Good Neighbors

by Joanne Serling

  Gene came home early from work. I saw his silver Mercedes glide into the Edwardses’ short, curving driveway and disappear behind the house. I checked my watch. Almost three o’clock. Was he playing golf? I knew I should look away. Clean a closet. Get a job! But I stood at my desk, staring out my office window.

  In a few minutes, Winnie and Cameron stepped onto the front stoop holding giant lollipops, licking the edges round and round. Winnie’s hands covered in mitts, or maybe they were socks? From around the corner, Gene came out of the garage with Wiffle balls. A batting stand. White rubber bases were tossed around the yard and Matias and Sebastian came to join them. Teams were formed, Winnie the permanent cheering section. I knew I could go over, too. Bring my boys. Subtly ask why Gene was home, whether anything was the matter. But I preferred to stay where I was. Content to watch the action from behind my windowpanes. The scene charming and animated when observed from a certain distance.

  * * *

  Gene stayed home the rest of that week. The children outside with him in the afternoons. Winnie usually on the stoop doing something with chalk while Gene and Cameron ran around the yard. Cameron clumsy. Awkward. Tripping over branches or else throwing a Wiffle ball badly. Gene in turns patient and frustrated. All of this observed by me from my office window, if also ignored. Not eager to find out what Gene was doing home. Not eager to find out what was or wasn’t happening with Winnie’s surgery, her urge to scratch. The days flipping slowly forward until it was the weekend again. Until Gene was supposed to be home.

  On Sunday, Drew bought a croquet set from an estate sale: ten wooden mallets and matching striped balls. Lorraine suggesting a neighborhood tournament and Paige insisting on hosting us. Pastel-colored macarons set out on a doily-covered plate when we arrived just after lunchtime, miniature cocktail napkins fanned out next to sweating pitchers of lemonade.

  But nearly as soon as we arrived, the croquet mallets chosen and the spikes spaced out accordingly, Paige wanted to escape. To get away from the tournament and the children and the sunshine.

  “Come inside,” she said to Nela and Lorraine and me. I tried to inch closer to where Josh was studying his striped green ball; eager to see if he could complete the complicated technique Jay was insisting on explaining to him. Josh’s mouth a straight line in his slack and pudgy face. His focus far exceeding his years.

  “Don’t you think we should make sure a fight doesn’t break out?” I asked, trying to delay the inevitable. Being cornered. Being monopolized. Being stuck in the house with Paige, far from our husbands and our children with no ready-made excuse to get away from her.

  “I have to show you something,” Paige insisted, laying her pale arm on my shoulder in a gesture of sisterhood and solidarity. I snuck a peek at Nela and Lorraine, who, I knew, were relieved it wasn’t their arms she was touching. Nela in the same tight Harvard T-shirt she wore every weekend; her breasts straining against the faded burgundy fabric. Lorraine in tennis whites and a full face of makeup, obviously on her way somewhere else. Which was astounding. Wasn’t it her idea to have this tournament?

  Inside, on the marble island, there was a black velvet jewelry envelope, a name I didn’t catch embossed on the cover. Paige already reaching for it by the time I’d settled onto one of her bar stools. Paige opening it up to reveal a ruby and diamond necklace, the diamonds brilliant, the rubies like liquid wine, beautiful and exotic.

  “Birthday?” Lorraine practically shouted, nervous, I knew, that we’d somehow missed the occasion and would now look foolish with what could only be an inferior group present. Paige smiling a mercurial smile, bending her long, slender neck forward to clasp the choker behind her hairline, then lifting her chin and spreading her shoulders so that we could better admire the jewels that now lay perfectly along the prominent bones of her neckline. They were stunning. Magnificent. The contrast with her hair making her ethereal beauty even more dignified.

  “Anniversary?” shouted Lorraine again, determined to guess the occasion that had motivated such an extravagant gesture.

  “Gene brought it home earlier this week,” Paige said. “I told him no baby gift, but he insisted. I think he’s feeling a little bit jealous of Winnie,” Paige continued, pressing her pale lips together, her cheek color rising.

  I felt the fullness of her statement settle into my chest. “Earlier this week” just so happened to be when Paige might or might not have tied Winnie to a chair. Been out of control.

  “So anyway, besides the necklace, Gene decided to stay home with me. He couldn’t do it before. You know how much he travels…”

  We nodded. We knew. He was an executive at some expensive tableware company, traveling to Italy at least once quarterly, not to mention his domestic travel.

  “So anyway, if you see him around, that’s why,” Paige said, looking carefully at each of us in turn.

  I suspected all of this to be false. Not the particulars: that Gene loved her. That Gene had bought a lavish baby gift for her. But the reason for it, surely. Convinced that Paige needed to be propped up. Reassured of something. That she now wanted to reassure us, too.

  “Evan once tried to pawn off somebody else’s jewels on me!” Lorraine said, apropos of nothing. Or maybe apropos of this. Eager to show Paige how much better off she was in the love department than she had been. All of us turning to look at Lorraine.

  “We got engaged three months after we met—and he didn’t have a ring because it was sort of spur of the moment, which I thought was romantic,” Lorraine said, fingering her blond pageboy as if remembering the failed possibility.

  “So, a week later, Evan comes to me and shows me this huge diamond that he says was in his family, and asks what kind of ring do I want made?” Lorraine continued. “So I say, ‘Gee, Evan, that’s a big diamond. Where’d you get that?’ because I just could not picture Evan’s mother or grandmother wearing something like that. I mean, it must have been four karats, a huge pear shape, but sort of ugly, with obvious inclusions. And Evan says, ‘Well, I bought it for my ex, but I figured you wouldn’t mind if we used it.’”

  “That’s fucked up!” Nela said, reaching for one of Paige’s perfectly polished apples on the island and taking a loud bite out of it. All of us looking at her as if she’d just fired a gun. Nobody just reached for things in Paige’s house. Paige once yelled at Lucas for helping himself to a Kleenex.

  But Paige seemed not to notice, so intent was she on Lorraine’s story. Fingering the necklace and shaking her head from side to side in polite agreement about Evan’s gauche behavior.

  “Evan didn’t understand. We almost didn’t get married. Can you believe how different my life would have been if we hadn’t?”

  I couldn’t imagine it. It was strange to think about. Would there be another family in Lorraine’s house if she hadn’t married Evan to begin with? Would we all be belong to each other without Lorraine, who had brought us together and insisted we were like family?

  “Drew and I bought silver bands from a flea market when we got married,” Nela said, smiling and crunching into her apple again. “Our fingers turned green on the honeymoon, so we had to throw them out.”

  I looked at her and smiled. Aware that she didn’t really give a shit about Paige’s routine or about Lorraine’s story. Nela intent on showing us how different she was from us, how we couldn’t understand the first thing about her. Which I understood, even if I thought it was self-serving. To be so convinced that other people couldn’t possibly understand you. To not bother to try to understand them, either.

  But neither Paige nor Lorraine seemed to notice Nela’s disinterest, or her derision. Paige leaning back against one of her mahogany cabinets, pleased, I could tell, with the attention she was receiving, and also with the success of her story. The fact that we all seemed to believe her cover-up. I sensed that’s what it was—a cover-up—even though I had not one shred of proof to rely on.

  * * *

  After that first week, Gene stayed home for three da
ys, still around, but not quite so present in the front yard with the kids and the games and the candy. Once I saw him cruise by in their Mercedes convertible with Paige in the front seat, both of them waving at me. Paige admitting later that they’d had a couples massage at the Mandarin spa, which I thought was nice for them, if a little weird. In the middle of an afternoon on a Tuesday.

  The following week Gene was home for two days, and Lorraine made plans to play tennis with him on one of the afternoons. The other afternoon I ran into him at Home Depot with Winnie, his cart stacked with wicker storage baskets. Gene talking to Winnie in a high voice as I rounded the corner. Saying something I couldn’t make out, his face close to hers as if he’d recently kissed her on the forehead. I felt my eyes tear up with gratitude that Winnie had a father who so clearly adored her, making a point to stop and say hello, even though Gene never seemed eager to engage with me. A fact that embarrassed me.

  “A full-time nanny and Paige needs me to help organize the third-floor bonus room,” Gene said, rolling his eyes as soon as I asked him what he was up to.

  “How’s the eye?” I asked, nodding toward Winnie, whose left eye was still red and swollen. Wanting to let him know I was supportive, hoping I didn’t sound nosy.

  “Perfect. Everything’s on schedule. We’re going back to Boston on Monday,” he insisted with false friendliness. His normally handsome face appearing puffier than usual. His hands clutching the cart too tightly.

  I nodded. The silence stretched out. I wished I could ask Gene something more about Winnie. But already he was moving his giant cart away from me, Winnie smiling and waving as Gene said, “We’re off to get wooden hangers.”

  In the final week of Gene Edwards’s supposedly romance-filled paternity leave, he was home just one day, a Friday, when he and Paige were spotted in town by Lorraine.

  “They were definitely not holding hands!” Lorraine reported to me. “Paige was furious with him. I think he was letting the kids drink soda!”

  RETREAT

  GENE WAS BACK AT work and the weather was consistently warmer when Paige retreated into her house and wouldn’t come out. She didn’t stand on her stoop to supervise the kids on her lawn or invite us for drinks at her pool. She didn’t return phone calls or even preside over her gardener as he labored around her yard. Paige, who had studied landscape design and always had an opinion. Paige, who had ripped up the Mediterranean-style beds the previous owner had installed and replaced them with an English floral design. Not that anyone could tell the difference.

  But now there were no marathon planning sessions in the front yard. No scolding of neighbors to keep their dogs off her flowers. Cameron and Winnie were seen with the nanny, or with Gene, who took them to our houses on weekends. The other kids accepting Winnie’s presence as if she’d always been one of them. Everyone happy to watch the children play kickball or freeze tag, to trade gossip and share cocktails, to pretend it was just another season in our ongoing idyll of childhood and parenting. The days wonderfully long and happy except for the static that hung over Paige’s house. Where was she? Gene hinting at shopping trips and spa visits. Gene rolling his eyes at her need for yoga and calming respites. His smile and jocular manner still on display, even if I sensed a hint of melancholia, a certain wariness just beneath the surface.

  Nela not interested in Gene’s mental state. Nela appalled by Paige’s absence, criticizing Paige to anyone who would listen. Eager to point out that no one had the luxury to indulge oneself in the neighborhood that Nela had grown up in. Drew nodding his head vigorously like he agreed with Nela, even if he seemed more amused by Paige’s absence. Lorraine endlessly speculating. Wondering what Paige did all day. She couldn’t get massages and go to the mall endlessly! Lorraine’s stories repetitive, unfounded, full of gaps and holes we couldn’t fill in. Like whether Paige sometimes drove around late at night. (Drew claiming that her car pulled out frequently at eleven p.m.) Like whether she was seeing a doctor who told her to get more rest. Soon it was August. Paige’s absence having gone on for nearly three months, and still Lorraine wanted to talk about it.

  “She blew off Faye Crosby’s fortieth birthday party!” Lorraine reported one cool evening, the sky milky, with hints of gray at the edges. Lorraine in her Range Rover, still in her work clothes, parked in front of my driveway to chat like she always did on her way home from the office. If I wasn’t outside, she’d pull into my driveway, ring the bell, walk in before I answered. Not that I minded. Most of the time.

  “And it was at Paige’s own club,” Lorraine added. As if this were the ultimate faux pas. Not showing your face at your club. I nodded. I didn’t care. Or rather, I did care, but not in the way that Lorraine did. I didn’t need to wonder and analyze and discuss. I already thought I knew what I thought. That Paige had had some sort of breakdown. Some sort of collapse in confidence. Which could be good, in a way, I told myself. Promising. People got better after such a thing, didn’t they? If they got help. I imagined Paige resting as she gathered her wits about her, or even talking to someone that Gene had found for her, and I felt better just knowing it. That in the darkness of her room, Paige was morphing from one person into another. Someone calmer. Someone better able to manage the stress of parenting an adopted daughter.

  “Well, maybe Paige is seeing a professional,” I said vaguely, unsure where Lorraine stood on therapy. Lorraine shrugged. She wasn’t really interested in the specifics of what was wrong with Paige. In how she could or couldn’t get better. She was interested in reporting the news. In showing me how Paige was strange. Indefinable. A mystery for us to solve.

  Or maybe she didn’t really care about the mystery at all. Maybe she merely wanted to string sentences together, to bind us closer with what she considered a shared but ultimately minor concern. Surely she thought Paige’s absence was minor; otherwise why would she be talking about it in the same way she talked about everything else? The new bar at Charlie’s Steakhouse or the no-texting rule at her country club pool? All of it reported with the same mix of frustration and amusement. All of it fodder for conversation, an excuse for daily discussion.

  I waited for Lorraine to switch topics. I knew that she would. In the next breath, Lorraine wanted to know what I was doing Saturday night. Was I going to the Lipmanns’ party, or was I still annoyed with Diana for what she’d done at the school book fair last fall?

  I told her I was annoyed. I told her I hated Diana Lipmann! I told her we were going anyway because it was a party, wasn’t it? And besides, I liked Roger Lipmann. He was funny and smart, even if he was bald and had lost too much weight. Which didn’t make him look good. It made him look old. Lorraine agreed. Lorraine was the kind of woman who never had to lose weight.

  “I’m having a fiftieth birthday party for Jeffrey this winter,” Lorraine said, referring to her boyfriend apropos of nothing, suddenly turning off her engine.

  “Fun,” I said, surprised that Jeffrey was so much older than the rest of us.

  “Do you think I should do passed hors d’oeuvres or a buffet?”

  I sighed. I didn’t care! Couldn’t she decide later? But clearly Lorraine needed this diversion. This task she’d created for herself. To free herself from her own boredom or else from anxiety about her present and her future. Of course I understood this. Of course I could see the entertainment value in this. It was why I wanted to go back to work. Was even now weighing the pros and cons of asking my old boss for freelance work. So that I could have something concrete to focus on, something with hard edges and clear rewards. The opposite of kids, with their murky motives and strange behaviors. The opposite of neighbors who were unpredictable and made you worry.

  I tried to get into the spirit of Lorraine’s party planning. Together we considered the benefits of a rented dance floor. Of a red carpet rolled out from her stoop to the curb. The Sutherlands had done it. Which I thought was lovely and my decorator had claimed was tacky.

  “Jason Fried would totally give me a deal on a chart
er if I wanted to make it a destination thing,” Lorraine said, starting to explain how Jason, our neighbor who owned a small jet-for-hire business, had kissed her once in middle school. How hot he once was, before he developed a twitch.

  I started to protest about the flying, but Lorraine’s cell phone rang. Jeffrey’s voice suddenly booming from the dashboard. Lorraine telling him about a client’s funeral and then instructing him to make a dinner reservation for the weekend. Which was so annoying. Having to listen to their minutiae. So embarrassing! Not telling Jeffrey he was on speakerphone. I mouthed, “Go. Talk to Jeffrey!” and Lorraine nodded, waved distractedly, then kept talking as she turned on the engine and rolled down the street.

  I went inside and stared out my kitchen window toward Paige’s imposing brick Tudor. I imagined her resting in her pale yellow bedroom, the shades drawn, someone attending to her once, twice, maybe three times a day. Yazmin maybe. Or some temporary person she’d hired. Paige’s shrill voice weakened with illness and fatigue. Her body listless. I imagined her drinking weak tea and contemplating her mistakes, or else not contemplating anything at all. Just miraculously changing into someone calmer and more loving, into her best and truest self. I believed this image with every fiber of my being; I believed this in a way that wasn’t even belief but some hard kernel of knowledge that I carried inside me always, like faith. That if you waited long enough, the people you loved would become the people you wanted them to be.

  I left the window and rummaged around in my refrigerator for dinner. Paige already replaced in my mind with images of Penelope; feeling guilty that I hadn’t called my sister in months, hopeful that the money I was sending her was enough of a remedy. Aware Penny didn’t want to talk to me, either. At least not consistently. The phone ringing. Nervous that it was Penny and pretty certain that it was. Caller ID confirming my hunch. Unable to ignore her now that I’d inadvertently conjured her. I picked up the receiver and answered with a cheery, “Hi, Penny!” Eager to appear happy. Welcoming. Hopeful we could start on good footing.