Free Diamond in the Buff by Susan Dunlap Page B

convincing Hasbrouck Diamond to shade his nether parts from the sun.
    But if there was ever a time I was prepared to stomp through his wall of intransigence, it was now.
    No sound came from inside Mr. Kepple’s pale green house. That didn’t surprise me. I hadn’t expected to find him in there when hours of sun were left. I made my way around the side. The path between his house and the hedge (blessedly, not one of those hedges that could be shaped like a lion or a cupid) was slate today. When I moved in it had been cement, then redwood slab, then wood chip, then a particularly slippery variety of ground cover.
    The backyard was as I might have expected. Clusters of tiny green plants I couldn’t name dotted the yard. Over the years they had all looked the same: small, green, flowerless, doomed. Despite the heat and drought, the grass was thick and vibrant green. But Mr. Kepple was nowhere in sight. And there was no roar, buzz, or spray.
    “Mr. Kepple!” I called for form’s sake. In the silence here, I didn’t expect an answer. And I got none.
    I opened the door to my old digs and got my second surprise. I had assumed that as soon as my last box was gone, Mr. Kepple would fill the porch with the equipment that had jammed his garage. Word was that he had for a while. But now, the ten-by-forty space looked like I still lived there. The chaise lounge was still at one end, the white wicker table and chairs in the middle, the bookcase at the near end by the spot where my sleeping bag had lain for those two years.
    The flat was just waiting for me to move back in! I looked back at the ten-by-forty space, at the stained carpet, the one tiny closet, the walk-through kitchen that led to a bathroom so small that the toilet was set at an angle, with the edge of the sink extending over it, and the door had to be left open when I’d showered. My stomach clutched. I couldn’t live here. After two months in The Palace, this place looked like … like a utility porch. On the other hand, if I didn’t find an apartment this weekend … “Mr. Kepple!”
    In the next yard, beyond the hedge, a door opened. Mr. Kepple’s neighbor, a woman a few years older than I—maybe thirty-five—stalked out onto a porch about level with my head. A T-shirt clung clammily to her chest, thin blond hair hung limp and stringy, and on her pale, sweaty face was a scowl. She stared down at my green shirt and gray slacks and my businesslike loop earrings.
    “Are you from the water department?” she demanded. She didn’t recognize me. That was a relief. But then, when I lived here I had had little chance to be out in the yard to be seen.
    I walked toward her. The overhanging hedge would block her view of all but the top of my head. “No. I’m a friend. I need to talk to Mr. Kepple.”
    “Damn right!” she snapped. “Somebody needs to talk to the man. Look at that yard! It’s a swamp! Do you know how many times the man watered yesterday? Six times. In one day! The man’s got no sense!”
    The anger I’d been swallowing all day pushed to the surface. Not that I doubted the truth of her complaint. But the plants under the hedge were limp. He hadn’t watered six times today. Still, I could hear the sharp edge to my voice when I said, “I’ll have a talk—”
    “We’ve got to save water. I’ve told him. But does he listen?”
    I knew the answer to that. I inched closer to the hedge. Standing in the shade, I looked down at the drooping plants. Mr. Kepple was every bit as obsessive as Leila Sandoval or Hasbrouck Diamond. He would never let his plants droop.
    “I told him,” the woman told me, her face growing pink, “we all have to conserve. I heat dishwater on the stove so I don’t have to run the water till it gets hot. We empty the rinse water in the garden. We don’t shower anymore; we just soap and rinse off. The kids get a prize each week for shortest time in the shower. We’re killing ourselves saving water. But whatever we save, he