Good Neighbors

by Joanne Serling

  I dialed Penny again.

  The phone ringing through to voice mail. No room for messages. I told myself that could mean anything, not necessarily a long bender. I called Penny’s house phone and learned it was disconnected. My heart beating wildly, I wondered if I should call my mother. Aware that wasn’t an answer either one of us wanted. I held my face in my hands, counting the seconds until someone might need me, unable to decide which was worse—being alone with my sorrow and hopelessness or trying to act normal with the rest of the family.

  In the distance I heard the doorbell ding-donging in a slow succession through the foyer, which seemed like an answer. I pushed myself up from the couch and followed the narrow beam of my flashlight through the front hall and around the corner to the kitchen. Drew and Jay standing near the granite island discussing how much gasoline to buy for our generator or whether to wait a few hours to see if the lights would come back on. Drew fingering his beard with his thumb and his forefinger. Nela and the kids still in their coats and boots. Nela calling out to me as soon as she saw me, saying she was so sorry to barge in like this!

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, waving her off. “Let me make you hot chocolate,” I offered, hugging Sebastian and Matias, laughing at their long hair, wild with static electricity. Squeezing Sophia’s hand, pretending this was a fun moment for an impromptu party. Terrified my sister was wandering around, about to be hit by a car or somehow taken advantage of. Penny a petite brunette who could be easily overpowered. Penny once showing up at Thanksgiving with tiny hatch marks all over her face, marks she claimed she’d gotten from falling into some branches. As if a mulberry bush could do something like that! Suddenly wondering what Nela would think if she knew about Penny’s drinking or everything we went through as children. Wondering if she would cut me a break for being white and seemingly spoiled. But my urge to tell her was no match for my urge to cover it up, to pretend that everything was normal, to prove that I was.

  I busied myself with the instant hot chocolate while Jay mouthed, “Who was on the phone?” his back to the Guzman-Venieros.

  “Penny,” I mouthed, waiting for his reaction.

  Jay shrugging his narrow shoulders. Jay mouthing, “Sorry,” which made me want to kill him. For his pat remark. For never understanding how responsible I felt! Even though I knew how much he loved me. Jay reaching out to rub my hair, to call me “Poodle” before returning to his machinery discussion.

  In another moment, Jay asked, “What do you think, fire up the generator or wait a couple of hours?”

  “You can wait,” I said, not eager to have him leave.

  “What about the food that will spoil?” he asked, antsy, I knew, to show off his preparedness plan. He’d strung two generators together with a custom cord that doubled their capacity. The whole rig stored on a cart with holes for rain and a tarp to protect it from wind gusts. Jay an engineer before he became a financial analyst.

  “Don’t worry about the fridge,” I answered, eager for fewer problems to worry about, not more.

  “What about all the food in the freezer?” Jay insisted. “You have a ridiculous amount of steak and chicken in there!”

  I shrugged. I didn’t answer. Hadn’t he insisted we have lots of extra food in the house in case of catastrophe? I heard the doorbell ring again.

  It was Lorraine with a bottle of Grey Goose in her hand, the boys trailing behind her. Gabe looking more and more like his mother, with his easy smile and straight dirty-blond hair, Jesse dark and thin like his father. Both of the boys pushing past their mother and clomping their way to my basement in their wet boots while Lorraine handed Jay the vodka.

  “Should we start drinking?” Lorraine asked, looking around, I could see, for a glass. Her pageboy tousled and newly colored, a strand of pearls at the neck of her cashmere sweater. Didn’t she ever just throw on sweatpants?

  “I’ll take mine straight up with lots of ice,” Drew said, smiling and nudging me slightly.

  I pushed Drew playfully with my shoulder as Jay went for the ice, my mood buoyed by the possibility of alcohol and camaraderie. Telling myself there was nothing I could do about my sister with a house full of people and no electricity. Aware that I’d surrounded myself with a lifetime of people for exactly this purpose.

  Next to me, Lorraine started to pour vodka on the rocks as she regaled us with a story about passing Paige and Gene in the street.

  “They booked a room at the Mandarin Oriental. A suite!” Lorraine said.

  “Of course they did,” Drew said, shaking his ice cubes, trying his first sip of vodka. In front of me, Nela raised her eyebrows, causing a flow of ripples across her high forehead, the implication being, of course, that the Mandarin was the worst possible indulgence you could engage in at a time like this.

  “Paige loves the Mandarin,” I said, ignoring Nela’s judgment and pointing out what everyone surely knew, namely that Paige was a fan of the Mandarin even when there wasn’t a blackout. Especially when there wasn’t a blackout! Going there regularly to enjoy the spa and the pool and the hushed atmosphere of money. No doubt enjoying the way the hotel staff called her “Mrs. Edwards” and kissed her ass for the generous tips she always left. Which I understood wholeheartedly. The desire for luxury nearly the same as the desire for privacy, both of them protecting you, making you feel invincible. Suddenly wishing I was at a hotel, too. Glad that Winnie was there and wondering what she would make of such opulence.

  Slowly we abandoned the kitchen and settled into my gray velvet couches. Tea lights scattered on my glass coffee table; all of us sipping our healthy shots of vodka as Drew leaned forward and announced that he had a solution, not just to the present blackout but to the constant lack of services we experienced. The recycling trucks frequently passing us by. The plows ignoring our cul-de-sac.

  We leaned forward, anxious to hear what he had to say.

  “Doesn’t what’s-her-face have a brother in the councilman’s office?” Drew asked, pointing to the house next to mine. The house dark except for the kitchen, where a congregation of people could be seen huddled around a table, a lantern lighting up their faces and the gleaming refrigerator behind them.

  “The Williamses?” I asked.

  “Her brother is, like, big in Boston politics!” Drew said. “How could you not know that?”

  Everyone nodding like this fact explained something. Which maybe it did. Drew’s ideas half-cocked but sometimes working. Drew once bribing a security guard to get us backstage at Blue Hills Bank Pavilion.

  “So we call Debbie Williams and we see if she can work the back channels; I mean, those city guys are totally plugged in at the state level. Her complaint could go straight to the governor.”

  “We live in the suburbs, not Boston,” I pointed out, amused and grateful for the distraction from my sister’s well-being. Aware that as soon as I thought this, it wasn’t working anymore. My guilt and my worry flooding back to me. Why hadn’t I been a better sister to Penny? I barely called her. I always tried to get off the phone with her. I was overwhelmed by all the problems she was experiencing—with her unemployment benefits or why she could no longer teach piano. Things she’d hinted at that I couldn’t follow. Things that didn’t fully make sense—about carpal tunnel syndrome and a lawyer who overcharged her. But look at me—wasn’t I just a tiny bit shallow, scheming and joking with my friends about how to get the governor to help us while Penny wandered the streets, drunk and no doubt depressed that Bob had left her? I hated myself and I loved my life, and the two things seemed irreconcilable in my living room.

  Abruptly the subject switched to Stephanie Peterson and her new natural gas generator. Everyone getting up and walking into my dining room to try to make out the outline of the Petersons’ generator in the darkness.

  “It’s too fucking loud,” Nela complained.

  “I’m sure they rip you off on the maintenance,” Jay added.

  “I’m calling Olsen’s tomorrow. They do it fast and th
ey service it,” Lorraine said, always quick to spend her sizable divorce settlement to avoid the first hint of a struggle.

  “You and the rest of the neighborhood,” I joked as we returned to my living room. Eager to be part of the good-humored complaining. Knowing I would have to leave everyone soon. Would have to try to track down Penny. Guilty I wasn’t looking for her now. Certain a better person would have jumped on an airplane and gone searching for her. Certain that Lorraine would do it, probably even Drew and Nela. Even though I doubted they’d ever had to deal with something like this. Which made me feel ashamed and alone and completely helpless.

  “Let’s make a big batch of something,” Drew said, done with his back-channel scheming and ready to start cooking.

  “Definitely,” Lorraine agreed. She’d had at least two drinks but didn’t seem drunk. If anything, Lorraine merely got more energetic when she drank, more up for anything, including making an elaborate dinner in this case. “We have all this defrosted turkey meat in the fridge. Let me go get it,” she offered now, looking toward Drew to see if he would get it for her.

  “I have the world’s best hot sauce,” Drew said, not budging. “Here, take my key and I’ll explain where it is. It’s easy.”

  The room spontaneously bursting into laughter. Nela and Drew’s kitchen was decked out with state-of-the-art appliances, yet famous for its state of disarray, their refrigerator packed haphazardly with Styrofoam takeout containers and half-eaten casseroles. My cell phone suddenly buzzing, the strange number from earlier flashing. I lunged for the phone and hustled out of the room with a flashlight before anyone could ask me anything. Running up our spiral staircase, whispering, “Penny, I’m here. Don’t go, okay?”

  Quietly shutting my bedroom door, I walked farther into my suite, happy to be surrounded by the chocolate-brown walls and thick cream carpeting. None of it visible in the darkness but all of it a comfort to me nonetheless as I positioned myself on the tufted chaise we kept there, hugging my knees in my arms as I waited for Penny to say something.

  “Phyllis won’t help me!” she slurred, referring to our mother by her first name, the way she always did.

  “How do you know? Did you call her?” I asked, dreading the thought of my mother now calling me, too. Our mother furious that Penny hadn’t joined AA and gotten on with her life the way all the celebrities seemed to do. My mother always pointing out the rehab stories in People magazine to me, then talking about what great looks Penny had. As if the two were somehow linked: good looks and an ability to conquer your problems.

  “They say I could die!” Penny said, not bothering to answer my question.

  “Who says you could die?” I asked, confused and also desperate for some authority. For someone who wasn’t Penny to be telling me these things.

  On the other end of the phone, Penny started to sob again, deep, heaving sobs that I pictured racking her frail and beleaguered body. The last time I’d seen her, she’d been thinner than she was in childhood, which made me think she didn’t eat properly.

  “Ask Phyllis to bring my stuff to the hospital,” she said between tears. “You know how my skin is.”

  “Okay,” I said, casting around wildly for another solution, aware that without Bob there was none. My sister suffering from lifelong eczema. Claiming that only three hundred thread count could soothe her ravaged skin. My mother outraged that I had gifted the sheets to Penny on more than one occasion. Insisting that I spoiled her. On the other end of the line, I heard loud voices: someone shouting, then the phone dropping loudly in my ear, Penny in the background shouting, “Here, come here!”

  “Who are you talking to?” I shouted.

  I could hear muffled voices arguing, then a woman’s voice, annoyed and businesslike, saying into the receiver, “Hello? Is this a family member?”

  I was suddenly embarrassed. To be the person associated with Penny.

  “Yes,” I said, trying to sound authoritative.

  “Do you wish to pay for this person’s detox?” the voice asked.

  “Oh,” I said, surprised, although why was I? What had I thought the thirty-five hundred was for? Penny never direct with what she was asking, which always left us plenty of wiggle room to pretend we weren’t talking about the things that we were.

  The woman took my credit card number, then said, “Your sister came in earlier but she doesn’t have insurance. We gave her some pills to take the edge off, but she came back. She thinks she’s dying. Which is normal.”

  So Penny thought she could die, not the hospital staff. Which was a relief. Even if it was infuriating. The way everything always got so twisted up with my sister. The truth always buried under layers of detritus.

  * * *

  I hung up the phone and dialed my mother. Quickly. Before I could change my mind or get nervous. My mother exploding when I told her where Penny was. My mother saying, “She probably cracked up the car getting there!” Which was so shocking. I hadn’t even thought of this. Why was she introducing this?

  “Do you know she’s driving with a suspended license?” my mother continued, barely pausing. “She told me that you told her it was okay.”

  As always, my mother was going too fast for me.

  “I think I told her she should go to a driver’s ed class to get it back,” I said, trying to remember if the license was suspended or merely expired. Trying to figure out why my mother was focused on this!

  “You think it’s funny if she goes to jail for a DWI? Who do you think is going to bail her out? Are you going to fly here from Massachusetts and take care of things? Of course not.”

  “Mom, she’s not in jail! She’s in detox. Or a psych ward. Or some combination of both. I’m not sure how these things work.”

  “Of course you don’t know. Because you don’t bother to educate yourself!” my mother roared.

  “I’ve been to Al-Anon!” I shouted, immediately embarrassed by my sudden outburst, afraid someone downstairs might hear me.

  “Oh yeah? When? How many times? You drank with her the last time she was here. You bought wine coolers and drank with her!” my mother screamed at me.

  “That was five years ago!” I shouted, unable to contain myself and furious that we were still talking about this incident.

  “You think you know everything. That’s why Penny’s in this situation!”

  “How did I cause this? How?” I hissed at her, reaching up to grab the roots of my thick, curly hair, tugging in fury and frustration.

  “You told her it was my fault she dropped out of college!”

  “That was fifteen years ago!” I screamed, unable to restrain myself.

  “It’s a pattern!” my mother shouted at me. “If you didn’t enable her, she wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  “I think Penny could use some bedding,” I said, lowering my voice and letting go of my hair. “You know how itchy she gets.”

  My mother guffawed.

  “Bob broke up with her,” I added, hoping this might trigger some sympathy from my mother, even though my mother had been single twenty-plus years and never even dated, a state she implied made her both stronger and smarter than her friends, many of whom had remarried and divorced again.

  “I can’t do it. I’m too old!” my mother shouted, ignoring the issue of Bob altogether. “I have diabetes. Do you realize that?”

  I did realize that. Sort of. Even though I tried to forget about it, too. My mother’s enormous weight gain and her ill health. Loath to point out to her that her compulsive overeating wasn’t so different from Penny’s drinking. Furious she couldn’t see it for herself!

  “Can’t you ask a friend to pick up the sheets from Penny’s apartment?” I asked, a tone of frustration and subtle judgment creeping into my voice. A tone I immediately regretted. Hugging my knees and closing my eyes as I waited for the bomb blast of retaliation.

  “You disgust me!” my mother began to shout. “I raised two daughters alone on a secretary’s salary, and you sit in that b
ig house with your husband and your money and dare to judge me!”

  “I’m not judging you,” I insisted, my eyes clenched shut, trying to breathe my way through the tunnel she was now taking me through.

  “How would you like it if Lucas or Josh were in the hospital? Huh?”

  I grabbed my wrist and sank my nails into my pale white flesh.

  “God forbid you should understand one day.”

  I dug my nails deeper. Refusing to answer her. Refusing to let her know how upset she had gotten me. After a pause, my mother blew her nose loudly and asked, “Are you still there, or did you conveniently hang up on me?”

  “Just forget the whole situation. I’ll buy the sheets and have them shipped,” I offered, releasing my nails from my skin, breathing deeply so that my mother wouldn’t hear the tears that were now bunched up at the back of my throat.

  “Fine. You handle it!” my mother shouted, starting to cry again.

  I knew I should say something kind to my mother now. Something supportive that reassured her that she’d been a good mother in a tough situation. That Penny was responsible for herself. But I just wasn’t capable of putting on that particular record. It felt scratchy and ruined and the words simply couldn’t find their way to the surface.

  “We’re in the middle of a blackout,” I said, aware that this was a way out of the conversation. My mother started crying more loudly, her words no longer intelligible. I told her to get some rest. I told her she was overwhelmed. I hung up the phone and immediately felt sorry for her. Trying to imagine what I would do if I had a child who was an alcoholic and struggling, the thought chilling in the bleak gray air of the dressing room. Not willing to picture Lucas or Josh in my sister’s situation. My empathy for my mother growing like an ink stain, blotting out my fury. Embarrassed about digging my nails into my skin. Wondering how I would hide the marks, from my friends, and from Jay, who hated the habit and thought I should have long ago learned to handle my mother.