It had a sand beach with minimal lake grass but scads of screaming children. Sydney would also belt out at times, really let her voice carry, but she didn’t like being around the commotion of dozens of kids when she could peacefully enjoy her stretch of the lake. She’d also surrender the park’s swing set for the wooded property next to her house.
One Saturday afternoon, she was on top of an electrical box close to the street. It straddled her house and the pool neighbor’s, and she would sit on it hazardously, noticing the inner workings buzzing and trembling and thinking it was making good on its commitments in the neighborhood. Sydney appreciated a solid work ethic.
Watching cars roll by, she guessed where the drivers might live, half promising herself that she’d check later on at each house to see if the supposed car was there. It was at that moment she witnessed something that had never happened before.
A car pulled into the neighbor’s driveway.
Sydney became frantic on the inside but maintained her composure, quietly repeating to herself, “This is it, this is it,” because she knew the first engagement was about to occur. This was either going to make or break the entreaty to gain access to that pool.
The garage was opened by a nebulous portable opener.
Sydney mused, Wow, the driver doesn’t even have to get out of her car, walk into the house, and then press the garage door button? And the car can actually pull into a garage that has space to park?
Foreign concepts for the girl, as her family’s garage wasn’t remotely opened, and it was filled with shelves of wired apparatuses, boxes with labels that didn’t match the contents, loose furniture, and toys that were routinely played with.
The woman behind the wheel, presumably the mother of the two children sitting in car seats in the back, waved at Sydney with a kind smile.
But who knows, she could have been thinking, Oh great, there’s no way I’m getting out of talking to this little twerp, as some parents undeniably feel with unrelated children.
The lady emerged from the car. She was plump, a mane of strawberry blonde curly hair looking wispy just below her shoulders and like she used shampoo plus conditioner, not a combo version. Her attire was conventional, like it could be a variation of the same outfit in one of a handful of color stories.
A pocket-sized boy let himself out of the sedan, and given his stature, Sydney guessed he was around the same age as her brother Wade who was five. The child marched up to her as if he was the community’s volunteer sheriff.
The neighborhood had no real watchdog and was plausibly under-policed. The Lagunilla girl often wondered if there was any truth behind the neighborhood watch sign four blocks down because she hadn’t noticed any citizen patrolling.
Tiny cowboy boots were the boy’s footwear, much like the ones Sydney’s dad wore. Her dad’s boots were of course man-size and inspired more by Highlander, the fantasy action-adventure film, than by the television series Walker, Texas Ranger, like how the young boy’s seemed to be.
The two cities Sydney had lived in didn’t have the rural composition as seen in other parts of Florida, so when she noticed the boy’s cowboy hat, she thought, This kid’s the real deal.
He approached the girl and curtly barked, “Tell me your name!!!” with one of those toy cap pistols pointed between her eyes.
Sydney recognized the plastic weaponry because she and her brothers would play with the same kind until the reel of round pops ran out. The high-quality prop, when struck by the gun’s hammer, made a loud popping sound, emulating gunfire, and had a puff of smoke with a surprisingly pleasant aroma. The authentic smell of gunpowder for all Sydney and her brothers knew.
She stated her name casually and with slight disinterest to gain the upper hand, although knowing full well around five years his senior she could nimbly pull a wrestling move on the small child. He wouldn’t immediately understand how rugged Sydney was, or at least how she perceived herself to be. The girl was known to tell her mom that she tried to bleed daily from injuries while at play.
A softy for cute little kids, Sydney found them entertaining, and this boy was no different. She countered with the same vigor, “Now give me your name!”
He said his name was Nicholas and that his little sister was named Natalie, who came out of nowhere, summoned as if on cue. Based on her size, she was a young toddler. Natalie hadn’t mastered any form of cogent speech but babbled a greeting, to which Sydney returned with a standard “hey.”
The sister was visibly tamer than the apparent tyrannical cowboy.
The Lagunilla girl remained seated on the waning green electrical box, demonstrating that although this was a shared domain, she was in control of it at the time.
Interrogation spearheaded by the boy then began, him asking the Lagunilla girl if that was her house and if she lived there, pointing to the yellow one-story.
Quite redundant, Sydney wanted to scoff but remained genial, relishing the interaction she had been anticipating for ages.
Could he have had this same sense of wonderment of who his neighbors really were? she pondered.
Maybe both parties had been in and out the entire time, passing like ships. This was running through Sydney’s mind when telling him, yes, she was in fact his neighbor.
Nicholas’s and Natalie’s mom started unloading groceries, no paranoia whatsoever that her children were standing beside city infrastructure, not all that far from the road, and a weather forecast of potential heat-lightning within the next three hours. A promising sign of low-key parenting in Sydney’s processing.
The electrical box had all these scary warning signs, but it wasn’t cordoned off or anything, so Sydney essentially just ignored the appeals, ultimately evaluating the scenario as having nominal danger. Summiting the metal cube made her feel like a statue of a person commemorated for doing something courageous, for example, not swimming in a neighbor’s pool before being invited.
The mother went in and out of the house through the garage, bringing in brown paper bags of groceries that seemed high-end. When Sydney saw that green letter P with a circle around it, she realized, Ohhh yeah, this family’s loaded.
This was the same grocery chain that her dad’s family liked to shop at. Especially her abu and abuela, who were very particular about their salted deli meats, and hardly ever let down by the store’s fresh cuts as well as its assorted cookie platters.
Acknowledging Sydney with that same cordial smile from before, the woman said “hi” and left it at that. The girl tallied, This lady’s going to be fine to have as a neighbor and probably won’t get in my way either.
Sydney had encountered some treacherous neighbors back in the condo days—if you so much as dropped a weightless sheet of paper or looked at their unspoiled patches of grass for too long, they would notify the complex’s management with reports of hooliganism. That was all it took for this one couple who lived diagonally from her family.
Sauntering away from the three of them with two thumbs up to Sydney, it was almost as if the woman was saying, You’re good here with my two kids, right? Sydney didn’t mind the short exchange and was more intrigued by this compact cowboy and his lackey sister.
The girl stood up from her seated position on the electrical box and jumped off it to inject a little fanfare. Her display really could have backfired if they asked to be hoisted up on the box, but Sydney knew better not to make any sudden moves. This was a fresh encounter where the end game wasn’t just limited to forging new friendships. Lucky for her, they shifted their attention away from the city infrastructure to gauging what the girl’s deal was.
The same maneuver she was employing on them.
The Lagunilla girl ambled over to her family’s best climbing tree that was between the two houses. There were so many routes to the upper echelons of that camphor tree. A truly superior object of nature with long horizontal branches starting from low to the ground. It didn’t take long after moving in for Sydney to figure out her circuit. Then it became a race against time to get to the top whenever she scaled it.
To really stun the neighboring rugrats, she converted into her monkey-self and ascended to the treetops. Her hands and bare feet clawed the branches as she effortlessly bounded her way up. Afterward, the two siblings naturally wanted to follow. Already she had them in her clutches, needing her assistance. Before she could even get down, Nicholas buried his toy gun into his holster and set about pulling himself up. It turned out that Nathalie was content just watching.
Sydney appraised, How wonderfully obedient and less problematic for her to recognize that she wouldn’t fit in well to this equation.
Nicholas, on the other hand, was rising as if documents to be granted sole imminent domain over the tree were in the upper sector branches.
Swinging down to calm his haste and create a dependency, Sydney prompted, “Whoa whoa whoa partner, wait for me.”
She had this tree mentally mapped out like a ski resort distinguished by novice and expert slopes, and Nicholas was skipping to a black diamond.
The young lad didn’t concern himself with Sydney’s directions and paved his own way, quite admirably, the girl noted, as she might have done the same if someone was aiming to wield comparable power over her. He climbed higher than Sydney imagined he would.
Panache, determination, courage.
Yeah, this kid could hang around our house, she reasoned.
Though he wasn’t quite in the running to enlist in the sporting activities that Sydney, her older brother Matteo, and the neighborhood cohort rotated in and out.
Sydney tossed a vertical, “Good job,” to Nicholas, who was about halfway up the tree.
He hissed back, “I know!!!”
Uncertain how to react, she just muttered to herself, “All right then,” careful not to let him hear since he seemed quarrelsome.
She took a moment for another consideration.
Damn, is your mom still bringing in groceries?
The kids’ mother didn’t hover, much like Sydney’s mom. But the Lagunilla second born was sure that her mom didn’t leave her offspring as toddlers under the guardianship of a child they had known for five minutes. The neighbor mom could have been looking through some side windows, but Sydney doubted it.
Sydney’s mind drifted into the snack palace she assumed the neighbors had. They looked like the kind of family that had a stocked pantry, not sparsely filled cabinets with ingredients that, when combined, simply could not taste like Fruit-by-the-Foot, but rather a jumbled Shepherd’s pie.
After a short while, the Lagunilla girl assessed that she didn’t mind hanging out with the two little kids. They were quelling her demonstrative boredom. They also appeared within a time frame in which she was in the mood to socialize.
Nicholas kept roosting in the tree, then ordered Sydney to guide him down. His confidence had fizzled, but the girl still had a great deal of respect for him to talk to her with such authority. Needless to say, she complied with his demands and assisted him down because, in a way, these kids were under her watch.
Taking the proverbial “little guy” under her wing was something that came naturally to Sydney, befriending the lonely kid in class with a sense of duty.
She didn’t always extend the same treatment to Wade, who she had begun to terrorize unrelentingly, but more in a pesky big sister way. The exception was when anyone else crossed Wade, or he was hurt, then she was like a vulture swooping down and neutralizing whichever threat came against her flesh and blood. They had to have each other’s backs in their neighborhood and couldn’t let certain mischief-makers at the entrance to their street be privy to any vulnerabilities or familial fractures.
How Sydney looked at it, Nicholas could add numbers to her streetwise posse. His sister would no doubt linger, getting in the way if they had to disperse or get somewhere on the double. But she anticipated Natalie would prove herself resilient and stick around for the action. If Nicholas kept up his demeanor, the girl would be just fine if becoming a product of her environment.
After about 20 minutes in the common ground between their houses, they meandered toward the backyard, Sydney inching in that direction. This way, the Lagunilla girl could strategically point out that her family also had a screened-in area but tragically lacked a pool, and didn’t he find that odd?
“Hey would you look at that, you’ve got a nice pool there, and is that a regulation diving board?” Sydney rollicked.
“Yeah—” Nicholas retorted uninterestedly, not at all considering his leverage.
Sydney tried to mask her fixation but couldn’t resist and suggested maybe they should go swimming right then and there.
“No that’s stupid!!” Nicholas thundered.
The withholding was excruciating for Sydney as she replied, “Oh! Okay, umm right,” so as not to rattle him any further.
He explained that he doesn’t swim because he hates getting wet; his idiosyncrasies were widening for Sydney to witness.
Picking up a stick, Nicholas brandished it as a sort of cudgel, maybe to send a sign. Sydney tried to ingratiate herself by applauding the boy’s stick choice.
“I’ve seen a lot of sticks in my time, but that one you got there is probably the best I’ve ever seen, good eye.”
Her comment garnered no response.
A wonder whether his mom/parents also let him watch whatever he wanted on TV elapsed Sydney’s mind. And if so, was it how he formed this identity as an autocratic Western cowboy who doesn’t give in to nonsensical buffoonery, one example being the euphoric utilization of a personal underground swimming pool?
No father figure was spotted by the Lagunilla girl in handling the groceries, but she didn’t think of it as abnormal since her best friend from the condo didn’t live with her dad. Sydney figured that prying for information could be perceived as authentic interest and double as mining for clues as to whether another guardian was looking over the siblings or their property, specifically their pool.
Nicholas answered her question with a sternness, “No, my dad lives in Tennessee,” then whipped the stick on the ground, causing it to snap in two.
The girl reflected, Hey, good on him for knowing the state his dad lives in, and damn, this kid’s got muscle.
She imagined any further queries about his dad would end up with him forcefully telling her “drop it—” and then aiming his toy gun in her face as a form of censure. She didn’t quiz him on the city because she certainly didn’t know any cities beyond Memphis which was only due to famed musical references.
Sydney levied that the kid probably had a lot of pull with his mom since he lived with so much conviction. She shifted once more to the pool, probing him if he was compleeeeeetely sure he didn’t want to take a dip or wouldn’t care if she went in at her leisure. He ended up ignoring her entirely and started walking toward his other neighbor’s backyard along with Natalie, to which Sydney followed.
Wait a minute, the Lagunilla girl thought, did I too just become his lackey?
She detained herself, pausing to remember who she was; this was a departure from her modus operandi as a child of somewhat high social standing in her part of the neighborhood.
At this point, it was a zero-sum pool game, Nicholas exercising substantial power over Sydney with that circulating body of self-cleaning water, constantly within view.
She caught a glimpse of Nicholas’s mom pulling the drawstring to open the long shimmering blinds that overlooked their back patio. They were the plastic kind that would easily snap off; then, there would be an unfortunate aperture if they weren’t replaced. Sydney noticed that this was the case at the pool family’s home, which put her at ease, considering their alleged snack palace.
Their mom opened the sliding glass door and belted, “Hey, it’s lunchtime—Nicholas, Natalie, come get it!”
A bona fide Tennessean twang, Sydney gathered. The inflection wasn’t all that chipper but by no means aggressive. Constantly taking mental notes of people and their behavior, Sydney tried to orient herself in relation to different walks of life.
Such a triangle bell of a call wasn’t really constituted since the two kids weren’t that far away from their house. Sydney worked out that the mom wanted to demonstrate how parental she was to make up for the fact that she hadn’t directly interacted with her children for the past 30 minutes.
Their mom asked Sydney to open the screen side door for Nicholas and Natalie to come in through the patio where all their toys were. It was unexpectedly trusting, calling favors to a girl who perhaps she had seen before but never formally met. The mother thrust their acquaintance to a level that might usually have taken weeks to form. For Sydney, it was all the better in hopes of harnessing swimming rights.
The screen door was too high for the two neighbor kids to reach. Thumb-pressing and hand-pulling coordination were vital—skills Sydney disbelieved Nicholas had mastered, even if he had secured the altitude to reach and try by forcing an unsuspecting neighbor child on all fours and standing on their back.
Sydney heeded from the scene that the mom wasn’t so spry, but she liked that an adult was viewing her in a custodial capacity. The Lagunilla girl ushered the two children into their own house, the most somatic contact she had had with their patio oasis. The two kids bid her an apathetic goodbye—not one indicating that had been their first meeting. Natalie was marginally more enthusiastic than her brother.
Self-soothing, Sydney told herself it was fine that the lady didn’t invite her in for lunch as it may have happened in a movie based in Tennessee with hospitable characters. Her mother didn’t have the means to go feeding random children; why should she expect the same treatment? It wasn’t a salami sandwich Sydney was after from the neighbors anyway; she was in it for the long aquatic game.
A “thanks” was spouted by the mother, to which Sydney used good manners to respond. Once they were out of sight, the blonde-brown-haired honey-eyed girl toiled her hands maniacally.
A similar feeling prevailed every time she finished the movie Encino Man and got into these digging fits where she imagined it possible to construct her own pool in her backyard. Although in the movie, the makeshift swimming hole looked more like a deep dirty puddle, the important thing was the merrymaking it brought at the end. Sydney desperately wanted that.
In subsequent days, she would glance out her kitchen’s glass-paneled side door that faced the neighbor’s house to see if Nicholas would suddenly be taking a dip to provoke her, already having figured out her ploy. After weeks of the pool going untouched, she came to believe that Nicholas legitimately revered the chlorinated-water reservoir as stupid and wanted no speak of it. Maybe he was taught by his mom to think that way.
The family seemed to be around more than ever, leaving Sydney to wonder where they were to begin with during those deserted months.
The Lagunilla girl spent a generous amount of time on her family’s back porch, a screened-in space with the same green turf used for mini-golf courses. The covered shelter had a wooden bench swing suspended from the ceiling that faced the lake. Not realizing how privileged she was at that time to have such a life, Sydney oscillated from lusting after ownership of the boats and personal watercraft that skimmed the lake’s surface to the pool next door.
The neighbor’s back patio sliding glass doors always stayed closed, denying the breeze on those brisk Florida fall and winter days where the A/C could be cut off. This was something that gave Sydney’s mom great satisfaction, opening their back porch’s French doors and windows so long as there were screens to keep the mosquitoes out.
Sydney imagined it was dimly lit in the neighbor’s house because the blinds were hardly ever pulled back. She guessed they liked their privacy and the comforts of manufactured air. She naïvely deduced, Maybe Nicholas and his family were originally from Tennessee where they don’t have much of a pool culture.
The girl’s pool infiltration scheming far predated her meeting Nicholas and Natalie, and not a day passed that she didn’t think about dunking herself into those waters. Treading in the pool turned out to be her sole reconnaissance mission, an unhealthy surveilling that occupied a significant fraction of her time when home.
One Saturday, mid-morning, there was a pounding on the front door. Easing into the day, Sydney and Wade hadn’t ventured to the outside world yet and were lounging in the living room watching Rocko’s Modern Life.
The thumping was on the wooden door itself, and Sydney reflected, Jeesh, they don’t even know how to use the adorning metal knocker—one she habitually used when entering or egressing the portal, just to be obnoxious.
They were double doors painted white, one was latched in place, and the other was used by the family. They weren’t the regal types who opened both doors with pageantry to greet visitors. Honestly, the Lagunillas were like that to a degree; using one entry was mainly related to practicality.
Sydney opened the door and looked directly out, with no one in her line of sight. She got worked up.
Did someone dare ding-dong-ditch us by way of knock?!
“Hey!!!” an irritated squall called out from below, startling Sydney.
It was Nicholas, alone and shirtless, clicking along with his traditional toe boots and cattleman hat, excessively tapping his footwear as if she’d kept him waiting.
What is it with this kid and his affinity for country folk?
She self-queried, not so learned on Tennessee origins and having muddled understandings of what “The South” meant, being from the region, but growing up in multicultural Central Florida.
There was a thick satire in Sydney judging the boy’s interests, considering hers were immovable one day and in constant flux the next. At least he was consistent. Her unofficial diagnosis of ADD was handed down to her by her mother, who validated her assessment from her decade of working in early childhood development at daycares and a community college. Sydney’s mom often reminded her that she was afflicted by the disorder—OCD as well.
Standing at the doorway facing the young boy, Sydney said with cautious cheerfulness, “Nicholas, what’s u—” he cut her off before she could even get it all out.
“Where’s your mom anyway??” he pumped.
“Well, she might be in her garden or her room. I’m not really sure…why?” she replied.
He ignored her follow-up question and then diverted the questioning to her little brother’s whereabouts.
It occurred to Sydney that Nicholas still hadn’t bothered to learn any of their names, despite at that point having interacted dozens of times.
His searching for Wade was logical, as they were closer in age and thrived in company. Sydney’s younger sibling would go along with just about anything, comfortably converting into a cowboy and had his own cap gun to prove it.
Sydney turned inside the house to signal that Wade was in the living room, but Nicholas couldn’t be bothered by the chitchat and waltzed in with credence.
The girl wished she could reciprocate the gesture going into his family’s screened-in pool area. She validated this was a tactical, slow-moving stratagem that took time to plant the seeds. It was still too soon to get permission from the neighboring mother to use their pool at idle hours. Having enough awareness to know her mom wouldn’t want her to be so forward, Sydney held off. Wade was more inclined to do things like that, and because he was doll-like, with a well-mannered persistence, many submitted to his pleas. But Sydney wanted to earn this one on her own.
She didn’t stop Nicholas in stride because his audacity was highly entertaining to her. He surveyed the place, walking into the living room. Wade was playing with some Power Ranger action figures at the circular coffee table.
“Hey you!!”
Nicholas’s volume didn’t let up even when indoors.
Wade looked at Nicholas and greeted him with a toothy grin, then panned to Sydney with an expression of, What’s going on here?
He realized that he was sought after by a topless Nicholas and shepherded him to the back porch to engage in a ping-pong friendly.
It was these kinds of gifts from family members of a mini tennis table that made Sydney, Matteo, and Wade feel as if they were firmly in the middle class—but their main lifestyle dipped below that, keeping them humble.
Sydney’s first instincts were, Good luck to those shorties getting in a solid back-and-forth game.
She wasn’t really in the mood to take orders from Nicholas, so she left the two boys to play and went back to the couch in front of the TV.
Within ten minutes, there was another knock at the door.
Sydney thought to herself, If there’s a two-year-old at the doorsteps, I’m genuinely concerned with how laid-back this neighbor mother is.
It actually did turn out to be Natalie, but she was being held on her mom’s hip, the woman asking if Nicholas was there. Sydney said that he was playing ping-pong with Wade on the porch. That was agreeable enough to relieve her distressed disposition.
“Great! So, he’s okay here?” the mother asked.
With total indifference, Sydney told her it was fine, forgetting that she needed to exude an amiableness to get in the woman’s good graces. Nicholas’s mom instructed Sydney to send him home whenever and then went back to her house.
The Lagunilla mother, a native to the state who prized the fact that her three kids were “third-generation Floridians,” emerged from the garage after the front door was closed for the second time. Having been organizing something, she dropped something off in the kitchen and then asked who was at the door. Sydney explained both exchanges in no more than eight words and directed her attention back to the cartoon wallaby and his friends.
Lynn Lagunilla greeted Nicholas on the porch with familiarity, surely having had her own run-ins with the tyke. Trying to be a good host and mother, she offered them some cherry Kool-Aid, or even better, homemade ice-pops made from cherry Kool-Aid.
Nicholas took the opportunity to interrogate her about her oldest child—“the large boy,” as he put it.
He clearly needed to be informed of Matteo’s location and systematically ruled out Sydney and Wade having this information, instead opting for who stood at the top of the hierarchy.
Sydney realized that they all must have been individually cornered by this small, human-like creature in different instances.
Matteo was getting into his teenage years and had a lot of neighborhood friends with whom he hung out and roamed around on his bike, so he was in and out. He went to the nearby park more than Sydney because her neighborhood friends’ parents weren’t so liberal with letting their daughters run around unsupervised.
Lynn answered honestly, “I don’t know where Matteo is, probably out with his friends if he’s not in his room.”
Nicholas accepted this answer and went back to playing ping-pong. Apparently not a fan of eavesdropping, he remained silent until the mother closed the door and left them alone. After delivering their powdered juice drink, she returned to one of her tasks on the docket, be it rooting around in the garage, doing something outside, or dance-tidying to music playing in the background. Lynn usually had music playing, either records, CDs, or all those hits stationed to Mix 105.1.
Over time, generally during sports matches, Nicholas and Natalie served as loyal spectators from the two families’ median territory. The neighbor mom wasn’t ever the type to watch the kids play like Sydney’s mom. Even though the Lagunilla head of household would usually be putzing around, halfway weeding, or moving things to new locations in her logic, she’d stop and watch the action periodically.
Nicholas and Natalie didn’t cry or whine or anything when they were around. To Sydney, this was ideal. The kids were a nice addition to the regular batch at the yellow house of the homeschooled Christian brood two doors down and the Puerto Rican crew from up the street. The girl toddler would even take some rough tumbles when running or accidentally be knocked over by one of the bigger kids, but she took it like a linebacker and shot back up. She never got to say much in any matters because Nicholas continued to do all the talking for the both of them. His dominance even became known to Sydney’s and Matteo’s friends. They would sometimes ask why these little kids were around.
The Lagunilla three would vouch for them, saying, “They’re cool. They won’t make any racket.”
Wade would be the two kids’ closest compatriot since he didn’t have the mass either to rumble with kids twice his age or older. Sydney would slink over to the camphor tree on occasion to show the three of them how she figured out how to launch with a bungee cord slingshot attached to the branches a Happy Meal stuffed animal pig. She explained the objective was to get the toy pig stuck in the tree, so it needed to be recovered.
It wasn’t long before Nicholas’s and Natalie’s mom asked Sydney to babysit. Having turned an age in double digits was ostensibly enough reassurance to mark a level of responsibility and maturity for the woman.
Sydney and her brothers were highly independent, latchkey kids who locked the door behind them and let themselves into the house after school.
The neighbor mom was probably also relying on the fact that Sydney’s mom on the weekends was directly next door if an emergency arose.
The first Saturday Sydney watched the kids, she didn’t concern herself with the impetus of the mother’s outing. What she prioritized was how the interior of the neighbors’ home looked and what were the edible contents of their kitchen. Foodstuffs were housed in cabinetry at the Lagunilla residence, not this fabled pantry like other families Sydney knew from real life and on TV had. She was certain that Nicholas would have free-roaming jurisdiction to the stocked closet.
Fancily clad in all black, the mother said she’d be back in a few hours and not to worry about giving her kids dinner because they’d already eaten.
Sydney knew she wouldn’t have to entertain the children as much as follow Nicholas’s lead, sort of observing the boy’s propensities once on his turf. Sydney also had the good sense that she wouldn’t risk the children drowning by going for a swim. The house had an abnormally scarce amount of furniture and decor but lots of halls with these baby gates erected in the passageways, one being to the kitchen. Sydney took this as a minor affront to the fringe benefits of babysitting—availing oneself of any and all food and drink available. The mother likely didn’t want Sydney turning on the stove or doing something kitchen-based that could potentially end in ashes.
Promptly upon the mother leaving, Nicholas went to the pantry and took out some shiny plastic-wrapped gummy treats.
This couldn’t have worked out any better, Sydney noted.
He suspected that his snack ruse wouldn’t be unfoiled because what was the babysitter going to do? And he was absolutely right. Sydney joined in and handed an opened pack to Natalie, then checked their refrigerator for good measure. The newly inducted babysitter viewed it a bit heartless of the mother to assume that she had also eaten and therefore rationalized the pillaging of the snack palace she knew they would have.
The boy demanded a drink and for Sydney to pull out a cup and the pitcher of what contained juice either from a powdered mix packet or one of those frozen tubes. He insisted on pouring it himself with the cup on the table, to which Sydney acquiesced. The cup ended up buckling from the speed the liquid escaped the spout.
Sydney had had this happen many times before at her house, and Wade did it constantly, pouring drinks on the kitchen floor and leaving a big accumulation behind.
She regained some authority, “Just let me do it.”
It might have been the first time he backed down from anything in his life.
Nicholas then pointed and grunted, refusing to use words to communicate that he wanted the box of cheese crackers. After he was handed the box, he moseyed toward the living room, chucking it over the gate and climbing over like a pro. The barriers were challenging to breach for Sydney when she had to hoist Natalie up. Following Nicholas, they both just toppled over the gate into the living room, landing on the carpet.
Just as any child babysitter might do, Sydney plopped down with the kids in front of the TV. There was no debate of who was going to choose the movie, as Nicholas undoubtedly reigned supreme. He pulled out from a drawer A Goofy Movie, a Disney joint to which Sydney could tolerate. She appreciated Nicholas’ personality and found humor in how serious he was, so his choice of film was almost reassuring.
She wasn’t quite sure about the protocol for changing Natalie’s diaper because their mother had given her very few directives before leaving. Assuming that unless it stunk, she’d just let the mom handle it.
When the mom came home and found her two kids in the living room with Sydney, she seemed visibly relieved. Sydney was paid ten dollars and let out to walk home in the dark all the way next door. The girl felt flush, her first paid job.
Eventually, the neighboring family started to disappear for weeks or even what seemed like months at a time, much like the premise when Sydney first moved into the neighborhood. There was no for sale or for rent sign outside the house, so that didn’t seem to be the scenario.
A decent rapport had been developed between the Lagunilla girl and the family of three, so she became a bit worried.
Sydney would knock on their door, ready to pose a familiar line of questioning to Nicholas if he answered: “Where are you, your sister, and your mom??”
She fully understood this made absolutely no sense.
When no one came to the door, she suspected maybe they rented a beach house and took an extended vacation.
The neighbor mother seemed familiar with luxury, a back patio pool and contracting babysitters in all, so the trip made sense. It was later speculated by Sydney that since it was summer, the family had driven to Tennessee and that the mom could work by phone or computer via dial-up Internet. She had pulled a Nicholas and didn’t bother to learn what his mother did for a living.
Sydney never stopped eyeing the pool from the very beginning, but now her heightened fixation was coming back in full force. At that point, having close to a solid year and a half of interactions and watching over the kids on two separate occasions, she had yet to be invited for a dip.
How did the pool stay so clean and blue and clear and in constant motion?
The unknowing ate at Sydney.
This lady invested in a really advanced pool system, Sydney gathered.
She never saw anyone there pouring any chemicals or checking any PH balance in a tube or whatever happened when pool chemists worked their chlorinated magic. The Lagunilla girl used to watch the maintenance crew at the condo pool and willed that they didn’t find any parasites or turdling residue or anything that would cause it to be drained and decommissioned.
Just as any good house burglar might, she surveyed the neighbor’s estate to denote schedules and abnormalities.
Okay, yeah, they’re either in Tennessee or at a beach house, and that’s that, she convinced herself.
Of course, Sydney wasn’t looking to break into this family’s indoor living space; she just wanted to reap the benefits of their outdoor oasis. She was looking for a way to take over the pool as both Pinky—and the Brain.
She eventually surmised that this family wasn’t coming back any time soon and that their pool was fair game.
What was the worst that could happen? They tell me to get out after I’ve done my laps? she asked herself.
She entered in the same way that the mother had first invited access, through the screened-in area where the toys were. She said aloud to herself that the neighbor mom had dispatched her young children to her house repeatedly, so it was time to balance the scale.
Sydney initiated by playing with their toys at the frontiers of the pool. There was a little play kitchen, one of those Playskool red cars with a gap where your feet could go through like the Flintstones vehicle. Sydney sessioned the car for a time, enthusiastic that she was in the space and cramming into this toddlers’ toy. Given her eternal craving for something new and exciting, she was satisfied. She glanced over at the pool and realized it was the closest she had ever been to the water. This had been the moment she had been waiting for for so long.
She caught a glimpse of Wade on the kitchen steps on the side of their house, watching her at play, puzzled but also trying to figure out how he could incorporate himself in the scenario. Sydney stayed for a while, maintaining some self-control, and said she’d give the neighbors one more day, and if they didn’t come home, she was going to be sampling their pool.
Sydney told none of her family members her plan because she didn’t want to be stopped and didn’t need another body to account for. It was summer, and her mom left her and her brothers home during the day, so there was no parent to impede her swim time.
Leeway for the neighbors had been extended.
When they didn’t appear, she felt that much more dignified when she let herself in and cannonballed into their pool the following day. She was hootin’ and hollerin’ in total bliss.
The pool deck didn’t have all that much space along the perimeter, just enough to walk around. Sydney appreciated the design, as it maximized the pool dimensions. It allowed for significant lap routes, providing a commendable challenge to see if she could make it longways edge to edge holding her breath underwater. With practice, she was able to after a few tries. She even got inventive and started driving the Playskool car into the pool so she could train for her escape once it plunged into the water—just in case one day if her family’s station wagon careened off an embankment into deep waters, she would know best practices.
Matteo, Sydney, and Wade were all strong swimmers. The Lagunilla parents had made sure that their kids learned to swim at a young age since they spent a copious amount of time at the beach, in freshwater sources, and in pools.
There was a door that led directly to the pool area that was even closer to Sydney’s house, but she always entered through the play area for whatever reason. Wade eventually ventured over to the pool when he heard a splashing that he knew never came from the neighbors. He didn’t trust a pool storyline in which Sydney was in charge, but he did take advantage of the toy area. A quick study, as it turned out.
Trees canopied part of the pool, making it a refreshing temperature. It was the season of sizzling heat, and with the lake at a near boil, the pool became a welcome respite as well as a matter of heat-stroke prevention.
The girl would usually spend the day getting sweaty in the woods, playing sports, or riding around on her bike. When the clock struck 3:00 P.M., she figured it was so late in the day, the family couldn’t possibly be coming home at that hour. She would knock on the door, preparing to request Nicholas’s presence, expecting full well the family wouldn’t be home. Her hyperactivity, unrelenting, she would then dash to her room to suit up and let herself into her pool club. Sydney ran everywhere, walking very rarely. When it came to the pool, once that afternoon marker hit, she felt every minute was critical to get her swim in.
This became Sydney’s regimen.
She didn’t negate her hunch that their car could pull into the driveway at any time, Nicholas firing a warning shot with his cap gun and her needing to skedaddle.
She’d maintained a semblance of self-control when it came to the diving board. But after a few dips, it taunted her and had done so since the first day she moved in when her eyes fixed plankward. It had been far too long, and she was ready to conquer it. Kicking up and out with one leg to do a can opener, the girl made a splashing kerplunk to celebrate the maneuver, landing into the eight-foot-deep end. She ranked her can openers as well as her pencil dives each time between a five and a ten.
She had no regard for the family stumbling upon evidence of pool water soaking the edges of the deck. The pool family wouldn’t have noticed anyway because they were outwardly far from home. She hadn’t seen them pop in to retrieve not even an extra set of towels. It just never happened.
They must have packed for months, Sydney assumed.
Sydney would invite her best friend Amethyst over, or Amethyst would invite herself; either way, she was at the Lagunilla house a lot. The friend learned that if there were no sign of the neighbors, then the two of them would be in the pool. Wade sometimes would join if Amethyst were there because of the added level of security from his sister.
On occasion, when Sydney was on dry land, not doing swimming laps, she would spot Matteo and his neighborhood friend Juan swishing around at the neighbor’s, taking their turn at what the Lagunilla siblings coined the “Club de Oasis.”
By the end of summer, Sydney had done so much swimming in the neighbor’s pool that the predictable happened. She got bored with it and went back to puttering around the lake in her little red rowboat and engaging in activities that the pool had supplanted.
The neighbor family finally surfaced from the longest road trip Sydney could have imagined, as she still had not gone beyond Florida’s borders. The Saturday after they got home, something unfamiliar caught Sydney’s attention while she was on her family’s back porch swing.
Is that jaunty splashing I hear?
She didn’t believe it.
She walked down the three steps outside her screen door leading to the backyard, and there they were. The three of them. Nicholas, Natalie, and their mom. Swimming in their pool.
Sydney saw it as a harbinger that it might be some time before she visited the neighbor’s house to bathe in solitude in their crystalline waters. Although that would be the singular time she ever saw them swimming in their pool and would never be formally invited over to swim, she was glad they were testing the waters—deep down hoping she had played a role in the family finally enjoying the fruits of their amenities. On closer inspection, Sydney saw they even had inflatable pool toys and reflected that if only their use had been a known possibility, she would have helped herself.
