I whispered back, “What should I do?”
“Are those your geraniums?”
“Yes.”
“How do you water them? Is there a hose at the front of the house?”
Still whispering, I said, “Yes. It's coiled up right behind that hedge.”
“You go turn on the water, and pretend we're just admiring the garden.”
I nodded my agreement to his plan, and stepped over the decorative edging along the sidewalk and onto the lawn. The in-ground sprinklers had run an hour earlier, and the wet grass tickled the sides of my feet through my sandals. With the street lamps, I had no trouble seeing where I was going.
At a regular talking volume, I said, “And this is the front lawn. We don't use any herbicides, so I'm out here on my hands and knees pulling weeds a lot.”
I saw movement along the sides the tree. An elbow, and then a shadowy head and a camera. I expected to hear clicking sounds, but I guess paparazzi with digital cameras turn off the click function to be sneaky.
I bent down to turn on the water, feeling indignant that someone was taking my photo without my permission. The wedding photographer had been annoying, but this was way beyond that. I turned the metal spout, smiling as cold water surged into the hose.
Dalton already had the business end of the hose in hand, clutching the sprayer like a pistol, and he crept closer to the big tree.
“Good evening,” he said to a man walking by with two sleek-bodied whippets.
“Gardening by moonlight?” the man asked as the dogs stopped for a head pat.
Dalton laughed with ease and said, “I work long days.”
And then, if you can believe it, the two of them started having an actual conversation about gardening and whippets.
Meanwhile, I stood in the wet grass of my lawn feeling like I might implode. My heart was pounding, and I felt so mixed up with emotions after the events of the day, like I was a glass of water being overfilled, everything pouring over my sides. I didn't know what was going to happen next, but I wanted it to happen. Now.
The man with the sleek dogs waved goodbye and walked away. Dalton looked over at me on the front lawn, his eyes glinting in the light of the nearby street lamp. He held up the sprayer.
I gave him a nod. The water was on. Do it.
He fired one small shot of water at the hedge to test, then ran around to the other side of the tree, the water on full blast.
The person on the other side of the tree let out a high-pitched shriek and a series of swear words. Extraordinarily bad swear words.
Now, I'm not a big follower of celebrity gossip, but I do know most paparazzi are men. What jumped out from behind the tree, as mad and wet as a Persian cat in a bath tub, was a woman. She looked twenty-something, with brown hair in a short pixie cut, pretty and obnoxiously tiny, like a tea cup full of buttons.
Perhaps the worst part, besides realizing I was in fact standing in the mud of the flower bed, squashing the violas, was that Dalton seemed to know this petite spy.
He stopped blasting the water and yelled, “Alexis! What the hell? Why are you following me?”
She sputtered and wiped at her face dramatically, her gaze on the sprayer in his hand.
“Don't you dare spray me again,” she said.
“Or what?”
As she opened her mouth to answer, he fired off a blast of water at her midsection.
Lights flicked on in my neighbors' houses, and shadowy forms moved in windows. Mr. Galloway was probably getting a good look at this girl Alexis's lacy bra, on perfect display in her transparent, soaked shirt. Her perky bosom heaved fetchingly, and Dalton stared at her the way a lead actor does right before he passionately kisses his love interest. I kicked off my sandals and rubbed my muddy foot off in the wet grass. Was I standing in a pile of logs deposited by Mr. Galloway’s cat? Wow, when things go downhill in my life, they really pick up speed.
Alexis swore some more, then yelled at Dalton, “You're such a child! You're a spoiled rotten baby and you don't care who gets hurt because you'll just move on to the next one, and women are in unlimited supply, aren't we? You've got your new girl here, and you probably fed her your bullshit lines, didn't you?”
“Alexis! Calm down and stop acting crazy. Are you following me? Is this what you do now? You hide in bushes and take photos of people?”
Growling with sarcasm, she said, “No, I have an amazing career. Six seasons and a movie. I'm a big f**king deal, and I just sell celebrity photos for shits and giggles.” She raised her camera at him and said, “Huh, it still works.” A red light blinked.
Dalton stepped toward her, one hand outstretched. “No. Give me that. I'm deleting these photos. You have no right.”
She backed away, still taking pictures. “Work it, D-man. Gimme that Drake snarl. Oh yeah, action shot.”
“Talk to me, Alexis. Do you need money? I could help you, as a friend, but you're not being very friendly.”
She kept moving away from him, then abruptly changed direction and jumped over the low hedge along the front yard, running straight toward me.
I reacted the same way I would if a skunk or saber tooth tiger was running at me. I shrieked and held very still, hoping she'd lose interest.
She grabbed my forearm, her fingers cold and terrifying. “You don't know what you're getting yourself into,” she snarled.
“Let go of me before I punch you some new freckles!”
She blinked, speechless. She'd probably never had anyone threaten to punch her some new freckles. In fact, it may have been the first time in human history that phrase had been uttered.
“Who are you?” she asked, her big eyes open wide.
“Just a girl named Peaches.”
“You have great skin.”
“Why, thank you—”
Our conversation was interrupted by a man tackling Alexis and throwing her to the ground. The man had his long hair tied back in a ponytail. The driver. Was he also a bodyguard?
Dalton came to my side, putting one arm across my shoulders.
“You're a bit late for heroics,” I said as we watched the two of them tussle on the grass before us.
The driver pulled away from Alexis, camera in hand. Even though nobody was touching the girl, she continued to scream bloody blue murder with cheese on top. Now all my curious neighbors were out on their porches.
Mr. Galloway, the edges of his robe not quite covering his boxer shorts on account of how tall the senior citizen is, leaned over his railing and called down, “Peaches Monroe? Shall I call the police?”
I waved. “No, thanks! We're good here, I think.”