The girls’ shrieking was getting on Pauline’s nerves, too. She lay on the sun lounger with her eyes closed. The low rattan footstool had been serving as a garden nightstand since morning, where the lady of the house had placed bottled water and painkillers. It had been a long time since Emily and Vanda had had such a rough day as this Tuesday in November. The heat caused by the calima had taken a toll on all the residents of the complex, but it affected the three young children living there worse than anyone.
Fabian, the Slovak boy, wasn’t allowed near the pool—his mother feared the dust. But there was no holding the girls back. Pauline gave in to their demands quickly. The migraine that had been torturing her for days made her surrender sooner than usual. She wanted to spare the otherwise obedient sisters—and herself—from pointless arguments and power struggles. She didn’t care that the girls had gotten their way. All she wanted was to rest and for the dreadful pain to finally go away. The only thing bothering her was the loud screeching, but even that only disturbed her rest.
“Pauline,” Ted said.
The French woman wasn’t even surprised by her grumpy neighbor’s appearance. The way he addressed her instead of greeting her fit the picture perfectly. The heat and the noisy kids in the pool inevitably led to the arrival of the man with Coke bottle glasses. Pauline didn’t even need to open her eyes to see Ted clearly. From his energy, she could tell his posture and facial expression with precision.
“Ted,” she replied, dragging out the word.
“Pauline.”
“Ted.”
“What do you think we can do to get some peace and quiet?” he asked in a deathly serious tone, probably with his hands in his pockets.
“I can’t do anything, but you could. Quickly. I’m going mad from this noise.”
“Pauline.”
“Yes, Ted, that’s still my name. But that doesn’t get us any closer to a solution. I have a migraine, I’m suffering, and those two won’t shut their mouths,” she snapped, furious.
As usual, her hand clenched into a fist. She immediately regretted tensing her muscles as the pain stabbed through her even more intensely.
Pauline’s outburst had probably caught the man off guard. He stood at the foot of the sun lounger, speechless. He searched for words in vain but couldn’t find any.
“Ted,” the French woman breathed weakly as she gently began stroking her forehead with her right hand. It didn’t relieve the pain, but at least it calmed her a little. The neighbor watched her silently, as she kept her eyes closed the whole time.
“So?” he finally asked, timidly.
“So you’ll have to handle it this time. You see I can’t, and Rob won’t be home until the evening.”
“And what am I supposed to do with them?”
“I think they’re hungry,” Pauline replied curtly, then began fumbling for her pills.
Ted almost stepped forward to help his suffering neighbor, but he changed his mind quickly. No one ever helps him, either.
The silence took a while to reach her consciousness. She didn’t realize she had been asleep for over an hour, but the quietness that had settled over the yard startled her awake. She sat up on the sun lounger in alarm and looked around, searching for the girls with her eyes. When she saw them, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
Emily and Vanda were sitting by the edge of the pool, feet dangling in the water, munching on slices of pizza. Ted, at a safe distance from them, was tidying up the empty boxes with his mouth still full.