“Or I could go to your place,” she offered, “even with your dad there. He’ll probably leave you alone if you have company. I’m game for whichever option would work best for you.”
Neil considered it, before saying, “Surprise me.”
And that was the rub.
Everything about this was beginning to surprise her.
Chapter Five
The next afternoon, Helen approached Neil’s door with a pizza in hand. As far as she knew, his dad was still there. If so, she was happy to serve as a buffer. If not, so much the better. She’d have another night of Neil’s company.
She’d thought a lot about their “date” the night before, trying to sort out why it had flustered her. In the end, there’d only been one logical conclusion: she liked him in a way she hadn’t expected. How far that “liking” went, she didn’t know. Truth be told, she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out. She’d answered too many letters from people whose friendships had been ruined by this kind of thing.
She shook off the thought and knocked, hoping his dad didn’t answer. The door opened. Fate, as it turned out, was still kind of a jerk.
A man who looked a lot like Neil, only older, eyed her a moment, then turned back toward the apartment and called out, “Pizza’s here.”
“I didn’t order pizza,” Neil’s voice called back.
His dad faced her again. “Sorry. Wrong place.”
He started to close the door. She quickly called out, “Neil, it’s Helen.”
Apparently her knowledge of his son’s name was enough to make Mr. MacKay at least hesitate before closing the door on her. Neil appeared in the next moment.
“Hey,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be coming by or not.”
She tried to look nonchalant about the whole thing. “Well, I didn’t get asked on another date, so I figured this was my best option.”
“Is this who you were on your date with?” his dad asked. “The pizza delivery girl?”
“Yup.” Neil grinned as he waved her inside. “What do we have tonight?”
“Pepperoni, with a side of work and studying.”
“Sounds good to me.” He moved to the kitchen to grab cups, same as every other pizza night.
His dad watched her with confused curiosity. “You’re the one he had the date with?”
“Is that so shocking?” She kept the question casual but meant every word; Mr. MacKay looked genuinely surprised.
“I just assumed he’d go out with someone less…”
Oh, that didn’t bode well. “Less what?”
“Dad.” Neil’s sharp tone didn’t deflect either of them.
“It’s just that I think—” His dad didn’t seem uncomfortable, so much as unsure of the best way to say exactly what he was thinking. She kept him in her pointed and unflinching gaze. “You seem out of his league, to be honest.”
She had not been expecting that. Neil’s eyes pulled wide and unblinking. He, apparently, had been caught by surprise as well.
For the briefest of moments, she felt flattered. But then she was hit full force with the reality of what his dad had implied. Nothing about Helen shouted, “great catch.” When he’d thought she was the pizza delivery girl, he’d dismissed her out of hand. Saying someone he’d blown off so quickly was out of his son’s league was not a compliment to her, so much as an insult to Neil.
“I think we’re exactly in each other’s league,” she tossed back, setting the pizza on the coffee table and making herself at home on the couch. She turned her head enough to talk to Neil, who was walking over from the kitchen. “I don’t need much feedback tonight, so you can dive right into your studying, and I’ll just start typing.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Neil handed her a glass then sat, not in his usual chair— his dad had taken that one— but next to her on the couch. “Do you mind?” he asked, scooting a little closer.
Mind? Not at all.
Her gaze caught his dad’s, and she saw unmistakable disapproval there, though for which one of them she couldn’t say. So she settled in more comfortably against Neil and eyed his dad with a look of challenge. He was a visitor in his son’s home. He didn’t get to decide whether or not she was welcome.
The show of confidence did the trick. Mr. MacKay snatched up the remote and began flipping through channels.
Helen grabbed a slice of pizza. “You can have some, too, Mr. MacKay, if you want.”
“Thanks.” But he didn’t reach for any. He gave every indication of sulking.
Helen set her pizza on the plate Neil had brought along with her glass. She leaned a little closer and, lowering her voice, said, “He doesn’t seem very happy that I’m here.”
“He’s not happy about anything.”
“Because he’s on the outs with your mom?”
“Because he’s not a happy person.” Neil shifted a little, settling closer to her.
Was he simply searching for a more comfortable position, or did he want to close the gap between them for more… personal reasons? Her stomach flipped about as her mind attempted to sort out the possibilities.
Get it together, Helen. You’re gonna make this weird.
He popped open his accounting textbook. “Maybe I should let Dad read a chapter or two of this baby. That’d cheer up anybody.”
“Sure,” she said. “Nothing like benefit-cost ratios to brighten a person’s day.”
Neil looked impressed. “You’ve been paying attention.”
She did her best impression of his over-blown show of arrogance from the night before. “You’re not the only one who’s good on a date.”
“That was pretty nice last night, huh?” He made the observation, really casually, like it wasn’t a big deal one way or the other.
Her immediate response, though, wasn’t so content. She’d been thinking about those few hours every minute since their dinner out, and she couldn’t make sense of it. Couldn’t wasn’t the right word. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t allow herself to think about it too deeply. Neil was her best friend. She wasn’t going to risk losing that friendship over feelings she wasn’t entirely sure of herself.
“So, when’s your next—” She made the mistake of meeting his eye. He gave her a look of quiet amusement that proved charming in a way Neil had never been charming before.
What is happening?
She forced her mind to refocus, something she seldom managed without a great deal of effort. “When’s your next test?”
“In a couple of weeks,” he said, grabbing some pizza. “Then it’s the final.”
School. Keep talking to him about school. “Are you nervous?”
“Not really. I know this stuff forward and backward.”
“Doing accounting backwards seems like a bad idea. But I’m no expert.”
“You do give good advice, though,” he said.
“Speaking of which.” She opened her computer, snagged her neglected dinner, and settled in.
“Write like the wind, Helen.”
Over the top of her screen, she spotted his dad watching the both of them, his brows pulled so tight they almost touched, his mouth turned down in a perfect frown.
She gave him an innocent look. “Did you want some pizza?”
His dad stood up, antsy and clearly uncomfortable. “I’m gonna go for a walk or something.”
Neil turned a page in his book. “Have fun.”
Helen didn’t look up again from her computer, though she was tempted. After a minute, the door closed.
“I don’t know how you managed that,” Neil said, “but thank you. I have not had a minute to myself since he arrived.”
A minute to himself. He wanted to be alone. That was a splash of cold water. “Should I go?”
“Of course not. I’m not going to eat this pizza all by myself, and I’m not sharing with my dad.”
Dry humor. Familiar footing. “Your mom would probably approve of letting him go hungry.”
“She’d think I was
taking her side.” He closed his book again, his gaze on the closed door.
“Do you think your folks will get back together this time?”
“I don’t know.” He leaned his head back against the top of the couch. “I want them to be happy. I also want them to leave me alone. Probably not going to get either.”
She touched his arm. “I’m sorry.”
“Family is complicated, right?”
“Very.” She didn’t see or hear from her family often. That was a complication in and of itself. She laid her head against his shoulder. He didn’t object.
Helen closed her eyes, refusing to think too deeply about her shifting feelings. Leaning against him for a drawn-out moment was all the indulgence she would allow. Maybe she was a coward, but until she saw something— anything— from him that told her he felt at all the same pull, she simply couldn’t risk it.
Chapter Six
Helen was different over that next week. Neil wasn’t sure what had brought on the change, but he wasn’t complaining. When they were together, she sat closer to him than she used to, even leaned against him now and then. Her smile had changed to something warmer, more personal. If it turned out to all be an act put on to dupe his dad…
“You’re out of cereal.” Apparently, that was his dad’s version of “good morning.”
“I’d bet Mom has plenty at home,” Neil said. “She also buys the chips you like and keeps the right amount of red meat in the fridge.” All things Dad had complained about. “You would probably be happier there.”
“I’ll go back when your mom quits being so demanding.” Dad grabbed a box of crackers out of the cupboard. “She has to be right about everything.”
I should have just kept my mouth shut.
Dad shoved his hand inside the box. “Do you have any idea what that’s like, living with someone who has to have everything their way all the time?”
“I’m starting to,” Neil mumbled.
“It’s not just your mother. That Helen is the same way.”
That Helen?
“She comes here and sits wherever she wants. Eats our food. Tells me I have to turn the TV down like she lives here.”
Neil was actually starting to feel a little sorry for his mom, though he knew she was every bit as unreasonable.
“You do remember that you don’t actually live here, right? Helen has been coming by regularly since I moved in. She is allowed to sit wherever she wants, because I am okay with that. I do live here. It’s my place and my food and my TV.”
“Are you throwing me out?” Dad demanded.
Was it really so much to ask that his parents be grown-ups? Sometimes Neil felt like he was refereeing a middle-school playground brawl.
“You’re my dad, and I love you. And I love Mom. I hate that you guys fight all the time, but I hate even more that you pull me into it every single time.” Neil grabbed his coat. “If you aren’t even going to try to make this right between the two of you, then it’s time you found your own place.”
“You’re throwing me out?” Dad at least sounded a little less defensive.
“I’m saying you have to fix this, one way or the other. And that’s not going to happen if you stay here.” Neil pulled the door closed behind him.
He stood in the hallway for a long moment. I just threw my dad out of my house. He knew he was being reasonable, and he’d done the right thing. Why did he feel so guilty about it?
Maybe another letter to “Hey, Helen” was in order. Something along the lines of…
Hey, Helen! My parents make my life miserable, so I told my dad he couldn’t live at my place anymore. On a scale of 1-10, how bad of a son am I? Like 15? 20?
No. He really had done what needed to be done. And he’d eventually figure out how to be okay with that.
The morning passed slowly. Only a couple of his calls resulted in sales, but that ratio wasn’t too bad in the telemarketing world. And in only a few more weeks, he’d be done with it and could deal exclusively with fun stuff like balance sheets and payroll deductions. He’d have his apartment back by then, he hoped. And maybe he’d even have Helen as a more permanent and personal part of his life.
While he waited for class to start, he pulled up her latest Valentine’s column on his phone— it had just gone live. This was the one where he knew she’d answered, among others, the question she didn’t know was from him. But what had she said?
He skimmed past the marathon runner question, settling on the familiar words he’d sent only a few short weeks earlier.
Hey, Helen! I want to tell someone how I feel about her, but I don’t want to ruin our friendship by making it awkward. Valentine’s Day is coming up, and that would be a good time to show her. Is there any good way to do it? — Dude with a Dilemma
Dear Dude. I get this question a lot, and it’s a hard one to answer. Admitting to a friend that you have deeper feelings than what has become comfortable between you two is always a risk. Always. When we have something good in our life, it’s natural and normal to not want to risk losing it. Sometimes, though, protecting the status-quo means losing something. Losing a chance, an opportunity, hope, love. At least seeing if there is something there is usually a risk worth taking. You don’t have to set the house on fire to find out if there’s a flame. Test the waters. Move forward by degrees. Until you know for sure, you’ll always wonder, and that will cast a shadow on what you have now.
Take the risk, she was saying. Move forward by degrees. See if there’s something more.
He was almost certain there was more than just friendship between them, though how much more he couldn’t say.
The question hung in the back of his mind all through class and during his trip home. He found himself walking quickly past Helen’s door, his mind still spinning, not ready yet to talk with her.
When he stepped inside, his dad wasn’t there. That, he knew, was no guarantee that Dad was gone for good. He’d been staying there for a week, and Neil never knew when the man would be around. He might have just gone out for cereal or to a movie or something.
Neil did a quick search and didn’t find a note or text or anything explaining his father’s whereabouts. The mystery would resolve itself eventually. If there was one thing Neil knew about his parents, they weren’t likely to exclude him from any drama.
The question of Helen was harder to sort out.
The email alert on his phone buzzed. He opened the mail app. The return address, [email protected], instantly set him on edge. A message from her official account. That was weird. Had she figured out that Dude With a Dilemma was actually him?
He read the message, every muscle in his body tense.
“Dear ‘My Neighbor Thinks Valentine’s Day is Stupid’.” He breathed a sigh of relief. She was responding to his decoy question. “I don’t usually answer questions directly, but I thought this one warranted it. And I hope it isn’t creepy that I happen to know your email address.”
Question submissions didn’t ask for an email. She was writing to him on purpose because she knew he’d sent that one in.
“I have it on good authority that your neighbor doesn’t have such a low opinion of Valentine’s Day. She just isn’t a big fan of the usual approach: generic gifts or the pressure to do the perfect thing on that one day. Perhaps she’s just a hipster at heart. Pizza and hanging out on the couch are more her style. Just so you know.”
Just so you know. She was telling him that she liked hanging out with him, and that on a day when people express their deeper feelings, she was in favor of being with him, even if it wasn’t in a way most people would think was romantic.
He didn’t know for sure that she was saying she had deeper feelings, but it was still encouraging.
Chapter Seven
In the year and a bit since Neil had moved next door, Helen had never climbed over the dividing wall between their balconies. But sitting outside, hearing raised voices echoing out of his apartment, she decided it was time she did
just that. There really wasn’t time to go out and get a pizza and make her usual entrance.
She slipped over and stepped up to the edge of his sliding glass door, peering inside. He was there, standing a bit away from a man and a woman— the man Helen recognized as Neil’s dad— involved in a heated exchange. His dad had left a couple of days earlier. What had brought him back? And why was his mom— she assumed the woman was his mom— there now?
Neil was closer to the patio door than the other two. She lightly knocked on the glass with her knuckle. He glanced in her direction. After a quick double-take, he pulled the door open.
“What are you doing out here?”
“I came to see if you were okay. I could hear them fighting.”
He pushed out a tense breath. “I was afraid of that. The whole complex has probably heard them.”
Helen eyed his parents, still going at it. They hadn’t even noticed her arrival. “I thought your dad had left.”
“Apparently he told Mom he’d been staying here. She decided that meant I had taken his side in whatever they’re fighting about this time, and she came over to ‘set the record straight.’”
“And he came to…”
Neil shrugged. “Make his case? I don’t know. They were already fighting when they arrived. I haven’t been able to make much sense of it.”
His parents made her so angry. Did they not realize how they were hurting their son? Did they just not care?
“Do you think there’s a nice way to tell them to leave me alone?” Neil’s weary gaze returned to his parents.
“I think you’ve been trying the ‘nice’ way all your life,” she said. “Looks to me like you’ve hit crisis mode, and it’s time to be firm.”
“They’re my parents,” he said. “I don’t— They’re my parents.”
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