On Thursday evening Companion and I were standing in the yard necking like the chavs we are while the girls noodled in our front garden, when we heard a shout from our neighbor in the duplex next to ours. Not our duplex neighbor with the new baby, but the next building over, which is also a duplex.

“HEEEY! There’s no kissing on this street!” We laughed and went back to it. “HEEEY! I said there’s no kissing on this street. Unless it’s me and MY man.” She came over with a flower in her hand that she had just grabbed from her front yard. I see her a lot; she looks like she’s about retirement age and shouts thing at me occasionally. I knew that she has lived here for forty-three years and knows our landlady. The moment Memorial Day came she and her husband erected a patio tent with chairs and a speaker set up, which often kicks “smooooth jazz” in the evenings, mingled with raucous laughter and the sizzle of their grill. When she came over to us she looked about three sheets to. “Your kids are cute. You want to come over for a glass of wine?”

“Sure,” we said, and I ran in to grab a shirt to cover my tank top before heading over since it was getting chily. Their duplex was nice, full of newly-acquired and overstuffed leather furniture. The shouting lady, Elsa, introduced us to one of her coworkers, Cindy, whose handshake was so strong and out-of-control that she almost pulled me over into her leather chair. I could see she had one of those thirty-two ounce Coca-Cola collector’s glasses full of what she said was a “gins-and-tonics.” I saw her point; the sweating glass definitely looked like it contained more than one gin-and-tonic.

Cindy told us that she and Elsa are cooks together. Elsa grabbed Franny and gave her a pink sunhat, and told her she always had to wear it when she came over from now on. Franny, who never says no to anything in the sugar food group, was also quickly provisioned with a bucket-sized glass of limeade and a popsicle. Elsa informed us that her two favorite nephews were on their way for dinner, and that in the meantime we should stay and have some appetizers.

While we sipped our wine, Cindy regaled us with stories about her two knee surgeries. “I’m going to be 70 in October!” she crowed. She eyed Strudel. “What’s she looking like that for? Does she need something? You all have something, the baby wants something!” “Oh no,” I assured her. “She just had some milk at home. She’s fine. She just likes to look at people.” Strudel’s eyebrows were knitted together in her usual mode of furious concentration, which is how she deals with strangers. “Oh, I’m a great-gramma,” Cindy said. “She knows it! Come sit on Gramma’s lap!” Strudel wisely remained in her father’s lap.

Franny was not so wise. A few minutes later, when the favorite nephews arrived, we drifted outside, and by the time I had found a seat and had given Strudel a breadstick, I looked up to see Franny perched on Cindy’s lap, still clutching her popsicle and limeade, beaming under her pink sun hat. “She’s cold!” Cindy announced. “This poor little thing’s cold and she says she doesn’t have a sweater or anything!” Elsa swooped in and took Franny’s popsicle and dumped it in the bushes, wrapper, stick, and all. “We’ll get you something warm, honey,” she told Franny. “Or you could go next door and get your hoodie,” I said, looking at Franny. Franny, like most five-year-olds, leans towards dressing inappropriately for all seasons. She was wearing a tank top and skirt which she’s attempted to do daily since April. It’s June now, so I’ve stopped fighting it, even though the weather has stayed in the 60s. Franny scooted off home to find some warmer clothes and Cindy told Elsa, “She said she didn’t have ANYTHING! She was so cold.” Elsa rolled her eyes and shushed her and said, “Co-dependent no more, okay?”

The nephews were nice, or sober at least, and were closer to our age. We chitchatted with them and Elsa about summer plans and jobs and all the boring shit you talk about when you find yourself in a stranger’s yard with a glass of wine in your hand. Elsa was trying to find out our story and said out-of-nowhere, “Are you two actors, or what?” I’m not sure where that came from, but I think grad school was worth every miserable moment whenever I can say, “No, we’re out-of-work librarians.” Which would be a great cover story, if it weren’t for the fact that it’s true. I told Elsa that Companion was working for a giant local software company. She looked horrified and told us matter-of-factly that when she took over as a head cook there, years ago, there were maggots in the meat grinder.

“P. brings his own lunch,” I said, and Elsa looked relieved.

The youngest nephew revealed that he had just graduated from college and was planning to travel Europe for nine weeks. Elsa waved fiddled with the little Swedish flag centerpiece on her patio table and said, “Oh, Jakob, you have to go see your namesake in Malmo!” “It’s so far away, Aunt Elsa.” Elsa was persistent. “Do you want to see a picture of Jakob, Jakob?” “No, I’m fine,” the younger Jakob replied. When Elsa went into the house for more wine and possibly to retrieve a picture of Malmo Jakob, I leaned over to him and said, “We were gardening in our front yard when your aunt pulled us over here.” “Yeeeah, that’ll happen,” Jakob replied.

Meanwhile, Cindy was feeling left out. All the talk about children and families compelled her to announce that “five children had sprung from her loins!” This didn’t get the reaction she was hoping for, so she turned to me and said, “Doesn’t anyone care about that?” “I do,” I said. “That’s a lot of kids.” As Franny was returning with yet another layer, Cindy rose from her chair and moved to get a breadstick, and suddenly went ass-over-teakettle into the hostas. Companion goggled at her slightly and I said “Honey!” to him and gave him the little “go help that poor old drunky up” head waggle. He handed me Strudel and he and the older nephew got Cindy up and back into her chair. Following the dictates of social niceties, we immediately went on as if nothing had happened. I pulled Franny over and whispered to her, “Don’t sit in that lady’s lap anymore. She’s too drunk, okay?” Franny nodded.

A few minutes later we had made our excuses, because we could see they were getting ready to grill and I had decided to order a pizza and figured I should get cracking on that so the kids wouldn’t eat us alive. But before we left we were given the Reader’s Digest version of everyone’s life story on the street. The lady across from us, whose roses we had admired, is apparently an old crank who planted a huge hidden rock in some overgrown bushes near the curb, with the intention of scratching up the car of any of the apartment dwellers on our other side who dared to park there. The people on the corner belong to the IRA. The people in the big house cattycorner to us are raising children who are the second generation to be born in that house, after their mother. I wonder what our story will be. Idiot librarians who neck in their front yard, probably. I’ve been called worse. Anyway, it should be an interesting summer.