The Good Neighbor: A Novel

by Jay Quinn

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Sunday morning coming down

  ST. MARK’S COURT

  RORY FOLLOWED ALONG behind an obviously tiring Bridget. For her size and weight, the vet had told him to give her 150 milligrams of acepromazine to keep her nice and sleepy for the long ride to Charleston’s Sullivan Island and their new home. With each step, she determinedly led Rory back to her familiar drive, hopeful for a chance to lie down.

  The walk just before the drive was as much for Rory’s benefit as for Bridget’s. Though he was not normally sentimental, Rory wanted an image of Venetian Vistas to carry with him. The other neighborhoods of his long residence in Florida were forever etched on his mind and fixed there. This subdivision, however, was still as hazy as a thoughtful watercolor in his memory. This long, last look around was his effort to capture the look of the place and to keep it.

  This quiet Sunday morning was ideal for his purposes. The bright sunshine held a promise of a day lengthening into a shiny South Florida dream fulfilled. Rory marveled at the tall royal palms and their cousins, the slender queens. He heard the rustle of their fronds in the warming breeze, sounding like a shower of rain. He drew in the colors of ixora and bougainvillea and held them. It wasn’t as if there were no palms in South Carolina, but the palms that were there were scrubby palmettos, not the coconut palms with their golden promise of sweetness hanging in great globes ripening in the sun. All of what he saw in Venetian Vistas was particular to South Florida, from the soft pink barrel tiles on the roofs to the carefully mandated variety of colors on the homes’ stucco walls. It was a place like no other, and Rory suddenly found himself with something new to say.

  In the weeks of his affair with Austin, Rory had found new visual ideas first teasing, then flooding, his brain. He found the broad stretches of sky reflected in the man-made canals and lakes to be a kind of simulacrum for his feelings. Without making a big deal of it, he had quietly taken his earnings from the studio and the electrical plans and had invested in a rather good digital camera. With it in hand, he had revisited the neighborhoods he had known and loved, furtively barging into backyards when the residents were at work and taking wide-angled pictures of the low run of houses poised on the small strip between the sky and the water.

  Rory had also been consumed with other ideas. He had given much thought to materials and methods, researching the plausibility of making photo prints on stainless steel and immense sheets of watercolor paper. He had contacted screen printers and darkrooms in Charleston. He had mentally brushed thinned oils over the vastly different materials he was considering, calculating drying times and color-enhanced varnishes and finishes for the large-scaled works. In his long awaited epiphany of imagination, he had found he had much to say and he was ready to begin.

  Of course, there was the immediacy of a long drive up I-95. As he took his last walk through Venetian Vistas, he ached for it. He knew that for every mile that rolled under Bruno’s SUV, this place and his life in it would become more real in his imagination than it had ever been when he had lived in it. Rory found his step quickening to meet Bridget’s. Now that the urge for going had brought him to the reality of actually leaving, he longed for the road.

  As they neared the house, Bridget bayed and strained at her leash. She had caught sight of Austin waiting in his coat and tie on the sidewalk. Rory had forgotten that the time for the Hardens to be leaving for church had drawn near. He cursed Bruno’s brother Brian for calling at the last minute and keeping them from leaving as planned. The phone was ringing as they entered the house to pick up Bridget. He had begged Bruno not to answer it, but that wasn’t in Bruno’s nature. So he’d given Bridget her pills and launched out on their walk. Now, Austin stood there, all good, solid Sunday handsomeness with his carefully combed hair, hands in pockets, and bashful grin.

  “Who’s a good girl?” Austin cooed and squatted down on his haunches. Bridget gave Rory a resentful look over her shoulder and pulled all the harder against her training collar. Rory smiled and simply let go of her leash. Doped and ungainly, Bridget merely trotted when she usually charged. She approached Austin happily and stood close enough to him to bathe his face with her broad tongue. “Goodbye, sweetheart,” Austin said and rubbed her big head gently. “She’s really a good dog, you know?” He said to Rory as he stood and wiped his face with the back of his hand.

  “I’m glad you think so,” Rory said as he opened the hatch of Bruno’s Envoy. “You can help me get her in the truck. She’s too old to jump up these days.”

  “No problem,” Austin told him.

  “C’mon girl,” Rory said and patted the inside of the cargo bay. “Wanna go somewhere?”

  Bridget gave him a skeptical look, then trotted to the back of the truck. She managed to jump and stretch enough to get her front paws up and onto the edge of the back, then she looked at Rory expectantly.

  “Oh boy,” Austin said. “What do you want me to do now?”

  “Her hips are bad and I have to be careful not to torque her back when I pick her up to get her in,” Rory explained. “If I do, she’ll bite me. I want you to put your hands against the small of my back and steady me so I can lift her cleanly.”

  “Now I know why Meg won’t let me have a dog,” Austin said cheerfully as he came to stand behind Rory.

  “On three,” Rory said as he bent at the knees and wrapped his arms under Bridget’s hindquarters. In seconds, it was done. Bridget’s back feet made a purchase on the bumper and she stepped as easily and daintily into the truck as if she were a toy poodle. Then she turned and sank gratefully onto the pillows Rory had already put into the cargo bay to keep her comfortable.

  As the big dog yawned, Rory turned and stepped away from Austin’s lingering touch. “Thanks,” he said awkwardly.

  Austin nodded and backed away. “Where’s Bruno?”

  “Hopefully, he’s wrapping up a phone call from his brother Brian,” Rory said and glanced toward the front door.

  “How’s he doing?”

  Rory shrugged. “It’s a shame he couldn’t have a personality bypass. His heart is getting better, but he’s still an asshole.”

  Austin nodded and fought a smile. “Look,” he said growing suddenly serious, “I’ve been listening to the CD. You’re pretty amazing, you know that?”

  Rory gave him a shy smile in reply.

  “I think if that’s how you remember me, you must have loved me some,” Austin said quietly.

  “I did,” Rory said evenly. “And I always will.”

  From behind them, they heard Rory’s front door open and close. For a second, there was no sound; then they heard Bruno pull repeatedly on the door, making sure it was both closed and locked tight. Austin flushed and took several steps away from Rory and the back of the SUV before Bruno himself appeared. He glanced quickly from Rory to Austin and his face clouded, but he must have resolved his anger because he only said, “So you got my big girl ready to go?”

  “She’s about to go to sleep,” Rory said easily. “She ought to be knocked out until at least Jacksonville, then I imagine she’ll need a pee break.”

  “Her and me both,” Bruno said and smiled as he closed the Envoy’s hatch. “Whazzup, Austin?” he said by way of a friendly greeting.

  “Waiting for Meg and the boys,” Austin said and smiled. “I don’t think we’ve been on time to church since we moved out here.”

  “Say a little prayer for us, will ya? We’ve got a long drive ahead,” Bruno said.

  “Count on it,” Austin assured him. “How long do you think it will take?”

  “When I drove the Volvo up last week, it took about ten and a half hours, but that was the middle of the week.” Bruno said. “On a Sunday? Hell, I can probably do it in nine.”

  “Not if a sharp-eyed Georgia highway patrolman gets a look at that joint behind your ear,” Rory commented lazily.

  “My bad,” Bruno said and grinned. He plucked the joint from behind his ear and impulsively handed it to Aust
in. “Here, my treat,” he said.

  Austin looked over his shoulder, but took the joint anyway. “If you’re sure.”

  Rory snorted. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

  Bruno gave Austin a threatening, long, hard look. “No, don’t,” he said.

  Austin broke the challenge of his pugnacious gaze at last and nodded as he slipped the joint into his suit coat pocket.

  “There are six more just like it in my pack of cigarettes,” Rory said to break the tension of the moment. “I rolled them for you myself.”

  “That’s my baby,” Bruno said approvingly and put his arm around Rory’s shoulders and pulled him close.

  “Dad!” a voice from behind Austin called. “You left the coffeepot on again!”

  “That’s why I have you, Josh,” Austin called back. “Just shut it off.”

  “I already did,” Josh said wearily as he came to stand with his dad. “Are you guys really leaving now?”

  “Yeah buddy, we have to hit the road,” Bruno said and smiled. “But I think you’ll like your new neighbors.”

  “But they’re old people,” Josh said. “They’re not kewl like you are.”

  Unexpectedly, Bruno squatted down and said seriously, “No, you’re really kewl. You’re one of the kewlest kids I’ve ever met, seriously dude.”

  “What about Noah?” Josh asked skeptically.

  “Oh, he’s okay,” Bruno said, “But he’s kinda bossy.”

  Shyly, Josh stepped forward and reached out his arms. “Goodbye, Bruno.”

  Bruno hugged him stiffly for a moment, then he closed his eyes and hugged him without reservation. “You know, I’m sorry sometimes I don’t have a really kewl little kid like you around.”

  Josh stepped back and regarded him seriously. “Maybe you could adopt,” he said soberly. “A lot of gay people are doing that.”

  “Oh for god’s sake, Josh!” Austin groaned and rubbed his temples.

  Bruno only laughed and stood up.

  “You should think about it, for real,” Josh said encouragingly as the sound of their door closing and Meg rattling in her purse for her keys came across the narrow front yard. “Austin? Josh?” she called distractedly.

  “Out here, Mom!” Noah said as he came to stand next to his father.

  “Bruno, the keys,” Rory reminded him suddenly.

  “Oh yeah, right,” Bruno said and reached into his pocket. He extended two sets of keys to Austin and said, “Could you please give these to the Coluccis for us? I had a set made for them, but I told them I’d leave ours with you.”

  “Sure thing,” Austin said. “When are they moving in?”

  “I believe they’ll be bringing in some stuff by the time you get home from church,” Bruno said as Meg joined her family on the sidewalk in front of the two yards. “They are really excited about moving here.”

  “The new neighbors?” Meg asked, “They’ll be here that soon?”

  “Bruno was just saying,” Austin said and smiled.

  “They’re very nice people,” Rory offered. “I think they’ll be good neighbors.”

  “You two will be missed,” Meg said quietly.

  “Thanks, Meg,” Rory answered gently.

  “C’mere girl and give me a hug,” Bruno said and opened his arms.

  “He hugs good,” Josh encouraged his mom.

  “I bet you’d know,” Noah murmured under his breath, but not quite low enough for Austin not to hear him. Austin shot him a look that made Noah quickly begin to examine the palm fronds overhead.

  Meg stepped forward and into Bruno’s arms. She lingered there just a beat too long and then pushed him away gently and gave him a private smile before she stepped back. “Well…” she said.

  “Well, we better get in the wind,” Bruno said.

  “We’re already late for church,” Meg responded.

  Austin nodded at Bruno and turned to face Rory with carefully veiled eyes as Meg took his hand and turned toward the car.

  Rory felt Bruno’s friendly grip on the back of his neck. He smiled at Austin and turned to look up at Bruno with a grin. “I’m ready,” he said happily. “Let’s go.”

  WITH THAT, THEY drifted apart more easily than they had come together. The best of neighbors, like the best lovers and friends, always know when to simply say goodbye and walk away.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2007 by Jay Quinn

  Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media

  ISBN 978-1-4804-9796-2

  This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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