“Uhm. Excuse me! Hi! Uh… are you stealing my calamansi?”
I’m not myself tonight. The old me would have just let this go, like I have every night since moving in four months ago.
Maybe it's the air-frying April heat, the broken AC, the sky-rocketing gas prices, or the newfound confidence from finally reporting my right-side neighbor for her full-blast midnight renditions of My Heart Will Go On.
This one is the left-side neighbor, the one shamelessly harvesting my calamansi—specifically the branches jutting over the low concrete wall—at exactly 7 PM, Tuesday through Saturday.
“Heyyy! Sorry. What's that?” she answers, acting as if she isn't slowly backing down a ladder with her shirt bulging full of undeniable, spotlighted evidence.
The rest of her is a faint silhouette behind thick calamansi shrubs on a moonless night.
But like I said, I'm not myself tonight; I just had to see justice served. It's not that I won't share. I just need this lady to understand basic neighborly decency. Wiping a bead of stinging sweat from my eye, I march closer to the boundary.
“I said you’re—”
“I’m Tata. Sorry it took a while. I’m a painfully shy introvert. But, hey! It's me! At the AlfaMart, two days ago,” she answers with a friendly cadence, lowering another foot down. “I realized mid-conversation that you were my new neighbor, but I didn't want you to think I’m stalking you, so… What's your name again?”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
I shouldn't let a thief’s misdirection sidetrack me. If we'd actually talked, I would easily recall such a recent encounter. But thanks to whatever has gotten into me today, everything blurs into a sweltering, confused haze, leaving only the faint echo of her question.
“Antonio.”
“Nice to meet you, Antonio. So! Do you remember me now?!" she asks excitedly, taking another sneaky step down.
"I'm sorry, I don't think I... Anyway, I wanted to tell you—"
"Oh, don't worry about it. I figured you’re losing sleep over Kora's Titanic song. You'll get used to it. She really just misses her late husband because it was their theme song,” she babbles, lowering herself yet again.
But now, I feel like shit. I need a moment to feel like shit.
“So!” she rapid-fires, breaking the silence. “About the grocery! We bonded over cursing out this shameless, muscular guy with no sense of decency who was cutting the cashier line, remember?”
A memory flashes. AlfaMart. Two days ago. I was cooking sinigang. That's when I ran out for scallions. Wait... that lady was her?! I squint to get a better look, but her face is still shrouded behind the shrubs.
“Oh, you still don't remember? It's fine!” she exclaims cheerfully. “Wooh! It's so darn hot, isn't it?!” She fans her collar and lowers herself another foot, completely concealing the evidence behind the wall. Before I know it, she's reduced to a bobbing head, her face finally unobscured in the glare of the overhead light.
Yeah. It's her.
Even though she's now just a floating head with messy, thick dark curls and oversized round glasses, her features match that lady perfectly. The epitome of fresh, youthful summer in a flowy olive dress that made everyone steal a glance. But I don't remember her for her looks. I remember her for the graceful hurricane of justice she unleashed to make that scary guy fall in line.
“Hey Antonio!” she calls, straining her neck over the wall. “Be careful of neighborhood thieves. They haven't been too active lately, but just to be sure, lock up everything by 7 PM. And don't talk to strangers! Lots of weirdos out here."
I see it now. She was the reason something has been wrong with me.