Good Neighbors

by Joanne Serling

  “It’s the dog’s heart. So he’s real,” I explained, smiling back at her. Wondering if I was confusing her. Of course the dog wasn’t real. Of course the heart was a made-up contrivance. And yet I wanted her to play along. To understand the pleasure of a make-believe world.

  Winnie nodding enthusiastically and saying, “I do it,” taking the small cotton heart and sticking it where she was told. The girl telling her to push it through the stuffing to the front, so that it was in the right place. Winnie nodding, looking at her blankly, going along with it when the girl put her hand over Winnie’s and showed her how to maneuver it. Which meant what, exactly? That she was slow? Or that this particular activity didn’t make sense to her? I wasn’t sure. I tried to think about it, comparing her to Josh at that age and realizing how much more advanced Josh had been. Josh unnaturally verbal. Josh planning out the animal and all of its clothing before he even started stuffing the skin. Which could have been a function of being American, I told myself. Even though I doubted it.

  When the heart was in its proper place, the clerk asked us if we would like the dog to make noise. I looked at Winnie, expecting a blank face. No comprehension. But she nodded enthusiastically and said, “Yes, my dog talk.”

  I smiled. Pleased that she’d understood. Pleased that she was enjoying herself. Wandering over with her to the touch screen in the center of the floor. Winnie touching the buttons and grinning loudly at the animal sounds and pop music tunes that came spewing forth. Insisting I touch some of the icons, asking me, “Do you like?” when a loud, syncopated beat came on.

  “No, I do not like!” I said, “But do you like?”

  “Yes, please!” she said, rolling forward and backward on her feet again, a sort of rocking that I hadn’t noticed before today.

  We picked out the sound chip and put it in the dog, then asked the lady at the stuffing machine to sew the hole in the animal’s back. Winnie hugging her dog to her face as we walked toward where the clothing was.

  “Is it a boy or a girl?” I asked.

  “Is dog!” Winnie said, lowering her animal from her face so I could see how smart she was.

  “I know, silly. I mean a boy dog or a girl dog?”

  “I love my dog!” Winnie answered me, either not comprehending or not wanting to. I took a deep breath and said, “Do you want clothing?” holding up a white karate suit that I thought might fit her dog, then a tuxedo that looked too small. Rummaging around the rack to find a ruffled brown skirt in case she thought it was a girl.

  “No, thank you,” Winnie said, hugging her dog back to her face.

  “We can put it on the dog,” I said, not sure she understood. Widening the waist of the skirt and showing her how we would slip it on.

  “I love it,” Winnie said, her voice muffled, her mouth on the fur.

  “Okay then, no clothes,” I agreed, bending down to give her a hug. Thrilled when she reached her arms out from around the stuffed animal and tapped me on my neck. Pulling away from her and telling her, “Winnie, you’re the best.” My eyes unexpectedly teary. Blinking a few times to clear them before approaching the register. At the checkout, Winnie lifted herself on her tiptoes and placed the dog on the counter, smiling and saying, “My dog go home with me,” to the woman who was waiting on us.

  The woman smiling. The woman turning to me and saying, “Your daughter’s lovely,” in such a way that I could tell she meant it. Winnie was lovely. We were lovely together. Already I had a fantasy about all the wonderful memories Winnie would have about me when she grew older.

  “She’s not my daughter,” I said to the cashier, glad for the mistake but feeling the need to correct her. The woman looked confused. Not charmed. Like she wanted to understand the situation more concretely.

  “But you have the same smile.”

  We did? I hadn’t considered it. I was thrilled. Even though I knew I shouldn’t encourage this fantasy.

  “She’s adopted,” I said.

  The woman looked confused.

  “So she is your daughter, then?”

  “No. I mean, she’s a friend’s daughter. A friend’s adopted daughter,” I felt the need to add. Stupidly. The woman looked more perplexed, pushing her wire-rimmed glasses back up on her face, nodding her head like now she knew something she hadn’t known before. But what?

  “I like spending time with her,” I explained, hoping to turn things around. Hoping to inspire praise. But the woman merely handed me my change and a coupon for 20 percent off my next purchase. The conversation over. Her opinion of me now skewed in the wrong direction. Which was so frustrating. The way you could be so completely misunderstood and not able to explain yourself. The way you had so little control over the way people saw you.

  On the way home, I gave Winnie a Ziploc Baggie of chocolate ginger cookies. A handful of mini bears and cats and dogs from Trader Joe’s. Winnie daintily pulling the cookies from the bag one at a time and munching on them, occasionally making funny faces in the backseat and calling out to me to look at her. She was a cat with whiskers. She was a dog barking at the cookie.

  She was funny. She knew she was cute. I smiled and told her to keep going—to try being different animals. Not just cats and dogs but a monkey, too. Then an elephant. She obliged with a long “trunk” made with her arms. Scratching her head for the monkey. Which was rather advanced. Had she seen monkeys at the zoo with Paige? I hoped so. Even though I couldn’t imagine her at the zoo with Paige, the smells and the crowds, the heat and the cracked asphalt.

  “Try a giraffe,” I suggested.

  “What’s that?” Winnie asked, twisting her mouth into the sign of universal confusion, nearly resting her cheek on her shoulder as she gazed up at me in the rearview mirror.

  I explained about the neck and the spots and the big mouth that liked to eat leaves.

  “Aah!” she said, her face suddenly animated as she began to wave her neck back and forth as if trying to stretch it. I smiled and nodded encouragement. Amazed by her ingenuity. Amazed by her will to be admired and understood. Aware that this was the thing that had drawn me to her always. Her will to succeed at the business of love.

  Paige was home when we returned. I saw her white Lexus in the driveway. The model she’d claimed she hated and traded in for an Audi, which she claimed was defective. Now she was back to square one with a new version of the car she’d disliked and was starting to complain about again.

  “My mommy home!” Winnie said as we pulled up.

  I was happy that she was happy. Grateful that she was. Winnie’s love for her mother something positive I couldn’t deny.

  We parked in my driveway and then walked to the Edwardses’ house hand in hand. Paige had told me to text her a half hour before I was ready and she’d send Yazmin to my house for Winnie, but this seemed silly and unnecessary. Why not just drop her off?

  On Paige’s front stoop, I rang the bell and waited, but there were no footsteps. I tried the door to see if it was locked. A stiffness greeted me. Where was Cameron? Where was Paige? I waited a minute, then two. I rang again. Knocked with the knocker, a loud, foreboding sound that reminded me of a black-and-white horror movie. Still no answer.

  “Mommy’s probably outside,” I explained to Winnie, not wanting to alarm her.

  We walked to the back of the house and opened the gate in the hedge, calling softly, then louder, “Paige? Paige?” Nothing. Silence. Just the sounds of some men on the golf course, their cart whirring past. Walking up the bluestone steps to the stone terrace, peering through the French doors and into the Edwardses’ great room. The leather couches draped with fluffy white throw blankets. Paige’s horticulture books stacked neatly on the oversize coffee table. The room completely empty. Where the hell was Paige? And how could I rouse her if she was sleeping?

  From the dead suddenly popped into my head, which was ridiculous. Why would I imagine Paige dead? I pulled out my cell phone and dialed her number but the phone range straight through to voice mail.


  “Winnie, Mommy’s not here; let’s go to my house,” I said, turning to take her hand, to lead her out of the yard. My hand was shaking. Slightly. It gnawed at me, this total absence, as if Paige had chosen to leave their life, abandon Winnie. Why was I thinking this? I had no idea. It didn’t make sense. She had simply forgotten to be home. Or the babysitter had. There were dozens of possibilities, none of them scary. And yet my arm shook and my heart raced.

  We went home. I called Lorraine. I hated that I was calling Lorraine! It made me feel like a gossip and a troublemaker. But I had to call Lorraine. She knew everything about everyone, her phone calls peppered with news from every suburb west of Boston. Her nanny Beatriz filling her in on whatever she missed in the neighborhood. Lorraine answered on the first ring. “Thank God you have Winnie!” she said as soon as I finished my story.

  “What does that mean?” I asked, my heart beating faster, my hands shaking with adrenaline and excitement and fear.

  “We were looking for her.”

  “Who was?”

  “Beatriz. And the other mother who dropped off Cameron.”

  My fingers were turning cold. This was not going where I wanted it to go. Where I needed it to go. Somewhere mundane and uneventful. I needed to make it more mundane. Less eventful. I took out the metal mixing bowl, the one I used for baking and sometimes for cooking, and dumped in a package of raw chicken. I cradled the phone beneath my chin and listened to Lorraine as I added pepper, salt, garlic, some lemon. Winnie quietly drawing at the island, watching me.

  “Cameron had play practice, and I guess Paige arranged for another mother to drive him home. Beatriz happened to be in the driveway and saw the mother standing at Paige’s front door with Cameron, looking sort of tired and frustrated. Paige’s car is in the driveway, and the other mother is ringing the bell and looking out toward the neighborhood like, ‘Will someone come help me?’ So Beatriz called me. And I told her to go over and offer to help out.”

  I nodded, carefully cradling the phone beneath my neck and washing the raw chicken remains from my hands, pulling back the skin from my fingernails to get the bacteria that I feared had settled there.

  “The other mother’s name is Grace Keenan. She’s one of those perky blond women from Cameron’s private school. I’ve played tennis with her before.”

  “Where’s Paige?” I interrupted, knowing full well what the mothers from Cameron’s school looked like and not caring. “I mean, how did this resolve itself?”

  “Beatriz put me on the phone with Grace and after reassuring her about twenty times that I really was Paige’s friend, she let Beatriz take Cameron.”

  “My God, Grace Keenan is going to have a field day with this at drop-off tomorrow!”

  “Obviously!”

  “But where’s Paige?” I repeated.

  “We don’t know! We called the house and the cell but it just rings straight through to voice mail. You don’t think she did something crazy, do you?”

  My heart, which had slowed to a drumroll, started to beat wildly again, like a fluttering bird trapped in too small a space. “You mean you think she’s in there?”

  “Well, her car’s there!

  “Maybe a friend picked her up.”

  “And she forgot about Cameron coming home? No sitter? Nicole, think!”

  “Someone should call Gene.”

  “That’s what Drew’s doing.”

  “What does Drew think?”

  “He thinks Paige took some pills.”

  “Jesus Christ!” I muttered. Impressed by Drew’s street smarts. Even if you didn’t have to be a genius to come up with something like that. Just brave enough to imagine it. Or admit it.

  “Why do you have Winnie anyway?” Lorraine asked.

  “It’s a long story,” I said. Even though it wasn’t. I just didn’t feel like getting into it with Lorraine. Hearing her ponder my reasons for wanting to spend time with Winnie, which were amorphous, or dissect the fact that I’d run into Paige at the yoga studio. But Lorraine murmured something and let it drop.

  “You don’t think we should call an ambulance, do you?” I whispered. Embarrassed to even suggest it. Even though I feared what could happen if we didn’t.

  “An ambulance? Now? Today?” Lorraine shouted rather than asked.

  “I just thought…” I began, not sure what I thought. Hadn’t Lorraine just implied that Drew was worried about suicide? Or had I misunderstood something?

  “Someone’s clicking in,” she said. “I’ll call you right back.”

  I hung up. I put oil in a pan and placed the chicken cutlets in the oil. The oil jumping up and burning the corner of my chin. Fingering the skin as I leaned against the island and thought about making a salad. Setting the table. Cleaning the counters! But I couldn’t do anything but stare at the chicken. Aware that I should act, call the police, make a move to help Paige, to help Winnie and Cameron. Not just from this moment, but from a lifetime of moments. But I had to wait for Paige, hopeful that if she did emerge, she wasn’t sick, wasn’t in trouble, didn’t have a problem. Or that she could convincingly pretend that she didn’t. Hopeful, as I always was, that the very act of being alive and able to cover something up made you someone to believe in once again.

  In a little while—five minutes, ten—my phone rang. It was Lorraine. “Paige was asleep!” Lorraine said.

  “How do you know?” I asked, already unsure whom to trust, which version of this story would go on the record, which one would be correct.

  “Paige just called me panicked. She said she’d meant to close her eyes for a minute but had fallen asleep. Something about not sleeping well the night before.”

  “And she didn’t hear the phone or the bell?” I pressed, imagining a yellow pill bottle near her bed, fearful that she’d taken too many.

  “She’s fine!” Lorraine said. “Her bedroom door was closed.”

  The chicken was finished. I lifted it out of the oil and placed the pieces on a paper towel to drain. Did Lorraine believe this? Did I? In the end, did it matter what we believed?

  “So anyway, she said she’s sending Yazmin over to get Winnie. That’s how she woke up. Yazmin was running errands and came home to find Paige in her bedroom.”

  Yazmin to the rescue, I thought, wondering what it was that she knew.

  “What did Gene say?” I asked, curious and nervous about this last bit.

  “Drew never got him on the phone. He left him a message. Then Paige woke up.”

  I was adjusting something. My perception. My version. This wasn’t an incident. There was nothing dramatic about it. It was a misunderstanding. In a minute Yazmin rang my doorbell, even though the door was open, my welcome sign to all that they were free to rap on the glass and enter at will. I went to the door and looked out at Yazmin’s smooth brown face for some hint of alliance or knowledge or cover-up. But she merely looked back at me with neither fear nor knowledge. A studied look, I was sure. Practiced and perfected after many years. A look I couldn’t penetrate.

  LEFTOVERS, AGAIN

  LORRAINE STARTED AN E-MAIL chain about the leftovers party, insisting that we reserve a different cabin at a different park. Insisting that our kids couldn’t really enjoy themselves without Wi-Fi or a television set. Which was ludicrous. Wasn’t that the point of renting the cabin in the first place? To remove them from their creature comforts? To get them out of the house and into a different setting?

  Nobody agreeing on a new place or even on the ongoing benefit of our nature experiment, causing me to suggest that we simply move the party to December and I’d host it at my house. Everyone agreeing to a Saturday night in the middle of the month. Or at least most of us did. Nela a maybe, and Paige not responding to any of the e-mails. Which irritated Lorraine—who said that no matter what you had going on, you should have basic manners—but didn’t bother or surprise me at all. Of course Paige wouldn’t respond. The nonresponse the perfect response. So she could decide last minute whether she was up for i
t. The sleeping incident no doubt embarrassing her. Nela merely more obvious in her desire to not commit to us. Nela claiming she had a half dozen work and family commitments that hadn’t been firmed up yet. And it was only October!

  But now that our gathering was on the calendar, it was the perfect excuse to do some early holiday baking with Lucas. Eager to find a way to connect with him. Eager to do something other than discipline and lecture him.

  It was a Sunday. Josh and Jay at some mini soccer academy when I suggested we make cookies and freeze them for the party. Lucas enthusiastic about the idea. Getting out the flour and the sugar, laughing when I told him to smell the vanilla, then taste the bitter difference.

  I let Lucas measure. I let Lucas pour. I let Lucas hold the electric mixer, my hands over his. Thrilled with our progress. Thrilled we were enjoying ourselves. Lucas in green overalls I adored, their old-fashioned style making him appear younger than he was, innocent and easygoing.

  When the eggs were cracked and the sugar added more or less correctly to the butter, I let Lucas hold the mixer by himself. Aware of how much he loved electronics. Aware of how much he would love the whir of the spinning beaters. But almost immediately, Lucas turned the mixer to high speed, ignoring my calls to turn it down. Lucas lifting the blades into the air to show me how slow they were going, flinging batter across my kitchen cupboards. I grabbed the plug from the wall and wrenched the mixer away from him. Furious and frustrated as I explained about the importance of following directions.

  Lucas was silent.

  “Let’s begin again,” I said, trying not to notice the splotches of batter that surrounded us, handing him the bowl of dry ingredients and asking him to pour it slowly into my mixing bowl. Lucas pouring the first bit out slowly, then growing impatient and dumping out the whole bowl into the wet batter.

  “Do you like cookies?” I demanded, shutting off the handheld mixer and putting it down on the counter. Aware that I should have purchased an expensive Mixmaster long ago, but still insisting on making do with this one.