The sun went down. I turned off the porch light, poured myself a glass of iced tea, and sat in the dark behind the geraniums. I felt like a woman a third my age on a stakeout.
All Monica had to do was leave my property alone.
The Tesla drifted in with its headlights off.
Monica stepped out in her yoga pants and slippers, cable in hand, humming under her breath. She looked so comfortable. Like my garage belonged to her.
Then she stopped.
Too late.
“What in the world,” she muttered.
She stared down at the gnome sitting right where she needed to plug in. My gnome. Her sloppy blue paint job — sitting there like a tiny, chipped-nose witness.
“Ugly little thing,” she said. “Move.”
She nudged him with the toe of her slipper. When he did not budge, she gave him a harder shove.
Something thin snapped tight behind the gnome.
She stood there frozen.
Monica frowned and looked up.
Too late.
I started recording on my phone.
The can tipped, wobbled, and emptied itself in one glorious splash directly onto the top of Monica’s head. Pink paint poured down her hair, her shoulders, her yoga pants, her slippers.
She stood there frozen for one full second. Bright cotton-candy pink from crown to toe.
Whole neighborhood came running.
Then the scream came.
It was not a scream, really — it was a shriek that could shatter porcelain.
Lights snapped on up and down the street. Doors opened. Somewhere a dog started barking like the world was ending.
Monica stood in the middle of my driveway, dripping pink onto the concrete, still clutching her charging cable like a leash on an invisible dog. Her mouth opened and closed.
“I’m not sure I’m the problem here.”
I stepped out from behind the geraniums with my phone held steady in front of me.
And that was when the whole neighborhood came running.
Doors flew open up and down the street. Neighbors poured onto the sidewalk in slippers and robes, phones already out.
“YOU DID THIS ON PURPOSE!”
Monica shrieked, pink paint dripping from her hair onto the concrete.
I lifted my phone a little higher from where I stood on the porch and kept my voice steady.
“Turn those off.”
“Monica, you’re stealing electricity at midnight and arguing with a garden gnome. I’m not sure I’m the problem here.”
Somebody behind me actually snorted.
Monica spun in the driveway, pointing a shaking pink finger at the gnome.
“AND YOU STOLE MY GNOME!”
I kept recording.
“Your gnome? The one you took from my yard six months ago?”
“The paint?”
Monica went silent. Her face changed.
For the first time all night, she seemed to realize how many phones were pointed at her.
“Turn those off,” she snapped at the neighbors. Then she looked back at me. “Eleanor, tell them. Tell them this was an accident.”
“Which part?”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
Someone else answered for her.
