The Perfect Neighbors

by Sarah Pekkanen

  Kellie had mentioned his name earlier tonight, when she’d talked about selling her first house. It was a funny coincidence that Miller had shown up here. Susan craned her head to check if he had on a wedding ring, but she was too far away to tell.

  “Another drink, Susan?” Gigi offered.

  Susan shook her head. “Better not.” She was hot now, and a little nauseous. She’d eaten too many chips and guac, and had downed her drinks too quickly.

  “I’m going to switch to water myself,” Gigi said. “All I need is to get tipsy and have someone put it up on YouTube. I’m still grateful that speech I tried to make on election night never surfaced online.”

  “You were on muscle relaxants,” Susan said. “Everyone understands.”

  “Oh God, did you see it?” Gigi asked, putting her head in her hands.

  “No,” Susan said. Her eyes flickered and met Tessa’s. “I’d left by then.”

  Susan wondered if Gigi knew Daphne and Randall had come to the party. Daphne had said Joe had invited them, which was fine.

  Actually, it wasn’t fine. But she couldn’t—wouldn’t—ever say that.

  “Kellie’s really having fun,” Tessa said.

  “Good for her,” Gigi said. “He’ll probably be disappointed to find out she’s married.”

  “Actually, she knows him,” Susan said. The other women looked at her questioningly. “She works with him. His name is Miller. Remember, she was talking about him earlier.”

  Gigi nodded, then craned her neck to check out Miller. “She didn’t mention how handsome he was, though.”

  Actually, she did, Susan thought. Not in so many words, but something had conveyed that impression to Susan.

  Susan grabbed a napkin and blotted her forehead. Someone bumped her from behind, jabbing a sharp elbow into her back. “Sorry!” a girl said when she turned around.

  She gave her a nod and wished for a glass of water. The bartender was too busy to notice her wave.

  She shouldn’t have come out tonight. But what was the alternative? Sitting vigil in the cold outside Randall’s again, imagining him and Daphne together, Randall stroking the outline of Daphne’s face with a fingertip while he stared into her eyes, the way he’d done when he was with Susan?

  On the dance floor, Miller reached for Kellie’s hands and began to spin her around, doing a complicated series of moves that had her looping through his arms and ending with a little dip. His hands lingered on her rib cage.

  Did anyone else see it? Susan wondered. The way Kellie stared up at Miller like a starstruck teenager? The way he seemed to be searching for excuses to touch her? Who the hell did they think they were fooling?

  Susan didn’t realize she’d begun to stalk toward the dance floor until Kellie looked up and caught her eye. The expression on Kellie’s face—like she’d been caught doing something naughty—sealed Susan’s suspicion.

  “How’s your husband, Kellie?” Susan asked pointedly. The music was so loud she practically had to scream it.

  Kellie and Miller had stopped dancing by now and were standing a little bit apart. Miller had on a wedding ring, too, Susan saw.

  “How’s Jason?” Susan said. “He’s at home with your children, right? What about you, Miller? Did you tell your wife you had to work late?”

  Kellie’s mouth had dropped open into a little O of surprise.

  “I can’t watch this,” Susan said. “I’m leaving.”

  Susan turned and stormed out through the front door, ignoring Kellie, who was shouting her name.

  A coy look. A dance. A conversation at a bar after your friends left and you found yourself sitting next to someone attractive. And suddenly, a marriage was splitting apart, and a family was wrecked, and a little boy was making up lies because he was worried about his mother. It’s not so innocent! Susan wanted to shake Kellie by the shoulders, yank her away from Miller.

  She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs: This is how it starts!

  • • •

  In some ways, Gigi felt like a big sister to Susan and Kellie. She was five years older, and had tipped the other women off about the best and worst teachers at the elementary school. She’d recommended a piano teacher for Noah and Mia (Melanie had been quite good, until she’d refused to continue playing and Gigi had decided to choose her battles). She’d given Susan the name of a wonderful karate instructor, and had recommended gynecologists and dentists to both women.

  But she had no idea what to do after Susan stormed out and Kellie came back to the table, looking chagrined. Miller had disappeared by then.

  “She just left,” Kellie said. “I ran outside after her, but she was gone.”

  “She probably called an Uber,” Gigi said. “I’ll send her a text.”

  She tapped one out and asked Susan to let her know if she was safe. Do you want me to come over? she wrote.

  A reply pinged back a moment later. No. Just in a bad mood. I’m in a cab now. Sorry.

  “She’s okay,” Gigi told the others. “She caught a cab.”

  “I mean, that was ridiculous!” Kellie said. “All I was doing was dancing!”

  Gigi nodded. She knew better than to get in the middle of it. She’d finished her second drink and was feeling tired. Melanie had to get up early every day for high school and Gigi always got up along with her.

  Sleep deprivation couldn’t be to blame for Melanie’s personality change, could it?

  Gigi sighed. Suddenly the music seemed too loud, the bar too crowded. The magic had evaporated from the night. “Should we go?” Gigi asked.

  Tessa nodded. “Ready when you are.”

  “Oh, fine,” Kellie said. “I’m not staying here alone.”

  They put on their coats and headed outside, into a brisk wind. Gigi wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, then checked her iPhone. “The cabdriver’s just a minute away,” she said.

  The three women stood there in silence.

  “I mean, it’s not like I’m sleeping with Miller!” Kellie burst out. “We were just dancing.”

  “I think Susan’s feeling a little sensitive because of . . . what happened to her,” Tessa said.

  “She told you about it?” Kellie asked.

  Tessa nodded.

  “I didn’t know they were coming over on election night until I saw them walk through the door,” Gigi said. “I would’ve warned Susan.”

  “Yeah,” Kellie said. “Jason’s still friendly with Randall, too. I told him I didn’t want Randall coming to the house, because I don’t want Susan to see, but they get together at bars to watch games sometimes.”

  She sighed and looked down. “I shouldn’t have danced with Miller. This was supposed to be a girls’ night and I blew it.”

  “It wasn’t that,” Tessa said. The other women looked at her in surprise.

  “What was it, then?” Kellie asked.

  “She misses Randall,” Tessa said simply.

  But it wasn’t that, either, Gigi knew. Susan had regrets—a supple word that could bend and stretch to encompass a wide swath of emotions. You sent regrets when you couldn’t attend a party, even if they were insincere. You regretted not telling someone—your mother, your father, a friend—you loved them before you lost them forever. And you could regret pieces of your past; brief, impulsive moments that nevertheless could have the power to shatter your husband’s dream.

  “She’s a good friend, Kellie,” Gigi said gently. “She was trying to help.”

  Kellie blinked hard a few times. “It’s just—” she began, and then her cell phone pinged with an incoming message. She took it out of her purse and stared down at it.

  Something told Gigi the text was from Miller. She watched as Kellie put the phone back into her purse without typing out a reply.

  It was good Susan had interceded, Gigi thought. It was
n’t too late for Kellie to avoid regrets of her own.

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-One

  * * *

  THE POLICE CRUISER PULLED up in front of Tessa’s house on a Tuesday afternoon while the kids were in school.

  Harry was out for a run, and Tessa was home alone. Tessa had been encouraging Harry to exercise because she hoped it might reduce his stress, but now she wished she hadn’t. He came home sweaty and red-faced, often with reports of beating his previous mileage. Harry was up to something like thirty miles a week now, and his face was so thin his cheeks looked sunken. His transformation reminded Tessa of the one Matthew McConaughey had undergone for Dallas Buyers Club, where he’d morphed from muscular and healthy to sallow and fragile in a few short months. But McConaughey had won an Oscar for that transformation, then he had returned to a healthy weight. To himself.

  Tessa wasn’t sure what made her walk into the living room and look out the window—a sixth sense?—but when she did, the black-and-white car was parked by the curb. As if keeping surveillance.

  She was grateful she wasn’t holding anything, because her hands began to tremble and nausea rose in her throat. The doorbell hadn’t rung, had it? She was certain she would have heard it. So the police officer must still be in the car.

  What would an innocent person do, someone who had no knowledge of a crime? Would she run out to the car and ask the police officer why he was there, perhaps feigning fear at the thought of a criminal being on the loose?

  No, Tessa thought. She’d wait, and look perplexed but eager to cooperate when the doorbell rang.

  She went into the kitchen and ran cold water over a paper towel and dotted it against her wrists and the back of her neck. She took deep breaths and stared at her hands, willing them to stop trembling. The sudden silence of the house felt eerie. She could hear the almost imperceptible ticking of the kitchen clock.

  When the doorbell rang, she nearly screamed.

  She wiped her palms on her jeans, forced herself to slowly inhale and exhale once more, then went to open the door.

  “Mrs. Campbell?” the young cop asked. He lowered his mirrored sunglasses and Tessa took in a shaky breath. He was a baby—maybe just twenty-two or twenty-three. They wouldn’t have sent a baby cop if they knew.

  “Officer, come in,” Tessa said. She stepped back. Her voice was a little higher than usual but the cop wouldn’t know that.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  He stepped over the threshold and looked around. Their living room was neat and clean. The daily newspaper was spread across the coffee table, open to the crossword puzzle Harry had been working on that morning. There wasn’t anything here amiss, nothing that would trigger suspicion.

  “I’m Officer Chapman, just here as a courtesy,” he said. “We got a call from Detective Robinson from your old town.”

  The female detective assigned to the case, the one with big, watchful eyes and an ever-present notebook.

  “Yes,” Tessa said. “I met her.”

  “She asked me to check in, see how you’re doing,” the officer said.

  “How nice,” Tessa said. “Can I get you some coffee? Or some cookies, or . . . ?”

  Her voice trailed off.

  “Actually, coffee and cookies sound really good,” the officer said, and suddenly he was a boy again. He was of no threat to her.

  Tessa hurried into the kitchen. She’d reheat this morning’s coffee that was still in the pot so she wouldn’t waste precious minutes brewing a fresh cup. Harry had been gone for almost an hour. He’d be back any minute now. She tore open a package of sugar cookies and put five on a plate, then snatched three back.

  “Cream and sugar?” she called out.

  “Please,” Officer Chapman said.

  She wondered what he was doing in the living room. If he was looking around.

  She pulled the glass carafe off the warming burner before it was fully hot and sloshed some into a cup, then added sweetener and cream. She brought everything back into the living room and set it on the coffee table.

  “Please sit down,” she said. She could hear the kitchen clock ticking again. “Or actually, I can put that in a to-go cup if you need to get back to work?”

  “Oh, I can take a five-minute break,” the officer said.

  Of course he could—Newport Cove was one of the twenty safest communities in the country. What did he have to do, other than give high-fives to little kids and respond to a report of a cat up in a tree?

  Tessa sat across from him and crossed her legs and pushed the corners of her mouth upward, hoping her expression resembled a smile. She could see the street in front of the house. No sign of Harry coming down it.

  “I guess you wanted to move away,” the officer said.

  “We did,” Tessa said. “After everything that happened . . . well, it seemed like a fresh start was a good idea.”

  “You might want to give your contact information to Officer Robinson,” the officer said. He dunked a cookie in his coffee and took a big bite. “She wasn’t aware you’d moved.”

  “She wasn’t?” Tessa said. “I’m sorry. It was sort of an impulsive decision. We just fell in love with this area.”

  Officer Chapman took another sip of coffee. Hurry! Tessa wanted to scream.

  “What brought you down here again?” he asked.

  Tessa suddenly went very still. The officer’s eyes were fixed on hers. She’d let down her guard because he was so young. She’d been wrong to do that.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Harry jogging down their street. He stopped short when he saw the police car.

  “Like I said before,” Tessa said. “We just wanted a fresh start. And the weather here is a little milder, which is nice.”

  “You don’t have any family here, though?” the officer said. He picked up a cookie and crunched into it, his eyes never leaving hers.

  “No,” Tessa said. “Of course, we didn’t have any in our old neighborhood, either.”

  Somehow she felt certain Detective Robinson would be checking to verify that.

  “Detective Robinson mentioned there wasn’t a photo of your son in Danny’s house,” Officer Chapman said.

  “No, there wasn’t,” Tessa said. Meet his eyes, she reminded herself. Don’t volunteer unnecessary information. No tells.

  “Is your husband home?” Officer Chapman asked. He finished the cookies and wiped his fingertips on his pants.

  “Not at the moment,” Tessa said. Her throat was so dry she couldn’t swallow.

  She heard the back door opening and coughed to mask the sound. Harry was in the house now. Would he come into the living room? “Well,” she said loudly as she stood up. “I should probably start fixing dinner.”

  It was two o’clock in the afternoon. Another misstep.

  Officer Chapman got to his feet. Any second now, Harry would walk into the room and he’d do something—run away or confess or start crying. He was so fragile.

  Tessa strode to the front door. She held it open, knowing she was being rude—worse than rude, she was acting strangely.

  She sent a mental message to Harry: Don’t move. Don’t say a word.

  “Have a good day, ma’am,” the officer said. “Thanks for the coffee and cookies.”

  Tessa closed the door behind him a split-second before Harry entered the living room.

  “What’s wrong?” Harry asked.

  “Nothing!” she said. “Everything’s fine!”

  “Why were the police here?” he asked.

  She looked him in the eye. “A fund-raiser. I wrote a check.”

  Harry nodded and she could see his body relax. “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  Tessa managed to wait until she heard the water turn on upstairs before she allowed herself to fall onto
the couch, her legs too weak to hold her up.

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  * * *

  Newport Cove Listserv Digest

  *Happy Thanksgiving

  Happy Turkey Day, everyone! Gobble, gobble! —Shannon Dockser, Newport Cove Manager

  *Re: Canned goods donations

  If anyone has canned goods to donate, I’ll be happy to take them to the shelter. I’m making trips there every Friday throughout the winter, so just send me an email and I’ll come by and pick up your boxed or canned food. I can also take extra coats, blankets and boots. —Jenny McMahon, Daisy Way

  *Jump Start?

  Would someone mind popping by and giving me a jump start? Sigh. —Reece Harmon, Daisy Way

  *Re: Jump Start?

  No problem! —Jenny McMahon, Daisy Way

  • • •

  Gigi pulled a tray of stuffed acorn squash out of the oven and set the hot pan on top of a trivet.

  “Are those done?” her mother asked, coming over and poking a finger into one of Gigi’s squashes.

  Her mother had arrived the previous afternoon, wearing a long tie-dyed dress with a purple knit cardigan over it. She’d brought along only a small cloth pouch, which made Gigi wonder if her mother was going to wear the same ensemble the whole three days she was visiting. Miraculously, she seemed to have stuffed several wardrobe changes into her little bag. But then again, her mother didn’t need space for hair products or makeup or electronic devices.

  “The insides don’t feel very hot,” her mother said. “Are you sure they don’t need to go back into the oven?”

  “Completely sure,” Gigi said, even though she wasn’t.

  “It’s too late for this year, but next year you should roast your turkey breast down,” her mother said. “It’ll be much juicier.”

  “I’ll remember that,” Gigi said. She eyed the unopened bottle of wine on the counter and wondered if it was too soon to pop the cork. Why had her mother been so disconnected for much of Gigi’s life, only to now jump in and try to micromanage things? In the short time she’d been here, her mother had questioned the wisdom of everything from Joe’s decision to run for Congress to Gigi’s choice of a rug in the living room (the rug was from a store that produced goods in China, which resulted in a lecture from her mother on child labor and unfair trade practices).