by Joy Fielding
Six months later, they moved to Florida.
After a brief breaking-in period, everyone not only adjusted to the move, they flourished. Craig got a job at a local luxury car dealership, becoming their top salesman within a matter of months; Erin quickly became one of the more popular girls at school; even quiet Leo seemed happy.
Only Maggie failed to thrive. Only Maggie failed to move on.
She sought help from a therapist and religiously practiced the recommended breathing exercises and meditation meant to calm her, but stopped when the time it took to do them only made her more anxious.
She dyed her long, thick hair a mousier shade of brown, then cut it short. She chose not to work, ostensibly so she could be home for the kids “till they get used to everything.” She interacted only fleetingly with the neighbors, became increasingly antisocial and wary of strangers.
“There was this man,” Maggie informed Craig one day. “I’m sure he was following me….”
“There was no man,” Craig said.
“There was a hang-up on the phone this morning….” she said another time.
“Probably a wrong number.”
“There was this guy at Leo’s school, he looked at me kind of funny….”
“Maggie…”
“We need to buy a gun.”
“We’re not buying a gun.”
“You’re being stubborn.”
“You’re being paranoid.”
And so it went. Until the night of the concert. The night he went from “You’re losing your spark” to “I’m sorry, Maggie. I just can’t do it anymore.”
The concert was in Miami and was billed as a country music extravaganza. The owner of the dealership where Craig worked had invited Craig and Maggie to join him and his wife for the sold-out event. Craig had been both flattered to be asked and excited at seeing some of his favorite artists perform. Even Maggie had been looking forward to the evening. But as their host was pulling his white Jaguar into the parking lot of the American Airlines Arena, Maggie saw a small army of bikers circling the grounds and felt a huge bubble of panic lodge in the pit of her stomach, a bubble that grew as they entered the arena and people began occupying their seats. It expanded even further as the lights dimmed and the show began, then threatened to burst when she saw two men with beards and tattoos laughing across the aisle.
“Those men…” she whispered to Craig, pointing with her chin.
“What about them?” he asked, although she knew he knew.
“We have to leave.”
“We can’t leave. Just calm down. Take deep breaths.”
The deep breaths did no good. “I’m going to be sick,” Maggie said.
“You’re not going to be sick.”
“Is there a problem?” Craig’s boss asked.
“No. Everything’s fine,” Craig told him.
“I can’t breathe,” Maggie said, gulping at the air.
“You can’t panic every time you see a man with a tattoo,” Craig muttered between clenched teeth.
But Maggie was already on her feet. “I have to get out of here. We have to leave. Now!”
Craig grabbed her arm, forced her back into her seat. “We just drove an hour and a half to get here, and it’s not our car.”
“Then you stay. I’ll take a taxi….”
“Keep it down, will you? You’re embarrassing me….”
“Is everything okay?” Craig’s boss asked.
In the end, they left the concert after the opening act, Craig’s boss speeding up I-95, as if whatever madness had infected Maggie was contagious, his wife so angry at having her evening ruined that she barely said a word until Maggie was climbing out of the backseat. “I hope you’re feeling better,” she said, throwing the words over her shoulder like grains of salt.
“I hope you’re happy,” Craig said once he and Maggie were inside. “I’ll be lucky if I still have a job come Monday.”
Monday came and Craig still had a job. But Maggie no longer had Craig.
“I’m sorry, Maggie. I just can’t do it anymore.”
The landline on the nightstand beside the alarm clock rings and Maggie jumps. Leaving the window to answer it before it can ring again, she says, “Hello?” and braces herself for the menacing voice she’s sure will follow.
Instead the voice she hears is soft and lyrical, a faint Southern drawl winding through each word. “Is this Maggie McKay?”
“Who’s calling?”
“It’s Dani Wilson. From next door?”
“Yes?” Maggie asks. Dani Wilson has barely spoken to her since they moved in. If anything, she’s gone out of her way to be unfriendly. The one time Maggie phoned to ask if they could arrange a playdate for their sons, she’d been given the brush-off. So why was Dani Wilson calling now?
“Sorry to bother you, but I’m in a bit of a bind and I was hopin’ you might be able to help me out….”
“What can I do for you, Mrs. Wilson?”
“It’s Dr. Wilson, actually.”
“Sorry.” Bitch, Maggie thinks. “What can I do for you, Dr. Wilson?”
“You have a daughter, right? Erin?”
“What’s this about?”
“Well, we were wonderin’ if maybe she might be free this Sunday to babysit for us. We’ve been invited to play golf and have dinner with Mrs. Fisher’s son and his wife. You know Julia Fisher? She lives across from us. My husband was her husband’s doctor before the poor man died? That’s how we know her son…. Anyway, they’ve asked us to play golf and have dinner with them on Sunday, and our regular sitter isn’t available, and Nick suggested we ask Erin if she could look after our boys that afternoon and evenin’. Would that be all right, do you think? Could she sit for us?”
“Well, I’d have to ask her.”
“Of course. If she could maybe give us a call later and let us know?”
Maggie writes down the Wilson’s phone number. “I’ll give her the message.”
The line goes dead.
“Yes, thank you so much,” Maggie says, imitating Dr. Dani Wilson’s surprisingly tentative Southern drawl. “Pleasure talkin’ to you.” She hangs up the phone, thinking that this was the longest conversation she’s had with the woman since they moved in. Seems strange that, after having had little contact with any of her neighbors for months, Maggie would have interactions with two of them in the same day.
“You’re being paranoid,” she hears Craig say.
“Fuck you,” Maggie says as, somewhere outside, she hears the familiar vroom-vroom of a motorcycle. The sound vibrates through her body like a drill. Maggie crawls under the covers of her unmade bed and stays there until nightfall.
Chapter Eight
Erin rings the bell of the Wilson house and stands outside, waiting for someone to answer it. From inside, she thinks she hears voices raised in anger, but the voices fall silent as footsteps approach. Probably the TV, Erin thinks as the door opens.
“Erin,” a smiling and relaxed-looking Nick Wilson says in greeting. “Thanks so much for doing this. Come on in. My wife’s just finishing getting ready. How’s everything going?”
She steps inside. “Good.”
“Enjoying school?”
“It’s okay.”
“Well, just a few more weeks till summer break.”
Erin nods, glancing toward the interior of the house, surprised by how different it feels from her own, despite having virtually the same layout. Amazing what a little thought and expensive furniture can do, she thinks, comparing the Wilson’s obvious dedication to detail to her mother’s rather slapdash approach to, well, almost everything.
Maybe if her mother had taken greater care to truly make their house a home, her father would still be living there.
“Where are the boys?”
�
�Ben’s in his room, playing video games. Tyler’s busy with his pet fish. They shouldn’t give you any problems. And we won’t be late. It’s golf and an early dinner. My guess is we’ll be back before nine.”
“No rush.”
“Assuming we ever get out of here.” Dr. Wilson looks toward the stairs. “Dani, sweetheart,” he calls. “What’s the holdup?”
“Hold your horses. I’m comin’.”
“So’s Christmas.” He shrugs. The shrug says, What can you do?
“Be down in two shakes of a stick.”
“More like twenty shakes,” Nick says. “We might as well go into the den and sit down.” He motions toward the back of the house. “You’ve met Tyler before, haven’t you?” he says when they reach the kitchen.
“A while back,” Erin says. “Hi, Tyler. Those are beautiful fish you’ve got there. Do they have names?”
The inquiry is met with a proud smile that stretches from the boy’s full lips to his deep blue eyes. “Mine does. Neptune. He’s the red one. Want to see him jump through his hoop?”
“Not now, Goldilocks,” his father says, ruffling his son’s dark blond hair. “You can show her after we leave. He thinks everyone is as captivated by his fish as he is,” Nick whispers as he leads her into the den. He motions toward the green leather sofa that sits at right angles to a large oak desk, directly across from a big-screen TV and the cabinet full of guns.
Erin sits down, feeling the leather of the sofa glom onto the backs of her bare thighs. She makes a mental note to wear long pants the next time she babysits instead of the shorts she’s wearing. “That’s some collection you have,” she says.
“Like guns, do you?”
“Not really. They kind of scare me.”
“Nothing to be afraid of.” Nick retrieves the key from the top desk drawer and unlocks the cabinet. He beckons Erin forward, quickly removing one of the smaller weapons on display. “Come here.”
Erin pushes off the seat she’s just occupied, hearing the whoosh of the leather as it reluctantly releases its grip on her flesh.
“This here’s a Springfield Armory nine-millimeter XD,” he tells her. “It’d be perfect for you. It’s not only a terrific first gun to own, but great fun to shoot with. Here. Hold it.”
“Oh, Dr. Wilson, I don’t think…”
“Take it.” He drops the gun into her open palm. “Feels surprisingly comfortable, doesn’t it? And please, let’s skip the formalities, okay? Call me Nick. How do you like it?”
For a second, Erin isn’t sure if he’s referring to the gun or his request to call him by his given name. “Feels kind of weird,” she says, which is true in both cases. “It’s heavier than I thought it would be.”
“Well, it’s not a toy.”
She hands back the gun and motions toward the larger weapons. “These are rifles?”
“Some are rifles. Some are shotguns.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Mostly in their barrels.” Nick removes a rifle from its hooks. “The rifle has a long barrel with thick walls to withstand high pressure, and these ridges here, what they call ‘rifling’—no surprise there,” he says with a chuckle, clearly relishing his role as educator, “they put a spiral spin on a bullet to increase its accuracy and distance. Rifles are typically used for firing at stationary targets,” he explains, returning the weapon to its previous position and removing another, “whereas shotguns, like this guy here, are typically used for shooting at moving targets in the air. They also have long barrels, although they’re thinner than a rifle’s, and they have a smooth bore that’s meant to reduce friction.”
“And speakin’ of bores,” Nick’s wife says, entering the den, looking decidedly uncomfortable in her unflattering knee-length shorts and loose-fitting golf shirt, “I’m sure Erin’s heard quite enough about barrels and friction and the like for one day.”
Nick puts the shotgun back inside the cabinet and locks it, returning the key to the top drawer of the desk. “You’re absolutely right. It appears that I’m as bad as Tyler with his damn fish.” He smiles. “I’ve left money by the phone in the kitchen so you can order pizza for dinner, if that works for you.”
“Sure does,” says Erin.
“Good. Then I believe we’re all set. Shall we be on our way?”
“Thank you so much for doin’ this for us,” Dani tells Erin. “We really appreciate it.”
“Anytime.” Erin follows the two doctors out of the room.
“Goodbye, sweetie,” Dani says to her older son, who is still concentrating on his fish. “You be a good boy and don’t give Erin any trouble. You hear?”
“I won’t.”
“Like I said,” Nick tells Erin when they reach the front door, “we shouldn’t be late.”
“Goodbye, Ben,” Dani calls up the stairs.
“ ’Bye,” Ben yells back as Tyler comes running from the kitchen to give his mother a hug.
“Okay, Goldilocks. Why don’t you go upstairs and play video games with your brother for a while?” Nick suggests.
“I don’t like video games,” Tyler says.
“Well, then, at least try not to bore Erin too much with that damn fish. Apparently, I’ve already bored her enough.” He smiles at his wife. “We want Erin to come back.”
“Have a good game,” Erin calls, watching the Wilsons climb into Nick’s big black Mercedes and back onto the street. She closes the door, surprised to find Tyler still at her side.
“You want to see Neptune jump through his hoop now?” he asks eagerly.
Erin smiles. “Sure.” They approach the fishbowl together, and she stares in awe as Tyler guides the small red fish with his index finger around the side of the bowl toward the neon yellow loop, then guides the fish through. “Wow,” she says, impressed. “Did you teach him that?”
“Yeah. But he’s really smart. He learns fast.”
“So, smart and beautiful.”
“He’s the best,” Tyler says.
“What about the blue one?” Erin asks. “What tricks does he do?”
“He’s Ben’s fish. He doesn’t do anything.”
“Why doesn’t he have a name?”
“Ben won’t give him one.” He leans forward, lowering his voice. “He’s says there’s no point. So I just call him Blue.”
“That’s a perfect name.”
“Wanna see me feed Neptune? He eats right out of my hand.” Without waiting for a response, Tyler carefully deposits one small pellet of fish food onto the tip of his index finger and submerges it. Immediately, the fish swims up and grabs the pellet with his mouth, swallowing it. “He gets three a day,” Tyler explains, feeding him another. “You have to be careful not to overfeed them because bettas have very delicate stomachs. Are you bored?” he asks in the next breath.
“Not at all,” Erin says truthfully. She’s finding talk about the fish much more interesting than Nick’s lecture on guns. “Why don’t you like video games?”
“Too violent,” Tyler says. “They’re all about shooting people or chopping off their heads.”
“You don’t want to chop off anyone’s head?”
“I’d rather play with Neptune. Do you want to try feeding him?”
“Would he let me?”
Tyler smiles. “Just don’t make any sudden moves.” He places a pellet on her fingertip and directs her finger inside the bowl. “Wait for it,” he says, as the fish swims up and grabs hold of the pellet with his mouth, then dives to the bottom of the bowl. “You did it!”
Erin feels a surge of unexpected pride.
“He likes you.”
“Well, I like him.” She glances at the other bowl. “I feel kind of sorry for Blue, though.”
“Yeah, I know. Me, too. But Mom feeds him every day, and I play with him a bit when Ben
isn’t around.”
“You’re a good kid,” Erin tells him.
Tyler looks skeptical. “Dad doesn’t think so.”
“Sure, he does.”
“No. He says I need to toughen up, and calls me Goldilocks. That’s a girl’s name.”
“I think he’s just referring to your hair,” Erin offers. “It’s a…what do they call it? A ‘term of endearment.’ ”
“I don’t know.” Tyler pauses, choosing his words carefully. “Sometimes he says things that sound good, but they don’t feel good.”
“Wow,” Erin says. “That’s pretty deep for a ten-year-old kid.” She smiles, fighting the urge to tousle his hair the same way his father had earlier. “I think you might be almost as smart as your fish.”
Chapter Nine
“You’re in my line, sweetheart,” Nick Wilson says, glancing over his shoulder at his wife, who is standing approximately twenty feet away at the edge of the putting green.
Dani steps quickly to her right.
“Sorry, hon. I can still see you.”
Dani scurries toward the large sand trap on the far side of the green. “Heavens to Betsy. How’s this?”
“Perfect. Thanks, hon.”
Dani smiles as her husband restarts his routine: lifting his putter into the air to determine the ball’s correct trajectory, securing his legs in a parallel position to that line, keeping his head down and his eyes on the ball, followed by a few waggles with the golf club and a couple of practice strikes in the air above the ball, holding his follow-through each time. She takes a deep breath as the ball finally rolls off Nick’s putter toward the hole, willing it to go in.
But the ball has been struck too hard, and Nick has failed to read enough of a break, so instead of ending up in or even close to its target, the ball veers a good five feet to its right and rolls down the gentle incline, coming to a stop inches from Dani’s feet.
Damn, she thinks, wishing this afternoon was over. They’ve been on the impeccably maintained private course for more than four hours. Four hours that feel like forty. It’s hot. She’s tired. She still can’t figure out what they’re doing here. They barely know Norman Fisher and his trophy wife, a sweet but vacuous young woman with whom she has absolutely nothing in common.