The Neighbors Are Watching

by Debra Ginsberg

  “Of course, sir, right away,” Joe said. His tone was conciliatory but not obsequious in any way. Smooth, Allison thought. “And for you, signorina? Have you had a chance to look at the menu? Perhaps I could make a suggestion?” His eyes were dark and twinkling, complicit. Allison felt he understood her predicament perfectly. She didn’t belong with this party, his smiling confident expression told her, but he was very glad she had come.

  “You looked so pretty,” he told her the night they made love for the first time, “and so pissed off. I could tell you didn’t belong in that ridiculous group.”

  “So you liked that I was mad?” she said, smiling.

  “Well, that combined with your wet clothes. I could see every curve. It was very hot. You were the best thing the rain ever brought into that place.”

  Rain, Allison thought again. How she wished it would rain like that again.

  But there was no hope of rain today and no chance of sleep until later. Reluctantly—almost resentfully—she pulled on a T-shirt and an old pair of yoga pants, twisted her hair into a loose ponytail, and opened her bedroom door. She was already in the hall, on the way to the bathroom to brush her teeth, when she heard the voices downstairs and stopped dead, suddenly terrified to see anyone other than the two people she lived with and couldn’t avoid.

  She could identify Diana’s voice, usually husky and defiant, but now raised in girlish excitement. She was actually giggling. The other voice was familiar, but it took Allison a second to identify it as belonging to their neighbor Sam. Allison couldn’t imagine what possible ruse Sam had found to come over to her house. At the best of times, there was little the two of them had in common. But Allison could hear her exclaiming and laughing along with Diana. Allison’s underarms prickled with perspiration and her neck felt stiff.

  Sam was probably here on some kind of fact-finding mission, just like every other busybody on this cul-de-sac. Well, Allison corrected herself, maybe not everyone. It was mostly Dorothy and Dick. But hadn’t Jessalyn Martin come by at some point? Allison was hazy, but she was sure she’d heard Joe talking to her at the door. It was coming back to her now in wispy bits of memory, Joe saying something about hitting Jessalyn’s car and having to exchange insurance information and Allison not being interested enough in that piece of news to bother registering it.

  But it was Dorothy’s snooping that concerned Allison. Those early days she’d come around with a seemingly endless supply of horrible instant cakes and offers of “help.” Allison couldn’t even pretend to be polite. It was so inappropriate to bring food in the first place, as if there’d been a death in the house and the Montanas were in need of pie and casseroles to sustain them. It was one thing, Allison thought, to walk to church with Dorothy on Sundays and chatter about inconsequential trivia like PTA troublemakers or the difficulty of growing wisteria, but they weren’t girlfriends by any stretch. There was no way Allison would ever tell Dorothy—prissy, judgmental Dorothy—anything remotely private. Like, for example, how her husband had neglected to mention he had a child. A mixed-race child, at that. Dick was such a racist. Allison could easily imagine the conversations the Werners had been having since Diana started spending every day with Kevin and was sure that most of them ended with some kind of epithet. It didn’t matter that Kevin was almost definitely taking drugs—maybe even dealing them—in Dick Werner’s mind Diana would be the bad influence; Allison was sure of it. And who knew what went on in Dorothy’s head? How was it possible for a woman to be so detached from what was going on inside her own house? Allison’s throat constricted. She was no better than Dorothy. She’d been as blindsided by Diana’s existence as anyone else on their street.

  Allison heard a yelp of surprise coming from Diana followed by a chuckle from Sam. She needed to go downstairs, to investigate and head off this ill-timed visit, but she couldn’t seem to move from her spot in the hall. She leaned against the wall, her forehead pressed against the cool plaster. She was glad Diana was spending all her time with Kevin, and she didn’t care at all that Diana, young and pregnant as she was, might be smoking weed, popping pills, or screwing Kevin’s teenage brains out. The truth was she was glad that someone else had to bear her burden. Let Dick and Dorothy worry about it—about both of them. Neither Kevin nor Diana were Allison’s responsibility and she’d had no part in their making. There was a bitter burn inside Allison’s chest. Heartburn in the most literal sense. Her own child would have been eight years old now, in third grade, maybe even in her own class. She pictured herself at the whiteboard at school, turning to look at her students and finding her own child in the front row. She—because Allison had always thought it would be a girl—would be blond and wear a white headband and shirts with Peter Pan collars. Allison stared at the internal image until her eyes burned with tears and she wanted to die. Then, having tortured herself enough to justify a very large, very cold drink—lemonade with vodka, she was thinking—Allison finally stood up straight and walked downstairs.

  Making her way across the landing, Allison cursed the layout of her house, which forced her to walk through the dining room to get to the kitchen. Because the dining room was where Sam sat with Diana, the two of them looking for all the world like best girlfriends (no, Allison amended, not girlfriends, like mother and daughter), laughing and cooing over some fabric swatches spread out over the table. But no, that was wrong too, Allison thought as she got closer and the two of them raised their heads at the same time, sensing her presence. They weren’t looking at fabric swatches at all. Those were baby clothes spread out on Allison’s polished-oak dining room table. Little fluffy onesies in powder blue and lemon yellow, tiny moccasins, a miniature V-neck sweater in hunter green.

  Allison opened her mouth to say something, but no words came. For a single spinning moment Allison wondered if she’d had some kind of stroke and been rendered mute. Diana looked at her accusingly, the corners of her full lips turning down and her eyes flashing sparks of antipathy. But Sam smiled.

  “Hi, Allison. How are you doing?”

  “How am I doing,” Allison repeated thickly. She pointed at the table. “Are those baby clothes?”

  Why were there baby clothes in her house?

  Sam’s smile faded, although she seemed to be making an effort to keep it plastered on her face.

  “These? Yes, these are—well they were Connor’s. They’re all so cute and—I had so much fun shopping for them—he grew out of them so fast I don’t think—there are a few things here he never even wore!”

  “You brought those over here?” Allison asked stupidly.

  “Um …” Sam shot a quick worried glance at Diana, who shrugged lazily, and then turned back to Allison with something like fear, or maybe worry, in her eyes. “Yes, Allison, I thought, since they’re in such great shape—I mean they’re hardly used at all—I thought maybe Diana could use them for … They’re hardly used, Allison.”

  “Diana didn’t tell you?” Allison asked. She tried to force lightness into her tone, but there was cold fear curling up at the base of her spine.

  “Tell me what?”

  “Diana, why don’t you fill Sam in?”

  But Diana said nothing. Her hands moved to her belly and her eyes threw flames at Allison. Sam’s hands fluttered above a bright red Christmas suit, as if she was unsure whether to grab it or push it away.

  “She’s not keeping the baby,” Allison said. “She’s giving it up for adoption.”

  chapter 7

  Sam stood at the kitchen cabinet where she and Gloria kept all their teas, debating what to offer Diana. There were so many here, she thought: medicinal-strength ginger tea and loose Darjeeling, mango-flavored and spicy, decaffeinated, extra strength, Irish Breakfast, white, green, jasmine, and oolong in boxes, bags, and sachets. They’d managed to accumulate quite a collection, so much in fact that it didn’t all fit next to Gloria’s assortment of Brazilian and Guatemalan shade-grown, fair-trade coffees. Sam didn’t drink coffee at all, finding it emotiona
lly exhausting to make sure that coffee met all the qualifications for sustainability and political correctness. She and Gloria had once been able to laugh about that kind of thing back when their kids were little and sweet and laughs were easier to come by. It was, Sam thought now, what had drawn them together in the first place.

  She remembered the day they’d run into each other on the way down to school to pick up their boys from after-school care. They’d both been early and both had the same thought, which was to leave the boys a little longer and go get coffee at the Starbucks near the school. Sam ordered a chai latte and Gloria some huge, sweet coffee drink laden with whipped cream. Gloria insisted on paying, Sam remembered, in that smiling, pushy, but weirdly self-conscious way she had.

  “Honey,” Gloria had said, flicking a tan wrist heavy with gold bracelets, “you have no idea how much money I have access to. Let me spend some of it, please!”

  “Really?” Sam said, inspecting her cup. “You should give some of it to the rain forest or the whales or something.” When Gloria smiled a light turned on behind her eyes and her entire face became bright. Sam saw that transformation for the first time at Starbucks that day.

  “You think so?” Gloria asked. “I give a lot, believe me. Wherever I can. Whenever my husband lets me. And to whatever needs saving. By the way, I think the whales are cool now, you know? They got saved already. You need to update your causes.”

  Then Sam herself had to smile. She’d known Gloria for almost a year at that point—since their boys had started kindergarten together—but this was the first time they’d had a conversation that didn’t have to do with bouncy houses, who was bringing cupcakes for open house, or how to keep dog hair off the sofa. Sam found herself surprised by Gloria, whom she’d just assumed was another pretty, pampered, and self-absorbed suburban mommy, albeit one who always had a clever quip at the ready. But as soon as they started talking, Sam saw a woman much like herself: intelligent and devoted to her child but frustrated in her marriage and guilty about trading her independence for the comfort of a big house, a maid, and all the local organic produce she could eat.

  “At least I don’t have a nanny,” Gloria said, “or I’d be a complete cliché. Besides, my mother would kill me. She’d never recover from such an insult.”

  “Do you have a pool boy, though?” Sam asked. “That’s the real test, isn’t it?”

  Gloria raised a professionally and beautifully shaped eyebrow. “I have a pool,” she said. “And there’s an old guy who comes around once a week and drags a net through it. Does that count?” When Sam laughed, Gloria added, “That’s Frank I’m talking about—my husband. He’s the old guy who cleans my pool.” The last sentence came out slowly, Gloria’s voice lingering on the vowels, enunciating the consonants as if she were reading a line of poetry. There was sadness in it too, Sam felt, and maybe the slightest tinge of desperation.

  That might have been the moment, Sam thought now, when she fell in love with Gloria. But it would be a long time before she—or Gloria—realized it. And by the time they did it was too late to stop the train wreck that had already been set in motion. Sam wondered what might have happened if she’d been her usual reserved self that day, if she hadn’t allowed herself to sink into the warmth of that lovely afternoon with Gloria, the two of them staying much longer than they’d planned and then having to rush in the near dark to pick up Connor and Justin—their two little boys who were the last children left in the after-school day care class. What might have happened if their boys hadn’t been standing there, their small backpacks at their feet and their shoes untied, identical looks of angry betrayal on their dirty faces?

  “We’re so sorry,” they told the scowling girl who’d been forced to stay late. “We completely lost track of time.” They’d exchanged a guilty look—Sam could still see it now—the first of many they would share. Would it have made a difference if Sam had recognized it then? Would she have been able to see all the loss? Because it was all gone—the houses, the pools, the maids. Frank and then Noah had taken everything. Even their children. Their precious, angry boys.

  Sam blinked away the tears that had formed in her eyes and slammed the door of the tea cabinet. Tea was a stupid idea—it was way too hot. She’d make lemonade instead. She had some simple syrup in the fridge and there was a whole bag of lemons in the fruit bowl just waiting to be used. When life gives you lemons, Sam thought. “Great,” she added out loud, “now I’ve turned into Pollyanna.”

  “Who’s Pollyanna?”

  Sam startled and turned. Diana was standing in the middle of the kitchen as if she’d just been beamed in. She was wearing an extra-large gray T-shirt, the collar gaping at her neck, stretchy black shorts, and dusty rubber flip-flops.

  “Oh, hi!”

  “Hey … Did I scare you? I’m sorry. I came in through the back door.… It was open. Is that okay? I’m sorry.”

  “Honey, don’t worry,” Sam said, “it’s fine. Come sit down. I was just going to make you some lemonade. Do you like lemonade?” Sam laughed. “Do you want lemonade?”

  “Sure,” Diana said. “Thanks. Are you going to make it fresh?”

  “That was the plan,” Sam said.

  “Cool.” Diana smiled, showing off her lovely, straight white teeth. Sam wondered if she’d had braces or was just lucky. She was such a pretty girl with that smooth clear skin and long, thick, gorgeously curling hair cascading down her back. Her face was a little puffy now though, this late in her pregnancy, and when Sam glanced down she could see that Diana’s ankles were swollen too, the skin stretching around her tattoos. Sam flushed with sudden concern and anger. Was anyone taking care of this girl?

  “Come sit down,” she said again, gesturing to the little round table and chairs they kept in the kitchen. “How are you doing, hon? Are you feeling okay?”

  Diana’s hands went instinctively to her huge belly, which Sam noticed was much lower than it had been the last time she’d seen Diana. Any minute now, Sam thought. She remembered the feeling vividly; how when you got toward the end, there was no space left anywhere—in your body or your mind—for anything but the formless life that had taken over your own. Heaviness and waiting, that was all.

  “I’m all right,” Diana said, pulling out a chair and sitting down much more gracefully than Sam would have thought possible. “Just, you know …” She patted her belly. “It’s so big,” she said. “I never would have thought it could get so big.” Diana was still smiling, but Sam could see the strain around her eyes and in the dark half moons below them. She probably wasn’t sleeping much. Sleeping was hard in the ninth month; there was just no way of getting comfortable. She pulled a few lemons out of the fruit bowl and started slicing.

  “You must be due soon, right?”

  “In one week exactly,” Diana said. “But they say first babies come late, don’t they?”

  “Not always,” Sam said. The first lemon was practically dry. It took all Sam’s strength just to wring out a couple of tablespoons of juice. She picked up a second and tried again. “What does your doctor say?” When Diana didn’t answer, Sam looked up sharply, stopping midsqueeze. “You do have a doctor, don’t you?”

  “I’m going …” Diana smoothed the big T-shirt over the beach-ball lump in her lap. “We checked out the hospital and everything,” she said. “But I don’t really have a regular doctor. Something about the insurance. It’s my mom’s coverage and over here—”

  “But surely—” Sam stopped herself before she could say anything else. She didn’t know how far she could go with Diana and she didn’t want to push. It wasn’t her business really, no matter how drawn she felt to this girl and her baby. And Allison was such a loose cannon lately, Sam didn’t want to piss her off. As for Joe, Sam simply couldn’t understand why he hadn’t shown more backbone. She didn’t know him well, it was true, but she’d always gotten the sense from him that he was a little more open, a little more decent than most of the people in this neighborhood. She was disapp
ointed by his lack of caring or connection. All you had to do was look at Diana—Joe was there in every curve and angle of her face. How was it possible for him to ignore that? But then, Sam remembered, she’d been wrong about Noah too. If someone—anyone—had told her how nasty and vindictive he’d become after she moved in with Gloria, Sam would have laughed in disbelief. Maybe it was just that she knew nothing about men. For all of their carrying on about how they were essentially simple beings and it was women who were complicated, men were way more screwed up and emotionally convoluted than women.

  “I mean,” Sam said, taking care with her words, “you’ve had an exam recently? Even if—”

  “It’s fine,” Diana interrupted.

  “Okay,” Sam said, although she suspected nothing was okay and was becoming desperate to try to remedy that situation. She was on the fourth lemon now and had barely a half a glass of juice. Well, that was going to have to be enough. She took the simple syrup out of the fridge and measured out a quarter cup, combined it with a half liter of Pellegrino, and stirred in the lemon juice. “I think,” she said, “I even have a sprig of mint around here somewhere.”

  “So who’s Pollyanna?” Diana asked as Sam rummaged through the crisper looking for the mint. “You were saying something about Pollyanna when I came in.”

  “Right, Pollyanna,” Sam said, pulling out the wilted mint and searching for a usable sprig. “Poor Pollyanna got kind of a bad rap. It was a kid’s book, written probably a hundred years ago about a girl—an orphan, I think—who plays this game where she finds the good in everything. She’s an eternal optimist, even when bad things happen. She’s always looking on the bright side even when she has an accident and becomes paralyzed.”

  “That would be seriously annoying,” Diana said.

  “Exactly,” Sam said, tearing a mint leaf and stirring it into the glass of lemonade, “which is why Pollyanna has become a term for someone who’s foolishly or blindly optimistic with no good reason.” She handed the glass to Diana. “Here you go.”