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T U S C A R O R A R E V I E W 2 0 1 8

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Abby Mills, Portrait – Drawing

POISON FOR POISON

Kaitlin McCaillion

hear a throat clear as I walk to get my mail one morning, my eyes drawn in the

sound’s direction. Letters dangle from scarlet-tipped fingers and a devious

smirk rests on Ashley’s lips as I walk slowly towards the fence dividing us.

My gaze doesn’t leave hers as I rip the papers from her hand, watching a

plastic smile cover her features. “I really hate this whole feud we’ve had going.

You should come to dinner tonight and we can right these wrongs with a little

champagne,” she says sweetly.

I narrowmy eyes at the thinly veiled malice in hers, but I force my lips into a

tight smile all the same. “I’ll bring dessert.”

It’s not an unusual occasion for Ashley to invite me for a meal, pretending to

be a caring neighbor. This always results in a tension-filled dining roomwhere

knives are gripped tightly and weighted remarks are thrown carelessly.

It’s now an unspoken agreement that Ashley burns my chicken and I make

apple pie, her least-favorite dessert, and we dine with bitter smiles and feed

off the resentment on our enemy’s face. Neither enjoys the other’s company, it

is all a delusional power balance meant to fool the opponent into thinking the

match is over.

It’s a strategic game, playing nice. It’s a square on a board or a pawn moving

forward, waiting to snatch the king. There are no forfeits or ties, it’s win or

lose. The satisfaction only comes when the loser is destroyed and left in the

dust.

When I moved in a year ago, I was met with heated glares as I painted my

shutters black and my mailbox pink, “destroying the reputation of the neigh-

borhood.” It wasn’t my shutters that scared her, of that I’m positive. It was the

way I dyed my hair electric blue, it was the way I let Aerosmith drift through

my windows on warm summer days. It was my pitbull puppy chasing rabbits

in the backyard, only feet away from her pampered Chihuahua. It was my

darkened skin as I stepped out of the moving van and locked eyes with the man

trapped in Ashley’s iron grip.

My hand raps harshly on the pristine white wood of the door as the clock

strikes seven, a covered glass pan clutched against my chest. The door opens

and reveals Ashley adorned in an intricate black cocktail dress, her red painted

lips plastered in her signature smile.

She leads me in and directs me to the dining roomwith a long mahogany

table resting in the middle, fine white china situated at each end. I set my pie

down beside the other food and take a seat.

We dine in relative silence, only small bits of biting conversation before we

reach dessert. “Where did you live before you came here?” Ashley asks, glanc-

ing at me out of the corner of her eye as she takes a grimacing bite of the pie.