The Neighbors Are Watching

by Debra Ginsberg

  But then he thought, fuck her anyway. Bitch.

  Kevin’s eyes felt hot and there was a pain in his forehead. He was crying. He was fucking crying. God, he didn’t deserve to live. He pulled his earbuds out of his ear and threw them, iPod still attached, off the edge of his bed. Then he got up off the bed, walked to his window, and looked through the blinds at Sun’s basketball hoop across the street. Their window was open and he could hear Sun whaling away on the piano. He didn’t get why Sun kept practicing even though he hated the fucking piano so much. He’d asked about it once and Sun had said, “My mom gets on me to do it,” but that never seemed like enough of a reason to Kevin. He hadn’t been able to get over to Sun’s for fucking months, it felt like. Too many people watching his every move. Well, fuck it, he was over this shit—he was going over there right now, even though Sun didn’t like it when he just came to the door. Too bad. Sun had a product and he was so looking to buy.

  There were footsteps outside his door (which both his parents had told him to keep open, but fuck that, he wasn’t an animal) and then the sound of the knob rattling. Kevin turned his head.

  “Mom, wh—” But it wasn’t his mother, it was their neighbor Sam from next door. It was so weird to see her standing in his bedroom that Kevin was rendered speechless. His first thought was that she must be in the wrong house. But then he looked at her face and his second thought was that something was very wrong.

  “Hi, Kevin,” she said. “Your mom asked me to come up and get you. There are a couple of detectives downstairs.”

  Kevin just stared at her, his brain having real difficulty putting all the pieces together.

  “They want to talk to you,” Sam said.

  Kevin felt the pain in his chest turn cold and heavy. “Why?”

  “They want to talk to you about Diana.”

  chapter 18

  Sam stood in front of the nearly empty refrigerator and felt the surprise of unwelcome tears welling in her eyes. She couldn’t tell exactly what had caused them—the barren crisper or that she’d just realized that Thanksgiving, usually her favorite holiday, was around the corner and was likely going to be one of the worst days in a long, bad year. Annus horribilis. Wasn’t that what the queen of England had called it when all her princes broke up with their wives and her castle burned? Sam thought about castles burning and heard the strains of Neil Young in her head. What was the title of that song?

  “Don’t Let It Bring You Down.”

  Yet faced with the prospect of celebrating Thanksgiving without Connor, Sam couldn’t help but feel immensely brought down. She could have fought Noah about this—she was supposed to have Connor for the holidays—because he’d reneged on his part of the agreement by scheduling a surprise trip to Hawaii for Thanksgiving, but ultimately all that would do was upset Connor, who quite obviously favored a trip to the islands rather than a sad, strained dinner with his mother. Not to mention Gloria, who would likely cause Connor even more discomfort now that he and Justin were no longer friends. This detail, that Connor had lost a friend who had been like a brother to him since preschool, bothered Sam as much as anything else that had happened since she and Noah had separated. It wasn’t a big deal, Noah had assured her, kids changed loyalties regularly and the two of them were just expanding their friendships with others, and it wasn’t as if they’d had a falling out or anything and Connor didn’t seem at all upset over it. But Sam didn’t believe any of this. She believed, rather, that Frank had completely poisoned Justin against Connor if not outright banned Connor from his house, and maybe Noah had “encouraged” Connor to find other friends as well. No doubt Frank and Noah had gotten together on the visitation schedule so that now the boys visited their mothers on alternate days or weekends so there was almost no overlap. Not that either boy spent much time with them anyway. She thought about how happy those boys had been with each other—how they had shared everything—and her heart broke.

  Even though she’d had so much time to get used to it, Sam still couldn’t believe how vindictive Frank had become. The man was a bigger bitch than either she or Gloria could ever be. That his wounded male ego was more important than the emotional well-being of his own son was worse still. And the biggest irony of all was that while Frank claimed he was protecting Justin from “bad values” and “immorality,” that was exactly what he was exposing Justin to with his own behavior.

  Sam hadn’t even discussed Thanksgiving with Gloria yet and didn’t know what flavor of torture Frank had in mind for them. Gloria had been uncharacteristically close-mouthed about her conversations with Frank lately, so Sam was in the dark about what either one of them might be plotting. This period of silence had come hard on the heels of Gloria’s admission that Frank was trying a new tack—attempting to persuade Gloria to dump Sam and come back to him. He’d thought about it long and hard, Gloria told Sam, quoting her ex, and had decided that he would take her back. Under certain conditions, of course. Sam had been astounded.

  “You’re kidding, right?” she’d asked Gloria. “Even he couldn’t be that big of an asshole.”

  Gloria shrugged and lifted her hands in a what-can-you-do gesture. “Maybe he really, really misses me,” she said. “Maybe he knows he’ll never get over me. Maybe he still loves me.”

  “What the hell, Gloria? Are you serious?”

  “I’m just saying …”

  “Are you considering it?” Sam scoffed. “You’re going to have to change your look. You know how Frank likes it.”

  “Don’t be that way.”

  “I’m sorry, I just can’t believe that after all—”

  “You don’t understand how hard this is for me, Sam.”

  “I don’t?”

  But Gloria just shook her head and walked out of the room, leaving Sam on the verge of her own frustrated tears. Since then, there hadn’t been one word of discussion about Frank or Noah. And last weekend, Gloria had spent her visitation with Justin everywhere but at the house. Sam didn’t even know where they had gone and Gloria didn’t want to talk about it. Sam wasn’t particularly disappointed that she no longer had to spend hours talking about what they were going to do about Frank’s latest attempt to make their lives hell, but Gloria’s new silence was more worrisome to Sam than her previous histrionics had been. At the very least, they’d been of some support to each other in the past, no matter how contentious their arguments had sometimes become. But now it almost seemed as if Gloria was hiding something from her. Sam needed to talk to Gloria about the plan for Thanksgiving. For the first time it occurred to her that maybe Gloria wasn’t even planning to spend the holiday with her.

  Sam’s eyes blurred and she realized she was still staring into the open fridge at several mostly empty jars, two cans of cheap beer, a wrinkled tomato, and a cucumber that had seen better days. She closed the fridge door before it could depress her any further. The food in the house—or rather the lack of it—was an accurate reflection of what was going on with her and Gloria. Over the past few weeks, Sam had been eating steadily less and limiting herself to things like carrots and olives. Limiting what and how much she ate was a way of feeling control over something in her life. It was childish, un-self-realized behavior, but it gave her a twisted kind of comfort. Gloria had gone in another direction: eating take-out almost exclusively and not decent take-out, either. She came home regularly with greasy bags of French fries and burgers, pizza, and fried chicken. The old Gloria was a harsh critic of women who fed their kids at McDonald’s even once a month and wouldn’t consider touching the stuff herself, which she said couldn’t even be categorized as real food. There was the vanity aspect too. Gloria was very proud of her luscious body and clear skin and worked hard to keep them both that way. Fast food never fit into that equation. The new Gloria, though, the aggressive Gloria of tattoos, chopped hair, and beer—that Gloria seemed to love fatty, meaty, fried anything. And it was starting to show. It was as if Gloria was sabotaging herself, Sam thought. Well, they were both sabotaging
themselves, just going about it from opposite directions.

  Sam took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. It was so difficult not to just give up. Although it felt as if she and Gloria were constantly starting over, Sam had to keep trying. And it wasn’t as if they had it that bad. Look at Dorothy, for god’s sake. What a nightmare she was living. Or Joe. And that poor little baby. No, she and Gloria were actually doing well in comparison. It was all a question of effort, wasn’t it?

  “Gloria!” she called upstairs. And waited. And waited some more. One more time. “Gloria!” Please don’t make me beg, she thought. Please, Gloria.

  Finally, she heard it. “What?” The question was muffled. Sam didn’t respond right away, letting Gloria come closer.

  “What is it, Sam?”

  Sam stepped out of the kitchen just so Gloria could see her from where she stood at the top of the stairs. She was wearing tight torn jeans, a white T-shit, and a black head scarf. Her face was damp, freshly scrubbed. She looked so young, Sam thought. Like a teenager.

  “Let’s have dinner,” Sam said.

  “Okay,” Gloria said, nonplussed.

  “I mean, let’s make dinner. And eat it. When’s the last time we did that? It’s been a while.”

  “So this is a joint effort?” Gloria asked.

  Sam massaged her temples to alleviate the tension that had suddenly gathered there. “I’m trying really hard, Gloria,” she said. “Can you meet me halfway?”

  Gloria let out a noise. Sam couldn’t tell if it was a loud sigh or a grunt of dissatisfaction, but she came down the stairs and literally met Sam halfway between the staircase and the kitchen. The scent of apricot face wash wafted over to Sam.

  “Okay,” Gloria said, “dinner. You have my attention.”

  “I was thinking something with vegetables,” Sam said.

  “What do we have?”

  “Not much.”

  Gloria put her hands on her hips and tilted her head. Sam could see her vacillating between anger and amusement. Finally, she conceded and gave a little laugh. “Fine,” she said, “let’s go look at what there is and start there, okay?”

  Gloria followed Sam into the kitchen and they started rummaging around in separate cabinets. The memory of their moving-in day flashed through Sam’s mind. All the things they’d stocked their pantry with—juice boxes for the boys, lots of fresh fruit, so many different kinds of cereal because they all ate cereal and every one of them had his or her own unique demands: with nuts, without sugar, plain flakes, whole grain oatmeal.… It hadn’t been that long ago, Sam thought, but she felt like she’d aged a lifetime since then.

  “We have pasta,” Gloria said, hauling out various packets from the back of the pantry. “There’s some penne here and … shells. We can mix them together.”

  “Okay. I have olives.”

  “There’s a can of tomatoes back here too. Are you thinking about puttanesca? What about capers?”

  “Um …” Sam opened the fridge again and leaned in, shuffling through old jars and ketchup bottles, finally finding a tiny jar that contained enough capers to count, which meant not enough for any kind of sauce. “Not really,” she said, holding it out.

  Gloria tipped her head to the side, considering. “We could make it work,” she said. “As long as there are red pepper flakes.”

  “Always.”

  “Well then.…”

  Sam and Gloria began gathering utensils and ingredients, sidling past each other as they moved around their small kitchen. Sam decided the tomato wasn’t too old to be chopped and sauced but was unsure whether the cucumber would hold up even if she salted and dressed it properly. Gloria grabbed a sauté pan and olive oil. Sam handed her the onion she’d discovered hiding on the back of the refrigerator shelf.

  “Why do they call it puttanesca?” Gloria asked suddenly. “I mean, why whore pasta? One assumes virgin pasta would be more appealing than whore pasta, right?”

  “Um,” Sam said, “is it because of the chili flakes, maybe? Whores are spicy? Hot?”

  “And there’s pasta al diavolo,” Gloria continued, “which is the devil’s pasta. But there’s no God pasta or Jesus pasta. I wonder how Jesus pasta would go over? What do you think?”

  Sam checked Gloria’s expression. She looked amused but also like a naughty child who thought she was getting away with something. It was that Catholic upbringing, Sam thought. Even though Gloria had long ago rejected religious observance, the old fear of hell and damnation was still deeply embedded on some unconscious level. Sam, who had been raised by nonobservant Jewish parents who cherry-picked various rituals that suited them, knew that she could never truly understand how Gloria’s hardwired sense of sin affected her. They had talked about this before, Sam always pressing Gloria to examine how she really felt about God and her religion, but Gloria had always laughed Sam off. It didn’t mean anything, Gloria said, and she was long over all of that. Over the nuns and the restrictions and the sins—venal and mortal alike. But Sam found that hard to believe. She knew a thing or two about repression and how it could fester beneath the surface. Gloria had married young—had gone almost directly from her parents’ house to Frank’s—and had followed all the rules along the way, until they met, of course. Sam wondered if Gloria’s actions now were just part of some long-held-back rebellion. But she didn’t say anything about that. She couldn’t. Instead, she smiled and avoided the question of Jesus pasta altogether.

  Gloria chopped the onion expertly into a small dice, rubbing the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. “Have you seen—” Gloria stopped, sniffed, moved over to the faucet, and held her hands under cold running water.

  “Seen what?”

  “Allison,” Gloria said. “She’s back. I figured you’d seen her.”

  “I did—I mean, I know she’s come back.”

  “And?” Gloria questioned. Sam couldn’t figure out from her tone whether Gloria was just hungry for gossip or pressing for something else.

  “And … nothing, really. I haven’t talked to her. I talked to Joe. And Yvonne. But I haven’t talked to Allison. Who knows what’s going on in her head.”

  “Yvonne? You mean the—you mean Diana’s mother? You talked to her? When was that?”

  Sam hesitated. She didn’t want to try to relay the contents of her conversations with Yvonne to Gloria. No, that wasn’t entirely accurate. It was more a case of not knowing how to explain those conversations. It bothered her to think that Gloria wouldn’t be able to grasp the emotional subtext, but that was exactly how she felt. And Sam liked Yvonne. Gloria wouldn’t understand that. “You know, when she got here. Joe introduced us and I talked to her a little bit. I told you that, remember?”

  “No,” Gloria said. “No, I don’t.”

  “She’s in a bad way,” Sam said, ignoring the cold edge that had crept into Gloria’s voice. “I can’t imagine what she’s going through.”

  “Maybe she should have thought about that when she kicked her pregnant daughter out of the house.”

  “It’s not like that, Glo,” Sam said, using the nickname to soften her admonishment. So her instincts had been right, after all. Gloria didn’t understand. “It’s so much more complicated than that.”

  “It can’t be that complicated,” Gloria scoffed. “She was a pregnant teenager and her mother sent her packing. Nothing to figure out there. There’s right and there’s wrong. A kid is a kid and a parent is a parent. That’s all.”

  Sam shook her head. “That isn’t all of it, Gloria. You don’t choose your kids. Or your parents.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means if you’re lucky you get a kid you get along with—a kid you like. Because they all come in with their own personalities. You always love them, but you don’t always like them. And as for parents …”

  “Your parents didn’t send you away, Sam. And in those days—”

  “Yvonne didn’t kick Diana out of the house,” Sam said. “That’s not what happene
d.” She hadn’t wanted to tell Gloria even this much, and now Sam understood why she was hesitating. She’d been wrong about Diana—that realization coming as soon as she sat down with Yvonne. Little Zoë was between them, cooing in her basket, and Yvonne played with the fraying edge of her shirtsleeve as she described her fraught relationship with her daughter. The pregnancy was only the most recent in a string of acting-out behaviors that had progressively more serious consequences. Yvonne knew she’d smoked pot, but suspected other drugs too. There was a series of bad boyfriends—older, college guys with all the worst intentions. There were the tattoos—not so bad in and of themselves, but representative of the direction she was headed.… And perhaps worst of all there was the anger.

  “I suppose she told you what a terrible mother I am,” Yvonne had said, her eyes filling with tears, her mouth set in frustration. “That I kicked her out because she got pregnant? It was all her decision to come here—all of it. You know, I would have done anything for that girl—anything to make her feel right, but she was always so furious at me.”

  Sam had listened, thinking all the while how quickly she’d bought into Diana’s story and how automatic her condemnation of Yvonne had been. It didn’t make her dislike Diana, who was still, after all, just a girl, but it did make her doubt herself and this was something she just didn’t want to share with Gloria.

  “Well,” Gloria was saying, “what did happen then?”

  Sam minced the garlic more carefully than usual, afraid to look up and show Gloria the warring emotions on her face. “Like I said, it’s complicated. I don’t think any of us have the right to judge each other as mothers.”

  Gloria scraped her knife against the cutting board and said, “Really? Because I’m not so sure about that. Me and you, Sam? We’re the good ones. Yvonne? Not looking so good to me, sorry. And as for Dorothy Werner …”