Stella Vs. Martha: The feud heard ’round the neighborhood…
by: Mary Magdalen
For twenty years, Stella and Martha waged a quiet suburban war over walls, trees, Martha’s husband, and a driveway no one used.
Everyone on the cul-de-sac was awake the night their feud went public. It was something of a legend on Palm Canyon Circle. During a Christmas dinner long ago, Stella had the sparkling wine flowing. Some even say magic mushrooms were on the menu. The holiday binge led to late-night dancing on the front lawn, clothing optional.
Martha caught her husband watching Stella twirl in her lawn, wearing nothing but a scarf and black leather riding boots. That pushed Martha over the edge. She called the cops and stepped onto her porch to yell at the “floozy.” The frantic phone call brought a police visit and a hefty fine. It was a fine Stella still resented.
Recently, a desert heatwave and several sleepless nights had made things worse. On an early desert morning, heavy with sandy haze, Martha slumped into the front yard to tend her garden. She brought a portable speaker, pressed play on her favorite “Rooting Out Evil” sermon, clipped a hose-end sprayer to the garden hose, and set out to kill weeds. Symbolic catharsis.
Stella, already awake, sat on her porch with her morning brew, moments from her “A Positive Start to Your Morning” meditation. The angry tone of the pastor shattered her calm. Her heart quickened. The violation of her tranquility was unacceptable. Since peace was ruined, she decided she would loudly garden too. She opened her music app, searched for something sure to make Martha clutch her pearls, and settled on “Sympathy for the Devil.”
With a wry smile, she attached her own hose-end sprayer to her garden hose, the one loaded with a concoction she used to scorch greenflies from her black roses. As she inched toward the bugs, a sudden breeze carried a mist of Martha’s weed killer across the property line. Droplets speckled Stella’s face. The tingling on her skin enraged her.
“Be careful, will you?” she muttered.
“Pardon? Are you talking to me?” Martha’s accusatory tone left little doubt.
Heat rushed into Stella’s face. Her eyes shifted to the orange tree leaning over her yard. Looks like you might need help with trimming this morning. She walked to the retaining wall, lifted her hose, and sprayed the dark green leaves. She smiled, already imagining them curling brown.
Once Martha processed what was happening, she darted across her lawn. “What in the hell are you doing?” As she charged, she raised her hose toward Stella. Shocked, Stella’s jaw dropped just as the sharp herbicidal smell hit her nose.
“Are you mad?” Stella snapped, lifting her hose in reply.
They closed in on one another, expletives forming and fingers tightening on triggers. Both were soon drenched in chemical water.
Then Martha’s hose sputtered. Stella’s coughed. The pressure faded from both streams and from their insults, although neither of them lowered an arm. Liquid chemicals dripped from their sleeves and onto the soil they didn’t tend. They stared at one another, each trying to understand the moment.
Across the street, Griffin stepped out of his front door behind his chocolate labradoodle. He adjusted his neon green running shorts, then stopped in his driveway to watch Stella and Martha. With a chuckle, he yelled across the street.
“Hey ladies! Heatwave restrictions. No watering your gardens,” he cupped a hand around his mouth, “or each other, between eight and five.”
“I’ll see you at five.” Stella jeered, dropped her hose, and returned to her porch.
Mary Magdalen is an emerging writer out of Santa Ana, California. Her work appears or is forthcoming in The Write Launch, Blood + Honey, and Bull Magazine, among others.
