Ugh. I just wanted peace and quiet, no noise, no screens, no talking.
There was always something happening from seven in the morning to ten at night. Meetings, classes, TV, cooking, cleaning, texting, talking, and even religious virtual gatherings.
I was losing. My. Mind. If it were possible to crawl out of my skin and escape into the clouds, I so would. Luckily there was a place I could escape to. My one refuge in this miserably confined, loud-as-crap world.
The balcony.
Ma was too worried about bioterrorism (aka some infected a-hole purposely coughing on us) to let us go on walks without her and Dad. But the balcony was safe.
Crawling out the window and onto the balcony, I sat outside on a folding chair four stories up. The balcony was smal , partial y fil ed with plants I’d
desperately tried to grow.
“Just live,” I told them. But they didn’t seem very interested in cooperating in the muggy, summer heat. Poor roses wilted with sad, decrepit petals, and mint dried up into crispy strings.
I sighed and closed my eyes. The tal buildings kept the sunlight from directly searing my face and cast shade instead. A light breeze shifted through the air and caressed my skin. Thank goodness for shorts and thin shirts.
Beautiful, blissful quiet.
Brum. Brum. BRRRRRRUM.
What was that twangy, guttural pitch? Vibrations of something hit the air and pierced my precious silence. My stabby headache was getting agitated AF.
The sound got louder and louder until I pried open an eye and searched the balconies for the source of this…this racket. And then I found him.
Across the wide al ey, some dude in a gray T-shirt and blue board shorts sat on his balcony the next building over, one floor below, and two balconies over. His head bent low as he played a guitar. A mass of thick black hair that needed a haircut fel over his face.
I gritted my teeth and hoped he would stop soon. But he didn’t. I glanced at my window, but there were a hundred more annoying sounds inside.
“Hey!” I shouted, cringing at the loudness. Stabby headache was going to kil me.
He didn’t hear. Dude was playing that thing like nothing else, like no one else was around. When in reality, several hundred people lived in these two buildings and I couldn’t possibly be the only one wanting quiet time.
Jumping to my feet, I shouted again, my voice scratching my throat. He paused and scanned the building until he found me glaring at him, my hands on my hips, and standing against the railing.
He waved.
I didn’t wave back. “Can you stop? I’m trying to get some quiet,” I yel ed down to him, cringing from the pain in my head.
He shrugged and mouthed, Sorry. Then he went back to playing his guitar. It sounded even louder. The audacity! Did he think he just owned the
air?
I needed something. I turned one way and then the other, looking for something to throw. I was heated. My skin prickled and a fire whooshed down the back of my neck. I couldn’t throw one of my sickly plants. My mom had bought those pots, and they might shatter onto someone below. In a moment of temperamental spontaneity, I tugged off my sneaker and chucked it at him with the aim and force of a seasoned softbal pitcher.
As soon as the shoe left my fingers, I yelped. Gah! Oh, no! Why did I do that! Was this assault? Did I hurt him? Had I lost my favorite shoe?
I ducked just as my sneaker hit the brick side of his building. He careful y stood to find me with my hands on my face and my fingers slightly opening to peer through.
He pressed his lips together and frowned. He shook his head like he was about to cal my mom and tel her what I’d done. My mom would ground me, for sure. Wel , like ground me after quarantine was lifted because right now it didn’t matter. My entire life was one long, weird grounding session.
He bent down, swept up the shoe, and tossed it in the air a few times as if he were debating throwing it back at me.
Ew. He picked up my sneaker without sanitizing it?
In the end, he saluted me with my own shoe and mouthed, Thanks.
Um. I kinda needed my shoe back, though. I wriggled one socked foot in horror. That wasn’t just any sneaker. It was one half to a glorious pair of white Converse made special by my friends. Ya know, the ones whom I may never ever see again in an actual school.
He returned to playing that hol ow sound, to irritating me. I waved my arms wildly in the air to get his attention, but he just smirked and bobbed his head and got real y into his music. I yel ed at him again but ended up straining my voice and coughing.
“Beta?” Dad opened my bedroom door and walked to the window.
“What are you doing? Who are you yel ing at?”
“Some person who’s making too much noise,” I said weakly, my throat hurting from al the yel ing.
He tilted his head, listened, and smiled. “Nice music. Sort of relaxing, no? Come inside and eat lunch. We have sourdough sandwiches.”
I groaned. If I ate one more slice of bread, I was going to turn into a loaf.
I grunted at Guitar Boy and crawled inside.
Lunch was as peaceful as things could get these days, mainly because our mouths were busy chewing. During meals, we always kept the TV off and electronics were left on charging stations. Before quarantine, we talked about our feelings and our day while we ate, but we were so up in each other’s business now that there was no need to. Privacy? What’s that?
“Zoom meetings leave a buzz in my head,” Ma told Dad.
“It’s the earbuds,” he said. “Necessary and inevitable.”
She had a glazed look and mumbled, “I might need a drink tonight.”
“Can I sleep in the living room again?” Lil y asked as she munched on carrots.
“Sure, beta,” Ma said.
What a relief. Lil y sleeping in the living room beneath a makeshift tent with her stuffed animals and her friends on FaceTime gave me a room to myself. It was the best.
When we finished lunch, I cleaned the kitchen. Then I showered. Al the while, plotting ways to get my shoe back. When I emerged from the bathroom, I spotted the dry-erase board against the wal . Hmmm. What if…
“Are you using the dry-erase board?” I asked Lil y.
“You may use,” she said.
“Thanks.” I grabbed the board, an eraser, and a black dry-erase marker and went onto the balcony.
Guitar Boy had left. I spotted my sneaker behind his chair. For now, I enjoyed the solace.
—
With my head final y void of buzz, thoughts, worries, and anxieties, the headache eased away. An hour of quiet had been magnificent. Until Guitar Boy came back out.
I glared at him, silently daring him to play with what I’d hoped were squinted eyes of doom. He waved, sat down, faced me, and strummed.
First thing first. I held up my sign.
I NEED MY SHOE BACK
He kept playing but squinted to read. Then shrugged.
LIKE NOW
He held a hand up to his ear in the shape of a phone.
I JUST WANT MY SHOE!!!
He pul ed out his phone with a grin. A very cute, albeit impish, one.
Then he held it up to me and waited.
Gah!
NOT GIVING YOU MY #!!
He shrugged like no biggie, placed the shoe in front of him, and…
serenaded it. His music was moving, little raindrops on my soul, his fingers adept and so different from the noise he had bombarded me with earlier. I was at a loss for dry-erase words. And apparently, I was not alone.