Mrs. Asarian

After church on Sundays, Mrs. Asarian would stand outside the kitchen door, smoking long cigarettes while the other mothers brewed coffee and sliced cakes. She wore sheer black stockings and pencil skirts, and looked like she’d come from another time. Six months before, she’d moved to town with her two teenage sons: strapping, dark boys. They bought a historic house, an enormous colonial that had been vacant for years. Her olive complexion and thick accent caused kids to whisper that she was a gypsy. But I knew she wasn’t. People said that her husband was dead. When no one was looking, I would lift the church hall curtains to watch her. Freshly shoveled snow piles surrounded her high heeled feet as she held her rabbit coat closed with one red-fingernailed hand. Smoke curled around her head, and sometimes, if I was too slow, she would look at me and smile.