The Perfect Neighbors

by Sarah Pekkanen

  “Um . . . Miss Klopson, I think?” Tessa said.

  “That’s who Noah and Cole have!” Susan said.

  “That’s wonderful,” Tessa said. But her smile seemed to require an effort. Her expression, like her voice, was flat—­almost restrained. Was she sick? Or maybe she was just wiped out from the move, Susan thought.

  There was a little awkward pause, then Mia tugged on ­Kellie’s arm. “Can I interview them?” she asked.

  “Oh,” Kellie said to Tessa. “Sorry, Mia writes the ‘Kids’ Corner’ column for our neighborhood newsletter. Would you mind if she asked you a few quick questions?”

  “Um . . . sure?” Tessa said. She tucked her hair behind her ears and frowned. Mia was already digging into her backpack for her official reporter’s steno notebook and pen.

  Mia cleared her throat and uncapped her pen. “First question,” she said. Some of the other parents and kids turned at the sound of her voice ringing out. “WHY did you move here?”

  Tessa staggered back, as if she’d been pushed.

  “What?” she whispered.

  Kellie stepped forward, steadying Tessa by her arm. “Are you okay?” she asked. “You look like you’re about to faint.”

  “I’m fine,” Tessa said. “I didn’t—I didn’t eat any breakfast.”

  “Here,” Kellie said. She dug in her purse and came up with the granola bar she’d been unsuccessfully pushing on her kids. “Try this.”

  “Is she going to get paid for eating it?” Cole wanted to know.

  “Shh,” Susan said. She grabbed Cole’s water bottle from his backpack and offered it to Tessa. He could drink from the fountains for a day.

  Tessa took a small sip. “That’s better. I was just dizzy for a moment, but it passed.”

  “I need to ask my ‘w’ questions,” Mia insisted. “Who, what, where, why, and when.”

  “Mia, quiet,” Kellie said.

  Tessa didn’t look better, Susan thought. She was still ashen. It was a good thing Kellie hadn’t let go of her arm.

  Susan was about to suggest that Tessa sit down when a little boy shouted, “Bus! Bus!”

  Parents exploded into activity, kissing children, retying loose shoelaces, shouting reminders about piano lessons and soccer practice, and waving as the kids climbed aboard. Susan touched her index finger to the corner of her eye, then her heart, then pointed it at Cole. I. Love. You. She saw his smile through the bus window, then the vehicle lumbered away, belching a cloud of exhaust. The group of parents echoed the noise with an equally loud sigh of relief. They peeled away, heading to the blissful quiet of their offices or homes.

  “Are you up to walking?” Kellie asked Tessa. “We can wait here with you if you’re still shaky.”

  “No, really, I’m much better now,” Tessa said. “I should get back and check on the movers.”

  “Well, we’re heading in the same direction, so we’ll give you all the neighborhood gossip on the way,” Kellie said. “You wouldn’t believe the scandals. The intrigue!”

  Susan punched Kellie in the arm. “She’s kidding. We’re actually quite boring.”

  “Sadly, it’s true,” Kellie said. “Well, we do have our ladies-­only Wine and Whine night, and that tends to inspire some unexpected confessions, but other than that we’re a pretty tame bunch.”

  “You’ll have to join us at the next one,” Susan said. “It’s Gigi’s turn to host, and she’s your next-door neighbor.”

  “Have you met her yet?” Kellie asked. “She’s the one with the Susan Sarandon vibe? Picture Thelma just before she and Louise drove off that cliff. Gigi’s husband, Joe, is running for Congress in the special election—our congressman resigned because of a sex scandal with a prostitute, you might’ve heard—and Joe’s always busy campaigning so you probably won’t see him much, but Gigi’s really great.”

  Tessa gave them a faint smile. “Well,” she said, “here’s my house.” She handed the superhero water bottle back to Susan. “Thank you again.”

  Susan watched as Tessa walked up the front steps and disappeared inside.

  “I repulsed her, didn’t I?” Kellie asked. “I always babble too much.”

  “No, you’re charming,” Susan said. “I bet she’s getting the flu.”

  “So what did you think of her?” Kellie asked as they resumed strolling.

  “A spotless beige couch with two kids?” Susan said. “It screams ‘control freak,’ but I’m reserving judgment.”

  “She seems . . . pleasant, I guess,” Kellie said. “But shy. She was like that when I met her at the open house, too.”

  Susan shrugged. “Busy day today?” she asked.

  “Sadly, no,” Kellie sighed. “I don’t have a single listing yet. I earned a little something for helping with the Brannons’ house, but I wasn’t the main agent on it. I’ve been working for a solid month and I’ve barely recouped the costs I spent to get licensed and for my business cards.”

  “You’re just starting out,” Susan said. “It’ll take time.”

  “I guess,” Kellie said. “How long did it take you? I mean before your business really exploded?”

  “Oh, a little while,” Susan said vaguely. She didn’t want to tell her friend that her company, Your Other Daughter, had been an instant success. Susan’s idea for a part-time job coordinating services for the elderly, like taking them to ­doctors’ appointments or visiting them in nursing homes, had somehow grown into a booming franchise in four states. Early on, there had been an article about her in Black Enterprise magazine, and then a write-up in the Duke alumni magazine, which had helped launch her company. Now she had a syndicated weekly radio show in which she dispensed advice about elder care to callers. She gave speeches at five hundred dollars a pop. Even Mr. Brannon had become one of her clients; she’d helped the widower sort through his accumulated decades of belongings and choose an assisted living center. She visited Mr. Brannon every week to make sure he was comfortable. That service was off the books; Mr. Brannon, with his courtly manners and sad smile, had a special place in her heart. He seemed so alone in the world.

  “I’ll spread rumors about asbestos at Wine and Whine night, to get the neighbors we don’t like to move away, and then I can sell their houses,” Kellie said.

  “Great idea,” Susan said. “I’ll bring a few bottles of Chardonnay. Last time Gigi ran out.”

  “Maybe she didn’t think it would be good for her husband’s congressional campaign to have a dozen drunk women lurching out of his house,” Kellie mused.

  “Oh, come on, it never hurt Bill Clinton,” Susan said. “How’s this for a plan: we’ll get Tessa drunk and she’ll spill all her deep, dark secrets.”

  “I’m in,” Kellie said, laughing.

  * * *

  Chapter Two

  * * *

  Newport Cove Listserv Digest

  *Halloween party & parade!

  It isn’t too early to begin planning for everyone’s favorite holiday—­Halloween! This year at our annual Newport Cove party we’ll have a moon bounce, tasty treats for all (including gluten and nut free!), and a parade through our neighborhood for all of our little goblins and ghosts! “Opal” the fortune-­teller may make a surprise visit to read fortunes (please remind your children to refrain from pulling on Opal’s hair so we avoid painful incidents like last year’s)! Please email Shannon Dockser if you’d like to volunteer for the snack committee or activities committee. —Sincerely, Shannon Dockser, Newport Cove Manager

  *Re: Honda Mechanic?

  I don’t have a Honda, but I bring my Chrysler LeBaron into Michael at Auto Repair Unlimited. He’s a well-mannered young man, not like some these days, and his prices are reasonable. —Tally White, Iris Lane

  *Re: Dog Poop

  I’d like to second the comment by Mrs. Reiserman. I can’t imagine any Newport Cove resident
s would be so uncourteous as to leave canine filth in their neighbors’ yards, but several times a year I step into something most unpleasant when I’m out gardening and have to hose it off my shoe. Let’s all try to be better neighbors. —Ralph Zapruder, Blossom Street

  • • •

  Gigi Kennedy rolled over in bed, lazily stretching out an arm and connecting with a cold sheet instead of a warm body.

  She yawned and blinked and the world came into focus. Her nightstand with a hefty political memoir and a treatise about microbusiness loans stacked atop the juicy novel she’d been yearning to read—but hadn’t found the time—for weeks. An expensive pot of eye cream that she’d begun to use religiously, though she suspected the cost was due to the French name rather than the quality of the ingredients. And her monthly planner filled with scribbled reminders of phone calls she needed to make, places she needed to be, people she needed to woo.

  She despised that planner with its bright red cover.

  Red signaled power, according to the image consultant her husband, Joe, had hired. Apparently crow’s-feet did not, and the eye cream had been delivered to her along with the business card of a hairdresser who’d banished the strands of gray from Gigi’s auburn locks before trimming off eight inches.

  “Oh,” she’d murmured, staring in the mirror when he’d spun her around with the flourish of a game show host. She’d always worn her hair down to her bra strap, and it had never bothered her that it got big and frizzy in the humidity. She’d liked the easy, bohemian style. But the hairdresser had applied a horrible-smelling chemical that made it look sleek and shiny and not at all like her.

  Her mother had burst into laughter when she’d seen Gigi. “I’m sorry, honey,” she’d said. “It’s just that you look like a”—Gigi had waited patiently as her mother had succumbed to more giggles—“like a shorn sheep!”

  Two years of therapy, and her mom could still light up her buttons faster than a toddler at an elevator control panel.

  Gigi yawned again and checked the bedside clock. Not even six a.m.

  “I wish they all could be California girls,” Joe’s off-key voice warbled over the rush of the shower.

  Careful, she thought. Don’t want to alienate the voters on the East Coast.

  When she and Joe had first met, back in college, he was famous for sleeping through his morning classes. Not missing them, but actually sleeping in the last row, his head bobbing, an occasional snore whistling through his nostrils. Now Joe woke up at five a.m. to run three miles before drinking a green smoothie, standing up, while he read the papers.

  But she’d changed, too. Didn’t everyone say the key to a happy marriage was changing together? Or maybe it was growing together. In any case, she’d begun to match Joe’s runs with her own Zumba and Pilates classes, and now that he eschewed dessert, so did she. So technically, they were shrinking together. Except for the chips and brownies she snuck from the snack drawer reserved for the kids’ lunches, but she gobbled those standing up and buried the evidence in the trash can, so they obviously didn’t count.

  The kids. She climbed out of bed and reached for her robe. She needed to make sure this morning went smoothly, to avoid stepping on any of the emotional bombs her teenaged daughter Melanie loved to lob in her path. Late this afternoon a photographer was coming over to capture a family photo for Joe’s congressional campaign brochure and website. Their twelve-year-old, Julia, would cooperate. Of course she would; Julia had been a happy, gurgling infant whose disposition had never changed. She was an honor roll student and captain of the soccer team. Julia would put on the sundress Gigi had laid out and brush her hair without being asked. But fifteen-year-old Melanie . . . well, the best case was that she’d demand to wear all black and refuse to take out her nose ring. Gigi wouldn’t think about the worst case until she’d fortified herself with coffee.

  She’d make Melanie’s favorite banana-pecan pancakes, the ones her daughter had adored when she was a little girl, Gigi decided.

  She padded into the kitchen, her feet hitting cold tile, wishing she’d put on socks but feeling too tired to go back upstairs for a pair. She stroked the head of their sleepy golden retriever, Felix, before popping a pod of Starbucks Breakfast Blend into the Keurig. While her coffee spurted into a mug, she reached into the pantry for ingredients and began lining them up on the counter: flour, bananas, milk . . . She was dropping a pat of butter into the warm skillet when she sensed a presence behind her.

  “Your hair looks ridiculous.”

  “Good morning, honey,” Gigi said, trying to block annoyance from her tone. She smoothed down a few spiky bangs that seemed determined to defy gravity. “I’m making pancakes.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Melanie said.

  Gigi turned off the burner.

  “How about just a banana, then?” she said. Melanie wouldn’t get a break for lunch until almost noon. She had to eat something.

  “I said I’m not hungry.”

  Gigi flinched. If her husband routinely spoke to her in that tone, she’d divorce him. If a friend did, she’d cut off contact. Only Melanie, with her sad eyes and defiant expression, could heap emotional abuse on her mother.

  Still, she couldn’t let Melanie get away with acting like a brat.

  “Watch your tone,” Gigi said, but when she caught a glimpse of Melanie’s face, she regretted snapping back. Her daughter was clearly in pain.

  When had Melanie’s kohl-rimmed eyes changed? They looked to Gigi like black mussel shells. There was something in the center of those eyes reminiscent of the glistening fragility of a pearl, but try as she might, Gigi couldn’t crack through the hard exterior and reach it.

  Melanie grabbed her backpack off the kitchen table and shoved her binder inside.

  “You don’t have to be at school for almost an hour,” Gigi pointed out.

  “Raven is picking me up.”

  Raven. It couldn’t possibly be a real name, could it? Gigi wasn’t even sure if Raven was a girl or a boy, and an early glimpse of him/her hadn’t helped clear things up. Raven hid behind a sweep of dark hair and seemed incapable of smiling. Gigi wanted to ask Melanie, but was afraid of her reaction.

  Melanie was almost out the door. She hadn’t eaten. She looked tired. She was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and black jeans and the mercury was expected to reach 80 today.

  “Honey? Do you want to change your shirt? It’s supposed to get pretty hot.”

  “God! Can you just stop nagging me?” The door slammed on Melanie’s final word.

  Gigi sank into a chair, blinking hard. Felix nudged her hand with his cold nose and she curled an arm around him, grateful for the comfort.

  Gigi knew that whenever she reached out to touch her daughter, or asked Melanie to put away her phone and talk, Melanie viewed Gigi as a giant chicken relentlessly pecking at her. She could see it in the way Melanie shrank from her, or exited a room moments after Gigi entered.

  Whenever she spoke to Melanie, all her daughter heard was this: Peck, peck, peck.

  Why couldn’t she hear what Gigi was really saying? I love you, I love you, I love you.

  * * *

  Chapter Three

  * * *

  Before Newport Cove

  WHEN HER DAUGHTER, BREE, was just seven months old, Tessa called 911 for the first time.

  It was a rainy day, and the house had felt stuffy, so Tessa had walked upstairs to open a window. She’d left Bree on the living room rug, encircled by toys.

  She’d been gone for sixty seconds, she’d insisted later. Ninety at most. She couldn’t get the timeline exactly straight, though. Had she paused to pick up Harry’s dirty socks off the bathroom floor and toss them in the hamper, or had she done that earlier in the day? She might’ve shaken out the comforter and smoothed it over the sheets instead of leaving it crumpled. An unmade bed had always nagged at Tessa.

&n
bsp; The truth was, she had no idea how long she’d left Bree alone. Jagged patches of time had begun to disappear from her memory, like sinkholes forming in the fog of her exhaustion. Bree hadn’t slept through the night, not even once, since coming home from the hospital. Bree was fussy. Sensitive. Spirited. Whatever the politically correct term was nowadays. Instead of nursing contentedly, like all the other babies in their Mommy and Me class, Bree always took a few sips, then yanked herself away from Tessa’s breast as if she’d been scalded.

  “It must be something in your diet,” a lactation consultant had said, looking at Tessa with accusing eyes. “Are you eating a lot of broccoli? Chocolate? Caffeine?”

  Tessa had mutely shaken her head at each fresh charge. She wasn’t eating much of anything other than toast and water and bananas. She was far too tired to cook, and she’d gone off coffee during her first trimester and certainly knew enough to avoid drinking too much of it while breastfeeding. Still, Tessa was certain she was the source of her daughter’s misery. Tessa would pace the house in the middle of the night with a squalling Bree in her arms, mindlessly chanting nursery rhymes, timing the beat to the throbbing in her head. Harry had been working for a software development firm back then and his job had required him to travel nearly every week, so she couldn’t even hand off the baby for a break.

  Tessa had wanted a child so desperately. She’d endured two miscarriages before having Bree, the second when she was nearly twenty weeks into her pregnancy. She’d tried to do everything right. She’d read a dozen books on child development. She’d washed Bree’s tiny onesies in Dreft before folding them into the drawers of her pink-and-white dresser. She’d spent an entire weekend crafting the butterfly mobile that hung over Bree’s crib. Yet every time she looked down at Bree’s red, miserable face, she felt as if she was failing her daughter.

  When Bree turned four months old, Tessa finally gave up breastfeeding. Whenever she hid a carton of formula in her grocery cart, she’d felt like she was stashing crack beneath her romaine lettuce and organic chicken. Breast was best—­everyone knew that.