The Neighbors Are Watching

by Debra Ginsberg

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” Diana said. “I thought you saw me when you came in.”

  “I—” Allison had to catch her breath. She closed the freezer door and flicked on the kitchen light, causing them both to cringe in the sudden glare. “Of course you scared me,” Allison said finally. “Why would I have seen you sitting here in the dark?”

  Diana drew up her shoulders, her hands moving to her belly as if to protect it, but Allison could see that her eyes sparked with anger. Sulky teenage anger. Because that’s what she was—a sulky, pissed-off, pregnant teenager. Allison wanted that drink more than ever.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Diana said again—more defiant now. “Too much noise.”

  Allison took the tumbler, still clutched so tightly in her hand she was surprised it hadn’t shattered, filled it with water straight from the tap, and drank as much of it as she could before the chemical chlorine taste made her gag. Normally, Allison would never even consider drinking San Diego tap water, which was so hard it was almost crunchy, but she didn’t care—the watercooler was beyond Diana on the other side of the table and Allison just didn’t want to have to maneuver around the girl to get to it.

  “It’s summer,” Allison said. “Everyone has their windows open and the houses are close together. Sometimes it gets a little noisy at night.”

  “Not that kind of noise,” Diana said. “You know where I’m sleeping? It’s right below your bedroom.” Diana waited a beat for it to sink in. “I can hear everything, you know?” Diana made a sound, some kind of guttural grunt, and Allison felt her breath catch in her throat. “You two were—”

  “Stop it!” Allison gripped the side of the sink. Shame spread through her in a thick red flush, heating her thighs, her neck, her face. She was hot now and felt sick—filthy. Whatever happened next—tomorrow, next month, next year—wouldn’t matter at all because Allison knew her relationship with this girl would forever be defined by this horrible, horrible moment. God, how she hated Joe. And how she hated this daughter of his.

  “I didn’t want to come here, you know,” Diana said. “This wasn’t my idea.”

  Allison’s face was burning and there was a faint ringing in her ears. She couldn’t look at Diana. “It’s been a long day for everyone,” Allison said and worked mightily to unclench her jaw. “You should go back to bed. I’m sure you’ll be able to sleep now.”

  Diana got up and walked toward Allison, who turned her head, staring into the eye of the sink’s drain. “Hey,” Diana said softly, the slightest note of pleading in her voice, but Allison was too angry and embarrassed to answer, and after a second, Diana gave up and walked past her. Allison could smell jasmine in the current of air Diana left in her wake. Allison looked up then to make sure the girl was actually headed to her room. It was funny—almost cruel—how you couldn’t tell from behind that she was pregnant at all. The slim tight skin on her café-latte-colored hips and thighs betrayed nothing. Nor did her skinny behind, and Allison got a good long look at that because aside from the too-small T-shirt, all Diana was wearing was a little black thong.

  Allison waited until she heard the click of the guest bedroom door closing before she reached into the freezer again and turned off the kitchen light.

  She took the first drink straight from the bottle.

  august 2007

  chapter 3

  Joe stared at his reflection in the bedroom mirror as he dressed for work, looping his black and yellow–striped tie around itself to form a knot. His hands fiddling with the fabric, Joe observed his face—the Roman nose, rounded chin, wide-set eyes—as if for the first time. The funny thing, he thought, was not that Diana looked like him but that it had taken him weeks to notice the resemblance.

  He’d seen it this morning and now it was impossible to un-see, like one of those black-and-white pattern-recognition pictures where you see either the vase or two profiles but never both simultaneously. It was during breakfast and the two of them were lifting bagels to their mouths in almost perfect synchronicity. His eyes had just happened to land on Diana instead of being glued to the sports section, which was a safer bet these days than looking at either of the women in his house. In that moment, as he and she were both biting into their chive-cream-cheese-laden “everything” bagels, he saw the curve of her eyebrows, the shape and color of her eyes, and felt as if he were looking at a younger, feminized version of himself. The recognition stunned him, stopping him mid-chew.

  “What?” Diana asked, and he realized he was staring. Allison took a long sip from her orange juice (which Joe suspected was spiked with vodka) and banged her glass down on the table loud enough to let him know that she’d seen that look he’d given his daughter—not that she had or ever would use the word daughter—and wasn’t pleased with it.

  “How’s your bagel?” he asked Diana, a lame cover but all he could come up with.

  Diana rolled her eyes and sighed. “Fine.”

  “You saw I bought orange juice?” He didn’t know why he was continuing the conversation and hated that he felt compelled to.

  “Can’t drink orange juice. Heartburn.”

  “And does coffee help your heartburn?” Allison said, pointing to Diana’s mug.

  “It’s decaf, okay?”

  Then it was the two of them staring daggers at each other until Allison got up from the table with her glass and wandered out to the backyard in the unwashed bathrobe she’d taken to wearing every day, all day. Joe watched Diana’s eyes follow her out and saw his own reflection a second time.

  Now, tying his tie for the third time, Joe’s mind wandered back to the day Diana had shown up on his doorstep holding a shabby suitcase and a letter from her mother. He certainly hadn’t seen any part of himself in her then, and it wasn’t just the color of her skin, even though with his Mediterranean coloring he wasn’t much lighter than she was. It was that she was so obviously young and so very pregnant, not at all like someone he’d even know, let alone someone who was related to him. And yet, in that moment, when he turned the wheel, pulled into the driveway, and saw her standing there, he knew exactly who she was.

  He and Allison were just coming back from the movies. They’d gone to see Ratatouille in an actual theater, rather than waiting for it to come out on DVD like they usually did. He couldn’t remember now why they’d chosen that movie, a cartoon of all things, to break from their usual pattern. They’d enjoyed it, though, he remembered that. Allison was smiling. “Do you think it would be possible to make the ratatouille in the movie?” she asked him. “There had to have been a real-life model for it. I want to try it—it looked so delicious.” Joe was always happy to sample Allison’s culinary experiments. Once in a while, she pulled out something really spectacular, like that heirloom tomato tart with the cornmeal crust, and even her least exotic attempts were pretty good. Joe cooked most of the time—he had always fancied himself a bit of a closet chef—but he loved it when she took over the kitchen. That day in the car, he’d encouraged her to go for the ratatouille, even suggested they shop for the ingredients later in the day, after, he said, winking, “we take a little nap.” Allison laughed and put her hand on his knee. There was no need for such a silly euphemism but he used it, like he had before, because Allison thought it was sweet and it always amused her. They laughed, both of them pleased and turned on, the air between them heating up nicely. And then he turned the corner and pulled into the driveway. He couldn’t tell exactly when Allison removed her hand from his thigh and the smile from her face, but they were both gone by the time he turned off the engine. There was that one terrible moment of silence between the two of them—the kind that comes between the step outward and the fall off the cliff—and then they were three.

  Allison couldn’t have known who Diana was at that moment, but she must have sensed it same as he did. Still, he didn’t see himself in her then, not even when he looked into her eyes and heard her say she was his daughter. It was the shock, Joe decided. Her showing up like that so
suddenly and creating that quiet explosion between him and Allison had prevented him from seeing the resemblance then. Not that he’d tried to deny her. Not then, despite the look of naked dismay on Allison’s face, and not now.

  Joe had always known that he was Diana’s father. He’d made sure of it when she was born, requesting a paternity test and paying for it when it came back positive that he was the father. Yvonne had been extremely pissed off that he’d asked for the test in the first place, but she’d taken it willingly. She was only in her twenties then, but Yvonne already had quite a past with men, and even though they’d been almost attached at the hip for the duration of their brief relationship, you never knew. Certainly no need for a paternity test now, was there? All you had to do was look at the two of them together—and Joe was sure every one of his nosy neighbors had—and you could see that they were father and daughter.

  The damn tie still didn’t look right and Joe was losing his patience. The restaurant was close, but he was going to be late if he didn’t get out the door in the next five minutes. The traffic through Del Mar was an absolute bitch these days, no matter what time of day you were traveling. Allison always helped him with his tie when he got frustrated like this. She knew how to tweak it so that the knot looked sharp. He debated going into the den where she was deep into CNN and whatever drink she was nursing and asking her to help him fix it, but it took only a second to remember that adjusting his tie before he went to work was among the little domestic things Allison didn’t do anymore, along with any kind of cooking, cleaning, or sex.

  Joe gave up on the tie, folded it, and put it in his jacket pocket. As embarrassing as it would be, he would have to get one of the waitresses to help him with it when he got in since his own wife wouldn’t. But he was going to have to do something about Allison, Joe thought, because despite her relative calm, she was spiraling down and she was taking him with her. Exactly what to do, however, was a question whose answer eluded him. And there were more pressing issues to deal with, all of which had to do with Diana: How long was she going to stay, where was she going to have the baby, and what was she going to do with it once it was born? He wished that Allison could bury her anger long enough to help him—and help Diana for that matter—work it out. Allison had married him, hadn’t she? Those vows—richer, poorer, et cetera—were supposed to mean something.

  It wasn’t that he was totally insensitive. Obviously Diana’s sudden appearance was more of a shock for Allison than for him. But the reason he’d never told Allison that he’d fathered a child years before he’d even met her wasn’t because he wanted to keep it a secret; it was because he had managed to convince himself that Diana, Yvonne, and that whole chapter of his life were just done with and gone. And this wasn’t purely magical thinking on his part.

  He and Yvonne had already broken up by the time she informed him she was pregnant, and he was astounded that she planned to keep the baby even after he told her he wanted nothing to do with it. She threatened and pleaded and then he moved—got out of Los Angeles and came down here to San Diego—and didn’t hear anything from her until after the baby was born when some cut-rate lawyer she’d hired sent him a letter demanding child support. After the whole drama with the paternity test, Joe persuaded Yvonne to get rid of the lawyer and promised to send her some money when he could. But he hadn’t, nor had he responded to her sporadic letters and the photos of a kid he felt less connection with than his toothbrush. Finally, when Diana must have been about four or five, there was no more communication at all.

  He hadn’t heard one word from Yvonne for ten years—not a letter, a phone call, or any kind of request for child support. For a couple of years, he’d waited for the other shoe to drop, but there was only silence. He hadn’t even known that Yvonne had moved to Las Vegas until Diana told him. By the time he and Allison married, Joe had come to believe that Yvonne had taken responsibility for her own actions—because it was unequivocally her decision to get pregnant and have a baby—and was leaving him out of it as he’d asked her to from the minute the second pink line appeared on the pregnancy test.

  Joe told Allison all of this the day Diana arrived. After what was surely one of the most awkward family reunions of all time—forget about ratatouille or a “nap,” Joe just ordered a pizza for dinner—with the three of them sitting at the dining room table exchanging basic information like when Diana was due and what grade she was in at school, Diana got settled in the guest bedroom, and he and Allison went upstairs to talk.

  “I never hid anything from you, Allie,” he said. “It was so long over by the time I even met you. I wasn’t ever part of her life. Never.”

  “A child is a big deal, Joe. Not something you omit to tell your wife.”

  “You have to believe me,” he said, “if I thought it would have made any difference … and it hasn’t made a difference in how I feel about you.”

  “Of course it makes a difference! It’s made all the difference in the world how you feel. If I’d known about her … Joe, when I was pregnant …” She couldn’t finish the sentence and looked away from him. His stomach did a flip then because he didn’t want to talk about the abortion again, and he knew that was where Allison was going. He’d never suffered a moment of guilt over the act itself, knowing in his heart that it was the right thing to do, but he knew Allison had. He felt bad about that and sorry that it had caused her pain. But at the same time, he didn’t feel responsible for her pain. It had been a joint decision—he was clear on that—and he would have made the same one now even if Allison wouldn’t. He understood why she’d bring it up, but he wasn’t sure it was fair.

  “You know that those two things have nothing to do with each other,” he told her quietly.

  “That’s the problem, Joe, I don’t. You should have told me. It would have made a difference.”

  “Allison, we’d just met. We didn’t know … We weren’t ready.”

  “We could have been ready,” Allison said miserably. “We’re married, aren’t we?”

  “Yes, now,” he said. “But that isn’t what this is about, is it? I can’t undo the past, Allison. This … What’s happening now is as much a surprise to me as it is to you. I know you’re upset and you have a right to be. But let’s deal with it together.”

  “I have to deal with it, don’t I?” she said. “It’s not like I have a choice.”

  He’d felt hopeful then, despite the bitterness in her tone. As betrayed as she felt, it still seemed like she was willing to try to work with him. That night, after they’d both been lying there awake for hours absorbing the shock, she’d let him make love to her. His hope turned to relief, Joe remembered, and he was so grateful to her. He took it to mean she could get past it, that she was going to stand by him. It was like having make-up sex before the fight had a chance to get really ugly. But now Joe was starting to think of it as good-bye sex because that was the last time Allison had let him come near her.

  They’d talked about Diana again—no way to avoid it, really—but Allison quickly began sealing herself off behind a wall of hurt and indignation. And liquor. She’d gone from a glass of wine at night to full bottles within what seemed like days. Maybe he hadn’t noticed her slide because Allison never really seemed to get drunk—just quiet and detached. He didn’t want to fight with her, although the silent treatment was probably just as bad, but he was starting to feel sick of feeling sorry. And then too he missed the easiness of their affection, conversation, and companionship. He missed her.

  Joe gave his dark hair (graying but still thick, thank you very much) a pat in the mirror and grabbed his keys off the dresser. Yvonne’s letter was still sitting there—a neatly folded bombshell—and Joe wondered why he hadn’t destroyed it or put it away. It wasn’t as if he needed to read it again, he’d already committed its brief contents to memory.

  Dear Joe,

  You wouldn’t have been my choice, then or now. But it’s your turn. Until now you’ve never given either one of us a thing. Bu
t Diana has her own mind and will. I have to believe that you’ll do the right thing by her. It’s pretty clear she’s already made some bad choices, but my mother’s heart knows her sweetness. She’s a good person, Joe. And it’s your blood running through her.

  Yvonne

  She’d always had that way with words, Joe thought, always had that poet’s eye. He’d envied that about her. But she was just as headstrong as her daughter had turned out to be. Yvonne wanted a baby and Yvonne got a baby. Joe had just happened to be at the right place at the right time and she’d manipulated him and used him to get what she wanted. He’d had no choice in it at all. It made him angry still. A woman’s right to choose—it was all you ever heard about. What about a man’s right to determine what happened to the rest of his life? That line about doing the right thing killed him. Only a devil would refuse shelter to a pregnant seventeen-year-old who had the papers to prove she was your daughter. And so once again, Joe had found his own choice taken from him. There had to be a way to make Allison understand that.

  “Allison?” Joe called out. “I’m leaving.” He jogged down the stairs and peered into the kitchen. The back door was open letting hot August dust in through a small tear in the screen. One more thing that needed fixing. The breakfast dishes were still in the sink and the long unwatered cilantro plant on the windowsill shriveled in the late afternoon light. He turned around to see that the guest bedroom door—Diana’s room now—was open too. Joe could see clothes scattered on the floor but no Diana. The entire house looked both abandoned and neglected, and Joe felt a surge of angry frustration.

  “Allison!”

  She was staring at the television in the den, wearing that same dirty bathrobe, bare feet curled under her on the couch, a coffee mug in her hand. She didn’t bother to look up when he entered.

  “I’m going to work.”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you going to get dressed, Allison?”