I had fun with this one, though I thought it was junk when I posted it. Both of my writing partners loved it. HA!



ENVY

Mr. and Mrs. Weber live in a four bedroom, three bath, custom home at the base of Sunrise mountain on the outskirts of Las Vegas, Nevada. They have a great view of the Las Vegas Strip, but are far enough from it that the noise and antics of the gambling and tourists don’t bother them.

Jose Morez comes once a week to maintain the landscaping. He trims all the bushes with electric hedge clippers into boxy shapes the desert doesn’t recognize.

Betty comes out every morning to send her husband Wayne off to work with a genuine looking wifely hug and kiss. He drives off with a smile on his face.

They have three kids. Jennifer just turned twenty-one, but she’s so busy being on the dean’s list at UNLV that she doesn’t give a rat’s ass for being legally able to drink and gamble. The strongest thing she drinks is Classic Coke and her biggest gamble is not buckling her seat belt until she’s half a block from the house.

Tom’s in high school, valedictorian of the senior class and dating Mary Beth Oster, his best friend from grade school. She’s on the pep squad.

Billy, the baby, (he hates to be called that) is a math prodigy, plays chess, and refuses to own a skateboard. He’s already planning on attending MIT and he’s only thirteen.

Everyone in the neighborhood envies the Weber’s upper middle class normalcy. I don’t.

I know that Betty hates the desert and aches to live in the mountains. Wayne despises his job and drinks his lunch almost every day. Jennifer lives to graduate from UNLV and apply at UCLA for her Masters so she can be close to the married professor she’s been having an affair with.

Mary Beth is pregnant and refuses to have the abortion that Tom is demanding. Billy is gay. Jose cuts down the weeds with a weed-eater instead of pulling them out by the roots. Those weeds have roots three feet deep and are guaranteed to keep growing forever. Jose considers that job security.

Yet, even knowing what I know, I envy them too. Because just once, I’d like my neighbors to look at my family and say, “Aren’t they wonderfully normal?”