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Trash day is Tuesday.
It’s the only day of the week Hermione sees the neighbor across the street. Every Tuesday at the exact same time, 3pm on the dot. Wearing the same loose sweatpants and time-grayed bunny slippers as the Tuesday before, and the Tuesday before that, and the previous Tuesday and….
“What do you reckon she does?”
Hermione starts with a squeal, dropping her fresh coffee cup in the kitchen sink with a clatter of glass and steam.
“Bloody hell, Harry!” She shouts.
He smiles and sips his tea, gesturing to the window with his chin. “Well? What do ya reckon? Murderer? Reclusive old lady?”
“She’s not old,” Hermione huffs, turning back to the window.
It’s summer after a rain. The sun coming back bright after a slow day of quiet drizzle, dark puddles reflecting the clouds racing across the sky, eager to water the flowers in the next village over. The birds are singing again. It’s suddenly hot, a growing sizzle that makes Hermione feel thick and lethargic.
And there she is. Just on time, rattling her bins from behind the garden gate. Not trying in the least to be quiet. Nary a thought for the peace she’s breaking as she glowers from under a mop of dark curls. She’s deathly pale in the emerging sunlight, cubicle jockey white.
“Maybe she’s Scottish,” Harry mentions, joining Hermione at the sink.
“I don’t think she’s Scottish or a murderer,” Hermione replies. She fips on the faucet, washing away the spilled coffee. She considers for a moment, her gaze sliding back to the window. “Should we say hello?”
“What, now?”
“No, not now. Soon?”
He stares at her. “Hermione?”
“Harry.”
“It’s been a year since she moved in.”
Hermione sighs. “Too soon?”
Harry laughs. “Without a doubt too soon for her sort.”
“But we don’t know what her sort is.”
“We do. Reclusive Scottish murderer.”
Her lips quirk and she hides a smile, bumping his shoulder with her own. “You’re not curious?”
“Well, we could peep in her windows. Have a look through her bins.”
“Harry, that’s stalking.”
“Light stalking,” he corrects her. “Non-invasive things like does she buy organic? Probably not. There’s no recycling bin.”
Hermione gasps. “You’re right! Only trash.”
Harry feigns shock, covering his mouth. “Can you imagine?”
The garden gate across the way bangs shut. Both Harry and Hermione crane their necks to look. The mess of their neighbor’s hair retreats out of sight rapidly and they hear the sound of a slamming door.
Hermione grips the sink ledge, leaning her weight in. She bites her lip and Harry eyes her with concern.
“What’s that?” he asks.
“What’s what?”
His eyes narrow. “That look.”
Hermione weighs her words, works them around like hard candy. “What if we did a little community service?”
“No.”
“Just a little, tiny, baby pamphlet on the benefits of recycling.”
“Oh god,” Harry says, backing away. “What’s next? Throwing soup on her car?”
“No!” Hermione says, shocked. “That’s so wasteful.”
Harry sighs.
“I have a cold,” he says over his shoulder, rushing away. He coughs for good measure. “It’s terrible. My doctor just texted me and told me I need immediate bed rest or I am at risk of becoming too sexy for the world to handle.”
“Coward!” Hermione calls after him.
She’s left in the quiet kitchen, the afternoon air thick and humid, making her shirt cling to her damp skin. She eyes the house across the road and comes to a quick, decisive conclusion: it’s never too soon to recycle.
Bellatrix detests almost everything. It’s in her nature to be dissatisfied. She despises the sunlight, the specks of dust floating so beautifully in it, the sweet taste of a warm summer rain. She hates the worn, smooth wooden floor beneath her feet. She abhors her comfy couch. Finds her cat Mister Sir to be the fattest, most deplorable lifeform in the entire universe. She dislikes reading in the same way she is repulsed by the coziness of an afternoon in with takeaway.
Which is precisely why she is sprawled on the couch, book in hand, pizza in mouth, covered in cat hair and scratching the sweetest kitty skull, wiggling her toes into the floor.
She hates it all. Really.
Which is why, when her doorbell rings, she contemplates how many years in prison she would get for throwing a machete at the wretch waiting outside. She has just the one, bought on sale with a coupon to boot. Dull as political discourse on the telly, but certainly blunt enough to expire whatever presumptive soul is disturbing her loathful afternoon.
But wait. She could just….pretend not to be in.
Mister Sir purrs with approval.
She strokes his cheek thoughtfully. It’s tempting, very tempting. But for the small matter of who dares step foot on my cunting stoop????
Curiosity has always been her weakness.
Nosiness, Narcissa would have corrected her, had she been present to shit on her afternoon.
Rubbish, Bellatrix thinks.
What are those binoculars for, then? Imaginary Cissa asks, looking as cunty as ever.
Safety, of course. One must be sure of who they’ve surrounded themselves with, afterall. Neighbors are prone to do all sorts of nasty things - cheating on their spouses, biking drunk, smoking smelly cigarettes on the roof.
The doorbell rings again.
Mister Sir squawks in protest as Bellatrix puddles slowly from the couch to the floor. Once there, pressed flat, she rolls onto her stomach, and very quietly, very sneakily, slithers across the floor.
There’s a window that looks onto the front steps. If she can creep her head up just right, and lift up the smallest corner of the curtain, she might catch a glimpse of the trespasser. Just so she can get a look at the size of their head, of course. For machete swinging purposes.
So there she is, pressed into the wall, breath held, willing herself invisible. She reaches out gingerly, carefully, using only the tips of her fingers, and takes ahold of the curtain corner. She moves it barely a fraction, sucking in air as she tilts her head, trying to wedge an eye into the space just enough to see…..
And the trespasser sees her. Turns her stupid head at the right moment and they are eyes to eye. Bellatrix nearly chokes in mortification. She freezes, like a shoplifter caught without a receipt.
The trespasser raises her hand, gives an awkward wave.
“Fuck,” Bellatrix hisses. She retreats with a jump, dropping the curtain back in place.
She panic-paces in front of the door, quickly smoothing her t-shirt against her body. Nevermind the wrinkles, much less the holes worn through it. She could walk away. Go to her bathroom and lock the door. Maybe run a nice warm bath to drown herself in. There’s no law that says she has to open the door.
But open the door she does, wearing her best sneer, her sharpest of disapproving expressions.
The woman on the other side of the door is holding a can of soup and a piece of paper dense with writing. She clutches both to her chest like precious treasures and gawks.
Yes, gawks. Cute mouth slightly open, befuddled in an endearing way, the corner of her eyes crinkled. And what eyes - dark, like black mirrors, warmer and more honey sweet when she moves her head and the sunlight hits her eyes just right. The kind of eyes that make you feel present and bare and hungry.
Bellatrix recognizes her immediately from her neighbor accessing sessions. A calm one, not the least bit scandalous or drunk on her bicycle. Reads slowly, luxuriously under the fruit tree in the yard across the way. Tends to the garden with the diligence of someone with an organized brain. Checks the mail every evening. Has a bum that looks fantastic in summer shorts.
Bellatrix blinks.
“Er,” she says eloquently.
Bravo, imaginary Cissa drawls in her head. Nobel prize winning discourse.
Mister Sir twists around her ankles, meowing coyly.
“I’m sorry,” Brown Eyes says. “I’m interrupting your dinner.”
Bellatrix blinks.
Brown Eyes gives her a smile, gestures to Bella’s chest.
Bellatrix follows her gesture dumbly, looking down. She cringes to find a sauce covered pepperoni wedged in her cleavage.
If she could launch herself into space, directly into the sun, she would. Because she can’t, and because her mother didn’t raise a coward, she plucks the pepperoni from its perch and pops it into her mouth, chewing with sheer, mortified aggression.
“It’s nothing,” she says, swallowing. She quickly wipes the remaining sauce from her tits. “Help you?”
Brown Eyes shifts.
“These are for you,” she says, shoving the can of soup and paper into Bella’s hands. “I’m horrid at cooking and it’s my favorite soup, so I thought it might be a nice gift. And I noticed you don’t recycle. The paper there, it uh, well - “
“I burn my trash,” Bellatrix says, glancing over the paper with a critical eye. “The more pollution, the better. Pizza boxes right into the old fireplace.”
Brown Eyes looks as if she might fall down.
“I’m joking,” Bellatrix says, crumpling the paper into a ball. She tosses it over her shoulder into the dimness of her home. “I recycle every third Tuesday. You ought to know that as much as you gape out your window at me.”
Brown Eyes’ face flushes, an adorable red that starts in her cheeks and races down her throat to her chest. “I don’t gape. I observe. And anyway, what are you doing looking in my windows?”
“Observing,” Bellatrix says, giving a dry grin.
There is a moment of silence, both women eyeing each other, calculating.
Brown Eyes relents. She gives an awkward shrug, a shy smile, offers her hand. “Hermione.”
Bellatrix takes her hand, clasping it in her own, enjoying the way their palms fit together, marveling at the slim, strong bones of Hermione’s fingers. “Bellatrix.”
“That’s not Scottish, is it?”
“Do I look bloody Scottish to you?”
“Well, you have a certain pallor, you see.”
“Oh, ha ha ha,” Bellatrix scowls. She turns Hermione’s hand, examines the smooth, hard bone of her wrist. Her lips tingle and she wonders what it would be like to kiss that skin, that soft, intimate bit of flesh caught between her lips, pressed against the tip of her tongue.
She releases her, taking a step back. She raises the soup. “Thanks. I’ll be sure to recycle the can.”
She’s ready to leave, turning away, thinking about all the cringing she’s soon to be doing on the comfy couch she hates so much.
“My tree is fruiting,” Hermione says. “Apricots. If you would like some, you could come pick them. I have sunscreen I can lend your not-Scottish skin.”
Bellatrix meets her eyes, any witty retort drying to ash on her tongue when she sees her expression - open and genuine and kind. And her lips, full and red and smooth. The best lips to lick apricot juice from on a summer evening.
Mister Sir protests loudly as he is ushered back inside and the door shut behind him.
Casually, sweetly, Bellatrix takes Hermione’s hand.
“I love apricots,” she says, and she smiles.