Page 11

Six

F un fact number one: brown pandas really are a thing.

Fun fact number two: the Qinling panda is rare and uncommon. It hides its brown self in some Chinese mountain, the name of which I cannot pronounce, interbreeding and generally refusing to interact with the rest of the world.

I can never, ever let Ozzy know that he is right.

I leave the cactus on his doorstep as little Friday Funday present.

In exchange, he sticks a Post-it of a fuzzy, brown bear on my door. It has curly eyelashes not found in nature and is more blob than bear.

On it, he’s scrawled, GRRRRR .

The blinders fall from my eyes. They smash against the floor.

I am no longer blind. I see. Ozzy’s relentless niceness, his jovial good nature, his annoying helpfulness —it’s all part of his master plan.

I’ve been so caught up in my work that I haven’t caught on.

My peopling skills are poor, so as always, I’m late to the party and nobody has noticed.

I’ve been focused on TripFriendz, trying to do the best ever job and stand out so that they see me.

I thought my efforts had misfired, like a bad spell or a mislabeled Amazon package, and brought me to Ozzy’s attention instead of my bosses’.

Ozzy, my neighbor, my dear nemesis, is an evil genius. I’m sure he has a villain origin story. He’s doing these things on purpose to irritate me. To get a rise out of me, to torment me. I’m sure it’s revenge for his near-arrest. Never mind. I’m on to him now, and the joke’s on him.

I am a competitive bitch, and this is war.

In the last three days, I have checked the following off my whiteboard list:

Sign Ozzy’s number up for texts about the upcoming national election. Good citizenship is important. I indicate that he’s ambivalent about who to vote for and would love more information.

Look out for Ozzy’s immortal soul by expressing interest in joining several local churches.

Enter Ozzy in online contests for free airfare, free hotel stays, and a free deluxe tropical vacation if he sits through a short presentation. The timeshare people hound him relentlessly.

Flood his inbox with emails about Nigerian princes, free AAA car kits, misplaced packages, and Etsy side hustle courses.

Donate ten dollars to name the world’s tiniest snake at the local zoo “Ozzy’s Trouser Snake.”

Send him a package labeled XXXL Sex Toys. Spoiler (literally): it’s a banana.

Purchase and detonate a penis glitter bomb (a classic, and I’ve booked a repeat on the theory that he would never suspect it a second time).

Send forth my spider army.

I am particularly pleased with this last one.

I purchased a thousand plastic spiders from an online Halloween discount site with same-day delivery, and now I’m deploying my arthropodan minions one eight-legged soldier at a time.

Ozzy yelped when he discovered the first spider on his balcony two mornings ago, and I’ve added new spiders every day.

Spiders march toward his door, invade his balcony.

They cling to his railing and have swarmed his key frog.

Take that. He’s been killing me with kindnesses, smiling and beaming, ruthlessly moving into my building. My space. My life . He thinks I won’t see through him, that I’ll be happy with the crumbs of his kindness. I wonder sometimes if our kiss was a prank and I’ll understand the punch line later.

A door slams next door.

Ozzy’s whistling stops abruptly. He may have started our neighbor wars, but I have taken our battlefield to a whole new level.

It is literally raining spiders this happy, hostile Monday morning.

I spare a brief thought for the possibility that he has a spider phobia, will stroke out on the spot, and I will spend twenty years in a maximum-security prison paying for my crimes. Worth it? Maybe.

I peer through my peephole, but it’s not tuned to the Ozzy channel. My view is limited to a two-foot by two-foot slice of our shared hallway. The carpet is not doing anything interesting. I debate logging into my ring doorbell account but that’s so much work.

Gargantuan, Sasquatch-sized feet thump down the hallway. Ozzy has shaken off my spider attack and is going about his day.

I fling my door open. I intend to yell at him to be quiet (yes, I am aware of the irony), but he whirls around like an aquatic ninja and flicks a two-fingered salute (and a spider) at me. It’s cool and funny. I steam.

“Good morning!” He beams at me. There’s a spider atop his man bun.

“Is it?”

He does not pick up on my subtext. He nods vigorously, and the spider falls to its plastic death.

“You might want to check your car,” he advises.

I wait, but he does not volunteer additional information.

My brain suggests various possibilities.

The car has been towed. He’s written rude messages in my dirty windshield.

He’s planted a glitter bomb in our parking structure, and I will have to demo TripFriendz’s app sparkling like an ancient vampire.

He smirks. It’s as if he can read my mind.

I cave first, sacrificing my pawn for the greater good. My plans are longer term and I need information. “Are you going out?”

Usually, he exits the building in black athletic shorts and an ancient T-shirt advertising a surf shop somewhere I have never been.

Workout clothes. He must live on air and influencer fees because he doesn’t seem to do any actual work or go into an office.

Perhaps he’s a trust-fund baby. Or hocked the enormous gold-plated trophy he won at his last surfing competition and is living off the proceeds.

Today, however, he’s unexpectedly upgraded to pants with buttons, albeit of the blue-jeans variety. An unbuttoned shirt has been shrugged insouciantly over his T-shirt. This is black tie for Ozzy.

“Hey!” I bellow after him. “Are you going out?”

“Are you interested in my whereabouts, Pandora Fyffe? Should I share my location with you?” He waves his phone at me.

I hold my hand out. “Sure!”

He smells a trap, but it’s too late. He’s trapped by his own fake good manners. He unlocks his phone and hands it over.

Suspiciously, my information is already in his contacts, which may explain the unexplained uptick in pet adoption emails I’ve received this week. I share his location with me, regretting that I don’t have enough time to switch the keyboard to Uyghur.

Still, there’s now an Ozzy dot on my phone. I legally have his phone number. We are digitally connected.

He takes his phone back. Examines it for booby traps. Picks an errant piece of glitter out of the case.

“I’m doing a thing at Aquarium of the Bay,” he offers, despite my having shown zero interest in continuing our non-conversation. “For school kids.”

“Where’s your surfboard?”

He clucks his tongue. “It’s not nice to stereotype people, Pandora. I am a well-rounded person with non-paddle-based interests. Where’s your laptop?”

“My laptop is none of your business,” I say loftily. “I didn’t realize you worked.”

Unlike us lesser mortals. He rocks back on his heels. He’s trying to figure out my angle. Or perhaps he’s—wisely—wondering what mysterious but embarrassing packages will show up if I discover his place of work.

“I’m volunteering,” he qualifies.

I give him my best sympathetic nod. “You work for free. You shouldn’t undervalue yourself. You should at least go for an internship.”

His brow furrows as he tries to work out if I’m insulting him.

Spoiler: I am. The old Pandora, the one who was terminated, the one who nobody knows her name?

That Pandora would have made polite noises and pretended to admire him for his charitable endeavors.

Today he gets Pandora 2.0 and the unvarnished truth.

He launches into an explanation about his plans for the day, which involve escorting groups of impressionable youth through a glass tunnel.

Marine life will swim overhead. Biology facts will be imparted.

A good time will be had by all. I hear how it’s a bummer sharks are never still, because it makes picture taking so gosh darn hard.

I nod and smile as if this is the best thing I have ever heard.

I’ve never met anyone more selfless! So giving!

Let me toss you in the shark tank and bring your photographic subject to you!

Eventually, he has to give up on making conversation with me and gets in the elevator. Wherever he’s really going, he needs to be there and not here. I wave goodbye to him like an airline steward deplaning an unruly passenger. Buh-bye! Thanks so much! You have a nice day now!

As soon as the door dings shut, I launch myself back into my condo.

To prepare for our next encounter, I do yet another internet deep dive on Ozzy Wylder.

This is strictly for research purposes, and I barely glance at the treasure trove of online shirtless, swim-trunks-wearing Ozzy photos.

Maybe I can ferret out his dirty little secrets.

When I reveal to him that I’m in the know, he’ll fall on his knees.

Beg me to spare him. I’ll demand he grovel-apologize at the next condo board meeting, and he’ll do it .

Unfortunately, online Ozzy is disgustingly sunshiny.

I reconfirm that he will turn thirty in three years, making him a younger man to my older woman.

He is photographed in public with his parents, voted in the last three elections although he missed the fourth, and has no parking tickets, arrest warrants, or embarrassing TikToks.

He started surfing at the age of twelve and has since won more prize money than the GDP of a small country, which could account for his current state of idleness.

Oh, and he likes taking pictures of wildlife.

His Instagram has more pictures of seabirds than surf bunnies in the last six months.