Neighborly: A Novel

by Ellie Monago

  “Of course not.”

  “Then it’s not big enough to fight over, or hang on to, either. I have it on good authority: dating in your thirties is hell. Ask June.”

  June’s only thirtysomething, with a teenager? She looks youthful, but I just assumed she had a good cosmetic dermatologist.

  So June was a teen mom. She’s been through some shit, too, then. Just like Raquel, and like me. And maybe like Andie, I don’t know. It occurs to me that I don’t know anything about Andie’s childhood.

  But back to the topic at hand. While there may be a flaw in Andie’s marital reasoning, it’s still so comforting. Let it go. Save myself the aggravation. Better yet, spare myself the confrontation.

  “You don’t have a problem, really,” she concludes. “We’re talking about things. Possessions. Never let them get in your way.”

  She’s right, but then, she has way nicer things than I ever will, and no worries about how she’ll pay for them.

  But they are just bikes, after all. He was trying to make me happy, searching for a fun family activity, something as local as it gets, and maybe it was an error in judgment, but his heart was in the right place. What difference does another few thousand dollars of debt really make, in the grand scheme of things?

  We’re here, and the sun is shining, and Sadie and Fisher are asleep in their strollers, and I have a new friend. A whole circle of new friends.

  “You want to turn inland?” Andie asks. “Wander through the Village?” I’m glad that she’d like to continue on with me after all she’s heard, instead of just going back home.

  When people say, “the Village,” what they really mean is Main Street, though there are a few branching arteries that also feature restaurants, cafés, and shops. On Main Street, there are artisanal bakeries and a market hall full of foodie delights; children’s and adult boutiques for clothes, shoes, and glasses (excuse me, “eyewear”); a small bookstore where the wares seem curated by color rather than selected for content; the bike shop; ethnic restaurants from Cambodian to Ukrainian along with California cuisine, pizza, and all the other usual family-friendly suspects; a few bars; and separate shops for ice cream, frozen yogurt, gelato, and bubble tea. Everything is locally sourced and independently owned. It’s zoned that way. You drive five minutes to get to the big-box stores, but you stroll on Main Street so you get the best of both worlds, city and suburbia, like Gina said.

  We can’t go three feet without running into someone Andie knows. She introduces me to at least twenty people, whose names I’ll never remember. She’s an extrovert for sure.

  “I’ll text you about the board meeting,” Andie tells one hot mama, the kind who’s not as good-looking as Tennyson but who likely shops at Le Jardin.

  Andie suggests we stop in, though the saleswoman who greets Andie by name says that Tennyson isn’t there today. The store smells musky yet botanical, which fits the theme, and many of the clothes are gauzy, barely there, and incredibly expensive. Andie tries on a scarf and looks at some jewelry under glass, unruffled by the prices.

  I feel out of place, though the saleswoman is incredibly friendly. She’s suggesting outfits that would “look great with my coloring.”

  “Another time,” I tell her. “I really should be getting home.” I turn to Andie, who’s now perching various hats on her head, pursing her lips, and fluffing the ends of her hair as she stares at her reflection in the mirror. “Sadie could use a bath.”

  Andie replaces the hat on the stand. “Let’s go, then.”

  “That hat looked great on you. Maybe you should get it.” I’m telling the truth, but still, it feels a little phony. If Andie can see through me, she’ll know that I’m having a Yolanda-esque moment of insecurity. There was so much competition on that street, tons of women who are already Andie’s friends or would like to be and who could afford Le Jardin.

  But I’m the one here with her. I want to feel proud, chosen, but instead, my mind returns to the question I had the night she sent me the invitation to GoodNeighbors:

  Why would Andie pursue me?

  Session 40.

  “Honestly, I think there might be some suppression.”

  “What am I suppressing?”

  “I can’t answer that.”

  “But what makes you think it?”

  “I’ve been doing this a long time. It’s just a sixth sense I have. There’s information that’s too painful for you to integrate. That’s what denial is.”

  “I’m not in denial.”

  “You want to talk a lot about your best friend. That feels safer for you. But you won’t talk about him. So I’ll help you. I read some articles. I know that there were multiple victims. He had a type. Girls who were looking for a father figure, and that’s how he started. That’s called grooming, the process of—”

  “I’ve heard of grooming.”

  “Do you believe that’s what he did?”

  “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “We all have certain stories we tell ourselves. Narratives that are comfortable, and even when they’re painful, they’re tenacious. We’re tenacious. We hang on to our narratives.”

  “I’m not hanging on to a narrative. I’m hanging on to the truth. But you don’t seem to believe that I’m telling you the truth. You think I’m in denial.”

  “I don’t know that for sure. I think it’s a possibility worth considering. You might have blocked out some memories, the ones that don’t fit your narrative.”

  “I feel like you’re trying to trick me. All this talk about narratives and possibilities. You want me to doubt myself.”

  “No, I want the opposite for you. I want you to learn to trust yourself. But if consciously you believe something, and your subconscious knows it’s not true, how can you ever do that?”

  CHAPTER 11

  DOES YOUR HUSBAND KNOW?

  “Can I just tell you,” Doug whispers, his palm flat against my cheek as we lie side by side in bed, “how much I love you?”

  “Yes,” I whisper back. “You can always tell me that.” Let it saturate every cell of my body. Let it blot out everything, especially that latest note.

  Two notes in one day. No, someone’s definitely not finished with me yet.

  How can she know that there are things—important things—I haven’t told Doug? Is it just a guess, because everyone has secrets, or because it’s obvious that I do? If Andie’s right, if I’m that transparent despite everything . . .

  Then it would mean the writer of the notes is someone who’s been looking at me. Someone who’s interacted with me. Probably someone from girls’ night.

  No. It was just a guess. Because every wife has something she keeps from her husband.

  Doug snuggles in closer. “I love you more than I ever thought possible. More than I love anyone except Sadie. And I love you even more through her.”

  “I love you, too.”

  His face grows serious. “The truth is, I just miss you. It’s like, I don’t only want to be Sadie’s dad. I want to still feel like your husband. I’m not always sure how to do that or where I stand with you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re just so distant sometimes. Will you tell me what I need to know to get close to you? Will you tell me what I should do or what I should stop doing?”

  He looks so earnest. He loves me and wants to be close to me, but what I feel is pressure. Like when he’s saying he doesn’t know how to be my husband, what I hear is that I’m doing a lousy job being his wife.

  He inches forward, and I can feel it coming. I don’t dread it; I’ve always liked kissing Doug, but I don’t feel up to what’s next.

  We need this. We have to reconnect. I told Doug that I know he meant well with the bikes and is just trying to make a good life for us and I’m sorry that I get so stressed over money. That’s led us here, to his declarations of love, to this precipice. It brings me back years, to before Doug, to when I wondered how I could say no. If I could say
no.

  I’m grateful for Andie’s advice. It’s good to just let things go and be happy, admit that I don’t have a real problem after all. So we’ll have more debt. It’ll be OK. We have our family and this house. We’ll always have each other.

  I kiss Doug back, and I know I could enjoy it if it wasn’t for the encroaching awareness that this needs to go somewhere. It has to end in sex because you don’t just make out with your husband. He hasn’t been inside me in a month, at least. I’ve put him off long enough, citing the exhaustion of preparing for the move, and the move itself, and being the new kids on the block. All of it true, but they’re excuses nonetheless.

  I’m a wife. I’m not just a mother. This is what a wife is supposed to do. This is what a sexual being is supposed to do, and I’m not supposed to need three fifteen-dollar cocktails to do it.

  I’ll enjoy sex again sometime. I’m not asexual, like Gina. I’ll start sleeping again, and my hormones will continue to regulate. Like Tennyson said, Sadie’s still so little. My sex drive will come back. And once I stop breastfeeding, I’ll start drinking again. In the meantime . . .

  Fake it till you make it. That’s what Dr. Morrison told me. She wasn’t talking about sex, but it can apply here, too. You put one foot in front of the other and you smile and eventually, you get where you need to be, and your smile is genuine. She knew what she was talking about. I’m here, aren’t I?

  Doug’s hands migrate to my breasts, which feel more like udders these days, and I just have to hope my nipples will get hard. But instead, they get slippery. Oh no. This is mortifying. I’m leaking milk.

  But Doug puts his mouth on them and begins to suck, gently. Is that loving? Or is it gross? I can’t even tell.

  I grab him, doing the strokes I know he likes. He lets out a moan, with my nipple still clenched between his lips. I can tell he needs this, desperately. He needs me.

  That does it. Now I’m a little wet.

  I shift so that my breasts are my own again, and I put his hand between my legs. I want him to feel what he’s doing to me, and he moans again. I tell myself what I need to hear:

  He wants me bad.

  He’ll die if he can’t be inside me.

  He’s dying for me.

  He couldn’t want anyone like he wants me.

  But behind my closed eyes, I can see them: the women on the block, the regulars. Each face is transposing itself, one after the other. Tennyson to Yolanda to June to Gina (what’s she doing here? She doesn’t even have sex) to Andie to Raquel, here in this bed, with Doug. I can see what they’d do to him, and for him, and they’d do it better than I can.

  My eyes fly open. It’s just Doug and me here. Nothing (and no one) to worry about. So what if people were standing a little too close to other people’s husbands at the block party. That was, what, five minutes? Ten at most? It was a long party. Everyone had had a lot to drink.

  Those women trust each other. That means they’re trustworthy, and they want to be my friends. I want to be theirs.

  Does your husband know?

  No, he doesn’t know that the only way I can feel pleasure is through his pleasure. He doesn’t know that my desire was co-opted, made approval-based, and I’ve never found my way out of that.

  One of the most shameful parts of my experience with Layton was that I liked seducing him. I was a good student, and I studied him well. Dr. Morrison helped me see that was why he chose little girls, that he was grooming us to be his servants. He wasn’t trying to make me happy; he was teaching me to make him happy. He’d turned me into a little fembot, my own desire secondary to the man’s, and honestly, I’ve never been able to find my way out of that. No matter how many times I try to masturbate or rediscover my body or verbalize my own desires, it just doesn’t seem to work.

  Layton’s programming has held, even in my relationship with Doug, where I know I’m loved and that he wants me to be satisfied sexually. He asks me what I like, but I have no good answer. So sometimes, I just have to playact. I have to fake it and hope I’ll make it. But afterward, even if I manage to come, I feel sad and alone, because I know that Layton’s ruined me.

  Doug’s rock-hard. Decisions have to be made.

  I mount him. It’s conventional, but it works. It turns Doug on, which turns me on for at least a little while. I let out the right accompanying noises as we move in tempo. Riding a husband is like riding a bike.

  Don’t think about bikes.

  Does your husband know?

  I move deeper and harder. I need to hear Doug. I need to know how he feels about this, and about me.

  His noises become louder and more guttural. There’ve been times when he practically spoke in tongues, but that was long ago.

  The only orgasms I ever have are simultaneous ones. When he comes, when I know I’ve satisfied him completely, that’s when I’m most fulfilled. That puts me over the edge. But if you’re going to fake an orgasm, that’s the time to do it. When he’s otherwise occupied.

  I just keep seeing them. The women. My competition.

  No, my friends.

  Doug is starting to explode. “Oh God, Kat, Jesus, I fucking . . . love you . . . Oh fuck . . .” Like a bout of Tourette’s.

  I want to be right there with him, but those women . . .

  I can’t let them get in the way. Or am I the one in my own way?

  CHAPTER 12

  I’m outside, breaking down boxes, preparing for tomorrow’s early morning trash pickup. The weather is perfect, and Sadie’s lying beside me, burbling in her car seat. She’s happy, and that’s all that matters.

  As I flatten a box, I notice its label, with my name and address on it. And I realize: I left evidence in every neighbor’s trash can.

  My actions that morning had been so spontaneous that it hadn’t occurred to me to rip labels off or even take a marker to them. So no one had to actually see me. They could have gone out in the early morning with some last-minute rubbish and noticed that their cans were fuller than the night before. They pulled out the cardboard for the dining room chairs and the perpetrator’s information was right there, in plain sight.

  Not that this is about the trash anymore, but maybe that’s what got the ball rolling or was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Pick your cliché.

  Don’t worry, people, I feel like broadcasting. From here on out, my trash and recycling are going in my own can. I’ll keep my side of the street clean, literally and figuratively.

  I finish with the boxes. Then I lift Sadie’s car seat and carry her up the front steps. She’s in a mellow mood, lulled by the sunshine and breezes that can be felt even ten blocks off the water. Inside, I give her a bottle, change her diaper, and lay her in her crib. She goes down easily. I feel like a good mother, an in-control mother. Normal, that’s what I am.

  Back downstairs in the living room, I sit on the love seat, the laptop on my knees. I try not to stare longingly at the desk that hasn’t been built this week. It’s a beautiful day, Sadie’s content, and Doug and I are back on track.

  I check again on Part C for Sadie’s dresser. I’m tired of pulling her clothes item by item out of the garbage bags we used for the move. Tired of thinking in terms of garbage.

  If Part C arrives tomorrow, then Doug will have the whole weekend to put the dresser together. And if he doesn’t work late tonight, I’ll ask him to bolt the bookshelf to the wall. It can’t take that long, and I’d be able to get rid of five boxes of books and break down the cardboard in time for tomorrow’s trash pickup. That’ll feel satisfying—a far better climax than our recent sex. I wouldn’t be faking my pleasure at unpacking the books.

  Oddly, though, the tracking service reports that Part C was delivered this morning, left at the front door.

  I was just outside, and there was nothing on the porch. I call Homestore’s customer service, and they refer me to the shipping company. I’m getting increasingly angry. I’m sick of waiting and living in chaos.

  “The driver left it at t
he address at 10:38 today,” I’m told.

  “I was home, and I never heard a knock.”

  “They don’t always knock.”

  They confirm my address. They put me on hold and come back to report that they spoke with the driver, who insists that the package was left on the doorstep. That’s when I get a sinking feeling.

  “We can launch a full investigation to try to find it, and the shipper can file a claim . . .”

  I’m barely listening. I’ve had lots of packages delivered to this house, and to our previous address, which was in a neighborhood with much higher crime. Nothing’s ever gone missing before.

  I’m convinced that the same neighbor who’s been leaving notes stole Part C.

  How could that person know what Part C means to me, that I’ve been waiting for it anxiously?

  They couldn’t. No one would steal my package.

  But it’s not like it just up and walked away.

  I yank the front door open to do one last check, in case I somehow missed it. No Part C. Only cardboard from those same blasted dining room chairs.

  YOUR POOR LITTLE GIRL

  I feel sick. It’s not just about taking Part C but about invoking Sadie. When did someone leave that note? Just since I’ve been on this phone call? It wasn’t there when I took Sadie outside to break down the boxes.

  A time line emerges. Someone stole my package between 10:38 and 12:30, since I was in the driveway after lunch, and then left this note sometime in the past fifteen minutes. Whoever is behind the notes is definitely watching my house.

  Three warnings in two days, talking about Doug and now about Sadie. If that’s not raising the stakes, I don’t know what is.

  What does it even mean, poor Sadie? What do they know? And what do they want from me?

  They know nothing. They’re just trying to hit me where it hurts, in my mothering bone. To make me doubt myself. I’m a great mother, or at least I try to be. I certainly work hard enough at it.

  Why would someone want to hurt me where it matters most?

  You have 10 new messages from your neighbors!