All the other rooms downstairs were extravagantly decorated, except for the kitchen, which was an avocado, retro, chipped floor tiled nightmare. But, the appliances still worked, and it wasn’t falling apart, so I pretended I didn’t see it every night when I got home, much like the rest of the house.
Until you got to the upstairs.
In the main bedroom, every square inch of one long wall and the entire ceiling was covered in mirrors. In the bathroom, behind the toilet, were small mirror tiles, meaning when I pissed in the morning, I could watch the whole thing if I wanted to. The rest was covered in tiles with a jungle theme, complete with parrots, bright flowers, large leaves, banana plants, tigers, toucans, sloths, monkeys, and lions. Given that lions didn’t live in the jungle, it was strange, but that was the least of my worries when it came to that particular part of the décor.
Incidentally, the toilet and sink were both bright yellow, and the taps and shower were gold plated.
I’d planned on moving into one of the other four bedrooms, but all of them, bar one, were similarly decorated to the main bedroom but with different colored mirrors. In the end, I’d moved into the most normal one, which was painted in a purple so dark it was almost black and was probably used at one point for extra closet space, given all of the hooks and railings in it. I could fit my bed, a drawer unit, and a bedside table in it, and that was it.
Yet I’d still bought the place because Layla had been so in love with it. I wasn’t fooling myself when it came to the price, though. Had it not been for the fact that Mr. Marshall had died in the backyard while sunbathing naked, and Mrs. Marshall had decided to move to a retirement village in Florida and just wanted to get rid of the place, I likely wouldn’t have been able to afford it.
But she’d known how much Layla loved the place because she’d always told Mrs. Marshall when she saw her, so maybe she wanted me to get my dream at the same time Layla got hers?
Because of that, I hadn’t touched a thing in the house décor-wise. I wanted Layla to do that, to make those decisions together, and that left me facing a house that looked like the love child of Skittles and Liberace and some sex/porn palace.
After the day I’d had, though, it brought me some comfort for once. It didn’t matter how bad my day or life was, the knowledge that the house had it even worse was comforting.
I’d just pulled a beer out of the fridge when I heard the sound of a lawnmower at the front of the house. Confused, I made my way back to the double doors at the entrance and opened them to see what was going on.
My dad was on his ride-on lawnmower, cringing as he drove it through the overgrown grass and weeds.
“Dad?”
“Your father’s going to do the grass while Luke puts the weed whacker to good use,” my mom said beside me, making me jump. “Sorry, I was looking at a patch which looks like something’s been digging in it. Do you have raccoons? They have rabies, you know. If you have kids or get a dog, you’ll have to get rid of them so they don’t spread any diseases.”
I blinked. “What?”
Waving a hand through the air, my mom continued. “Anyway, we’ve been around the back and saw the state of the pool. Good Lord, that thing needs some work on it. Why would you put mirrored tiles in a pool?”
She had a point. The walls of the pool had the same small mosaic-sized mirrored tiles as the bathroom, and the bottom had larger gold ones. It was freaking awful.
“Because they were continuing with the theme from inside the house?”
Taking a break, Luke leaned on the weed whacker and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “How are you doing sleeping in their kinky playroom? I have to hand it to you, I wouldn’t be able to do it. The nightmares alone would wreck me.”
“Kinky playroom?” I repeated, wondering why everything seemed so surreal right now.
“Yeah. Just thinking about what they hung on those hooks and rods…” he shuddered and gagged as that sinking feeling in my gut turned into a black hole. “Who do you think was the top? I think it was Mrs. Marshall. I mean, she did go to live in that swingers retirement place.”
I hadn’t taken even a sip of my beer by this point, but as it all clicked into place, I did the only thing I could to get me through it. I lifted the bottle and downed it in one.
“Luke!” Mom snapped, then gasped when I burped. “Mark!”
Hitting my chest with my fist, I released the rest of the gas with a loud, long, and admittedly grotesque burp. Hey, this was my property, and I had a right to do what I wanted on it, even if it meant making poor old Mrs. Keegan jump as she walked past with her tiny dog.
Then again, I wasn’t raised with no manners, so I smiled apologetically at her. “Sorry, Mrs. Keegan.”
“That was a ten if ever I heard one,” she shouted back, waving at Mom and Dad. “Grew up with eleven brothers and had five sons, Mark. Never heard a true ten out of any of them.”
Not knowing what to do, but admittedly kind of impressed by her reaction, I raised my bottle to her. “I’ll note it down for the historians to celebrate.”
“You do that, son, and while you’re at it, have another one of those and then one for me. I heard you had an interesting day.”
She chuckled and shook her head. “Hell of a thing shit like that happening to Cole Townsend. Just wish I’d been able to see it. I missed out on squirrelgate, too.”
Filled with sudden gratitude for my neighbor, one I hadn’t interacted with much before now, I offered, “Come into the precinct one day, and I’ll show you the body cam recording. DB won’t mind, and we keep it for the days we need to laugh on.”
Remembering one vital piece of advice, I added quickly, “Just don’t eat before it. There are bits….” I shuddered at the choice of word and the mental image of the ‘bits’ in it. “There are moments that really test your gag reflex.”