“So then you put out a call to a few builders,” Miller said. “Ask them to bid on the property. Bring the bids to the clients.”
“You think they’ll change their minds that quickly?” Kellie said.
“Maybe not immediately,” Miller said. “But when they see an actual offer, the seed will have been planted. It’s hard to walk away from money on the table. You can talk them through it, make them understand that a new house will be built and a family will live there again. That’ll be better than the place staying empty. Real estate isn’t just about selling; you have to be a little bit of a counselor, too. Buying a house is as big an emotional decision as a financial one.”
Kellie nodded. She wished she hadn’t taken out the legal pad. She hadn’t written down a single thing and it seemed silly now.
“You’re right,” she said. “That’s exactly what I’ll do.”
“And within a month or two, you’ll have your first commission,” he said.
“You make it all sound so easy,” Kellie said. More than that, he made her believe in herself. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” Miller said. He glanced at the bakery case, then leaned toward her with a grin. “Have you ever tried their brownies? They’re addictive,” he said. “I’ve sworn off junk since I’m training for a half-marathon, but how about we share one? And maybe I’ll grab a coffee after all.”
“Absolutely,” Kellie said. As he started to stand up, she motioned for him to stay seated. “It’s my treat this time,” she said. “I’m the one who asked for your help.”
She walked up to the display case to order, thinking of how much Jason had loved the brownies she’d brought to the family dinner. He’d eaten two and had gotten a smudge of chocolate on his chin. Jason had always been a slightly messy eater; she’d grown used to wiping down the table around his plate after dinner.
Later that night, she’d gone into Noah’s bedroom with a load of fresh laundry and she’d seen that Jason had fallen asleep while reading to Noah. His arm encircled their son, their heads with matching sandy-colored hair close together on a single pillow. The tiny smudge of chocolate was still on Jason’s chin.
Thinking of it now, she felt strangely like she might burst into tears.
• • •
Newport Cove Listserv Digest
*It’s Halloween!
Please join your neighbors at our annual Halloween party ’n parade starting at 4:30 p.m. at bottom of the cul-de-sac on Daisy Way. We’ll have a caldron of witches brew (simply red Kool-Aid, you can explain to your little ones in case they’re prone to nightmares), tasty treats, a moon bounce, fortunes told by “Opal,” and a parade down the street! Remember that tonight after dark our little ghosts and goblins will be out trick or treating, so drivers beware! Remember: Don’t be the “driving force” behind traffic accidents! —Sincerely, Shannon Dockser, Newport Cove Manager
*Need Jump Start
Our minivan’s battery is dead again. Would someone mind popping over and giving me a jump start? I swear I’ll teach my kids to close their doors . . . someday. —Reece Harmon, Daisy Way
*Re: Need Jump Start
Be there in a jiff! —Jenny McMahon, Daisy Way
• • •
Halloween was Tessa’s very favorite holiday. It was easy to feel like a failure on Valentine’s Day, which was fraught with expectations (candlelight dinners and roses and sex!). Thanksgiving just felt like an elaborate meal with grace, since she wasn’t a fan of either turkey or football. And Christmas was exhausting—Harry’s parents always wanted to come visit that week, which stirred the competitive juices of Tessa’s mother and older sister, Claire, who wanted Tessa’s family to travel out to Colorado to be with them (though somehow Claire and Tessa’s mother weren’t quite so keen on packing up and traveling to visit Tessa). Tessa was always trying to juggle school break days and airline tickets to be fair to both sides. She usually ended up disappointing everyone and bursting into tears of exhaustion on Christmas Eve, right around midnight when she was stuffing stockings, though thankfully she always recovered enough to enjoy Christmas itself.
But Halloween was magical. What Tessa loved most was that it celebrated imagination. Kids got to choose their own costumes and decide exactly who they wanted to be—pop star or physician, princess or pirate—and everyone had to play along, at least for a single night. It was the one time of year when adults had to conform to the world of kids, rather than the other way around.
On the Sunday before the holiday, she and Harry had taken the kids to a farm to pick pumpkins and go on a hay ride. Addison had gotten his face painted, and Bree had convinced Tessa to buy a giant sack of Granny Smith apples to make a pie. They’d wandered around for hours, sipping hot cider, munching salty-sweet kettle corn, petting barn cats, and feeding cups of grain to greedy goats. When they’d returned home, Tessa had gone into the basement to retrieve the giant Tupperware bin of Halloween decorations: wispy ghosts to dangle from the pillars on their porch, cardboard tombstones for the yard, an orange lightbulb for the porch lamp, a black witches’ caldron to hold the candy.
She and the kids had decorated the yard while Harry had made a giant pot of black bean chili, then they’d all watched It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. At bedtime, as Tessa was brushing her teeth, she suddenly stopped and gripped both sides of the sink basin as a realization had struck her: it had been the first entire day that had felt normal since they’d moved. She’d experienced the same dizzying sensation a few years after her father had died of a heart attack, when she’d been sipping her morning coffee and had realized with a start that she hadn’t woken up with a terrible ache in her heart, the sensation that something deep and vital was missing in her life, for the first time since his funeral.
Time didn’t heal all wounds, but at least it layered buffers around them.
She’d believed—hoped, anyway—that their day at the farm had marked a turning point. Maybe this house, this neighborhood, was magical. She’d felt it the first time she’d driven down the street with the flowering dogwoods and pink and white crape myrtles arcing overhead like a canopy. Their Cape Cod was much smaller than their last home, which had boasted three expansive levels after their renovation, but Tessa was glad to downsize. Here, everyone in the family was within calling distance of one another at all times. They were snugly tucked away, safe and protected.
On the morning of Halloween, Tessa walked her Ninja Turtle and her veterinarian to the bus stop. Kellie was already there with Mia, who was dressed as a cheerleader with a megaphone (a prop that seemed more dangerous than the swords some of the boys were wielding), and Noah as an Angry Bird. A few minutes later Susan came along with Cole, who was a Transformer, and Sparky, who was wearing a hot dog costume he kept trying to wiggle around and bite. The Ninja, Angry Bird, and Transformer immediately began to argue about which one of them would prevail in a to-the-death battle while Mia and Bree turned cartwheels on the sidewalk.
“Are you coming to the parade this afternoon?” Kellie asked Tessa.
“Definitely,” Tessa said. “We’re really looking forward to it.”
“It’s a lot of fun,” Kellie said. “Jenny McMahon makes this incredible iced pumpkin bread and brings a huge pot of cider. And Mason puts up string around his yard with stakes so that kids don’t trample his grass. Last year he took down a few parents who stumbled off the sidewalk. He’s got a BB gun, and he uses the tipsy parents for target practice, too.”
“She made that up,” Susan said. “At least the part about the BB gun. And the stumbling parents are totally Kellie’s fault. She brings along a flask of rum for adults who want their cider with a little kick.”
“It’s my own special contribution,” Kellie said. “It makes trick-or-treating a lot more enjoyable.”
Tessa laughed. “So what’s the plan for tonight? Do all the kids go trick-or-treating together af
ter the parade with us parents following along behind, or . . . ?”
She saw Kellie glance at Susan before answering. “It usually starts off that way. You guys are welcome to join me and Jason and the kids.”
Susan appeared to take a deep breath. “Cole’s going trick-or-treating with his father,” she said, enunciating each word crisply.
“Ah,” Tessa said, feeling herself flush. First she’d called Randall Susan’s husband, and now she’d put her foot in it again. Figures that she would embarrass herself in front of Susan, who was one of the most impressive women Tessa had ever met. Maybe it was something in Susan’s posture; she always stood up straight, her neck in perfect alignment with her spine, and when she gestured, her long fingers moved with the graceful fluidity of a conductor’s baton. She had the stance of a ballerina. Tessa hadn’t realized how often she’d slouched until she’d met Susan; every time she bumped into her neighbor, she instinctively stood up taller.
“I keep telling Susan to join us,” Kellie was saying. “We’ll make it a party.”
“Thanks, but I’m going to stay home and hand out candy,” Susan said. “And probably eat one mini Snickers for every one I give out. I always hate myself every November first.”
The bus approached, groaning and lurching toward them as it did every morning, and the parents began calling out good-byes and instructions, as usual—“Don’t step in that puddle!” “Let Emma get on the bus first; she’s smaller!”—which the kids ignored, as usual.
“Good-bye, Addison,” Tessa called. “Have a great day, Bree.”
She caught a last glimpse of her children’s small, pale faces through the panes of glass as the bus pulled away and she stood there until the vehicle was out of sight, feeling a familiar crimp twist her stomach. It never loosened until the afternoon when the bus reversed its route and her children were safely back home.
“So, the parade!” Tessa said too brightly, to make up for her earlier misstep. “We’ll see you there.”
Later she’d wished they’d skipped the parade. Why had Tessa ever thought they could start over simply by moving to a new town? You couldn’t outrun your past. It was like sprinting on a treadmill—as soon as your legs faltered, you’d discover you were in the precise place you’d been trying so hard to escape.
Moving to Newport Cove was nothing more than putting on a Halloween costume. Tessa had been swept up in the imagining, in the pretending to be someone else. But once the disguise was off, you no longer fooled anyone, least of all yourself.
* * *
Chapter Thirteen
* * *
Newport Cove Listserv Digest
*Headless Barbie?
Did someone misplace a Malibu Barbie doll? I found one—along with its head a couple of feet away—in my front yard. There was also a mustache drawn on Barbie, and what appear to be tattoos on her knuckles. —Jenny McMahon, Daisy Way
*Re: Headless Barbie
My daughter lost her Malibu Barbie yesterday, but its head was still attached and she was mustache and tattoo-less. —Savannah Nichols, Daisy Way
*Re: Headless Barbie
My sons will be delivering a new Malibu Barbie to your daughter, along with an apology, tonight. —Reece Harmon, Daisy Way
• • •
Susan and Randall’s custody agreement had been hashed out in a mediator’s office during a half dozen sessions. They’d met in a space that was designed to look like a living room, with a cozy couch, leafy plants, and abstract artwork on the walls. Perhaps the theory was that pleasant surroundings would inspire similar emotions in their clients.
Their mediator, Judy, had a low, soothing voice, and she repeated Susan’s and Randall’s names constantly, which was probably a psychological device to ensure that everyone felt heard.
“So, Susan, what you’re saying is it’s important to you to spend as much time with Cole as possible,” the mediator would say, frowning earnestly, before turning to Randall. She was a pleasant woman in her sixties who looked like she did a lot of yoga. “And Randall, what you’re saying is that you want to be an important presence in Cole’s life, too.”
Judy would take a sip of soothing chamomile tea and write something down on a pad of paper while Susan sat on the couch, as far away as possible from Randall, clutching a throw pillow in her lap, her fingers convulsively twisting the fringe.
Maybe it would have been better if they’d met in a courtroom, letting out the ugliness like steam from a kettle as they screeched accusations at each other. She could’ve hired a female lawyer with a jutting chin and flinty eyes, one who’d seen the worst and thought all men were scum, instead of Judy with her CD of Tibetan monks’ chants. It could have been cathartic. And then maybe she would’ve been out on a date instead of sitting down the street from Randall’s house, her Mercedes headlights switched off, her dog Sparky on the seat beside her, when Randall called to discuss Halloween plans at six p.m. on a Saturday night.
Cole was at a classmate’s birthday party, which Randall probably knew, since he’d seen Cole that day. He’d probably planned this call accordingly. Susan took a perverse satisfaction in knowing that she could watch Randall’s new home during the entire call. Maybe that figure passing in front of the window was him pacing as they talked. She heard the rattle of dishes in the background and imagined Daphne in the kitchen, sliding silverware into holders in the dishwasher, shooting Randall a sympathetic look: Is she being difficult again? You’re doing great, sweetheart!
“I know Tuesdays are technically my nights with Cole,” Randall said. “But you’re welcome to come trick-or-treating with us. Cole would probably love to have both of his parents with him.”
“Please don’t use our son to manipulate me,” she said, but she knew Cole would like it. Randall would probably like it just as much if she came along, though. He’d love for them to all be pals, for people to see him and Susan laughing together at school functions as they co-parented their amazing son. What a good guy he is, that Randall Barrett! they’d say, smiling. He’s even friends with his ex! Other people’s opinions of him had always been too important to Randall—probably the result of growing up with a father who was impossible to please.
Randall sighed, a long-suffering sound that annoyed her.
“Look,” she said, tempering her voice. “Is she coming, too?”
“Daphne is coming trick-or-treating with us, yes,” Randall said.
“I’ll drop Cole off around six,” she said.
That recommendation for Randall as an accountant on the listserv had really annoyed her. It had popped up on her iPhone when she’d been lying in bed in the morning, still drowsily scanning through her emails, awakening her with all the jarring force of a slap in the face.
“Fine,” Randall said. He cleared his throat. “There’s one more thing.”
Did anyone ever reveal good news by starting off, “There’s one more thing”? It seemed like the kind of phrase designed to make your abdominal muscles tighten. She looked at Randall’s house, hoping for a clue.
“Daphne is pregnant,” Randall said. “Cole’s going to be a big brother this spring. We’re going to try to get married before the baby comes, Susan.”
It was like being at the beach, wading out into the icy water, and seeing a huge wave about to bear down on you. In a moment, it was going to hit you hard, and there was absolutely nothing you could do.
“Susan? Are you okay?”
She couldn’t breathe. She was floundering, the wave pushing her deeper into the darkness, pressing all the air from her lungs, churning her around in circles.
“Do you want me to come over so we can talk?”
“No!” She held the phone away so he couldn’t hear her gasping. When she put it back to her ear he was still talking. “. . . probably should have told you in person, but I wasn’t sure how to—”
“It’s fine,
” she said.
“I can hear in your voice that it’s not,” he said gently.
Don’t, she thought. Don’t use that sweet voice with me.
“I’m just glad you didn’t knock her up while we were still together,” she said. She was shaking. “Good thing our divorce came through two months ago. You got this in just under the wire.” Let him try to play the good guy. They both knew better.
“Maybe we should talk more later,” Randall said.
Daphne was probably coming over to stand beside him, putting a sympathetic hand on his shoulder while her other hand rubbed slow circles on her belly.
Susan needed to get off this call now, before she started to sob. The mediator had suggested that if one of them was becoming irrational or upset, the other should calmly find a way to end the conversation. What were the exact words she had modeled for them?
“I’m going to hang up now, but I’ll talk to you soon,” Randall said, and she nearly screamed. Those were the words!
She was still holding the phone, still shaking, when she heard the click that meant Randall was gone.
A French bulldog puppy. Another child. In less than a year, Daphne had given Randall everything he’d ever wanted. Meanwhile, she was left living in a house where reminders of Randall were everywhere.
She rolled down her window and took a few deep, bracing breaths of the night air and then, because she couldn’t think of anything else to do, she put her car in drive and headed home, where she could cry.
• • •
Newport Cove Listserv Digest
*Leftover Candy
If you have any leftover candy, I’ll be happy to swing by and pick it up and add it to the box I’m preparing to ship overseas to children in an impoverished village in Africa. —Jenny McMahon, Daisy Way
*Halloween Party
Thanks to all who came out to make our annual Newport Cove Halloween Party a big success! And a special thanks to Bob Kilpatrick for thinking so quickly and dumping a bottle of water over “Opal’s” head after her wig caught on fire from a jack-o’-lantern! Whew—that was a close call, but “Opal” asked me to let you know that she’s just fine and will be back next year! We’re lucky to live in such a friendly neighborhood where we all look after each other! Happy November, everyone! —Sincerely, Shannon Dockser, Newport Cove Manager
The Perfect Neighbors Page 8