I hadn’t seen many kids out since the accident, and their laughter, the hiss and scrape of wheels on pavement, seemed a harbinger. People were starting to feel safe again.
I chose to see the value of Jen’s point.
Everyone needed to move on.
AUGUST
To: “The Best Book Club in the World”
From: [email protected]
To my dearest book club sisters:
It is with heavy heart that I resign my post as book club president. In the best interests of the group, I wanted to excuse myself ASAP so a new, more suitable leadership can take over. If I haven’t yet apologized to you individually, I will.
Acting as your president has been one of my life’s great honors. I know the book club will continue to thrive. I will miss it more than you can imagine.
Your Former President,
Janine
P.S. If I can make one last recommendation, it would be that, in light of recent events, we should switch the Tolstoy for something upbeat and positive. I have humbly attached a list of more suitable titles.
SEPTEMBER
To: “The Best Book Club in the World”
From: [email protected]
Hello ladies! What a deluge of love I’ve received! The letters, the visits, the baked goods (thank you, Lena!!!! Yum! Yum!)!
What choice do I have but to heed your passionate demands and return as president? So: there will be no changing of the guard. In fact, my first order of business will be to AMEND the BYLAWS to allow for LIFETIME APPOINTMENTS! MONARCHY, ANYONE????
(Kidding, kidding, hahahahahahaha )
The book: THE LITTLE MAGIC BOOKSTORE by Wendy Nolan
I personally found this charming escapist tale about the power of stories to be JUST what the doctor ordered. (And it’s not like Anna Karenina is going anywhere but SPOILER ALERT: the ending would be a little too much right now.)
The place: Harriet Nessel’s house, 8854 Dakota Way.
The time: 7:00 p.m.
To bring: Anything, nothing. Let’s get through this one, ladies. Onward and upward!!!
Your Devoted Book Club President EMPRESS,
Janine
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
The women were already circled around Harriet Nessel’s living room when Jen creaked open the screen door like it was a portal to one year before.
The nonregulars crowding the room, Janine’s frantic welcome speech, Harriet’s impatient glance down to her yellow legal pad, the empty space next to Annie Perley on the couch where Jen squeezed in.
Annie spoke first. How’s Abe?
Good. How’re Laurel and Hank? Jen made a point to keep her voice smooth and easy.
Fine, Annie said, her voice a pitch too high. Everyone’s good.
Jen was relieved. Book club was not the time or place to lay it all bare. The ritual of this—the superficial hum of conversation—was making her feel safer than she had in a while.
Maybe Annie felt the same, although her smile looked pasted on. Lena sat on the other side of Annie, and although she was leaned into a conversation with Priya, Jen could sense her listening to them, ready to swoop in if Jen said the wrong thing.
Lena had to know what Annie had done, right?
Did Mike?
Because Jen hadn’t told Paul—a burr between them, admittedly—but telling him would mean giving it oxygen, examining everything that had happened in a more thorough way.
Jen had allowed it all to happen; she’d made it happen.
Colin had seen her desperation. He’d used the weakest, worst parts of her—her Abe-blindness, her fatigue—as a way in. All year he’d been her yes man, agreeing with her complaints and soothing her worry.
Or maybe that part hadn’t been a lie; Jen didn’t know anymore. She could not tell fact from fiction.
Why didn’t you say something sooner, she’d asked Abe. Didn’t you know it was wrong?
Colin said I misunderstood, Abe said, and he threatened to take away points if I said anything. But I didn’t misunderstand, did I?
Colin had never even gone to the doctor’s appointment that Deb had set up for him, and there had probably been no ulcer either.
All of those nervous tics, the bleeding vulnerability?
He didn’t deserve the absolution, but wasn’t it likely that someone had once hurt Colin, too?
When Jen thought about how for a few hours she’d sided with Colin, doubted her own son, she became shaky with anger, understood in a flash what trespass against your child could incite.
It wasn’t the worst thing, Jen had concluded, to have Colin disappear. Maxine Das could reason that nature required it.
As the introductions traveled around Harriet’s living room (“most fun thing you did this summer”?—lordy, Janine), Jen swore she could feel, in the space between her shoulder and Annie’s, an electric charge able to sear through all of the ways they fooled themselves, the rules and layers and clubs and community traditions, their good intentions to raise good people and make the world a better place.
Once, two years later, when they were both slightly tipsy and waiting for Priya to drive them home after a particularly giddy book club, Jen came close to saying something to Annie, but by then, the space between them had become less charged and she allowed the moment to pass.
If she had asked, though, this is what she would have learned:
Even two years after that night, Annie was uncertain how, exactly, she survived it.
He must have slipped on the rock. It was the only thing that could explain how he loosened his grip for just long enough to allow Annie to scramble away. There was a scuffle, and for a split second, Annie had been stronger or at least better positioned.
She had pushed him right then. Hard.
He was there, and then gone. It seemed almost supernatural until she heard it, over the rush of water.
“Please.”
She felt herself walk to the edge. Just below her, Colin was suspended on the rocks. He grasped an exposed root on the cliffside and was trying to hoist himself back up.
“Mrs. Perley. Please.” He reached out a hand for a brief second. “Please?”
The effort and shock had caught up to her, and Annie’s body had begun to shake in jerky tremors. She managed her limbs into a crouch, gauged the distance between them. Five feet, maybe six.
He looked up at her with pleading eyes.
Had she found a branch, had she slipped off her caftan to use as a tether, she believed she might have reached him.
But she didn’t. She didn’t extend a hand or search for a branch. She didn’t do anything except wait for him to lose his grip, watch him fall down into the rocks below.
She had the clarity of mind to think that he had been right, it would probably look like an accident.
Two years later, she might have even admitted to Jen that she’d felt satisfied watching Colin fall, that she hadn’t felt one ounce of regret as it happened.
So maybe it’s for the best Jen didn’t ask.
When Paul’s company is sold a few years later, he retires with the security of vested stock options, and Jen, who has two books under her belt, gets the opportunity to resume teaching again on the West Coast.
Abe, done with the Kingdom School, moves with them.
It’s ten years after Laurel Perley’s graduation party that Jen will scroll idly through social media and see Laurel, grown and gorgeous, again a graduate, this time with a blue mortarboard cap on her head.
Jen has followed the other kids, too—knows that one of Priya’s sons plays major-league baseball and her daughter manages the family car dealerships, that Katie Neff, who does something political in Washington, D.C., writes strident lengthy posts about how the government wants to take all of our liberties that Janine always forwards with a “PLEASE SHARE A!”
In the graduation photo up on Jen’s screen, Laurel’s arms reach to loop around Hank (so tall now, pink bow tie, crisp white shirt) and A
nnie (hair gone white, two heads shorter than her children). To Annie’s left is Mike, beaming, crow’s feet deepened, and then Lena Meeker, her long caramel hair and smooth skin suspiciously unaged. (She’s definitely had work done, she must have, but it’s subtle and natural enough that Jen can’t pinpoint exactly what.)
Next to Lena is a woman who Jen assumes is Lena’s prodigal daughter Rachel, with thick curly hair cut short, gray at the temples, dimples similar to Laurel’s.
Peering closer, Jen thinks that they look more like siblings than Laurel and Hank do, or maybe it’s just how closely their faces are positioned together and their matching dimples and smiles.
Family! boasts the caption.
Jen, who is not in a book club now that she’s teaching, thinks that she ought to join one; a part of her misses the camaraderie. She comments on the photo, something generically supportive and enthusiastic and forgettable.
She can’t help but wonder about the real story behind the picture—is Laurel okay? Does she have daily ups and downs like Abe, who is about to start work as a programmer (fingers crossed it sticks), but with no plans or desire to ever date or leave home (a relief, Jen feels, as well as something to mourn).
Abe isn’t as volatile now—at least, Jen doesn’t think so—but he’s still Abe, and the three of them remain their own little island. She tries not to think about what happens when they die, because the worry leaves her breathless, and because that’s the rub of being a parent: there are some things you just can’t control.
Which doesn’t mean you don’t try.
Is Laurel’s off-track college graduation (two years late by Jen’s calculation) traceable to the way Jen ushered Colin into her life like a Trojan horse? Or has he managed to fade into the background?
When Paul asks what are you gawking at, Jen will show him the photo and he’ll shrug. Who’s that?
Really, Paul?
From Cottonwood? Remember Laurel’s awful party where we thought Abe might be the vandal and that terrible video game he made? The night that Colin …
Sweet Jesus, Paul will say. I blocked that out.
Jen will fervently wish that she were capable of doing the same.
She’d be so much more productive without all of this noise in her head, but she feels less alone when she imagines Annie tuned to the same frequency.
We’d do anything for our children, you and I, Jen imagines saying. She likes to think that Annie would tilt her white head in agreement.
Not that it’s anything to brag about.
Back to the fever of that September:
On the couch before the book club discussion started, Jen felt desperate to diffuse the electricity between herself and Annie. She gently nudged Annie’s shoulder and pointed to Harriet Nessel, pitched slightly forward in her big striped chair, watching them intensely.
Annie’s face relaxed for a minute.
“Are we in trouble, Harriet?” she said, a teasing smile in her voice.
Harriet frowned. With a click of her pen against the legal pad, she leaned back against her chair.
“Enough chitchat,” she said. “It’s time to discuss the book.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have felt my agent Allison Hunter’s belief in this book, and me, at every step of the journey (which is truly saying something, as we took the scenic route). In addition to being smart as a whip, Allison is loyal, patient, supportive, and such excellent company that it is possible to meet her for a lunch that morphs into dinner with no idea of how the time has flown. Thank you, AH, for everything.
My extremely heartfelt thanks to my editor, Christine Kopprasch, who is as fiercely talented as she is kind. I am so very grateful to have been taken under your wing.
Flatiron Books is filled with first-rate professionals at the top of their games. Thank you to Maxine Charles, Samantha Zukergood, Jordan Forney, Nikkia Rivera, Katy Robitzski, Allyson Ryan, Donna Sinisgalli Noetzel, Bob Miller, Megan Lynch, Marlena Bittner, Gillian Redfearn, Lisa Amoroso, Morgan Mitchell, Keith Hayes, and everyone else there who contributed their expertise to The Neighbor’s Secret. Also, thank you to the incomparable Amy Einhorn.
I’m indebted to the following people for their efforts in championing the book: Kristina Moore at Anonymous Content, and Tanya Farrell and Kelly Cronin at Wunderkind. Thank you also to Natalie Edwards and the rest of the Janklow & Nesbit team, and Clare Mao for your early and insightful notes. An eternal thank-you to the lovely Kerry Donovan.
Thank you also to some of my favorite authors: Chandler Baker, Kimberly Belle, Michele Campbell, and Laura Hankin. Their willingness to read and blurb The Neighbor’s Secret was no small favor, as they are all busy crafting amazing novels of their own.
Maggie Shapiro’s donation to the wonderful Horizons program, which provides opportunities to the underserved students of Denver, earned her the right to lend her name to a character. Thank you, Maggie, for your generosity, and for letting me use your good name.
Thank you to Samantha Heller, who is always my first reader and usually my last, too, for the crash course in blood inheritance and for all your advice—both already given and not yet asked for. Thanks to Raj Bhattacharyya, Kannon Bhattacharyya, and Dashiell Bhattacharyya for valuable input on everything from fancy wines to character names to the layout of a middle-school party to “Starry Starry Night.” Thank you to Sue Ann Heller, for your unflagging enthusiasm.
Glen, Zoe, and Georgia, you are everything to me. There is no sufficient thank-you for all of your love and support.
Also by L. Alison Heller
The Love Wars
The Never Never Sisters
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
L. Alison Heller is the author of The Neighbor’s Secret, The Never Never Sisters, and The Love Wars. She lives in Colorado with her family and two dogs. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter
Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Acknowledgments
Also by L. Alison Heller
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE NEIGHBOR’S SECRET. Copyright © 2021 by L. Alison Heller. All rights reserved. For information, address Flatiron Books, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.
www.flatironbooks.com
Cover design by Keith Hayes
Cover photograph © plainpicture/Marie Docher,
from the Rauschen Collection
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Heller, L. Alison, author.
Title: The neighbor’s secret / L. Alison Heller.
Description: First Edition. | New York: Flatiron Books, 2021.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021025632 | ISBN 9781250205810 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781250205827 (ebook)
Subjects: GSAFD: Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3608.E453 N45 2021 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021025632
eISBN 9781250205827
Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at [email protected].
First Edition: 2021
The Neighbor's Secret Page 26