The Unseen Party - Anne Wright

Lidia couldn’t see them, but damn it they were noisy and having a good time. The neighbors, Leo and Sandy Phillips, had pulled their drapes tight. The music pulsed and boomed right through the side of their little wooden box of a house. Cars parked in the street and on their front lawn if you could call it a lawn, it was trampled weeds, she thought as she watched their door open to pull in some more partiers.

She went outside and through the gate to the Phillips’ side yard. Lidia’s bare feet had thick pink soles but she still felt the burrs and pointy rocks that she stepped on. Her dark face and arms made her feel even more invisible in the night, and when she approached the small high window a warmth coming from the ground and the house touched her.

The warmth was a sensual soft breeze like pigeon’s downy feathers beating across her neck and under the long black hair that fell to her waist. She shivered and stood on her tiptoes. Maybe she could see inside, see the laughter and friendship and hugging. Lidia reached for the wall to steady herself. Her arm brushed against some rough cloth and she jerked away. In the darkness next to her stood a man, quiet and smiling, and he led her back inside her own house.