“SJ COME HAVE SOME WHITE WINE OVER HERE,” my neighbor, Elsa, shouted at me from the open picnic tent they erect every summer and spend most days under. Strudel and I were just getting home from her school and it had been a long tense day of no new work coming down the pike. There’s nothing like being the most expendable person at work with nothing to do due to corporate bottleneckery.

The tent is an oasis, containing shelves, a radio (which blares classical, smooth jazz, or Edith Piaf depending on the day), patio furniture, a miniature Swedish flag, and loads of booze. Also, Elsa and her partner Steven. It is carpeted with green close-cropped Astroturf.

Elsa went into the house to get wine and something for Strudel. Elsa turns the color of toast in summer and with her white-blond hair and clothes is very striking.

“How are you feeling, Steven?” I asked. About a month ago Steven had a giant brain tumor removed.

“GREAT!” he replied, in his rich booming voice. “Much better. I’m just taking it easy.” He lit a cigarette. Steven retired from radio voice-over work about a year ago and has been a regular fixture in the yard since then. He and Elsa are usually drinking and shouting and watering their lawn and grilling.

“Here, honey,” Elsa said, pouring about half a bottle of white wine into my giant glass. She brought a box of raisins and a tumbler of root beer for Strudel, who shunned the mysterious dark beverage in favor of rootling around the raisin box with her grubby fingers.

Steven made his way up, slowly, and moved towards the house.

“Poor Steven,” Elsa said to me, quietly. “Our living room looks like a pharmacy with all the chemo drugs. And he never got his vision back in his left eye. Did you see all his scratches?”

I recalled then that I had seen a scratch on his head and one on his arm.

“Yes.”

“His balance is all off and he fell on the stairs out here the other day,” Elsa said. She told me horrifying stories about steep medical bills and the limits of insurance.

As usual, we traded news and gossip about our neighbors. Elsa mentioned that the old lady who lived in the house across the street from ours (before the house was knocked down and replaced with three townhomes) hated everyone who lived in my duplex on principle.

“Isn’t that funny?” I said. “We took her roses before they bulldozed everything. I thought it would be nice to keep part of the old neighborhood.”

“And they look so nice,” Elsa said.

“Elsa is the neighborhood patrol!” Steven said, teasing her.

“It’s not gossip if it’s true,” Elsa said.

“It’s ALL TRUE,” they said, almost in unison.

Talk soon turned to what I was up to, and Strudel’s dad.

“P. LOOKS JUST LIKE GEORGE CLOONEY!” Elsa declared, pouring me more wine. “Don’t you think so, Steven?”

“He’s a very handsome guy,” Steven said.

“Are you two going to get married, do you think?”

“I doubt that,” I said.

“How long have you two been together now?”

“Uhh…Six years,” I lied. It’s funny how no one really knows we broke up a year ago. How do you explain these things to people?

“Well, that’s great!” Elsa said. Eventually George Clooney came home from work, set his backpack down, and had a beer with us.

Finally we made our excuses and went home so I could make dinner.

Elsa and Steven seem like such summer people to me. Suddenly they look much older, and I worry about them this winter when the weather will chase us all indoors and everyone on the street becomes strangers again.

It’ll Be a Breeze

This is a nice cover, but a little fast for my taste. My sister and I used to argue about this. She thought the song was about a break up, and I thought it was about death and leaving the person you love the most. Today I found out it is about being in a coma.