Good Neighbors

by Joanne Serling

  “You want money from me?” my mother asked, starting to cry again.

  “I want you to stop destroying yourself,” I said softly. Aware that I hadn’t been thinking this until the words were out of my mouth.

  “Your sister is killing me!” my mother began to wail, crying uncontrollably now.

  “Penny is a smart girl,” I said. Something I hadn’t fully given her credit for until I was saying it on my lawn.

  “So why does she drink? Why is she so moody and difficult all the time?”

  “Mom!” I shouted, staring up at the canopy of barren branches just above me.

  “What?” she shouted back.

  “You can’t change other people,” I offered, knowing this was inane and also simplistic. Something I no doubt got from some self-help book about men I read in my twenties. Or from the one time I’d gone to Al-Anon.

  “So what should I do? Watch her drink herself to death?” she asked. “Give her money whenever she asks for it?”

  “Is she asking you for money?” I asked, shocked.

  “I don’t want you bringing wine coolers to my house again!” my mother retorted. I breathed deeply, not willing to take the bait. Instead I asked, “Mom, remember when you first met Jay? When he came home with me from Amherst senior year?”

  Unbelievably, my mother started to laugh through her tears. “I asked him to take down the lightbulbs from the hall closet and then stood directly behind him.”

  “Exactly. He had no idea you were there and clocked you with his elbow!”

  “Typical Phyllis!” my mother admitted.

  “Remember, the next morning, you wore the pirate patch!”

  “I did! With that hat with the feather from the dress-up clothes in the attic.”

  We were both silent, remembering the aura of happiness. The creeping hint of the start of something new.

  “You seemed so much happier then,” I prodded softly. Even though it was possible this was just my reimagining of the situation. Wanting to believe my mother had had the chance to seize her future once Penny and I were out of the house.

  Silence from my mother, who seemed to be considering what I was saying.

  After a moment, she said, “I was younger then. And thinner. And I didn’t have diabetes!”

  “Well, go to the gym,” I persisted.

  “Do you know how much a gym membership costs? I’m living on a fixed income!”

  “How about a Jane Fonda video? Or whoever the new Jane Fonda is. It’s fun. The music really gets you motivated,” I lied. I hated working out at home.

  My mother paused as if considering it, then said, “Nobody loves me!” and started crying again.

  “You’re mad at yourself. You’re killing yourself!” I insisted, eager to say it as much for myself as I was for her. Aware that my sister’s suffering had both nothing and something to do with her present condition.

  My mother still sobbing as I walked back into my kitchen, examining the cupboards I’d recently cleaned. The same streaks of oil and old food still visible in the sunlight if you knew where to look for them. Pleased that I’d at least tried. Determined that next time I’d have the right vinegar or Murphy Oil Soap solution to remove the food without stripping the finish. My mother eventually calming down enough to tell me that she’d found a cute sundress at T.J.Maxx that she planned to bring on her trip. As if we’d been talking about her vacation the whole time.

  “It covers up everything and I bought shoes to go with it,” she explained.

  I nodded even though she couldn’t see me. I asked detailed questions and made kind, empathetic noises, trying to actively listen and understand her, as if by understanding her, I could give her what she was craving.

  * * *

  My sister called the next day to report that Phyllis was going on a Beaches vacation. “Did you know that already?” Penny demanded. I wandered into the mudroom, sponge in hand, prepared to wipe the random specks of dirt and ink off the walls.

  “She mentioned it,” I offered, unsure if this still counted as breaking a confidence and furious with myself for caring.

  “Do you know I haven’t been on vacation in over ten years?” Penny demanded.

  I sighed. I rubbed harder at the wall and said, “Maybe when you finish your course, we could go on a girls’ weekend together.” Cringing as I said it. Aware that Penny and I weren’t exactly suited for laughter and confidences.

  Deep sighing from Penny. As if she were considering the logistics of a trip. Or maybe she was just smoking. Then she said, “Yeah, about that…”

  My body growing tenser as I stood on my tiptoes to swipe at a cobweb, waiting expectantly for her to go on.

  “I’m a little behind,” Penny finally said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Look, I didn’t write all the papers I was supposed to, but the professors are cool. I’m going to take two incompletes, then finish over the summer. By the fall I can enroll in the teaching certificate classes, if I still want to.”

  “What do you mean, if you still want to?” I asked, suddenly furious that she was so changeable. That I’d lent her money for something that might not amount to anything.

  “Did I tell you about my idea to start a music school for underserved communities?”

  I gritted my teeth, got down on my hands and knees, and scrubbed the mudroom baseboard as Penny explained about a woman who worked specifically with communities of color and was always looking for new programs. She planned to meet with her as soon as she’d finished a business plan, which she couldn’t do because she’d lost the power cord to her laptop. Which was why she hadn’t finished the papers, by the way.

  “Are you finished?” I asked when she’d finally stopped talking and the baseboard was as free of dust as I could make it.

  “Go ahead!”

  “I want to say something and not have you respond, okay?”

  Silence.

  “Penny, you can do whatever you want with your life—take the incompletes, finish in the fall, blow it off completely. It’s your life. I’m not standing in judgment. But I’d be a shitty person if I didn’t tell you what I really thought. And what I really think is that something else is clearly going on here. And you don’t have to admit it to me. But I seriously suggest you admit it to yourself and get the help you need or you are never going to have any of the other things you want and, by the way, deserve.”

  Silence. Inhaling from Penny. A hiccup. Aware she was smoking and probably drinking. Imagining the row of wine coolers surrounding her bed. Wishing I had a cigarette, even though I’d long ago quit. Remembering the times Penny and I used to sneak them together at our grandmother’s cottage in the summertime. The dock long and rickety. The setting sun casting its bright alley of light across the nearly smooth water. Our favorite part of the day. The humidity like a blanket of calm. Penny dangling her feet off the end of the dock in her bikini while I sat cross-legged, embarrassed of my body in my hooded terry cover-up. Aware that Penny was “the pretty one” in the family and I was the less attractive “smart girl,” according to my mother’s mother, who often spoke of us in loud stage whispers. My mother’s cocktail of bossiness and neediness no doubt brewed in that cauldron of maternal deficiency. All of us part of some thin, knotted chain stretching backward and forward through time. I wondered how you ever escaped it, or even what “it” was, exactly, as I waited for Penny to respond. Her silence enough of an acknowledgment that I’d said something she was considering.

  After a while, Penny sighed and said in a low, serious voice, “You know how most people are afraid of being unhappy?”

  I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me. My every moment of every day filled with plans and goals and chores so that I wouldn’t have to feel the thing she was conjuring: sadness and dread. Loneliness and loss.

  My sister not waiting for a response. Or else well aware of what my response would be.

  “Well, I’m afraid of being happy. Of being a succes
s. I purposely fuck things up.”

  “Why?” I asked, shocked and not able to believe the possibility she was presenting me.

  “Because when you’re happy, you have so much more to lose.”

  I felt something thick lodge in the back of my throat, the hard ball of a truth I’d failed to imagine. Aware I’d been born lucky in my disposition, determined in my optimism.

  “Are you there?” Penny asked, her voice still low, the hint of embarrassment in her tone, or was it relief?

  “If you know this about yourself, can’t you undo it?” I asked, aware this was simplistic but determined to make her see the possibility. That she could change. That she could risk it.

  “Maybe,” she said, not willing to commit to my optimism, my insistence on forward momentum. Which I tried not to judge. Aware for the first time of just how different we were. Of how different we’d always been.

  * * *

  Within a month, the freesia turned yellow against our fence posts, and tulips started to sprout in their thinly mulched beds. There were demands to throw off sweatshirts. To have naked arms, open shoes, to bask in the warmth and promise of spring. The green and the birdsong awakening something in Paige, who suddenly emerged, standing on her stoop in her brightly colored espadrilles. A stylish scarf knotted at her neck. Her body frail and thin, her arm lifted in greeting as Drew or Lorraine or I walked by.

  We waved. We called our greetings in kind. We stopped and walked up her path to chat with her. After a few minutes of chitchat she’d look nervous, like she’d been out too long or had had too much interaction, and she’d excuse herself just as quickly as she’d appeared, saying she had a load of wash to do or something burning on the stove, even though we knew Paige didn’t do the wash, wasn’t cooking anything on the stove.

  By May, she seemed like an almost complete version of her previous self, setting up Drew’s croquet set on her lawn, making lemonade for the kids, yelling at dog walkers to clean up after their pets. Laughing at her own bossiness. Calling herself the neighborhood dog warden. Which reminded us why we’d liked Paige in the first place: because she could occasionally make fun of herself.

  Drew remembered, too. Or I assumed he did. Why else did he suddenly suggest it? That we all take a vacation together.

  “It’ll be great!” Drew said, more to Nela than to me, the three of us gathered around their dining room table after it started to rain on the kids, the table covered with their ugly brown vinyl table protectors. Nela’s legal files spread from one end to the other.

  “I’m not going if Paige goes,” Nela said, raising her head from the file she was scanning. It was a Sunday afternoon, Nela in sweats with a pot of coffee beside her.

  “It could be okay,” I said, willing her to drop her protest. Did she think she was the only one with misgivings about Paige? It was ridiculous and sanctimonious and served only one purpose—to divide us. What was the point of that?

  Nela sniffed. Then pulled her file closer. Bending her head to examine the fine print, running her crooked finger under a highlighted section. Which was so Nela. Buried in her work on a Sunday! Which just went to show you. That we didn’t judge her, at least not openly.

  “She’s too nutty,” Nela said, putting aside her file suddenly and staring up at me.

  “Absent’s not nutty,” I protested, wishing Nela could be a little bit empathetic. A little bit realistic! Everyone had their issues.

  “It’s her whole uptight white-girl shit that drives me bananas,” Nela said. “We went over there for dinner last Sunday, and it was like crazy time,” she continued. “She monitors Winnie down to the second: what she eats and in what order. She had half a hot dog and no bun and a glass of milk. And she had to drink the milk first. I mean, what the fuck is that?”

  “It’s an adopted-kid thing,” I said, trying to imagine in what circumstances Nela and Drew would be invited to the Edwardses’ for dinner without Jay and me. Wondering if Lorraine and Jeffrey had been there, too. Ignoring the unwanted bud of jealousy as I plowed on. “Remember, Winnie couldn’t come to the holiday party? She had an accident?”

  No response from Nela, who merely tapped her cheekbone with her finger and stared at me; Nela beautiful and poised even when she was disagreeing with you.

  “I read that a lot of adopted kids overeat. Something about not getting enough food when they’re in the orphanage,” I said, queasy at the thought of it. All those starving children. Neglected and unloved.

  “Do you know I bought Paige a book about parenting an adopted preschooler?” Nela asked, ignoring my story completely, pausing to take a swig of water from the giant water bottle she always carried around with her. Purple with ribbed sides, which I found so ugly.

  “That was really nice,” I said, averting my eyes from the plastic jug and hoping to encourage Nela to go on with her story. Even though I sensed where this was going. Overt judgment. A preconceived idea about Paige that she’d no doubt had before she gave her the book.

  “Well, when we went over for dinner I asked her about that book, and you know what she said?” Nela asked, raising her eyebrows for emphasis.

  “What?” I asked with dread, knowing I wouldn’t like the answer.

  “She said, ‘What book?’”

  I paused. I wished someone had offered me coffee. Or at least water. I shifted on the dining room chair, ran my fingers through my curls, and said, “Well, why didn’t you remind her? Maybe she forgot.” Pleased that Nela had cared enough to do something helpful for Paige, but annoyed that she’d stopped short of going the extra step. Namely, figuring out whether the book had been lost or misplaced and then making sure to get it into Paige’s hands so she could read it. Wasn’t this the way to make a lasting difference? To really go the extra mile? To not assume or judge? Maybe Paige read a different book, for all we knew!

  Nela merely looked at me and shook her head like I was naive. Which infuriated me. The way Nela didn’t know the first thing about me. About how much savvier I was about life than she could possibly imagine. Not that I cared to correct her. My appearance as someone without a care in the world was exactly what I had tried to cultivate my entire life. Even though it suddenly felt hollow. To be so little known.

  “I know something isn’t right,” Nela said, folding her arms over her chest and staring at me as if she dared me to contradict her. I stared back at her for only a minute before dropping my eyes to the ugly brown table protectors. Furious with Nela for her superiority. For her failure to understand the true nature of difficult people! You didn’t try to reason with them. You didn’t expect things from them. You certainly didn’t waste your time judging them! You took what you could get and you survived them. Because the good outweighed the bad. Because to do otherwise merely sank you.

  * * *

  Paige loved the idea of a group vacation. “I’ve never been to Bermuda!” she said when Drew suggested a cruise the following weekend. Drew insisting that his college friends had done it with their neighborhood friends. Drew insisting it wasn’t as cheesy as we imagined it would be.

  “Definitely, let’s do something,” Lorraine said, stirring her drink with her finger. It was Sunday. Five o’clock. We were in Lorraine’s living room. We were always in Lorraine’s living room now that she’d redone it, changing it from the formal style her ex-husband preferred—flowery walls, a grand piano—to some sort of pleasure den: boxy green couches, Lucite side chairs, a funky brass chandelier with arms like an octopus. It reminded me of a hotel lobby.

  “Whatever you guys say; we’re good with it,” Gene said, jovial, eager to please. Gene in a lime green golf shirt and plaid shorts that only he could pull off. Even though the clothes hung on him. His frame inches smaller than it once was.

  “Jay won’t go on a cruise,” I said. “Too cramped,” I explained. Certain he didn’t want to go. Certain he didn’t want to be trapped on a ship with all of our neighbors.

  “So you get a stateroom with a balcony,” Lorraine said, shrug
ging off my concern like she did any problem.

  “Jay?” I asked, looking toward where he was lounging in a swivel chair, his long legs crossed at the ankles, his entire demeanor silent, as was his nature in a group. Was he even listening? Jay shrugged good-naturedly. Which for Jay was almost an approval.

  “Looks like it’s happening,” Lorraine said, raising her highball glass and telling Drew to get his video camera ready.

  Everyone laughing. Everyone relaxed. Everyone talking over one another about the possibility of a new summer tradition. I sat back in my chair, excited and eager. Even though I thought a road trip would be easier. Even though I thought any trip could be disastrous. How well did we know each other, really? But I wanted to go, too. Even with Paige. Especially with Paige! Eager to be what we’d set out to be: close friends. Family friends. People who had each other’s backs.

  ALMOST PERFECT

  WE DROVE TO BOSTON Harbor, stowed our bags, then met on the pool deck. The children running off to play on an oversize Twister board while the rest of us smiled and tried to be enthusiastic. Taking in the giant waterslides, the loud, annoying DJ who was calling out colors and goading the children into ever more complicated positions. The July sun already hot, the music deafening. All of us astounded that Drew had picked this ship and trying hard not to say anything. Had his friends really done something similar?

  Questions about the rooms ensued. Whether they were bigger or smaller than they had seemed in the pictures; whether the balconies were worth the extra money. You couldn’t fit both a table and a chair out there!

  After a while the men wandered off toward a bar in the corner, eager for some shade and refreshment, the women going to stand on the edge of the deck, looking down at the port and ocean below. We were hot. Our faces shiny with sweat. The screams of the DJ interrupting what we’d no doubt hoped would be a silent or at least peaceful reverie. For a long while no one said what everyone was thinking.

  Finally Nela said, “Drew’s friend is pretty tacky,” twisting her mouth from side to side in a way that let me know she was embarrassed. That Drew had picked this ship based on a friend’s recommendation. That he hadn’t even apologized.