The Perfect Neighbors

by Sarah Pekkanen

  Susan clicked over to her profile. She’d uploaded a candid photo from a family vacation a few years ago. She’d had to crop it to cut out Randall and Cole, but she didn’t want to use her professional photo because it was on her website and on the radio station’s website and there was too great a chance someone would recognize it. No matter how often she heard that online dating was no big deal, she couldn’t shake a sense of embarrassment.

  Under “Interests,” she’d written: Reading, taking walks with my dog, and watching Downton Abbey.

  I’m boring, she thought. Yawn-inducing boring. Searching4Luv probably wouldn’t even be interested in her!

  Somehow, that made him marginally more attractive.

  Terrific. Now she was acting like a baby. She closed the lid of her computer and got up and left the coffee shop.

  Ten minutes of online dating, and she’d already frayed her self-esteem. Maybe it worked for others, but it had only made her feel worse. There were so many lonely people in the world.

  There had to be a guy out there, a good man who would love her, she tried to tell herself.

  But you had that, the traitorous voice in her head answered. You already had that with Randall, and you threw it away.

  • • •

  “We’ve got a problem, Mrs. Kennedy,” Zach said, sitting down across from Gigi.

  “What is it, Zach?” she asked. It bugged her that she called him by his first name while he refused to do the same. It didn’t feel respectful that he referred to her as Mrs. Kennedy. It felt as if he were trying to be perceived as respectful, which was something quite different.

  “A source has told me that Max Connor’s campaign has some information on you,” Zach said.

  He’d asked to meet her alone, without Joe present, and she’d agreed. She’d thought it might be easier to pinpoint exactly what made her feel uneasy around Zach if she could talk to him without distraction. And so, while Joe was attending the grand opening of a new civic center, Zach had stayed behind.

  Here it comes, Gigi thought. She sat up straighter, trying to keep her face from revealing anything.

  “What information, Zach?” Gigi asked.

  “It seems they have a copy of an old arrest record,” Zach began.

  “For trespassing?” Gigi interrupted. “Yes. I was protesting the destruction of an old redwood tree. So were a dozen other college students. We were all arrested and let go that same day. No one even saw the inside of a jail.”

  “This is about another matter,” Zach said delicately.

  Gigi could feel herself blush, and it infuriated her. Who cared what some pipsqueak thought about her past?

  The problem was, Zach was enjoying this, Gigi realized. What bothered her about Zach snapped into focus. He craved power. He didn’t so much believe in Joe as he believed Joe could get Zach what he wanted.

  Zach reached for a manila envelope on the couch next to him and handed it to Gigi.

  “You have a file on me?” she asked, trying to smile to show that she wasn’t the least bit intimidated by him.

  “Well, Max’s campaign does,” Zach said. “A source in his campaign had this.”

  “Wait a minute—you have a source in Max’s campaign who’s feeding you information?” Gigi asked.

  “She didn’t exactly give me the information. She was indiscreet in where she kept it, and I, let’s say, stumbled upon it,” Zach said.

  His eyes flickered briefly, revealing the unpleasantness Gigi had glimpsed before, and suddenly Gigi wondered if the source was a young woman who had a crush on Zach. She’d seen the way girls acted around him—Joe’s press secretary, even her own daughter! She tried to imagine how it had happened. Maybe they’d slept together, and Zach had gone through her belongings while she was in the bathroom.

  Gigi didn’t open the folder. “It was the shoplifting incident, right?” she asked.

  Zach nodded.

  “So Max’s campaign is going to trot out this old misdemeanor and try to punish my husband for it?” Gigi said. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “It is,” Zach said. “But yes, they’re probably going to leak it.”

  “Would a newspaper actually print that kind of junk?” Gigi asked.

  “Your record is in the public domain,” Zach said. “So technically, they can. But I doubt they would go for something so minor. I’m sure the conservative bloggers will be all over it, though. They live for this sort of stuff.”

  Gigi handed back the folder without looking at it.

  “So if there’s anything you want to tell me, anything we could use to offset this . . . ,” Zach said. His fingertip stroked the folder.

  Gigi held his gaze steadily.

  “Nope,” she said. “Seriously, Zach, you missed a campaign event for this nonsense?”

  He smiled and stood up, conceding defeat graciously. “You’re right,” he said. “I can probably still catch the tail end if I leave now.”

  “I have some calls to make,” Gigi said. “Excuse me.”

  Gigi went upstairs and waited until she heard the front door close before she came back down. She sat in the chair she’d just vacated, thinking about the contents of the manila folder.

  It had been a scarf.

  A silly scarf in a pattern she didn’t even particularly like. She’d taken it from a snooty boutique. Like the sunglasses she’d grabbed the previous month, and the inexpensive earrings she’d pocketed the month before that.

  The first time it had happened, she’d been in a department store to return a pair of wool gloves that made her hands itch. She’d been waiting for the salesgirl to finish with the customer ahead of her in line when she’d seen a display of earrings on the counter in front of her. A pair of chunky silver hoops had caught her eye, so Gigi had picked them up. They were almost the exact price of the gloves. She’d do an exchange, Gigi had decided.

  The salesgirl had finished ringing up her customer, then walked over to the other side of the counter to wait on another woman who’d just stepped up with a shirt in her hand.

  “Excuse me,” Gigi had called, but the girl hadn’t heard her.

  Anger—more than the tiny affront warranted—roiled within her. Gigi had always railed against social injustices, but living in the manicured suburbs and caring for an infant hadn’t given her much to protest lately.

  She’d started to put the earrings back, then she’d let them roll into her palm and she’d closed her fist. She left the gloves with their receipt on the counter. She fully expected to set off the alarm at the security gate by the exit and be stopped by a security guard. She was looking forward to it, actually—she’d like to give the silly young salesgirl a piece of her middle-aged mind.

  But she walked through the doors without triggering a sound.

  She’d stood in the parking lot, wondering if she should go back. But then, unexpectedly, exhilaration had swept through her. The store would never miss the thirty-dollar pair of earrings. She’d done it! She’d lodged her own minor protest.

  At home, the earrings seemed shinier, more enticing than her other pairs. Sometimes Gigi took them out just to look at them, remembering her tiny victory.

  She wasn’t tempted to do it again, though. The thought of slipping an expensive chocolate bar into her pocket at the grocery store didn’t tantalize her. She was never seized with the impulse to stuff an extra peach into the little square baskets that were sold for two dollars at the farmers’ market.

  The sunglasses, though.

  Gigi usually just wore cheap Ray-Ban knockoffs purchased from the drugstore, and they were forever breaking. She’d had one pair for only a week when the tiny screw by her temple came out, separating the stem from the glasses. She’d popped into the drugstore to pick up a repair kit and she’d seen something that made her blood boil: There was a young mother ahead of her in line, juggl
ing a toddler on her hip, trying to pay for a pack of diapers and a few other items. When the mother tried to pay with her credit card, the cashier asked for a photo ID.

  Gigi was incensed. She’d shopped at this particular chain dozens of times, sometimes ringing up totals far higher than this young mother’s, and she’d never once been asked to show an ID. It had happened because the woman was black, Gigi was certain. She’d heard about a similar incident happening to an African-American friend of hers. When it was Gigi’s turn to approach the counter, she put down her glasses repair kit and deodorant and the few other items she’d collected. She paid with a credit card.

  No one had asked for her ID.

  On her way out of the store, Gigi had reached out and pulled a pair of sunglasses off the display unit. She was taking a stand, just like when she’d linked arms with other students to form a human barricade and save the old redwood tree!

  Again, no one stopped her. Maybe store clerks weren’t suspicious of her because she was white, because she looked comfortably middle-class. The notion incensed her.

  She never even wore the sunglasses. They were oversized, with rhinestones, and looked completely ridiculous on her. But they served as a kind of trophy.

  She’d shopped a dozen times before it happened again—quick trips to the mini-mart to pick up a quart of milk, and bigger excursions to Whole Foods. She’d gotten a new winter coat for Melanie. Temptation had never beckoned.

  Until the day Gigi went into an upscale boutique with the gift certificate Joe’s parents had given her for her birthday. Gigi had never set foot in the store before—it catered to a certain kind of woman, one who didn’t wear Birkenstocks—and she felt uncomfortable the moment she breathed in the perfumed air and saw a tall, stick-thin woman approach her.

  “Just looking,” Gigi said. She reached out absently to touch a coat on a rack and snatched her hand back when she realized she was touching fur.

  She’d once seen a documentary about the torture animals endured so wealthy people could strip them of their fur. Soft little creatures caught in traps, their limbs broken, plaintively crying . . . Gigi knew she couldn’t buy anything here.

  She approached the saleswoman. “I received this for a birthday,” she said, handing over the certificate. “There isn’t anything here I need, so I’d like to receive the cash instead.”

  The woman had raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, but that’s against our policy.”

  Gigi had felt a slow burn. “That’s ridiculous. May I speak to the manager?”

  “I am the manager,” the woman had said.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Gigi said. “I don’t like the clothes here. I won’t wear them. I want a refund.”

  The woman had flipped over the certificate. “It says right here: ‘Cannot be exchanged for cash value.’ ”

  Gigi had snatched it back.

  “Fine,” she said. She wanted to tear it to shreds, but had a better idea. “I’ll donate it to a women’s shelter.”

  She’d started to stalk out then and, without even thinking about it, her hand had shot out and grabbed a scarf.

  She’d made it four paces down the sidewalk when she heard the man’s voice behind her:

  “Ma’am? I’m going to need you to come with me.”

  Of course, with all that expensive fur, there had been a security guard in the store, Gigi thought as she froze in place, one foot outstretched, her heart thudding in her chest.

  “Why did you do it?” Joe asked later, when he’d come to the police station.

  He wasn’t mad, but he was deeply confused. She was, too.

  “I have no idea,” she’d finally said. Reasons rolled through her mind, but none made sense. Because I was bored? Because sometimes I feel as if I don’t matter, and the contours of my life are shrinking, and I want to mean more?

  She was relieved Joe didn’t know the worst part. She’d been alone when she’d been caught. But the other two times—at the department store and the drugstore—baby Melanie had been strapped in a carrier on her chest, sleeping, while her mother had blithely committed crimes.

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  * * *

  Before Newport Cove

  AFTER THE INCIDENTS WITH the nanny and the Advil and at the park, things grew increasingly strained between Tessa and Harry. He called more frequently when he was out of town—three or four times a day—and took the red-eye home rather than stay away an extra night. Harry was six foot two, and he never could sleep on airplanes. He hated the red-eye. She suspected he no longer trusted her, even though the children had begun school full-time. Even though there hadn’t been another incident in years.

  But maybe he was right. Those early, panic-inducing scenes seemed to have changed something in Tessa. Or maybe years of sleep-deprivation and general anxiety had rewired her, leaving her jittery and easily startled. Celine was working with another family in the neighborhood and had been for years; Tessa saw her now and then in the park. The nanny still didn’t smile much, but she seemed to be a diligent caregiver.

  Tessa had seen danger everywhere when it hadn’t existed. It made the ground feel unsteady beneath her feet. How could she protect her children when she couldn’t distinguish an actual threat from an imaginary one? When her children were safely asleep, Tessa would wander out to look at the angel statue in the butterfly garden she and Harry had created.

  Help me, she would pray beneath the moonlight. Help me to . . . But she never knew what to add after that. Get better? Relax? Learn to be the right kind of mother?

  She insisted on walking her kids to school, even after Bree turned eight and her friends on the street were allowed to walk alone. Even though the school was just two blocks away, and didn’t require crossing any major intersections.

  She felt perpetually keyed up, as if she’d consistently had one cup too many of coffee. She tried to take up yoga, but her mind raced even more frantically in the quiet space. She threw herself into volunteering at the kids’ school, which helped a little, but only because Tessa could surreptitiously sneak glances at her kids on the playground and in the lunchroom.

  When one of Addison’s friends invited him to join a local group called Young Rangers that was similar to Boy Scouts, Tessa was relieved to know parents were invited to attend all the meetings, as well as excursions like an overnight camping trip.

  Tessa had driven Addison to the first meeting. She’d brought along a book in her purse, and had intended to sit in the back row, reading.

  She and Addison had walked into the school rec room together that first night. A tall man with crew-cut graying hair had walked over to greet them. He appeared to be about sixty, a little heavyset, wearing a sweatshirt and jeans.

  “Are you our newest Ranger?” he’d asked Addison.

  Addison had broken into a grin. “Yup,” he’d said. He could be shy sometimes, but something about this man had put him at ease.

  “Excellent,” the man had said. He’d reached out to shake Addison’s hand, then he’d smiled up at Tessa.

  “I’m Danny Briggs,” he’d said.

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  * * *

  JASON HAD BEEN ACTING strangely.

  Ever since Thanksgiving, when Irene had made her crack about Kellie’s texts, Kellie had noticed the change. He’d gone from being a contented man who looked forward to dinner and the television after work to someone who seemed more . . . alert.

  Last night, Kellie had come out of the bathroom to discover Jason staring down at her iPhone.

  “What are you doing?” she’d asked.

  “It, uh, rang,” he’d said. “I was going to answer it for you but I think they hung up first.”

  “Oh,” Kellie had said. “Probably just a telemarketer.”

  But when she’d walked over to her iPhone a
nd typed in the code to unlock her screen, the register showed no incoming calls.

  Had he been trying to check her messages? He wouldn’t find anything incriminating. A bunch of work exchanges, some spam, and a few texts from Miller, including one that had arrived that afternoon that read: You look especially pretty today.

  Well, maybe that was incriminating. If Jason worked in a normal office building, though, he’d probably go out to lunch with attractive women all the time. Just look at the way that blonde in the hardware store had acted! But because his father and old Ed were his only coworkers, it might be hard for him to understand that she and Miller checked in with each other during the weekdays and occasionally scouted houses together.

  “Office spouses.” There was even an innocuous term for her relationship with Miller, one that showed how common their relationship was in the workplace.

  Still, something had compelled Kellie to get home early today, so she could hit the grocery store and get the fixings for dinner before the kids came home from school. Usually she dragged them along on errands so she could be in the office from nine to three, but today she decided to grill steaks, Jason’s favorite, and make twice-baked potatoes.

  Miraculously, Mia even put a tiny piece of steak on her plate, next to her pile of carrots and roll, and proclaimed it “Not awful.”

  “I’ll take it,” Kellie whispered to Jason. “She’s tougher than Gordon Ramsay.”

  “Did everyone have a good day?” Jason asked.

  “I did,” Mia said. “Mrs. Dickenson had to step out of the room and she asked me to be in charge and report any bad behavior.”

  Well played, Mrs. Dickenson, Kellie thought. Mia must’ve been drunk with power.

  “Did anyone misbehave?” Kellie asked.