“I don’t think so,” Drew lied. “I mean, I haven’t really been paying attention.” He shrugged. “He sleeps a lot.”
“Of course he does,” Harlow quipped, her face twisting with distaste.
“Well, if you do see something strange, you let us know,” Red told him. “We need to stick together.”
“Like good neighbors should,” Harlow added.
Drew pressed his lips together in a tight line as he looked from Harlow to Red and back again. He wanted to protect Mickey, and yet he couldn’t help but wonder how it would benefit him if he told the Wards the truth. If Mick’s house ended up repossessed, that would leave Andrew homeless. It would be the perfect excuse to ask Harlow and Red for a place to stay, at least temporarily. But the thought of tricking them into more hospitality, the thought of using Mickey for Drew’s own gain—he wasn’t that desperate for acceptance; he wasn’t that dazzled by life behind the white picket fence.
“Yeah,” Drew finally replied, “absolutely.” He swallowed against the lump in his throat. If it came down to it, it was either Mickey or the Wards—and unfortunately, for his roommate, Mick didn’t quite have the charm.
Harlow’s mother, Bridget Beaumont, had been dead for nearly forty years. She’d caught a flat along Highway 64 on her way to Little Rock to visit a friend. The man who stopped to help looked nice enough—a cowboy wearing shiny new boots and a Stetson. He tipped his hat, gave her a polite ma’am, and bashed her knees in with the tire iron he found in her trunk. The police found her along the side of the road, her skirt a dozen yards from her bloodied body.
Reggie Beaumont lied to his daughter that night, explaining that her mother had gotten into a car accident—a slip of the foot rocketed her into a tree, a freak accident—it meant that Jesus wanted her in heaven. But Harlow knew he was lying; that was, after all, what Reggie Beaumont did.
She read about it in the paper a few days later: Oklahoma City socialite, wife to the illustrious Pastor Beaumont, dead at thirty-three. Raped. Murdered. Found just outside Plumerville, Arkansas, God rest her soul.
Fifteen-year-old Harlow had her first date three months later. Reggie blamed it on Bridget’s death, the way Harlow had suddenly gone wild. The pretty tulle dresses were replaced by mini-skirts and platform shoes; glitter and curls were traded in for lipstick and a teasing comb. Reggie took a step away from his angel, his hands held in front of him in defeat. She was a girl, and there was only so much a father could do. He would pray for her. Jesus would show her the way.
Danny Wilson took Harlow to see The Exorcist after buying her a cheeseburger and vanilla shake, then brought her back to his apartment to show off his baseball trophies, proud of the ugly resin statues that lined the shelf above his desk. She listened to him rattle on about how great the district game had been in ’72, how he had been the one to throw the winning pitch. The crowd had held its breath, bursting into a cheer as the umpire roared, You’re out! Danny talked and talked, and she listened like a good date was supposed to, staring at one of his trophies, trying to decipher the tiny pitcher’s expressionless face. She glanced back at Danny, four years her elder, as he put on a Johnny Cash record and slithered up next to her, a slick smile pulled across his mouth. She felt her calves brush the edge of his mattress as Johnny strummed his guitar, her heart pattering beneath her blouse.
Harlow knew Danny was this kind of boy. He was smiles and sunshine on the outside, but something dark lurked beneath his grin. It was why she’d gone out with him in the first place. She wanted to see what it was like for a boy to want her, to see what it felt like to tease him and walk away. When Danny pushed her down onto the mattress, Harlow imagined that he was a lot like the man who killed her momma: wooing younger girls with smooth talk, with food and scary flicks. And finally there was the trip back to the guy’s place, the rock and roll and dirty thoughts, the carnal need to take advantage, to possess and destroy.
Harlow’s chest heaved as he worked the buttons of her blouse free. Dizzy with a sudden bout of anxiety, she tried to catch her breath when he pushed her skirt up around her hips.
With Johnny jiving over Harlow’s protests, Danny pushed her wrists into the sheets when she tried to push him away. She saw the glint in his eye—a look that confirmed Danny meant to go through with it; after all, he hadn’t spent money on dinner and a movie to get nothing in return. She closed her eyes, picturing her mother fighting the guy who had killed her, kicking and screaming until he had to shut her up forever. Her father’s sweaty, lascivious face flashed across the thin veil of her eyelids; his hair plastered across his forehead, the tip of his vulgar tongue dragging across his bottom lip.
Vertigo bloomed behind her eyelids. Her wrists hurt beneath Danny’s grip. She was suddenly in her mother’s shoes, knowing that the worst was yet to come.
Lying on Danny’s bed, Harlow forced herself to relax, just as she had been taught.
“Atta girl,” Danny mumbled against her ear, his mouth sloppy with spit. He released one of her hands and reached beneath her skirt, hooking his fingers along the waistband of her underwear. That was the moment—during Danny’s blink of preoccupation—that Harlow’s mistake became too much to bear. She should have never gone out with him. She should have never come back to his apartment. She had been stupid, so stupid. Her arm shot outward. She grabbed a baseball trophy from the shelf beside his bed.
A dry yelp fluttered past Danny’s lips. He rolled off her, his hands pressed to his forehead, blood pouring over his face like a fast-leaking faucet. Harlow watched him blink furiously as she scrambled to her feet, the statue still held fast in her grip. He sat up, staring wide-eyed at his gore-smeared palms. As soon as he looked up to give her an incredulous look, she reeled back and hit him again. Danny howled, throwing himself at her, but she sidestepped him without much trouble. His eyes were squeezed shut against the sting of blood. She lifted the figure above her head, ready to hit him again, pausing only to consider how red the blood looked in the light of his room—almost movie-magic scarlet, as if this were nothing but a scene in a film. Danny’s cry shattered that illusion as the statue cracked against his ear. His blood-sticky hands flew away from his face, holding them out in self-defense. He was trying to say something—trying to plead for his life—but no words would come out. She hit him again.
Hit him a fourth time.
Hit him in the same spot just above his ear over and over until he started shaking like he’d stuck his finger in an electrical socket. His seizure caught her off guard and she jumped back, giving him room to thrash, not wanting to bloody her new shoes despite backsplatter covering her blouse and skirt. He whipped around for nearly a minute before going still, a lake of gore blooming around his head like a Japanese sun.
She stood over him for what could have been hours, Johnny Cash dwelling on the misery that had swallowed his life, singing Danny Wilson a eulogy before his own mother knew he was dead.
Realizing what she had done, she pressed a hand over her mouth; she smeared the fine red mist that had settled along the girlish curves of her face. Her eyes were wide with denial. She hadn’t killed him, couldn’t have possibly...he was so much bigger than her; that statue had been so small; she was just a girl, just a silly stupid girl.
But a small spark of vindication burned within the storm of Harlow’s shock. The longer she stared at him, the more her fear bent toward satisfaction. Danny Wilson was going to rape her, just like the man along the highway had raped her mother—just like her saint of a father had raped her for all those years. For all she knew, after Danny was through taking advantage of her, he would have bashed her head in with the very same trophy himself, if only to keep her mouth shut. She was the pastor’s daughter, after all. If news of what he’d done had gotten out...she was sure he would have killed her. He wouldn’t have had a choice. It had been self-defense. It wasn’t her fault she was three steps ahead of him.
Squaring her shoulders, Harlow grimaced at the body at her feet. She didn’t know
much about Danny, but she knew enough to be sure that he was a rotten, dirty sinner. She had done God’s work here.
“Thanks for the date, Danny,” she murmured, her eyes narrowed at the dead boy on the floor.
She got home late, sneaking up the stairs to her bedroom while her father watched The $10,000 Pyramid, Dick Clark’s grinning face welcoming her home. She didn’t make a sound as she crept up the stairs in a pair of Danny’s jeans, one of his shirts hanging limply from her shoulders, his trophy tucked safely into her purse. She stuffed her ruined blouse and skirt into the corner of her closet. She’d burn them tomorrow.
A day later, Danny Wilson’s name flashed across the TV screen. Harlow sat at the edge of the couch, her fingers curled against her bottom lip, waiting to see her photo blink onto the screen. But the police announced that they currently didn’t have any leads. Harlow squinted at the screen from behind her father’s TV chair, her arms crossed protectively across her chest. If her story had been written on the pages of the Good Book her father preached from, he would have stood in front of his congregation and called it a miracle—an innocent girl with blood on her hands, redeemed by the glory of God.
Jesus saves.
The news flashed an image of paramedics rolling a gurney out of Danny Wilson’s apartment, his collapsed skull veiled by the white sheet they had pulled over his body.
“My Lord,” Reggie murmured.
Harlow spoke up from behind his chair. “The Lord has nothing to do with it. He was probably bad.”
Just like the man who had left Bridget Beaumont on the side of a rural highway. Just like her own daddy, who’d eventually get his too.
Andrew had been in love once, and the girl of his dreams was the complete opposite of Red’s. While Harlow strutted around the university campus with her hair blowing in the wind, Drew’s fantasy was a quiet girl who sat at the back of the class, hiding behind her long brown hair, doodling aimlessly in the margins of her notebook.
Though their fame had faded twenty years prior, Emily’s favorite band was A-ha; she loved Christopher Walken movies and wanted to be an artist. Her dream was just like everyone else’s: she wanted to get out of Creekside, move to a place like LA or New York. She wanted to be somebody, because everybody was a nobody in a town like theirs.
Drew fell in love with Emily the first day of his freshman year. Walking into his biology class, he spotted her hunched at a desk. Andrew got there late and was stuck directly in front of the teacher’s desk; a hulking football coach who, by some unfortunate miracle, got talked into teaching biology to a bunch of brainless kids.
Despite his feelings for her, Andrew sat back and watched Emily float through the halls of Creekside High for more than two years. They hung around the same circles, had the same friends, worked together as techs on the same school productions. During the summer between his sophomore and junior years, he even sat next to her in a mutual friend’s basement while eating Doritos, drinking Mountain Dew, and rolling thirty-sided dice, neck-deep in a weekly role-playing session—an activity that assured them geek status upon their return to school in the fall.
A week after classes started up again, Andrew walked up to Emily while she stuffed books into her locker, pressed his palm against the locker next to hers—trying to play it cool—and asked her out. Ducking her head with a bashful smile, she tucked her hair behind her ears and lifted her shoulders up in a shrug.
“Sure,” she said, “if you want.”
Drew did want.
She walked away from him without another word, but she had said enough. Andrew’s life had been transformed.
They were the typical high school couple. They fought. They got jealous. In the two years they were together, they broke up half a dozen times, only to reconcile over rented movies and mutually adored CDs. They’d spend hours in darkened rooms, Drew’s hands beneath her shirt, Emily’s fingers working the top button of his jeans. They had their own song. There’s something about you, girl...that makes me sweat. During their last semester, they were inseparable.
But what solidified their relationship was the pregnancy scare. Emily wept in a panic on Andrew’s bed, announcing a missed period between gasps of air. It was at that very moment that Drew made the decision: he would accept the consequences of their actions. He would sacrifice everything for this girl.
It turned out to be nothing, which at first felt like a blessing, but quickly transformed into a curse. A baby would have saved him from the other woman in Andrew’s life—the one who would ultimately tear them apart.
Emily was serious about getting out of Creekside, and Drew was the first to know when the Art Institute of Chicago accepted her. He tried to be happy for her, tried to pretend that he was excited, but it wasn’t easy. He wanted to leave as much as she did, but knew he never would.
Standing on the sidewalk next to her old Ford Festiva outside of Emily’s house, she turned to look at him, her eyes bloodshot. She had pleaded with him to come with her, to be irresponsible for once and do what he wanted. But in the end, Andrew watched her drive away, down the block and out of his life.
They had promised to keep in touch, but long-distance relationships were tough; despite their never officially breaking up, Emily started to write less and less. Every night, just before he drifted to sleep, Drew pictured her falling for a brooding artist with more talent than he knew what to do with—more talent than Andrew would ever possess. He knew that, inevitably, they’d drift apart like buoys in the ocean; only he was anchored, and she was free. After a few weeks, his incessant thoughts of her being with another guy began to fade, buried beneath daily frustrations, beneath exhaustion and defeat. But there was one consideration he couldn’t shake: the fact that despite how much it had hurt, he couldn’t blame her for leaving.
He let her go because he loved her.
He wouldn’t have come back either.
CHAPTER TEN
Andrew’s first assignment was to work on the yard, despite its already preened perfection. He had expected to work inside, but he wasn’t about to complain. Work was work, and he was happy to do anything Red asked of him. Red explained that the grass had to be cut twice a week with the push mower, exposed blades and all, because it created the cleanest, closest cut.
“Those fancy mowers,” he said, “they tear the grass instead of cut it. The lawn is a living, breathing entity, Andy. That’s like a barber tearing out your hair instead of using scissors.”
Drew stood next to him in the compulsively organized garage, trying to put all the details to memory. This was Drew’s chance to make yet another first impression, and he wanted the work he did for the Wards to be as flawless as they were.
Then there were Harlow’s roses. Red started to explain these, but Harlow overheard and stole Andrew away. She escorted him to her prize rosebush, taking a branch delicately between her gloved fingers.
“You have to be gentle,” she told him, standing a little too close. Explaining the delicacies of cutting the branch at just the right angle, she showed him how to do it for more than forty-five minutes, pruning an entire bush on her own to make sure Andrew understood the technique—showing him just how skilled she was with her hands; yet another observation that made him uncomfortable in his own skin.
He pushed the mower up and down the square lawn, row by row, while Red listened to Led Zeppelin and relaxed in the hammock, keeping an eye on his grass between newspaper articles. It was weird—Red didn’t strike him as a classic rock kind of guy. It made him think that there was more edge to Red than met the eye; secrets, like maybe he used to drop acid and went to Woodstock. When he’d first heard those riffs drift from inside the Wards’ house, his heart clenched into a fist.
Drew’s own father had been a Zeppelin fan. Andrew had grown up listening to “Kashmir” and “Stairway to Heaven.” His mom had spun Rick’s old records for nearly a year after he left. Anytime Led Zeppelin came on the radio, Drew would switch the station. He didn’t like reminiscing on the f
act that his father had cared so little about him that he up and disappeared; not even a single visit afterward, not a single phone call or Christmas card.
Hearing that music slither out the window and coil around him within the safe haven of the Wards’ picket fence made him grit his teeth. It felt like a phantom assault, like his dad was rising from the ether to assure him there was no escaping his past—Andrew would forever be a product of his environment: a broken, angry, fucked-up kid, because both Rick and Julie made it so.
Drew pushed the mower onward, the white rubber of his sneakers turning a brighter shade of green with each step. He considered asking Red to switch the music to something else, but eventually came to a conclusion: if there was ever a chance to turn a bad association into a good one, this was it.
After he finished with the first half of the lawn, Drew raked the clippings the way he’d been shown, trying to get as many of them into a black garbage bag as he could before moving to the opposite side of the walk.
“Good job, Andy,” Red said from the porch.
Up and down, row by row. Drew laughed to himself as he wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. Wax on, wax off, Daniel-san. Red wasn’t much of a likeness for Pat Morita, but Drew was sure he could pull it off; this was an invaluable lesson in lawn care, an exercise that would protect him from the goons of Cobra Kai.
As soon as he moved to the roses, he felt Harlow’s eyes on his back. Shooting a look toward the house as casually as he could, he noticed her standing in the open window. He lifted a hand in a wave, confirming that everything was OK.
Despite the small size of the Wards’ front yard, it took him nearly four hours to complete his given tasks, taking extra time to make sure his work was up to spec. By the time he was finished, the blazing heat, combined with his concentrated effort, had him ready to collapse. Having expected to work inside, he hadn’t thought to slap on any sunblock; now his skin felt like it was on fire, hot to the touch, sizzling with sting. And yet, despite his sunburn and the throbbing in his lower back, he felt a sense of satisfaction as he settled into a chair at Harlow’s breakfast table, gulping down a tall glass of sweet tea, the condensation cold against the palm of his hand. He lifted his damp palm to his forehead, cooling the redness that was surely there.
The Neighbors Page 10