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could have burned my
cabin.”  Next door, the repetitive thump thump thump of the well-drilling
made me want to tear out my hair.  “So I was out until two a.m. putting out the
fire, and then I had to be up by 4:30 to go to work, and Suzy, he burnt my blueberries.” 
I actually felt like crying even now.
    “Aww, Hel, I’m sorry.  We’ll find you some more blueberries,
it’ll be okay.”
    “It’s not okay!  How am I supposed to write with all this
racket?”
    She was starting to make some more soothing noises, but I
continued:  “You know what else he did?  I went to bed early that second night,
trying to catch up on my sleep after he finished carting all his buddies back
to town, and do you know what woke me up at 11 o’clock that night?”
    “No…”
    “Loud fucking sex.  And it went on for hours .”  Okay,
that might have been a slight exaggeration.  The sounds that I’d
originally thought came from a dying baby moose reached an earth-shaking climax
of yodeling cries ten minutes till midnight.  I’d lain there in the dark, torn
between rage and a growing lust, wondering what the hell my new neighbor had to
be doing to a woman for her to make sounds like that.  I’d sure never
made sounds like that.
    “Reaaally?” Suzy said, and by the way she drew out the word,
I knew she was getting ideas.  Which made me want to kick something.
    I growled into the phone.  “And that’s when he’s not
muddying the water with his fucking jet ski.”  Day three of the Gary Invasion,
I’d come home and there’d been a brand new jet ski bobbing at his dock.  “I
mean, who owns a jet ski?”  In these parts?  No one.  “And where does he think
he’s going with it?  It’s just this little lake.  You’d think he could find
something more entertaining to do.” 
    She laughed.  “Well, Helly hon, the noise will die down
after a bit.  That well’s only a couple-day operation, and I’m sure after he’s
got everything he needs, he won’t need to make many more trips.”
    “He starts hammering and sawing at six a.m.!” I cried.  “Which
isn’t a big deal on the days I work, but I really like to sleep a bit past six on my days off!”
    I was practically panting with wrath.  The same day the jet
ski appeared, I’d come back to find a brand new boat—his, I could only imagine,
because it was expensive, shiny, new, and damned annoying—parked in my spot. 
He was invading my quiet, peaceful life, and I didn’t like it.  Not at all.
    “Deep breaths, Hel.  Deep breaths.  Okay, you’re not gonna
kill him.”
    I started to argue, but she cut me off.
    “What you are gonna do is go over there and ask him
to please hold off on the noise until—what time would be good for you?”
    “Nine,” I growled.  How could she sound so calm, so
reasonable?  She wasn’t here, that’s how.  She wasn’t here, where it sounded
like they were throwing around metal roofing.  I rubbed between my eyes, where
that damn groove was making another appearance.
    “And ask him nicely, Hel.  You can’t just go over and start
shooting people.”
    I can’t?   I eyed the shotgun propped next to the
door.  I’d been fondling it a lot lately.
    “You can’t,” she said firmly, as though she’d heard my
thought.
    I was starting to calm down a little bit—a little bit, mind you—but I wasn’t quite done being mad.  “I can’t write like this,” I
said.
    “Do you have noise-cancelling headphones?”
    “No.”
    “Damn.  Well…play your own music?”
    I grumbled a bit, and she laughed.
    “You could come visit me.  I haven’t seen you in a couple
weeks.”
    I groaned.  “I can’t.  I have another deadline coming up. 
And the reason you haven’t seen me is I’ve been working upriver, for the
Bransons.”  Suzy lived downstream from me, in a cabin on the river, about ten
minutes away by boat.  When I was working downriver, I often stopped by on my
way home.  We’d sit out on her little