Breaking Suburbia

Maggie was pushing a metal contraption across the weeds that entangled her yard.

It had been at the very least a year and a half since the sweet elderly man down the street with a adamancy for lawn perfection offered up a Sunday a month to tend to her lawn. Whether that man was dead, in a nursing home, or finally became secluded and bitter like her, Maggie did not know. Yet, not knowing did not translate into not caring. That was the young woman’s problem, she cared too much.

The sun beat down on her neck, although it was merely morning, the heat was unrelenting and absolutely insanely profuse. Sweat beaded the low of her back. Still, through this unfashionable and unfavorable moment, Maggie beckoned onwards, embarrassed that the grounds had gotten to this point of haphazard.

Part of her purposely planned to mow the lawn around the morning time. She hoped that Chester would happen to walk by. Maggie knew he thought of her, he stopped walking down the street with his dog after their brunch at the café. Heat rushed to her face, whether it is the exhaustion or the saccharine memory, Maggie was giddy at the thought of speaking with Chester again. Something was evolving inside of her. The coldness of her heart was blooming.

Disappointed and tired, at the completion of the laborious task, she went to the shed to retrieve a rake. Foolishly, she thought the mowing would be hard, and it was—she had to go over the initial run and then go over the second effort after that. Raking the result of the first task was legitimate back breaking labor. Maggie’s arms did not possess half of the strength needed for the task.

The sun was threatening to go down while Maggie’s eyes were threatening to close. She threw the rake into the yard and stormed up the porch steps.



“You’ve been coming here for a week.” The red haired girl smacked her gum loudly, a pink bubble beginning to form at her glossed lips. As if Maggie could not despise the pretentiousness of the woman’s flat stomach (which was poked out to emphasize the hours it probably took to chisel it) with a hand on her sculpted-from-perfection hips enough, the woman was also a terribly competitive bitch that was most likely insecure. Waiting in anticipation, the waitress puckered her lips and murmured, “Hmmm?”

Maggie gritted her teeth, already knowing what she was going to order. “Yeah, and I leave a generous tip. So, if you want that to change I suggest you keep talking.”

White teeth emerged as well as overly perfect dimples that flushed the slightest of red as the woman scribbled on a notepad. “Scarlet Barlow.”

“How fitting.” Maggie steely observed with an edge sharper than a razor still encased in plastic packaging. Scarlet’s eyes rolled. Maggie knew that Scarlet probably got that all of the time, it was an instantaneous remark. Instantaneous. As much as planning was Maggie’s ultimate comfort, instantaneous conversation wasn’t all that bad.

“This is the part when you say your name.” The girl flipped her impeccable French manicured hand to gesture me to continue.

Maggie frowned, probably accentuating a worry line or another unsightly crevice her face offered in these times. “Maggie Wentworth.” She spoke with a slightly less edgy air than most of her comments towards the hyper-sexed and genuinely attractive in the not-so-genuine way Scarlet Barlow. Maggie did not recall going to school with a said Scarlet Barlow, and school had not been but so far back in the jaded whirlwind of a past Maggie carried around in her personal rain cloud of gloom. Maybe that’s why Chester did not come around the block any longer; maybe that is why he never showed up at his favorite place to eat. “I’ll have…”

“Orange juice and one everything bagel.” Scarlet released a sweet, yet extremely intimidating, pearly white smile. For some reason, Scarlet seemed to have taken a liking to Maggie even though Maggie more or less treated her like a harlot.

Maybe, Maggie sickly hoped, maybe behind that smile was a girl broken, a girl that understood Maggie. Maggie used to be like that, she used to plaster a sunny leer on her face. She used to socialize normally and function. There was a sleep schedule that actually made sense at a time. She’d even make stupid jokes and references that would at least stifle a few chuckles and shakes of the head. “Took the words out of my mouth.” Maggie felt pangs of bittersweet remembrance as she realized how unhealthy it was of her to grow so attached to Chester and the memories she made around him.

She barely knew the guy. Maggie only knew that he played guitar, violin, and worked at a music store. The mind likes to bask in beautiful opportunities and fabrication. As much as the mind is a haven for reason, it is also the foundation of happiness above all. So Maggie’s reason was thrown out the window as she lay on her stomach atop of the floral sheets with her feet sashaying in the air, catching herself dreaming about the boy that jumped over counters and always kept her guessing. She loathed this. Chester most likely didn’t even think about her. “You know he isn’t going to magically show up, right?” Scarlet propositioned, tapping the hard nails against the top of the scratched tabletop.

“I just want breakfast and a clear mind.” Maggie admitted, tightening her lips into a thinner pale rosy line. Scarlet simply raised an eyebrow and returned behind the counter with the man that Maggie had seen before. He quietly grumbled something before pacing back into the kitchen behind the bustling redhead screaming orders to the masses.