A Good Neighborhood

by Therese Anne Fowler

  “Okay,” she said, since that was the only answer under the current circumstances. “But I don’t even know if I can skip.”

  “Right, sure. Either way.”

  Either way, she thought, I’m not staying at Whitman HVAC.

  Brad pulled into the CarMax parking lot. “Okay, ground rules. One: nothing with more than thirty thousand miles on it. Two: big pickup trucks are out—their gas mileage is shit, pardon my French, no need for you to waste your money filling the tank. Three: no tiny car—I want you to be safe. Last: stay under forty thousand.”

  “You just said thirty.”

  “Dollars,” he said.

  We think it’s worth pointing out here that although Juniper was living in a house that according to the county’s tax records sold for $1.7 million, and although she had arrived at CarMax in an imported sports car that her stepfather paid more for than any of the long-term Oak Knoll residents had paid for their homes, and although she’d long ago grown accustomed to wearing trendy clothes that fit well and to sleeping in her very own bedroom, Juniper was stunned by the budget Brad had just prescribed. Speechless. She stood there for a moment looking at him with her mouth open.

  “And as I told your mama, we’ll have a monitor installed, to make sure you’re driving responsibly and we know where you are if you ever need help.”

  “Sure, okay,” Juniper said readily, since she had no intention to try to fool them about that kind of thing.

  Brad bowed and ushered her onto the lot. From the smorgasbord of offerings, the rows and rows and rows of clean, shiny cars with decent gas mileage and good safety ratings and window sticker prices that read less than forty thousand, Juniper selected and test-drove three different vehicles and then chose a three-year-old white Land Rover Range Rover Evoque with 22,000 miles on it. Brad wrote the saleswoman a check for just north of $30,000 and then, a short time later, when the SUV had been washed and filled with gas and brought around for delivery, handed Juniper the key and said, “All right, honey, she’s all yours.”

  Juniper took a picture of the car to share with Pepper, and then she put her arms around Brad the way she always used to, the way he surely expected her to do now. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  “You’re welcome. I mean that. Now, don’t make me sorry, you hear?” The look he gave her brought all of her anxieties back.

  15

  Extenuating circumstances, when you know them, have a marked influence on the way you see a thing or a person. We liked Juniper fine, inasmuch as we knew her at this point. But it sure was hard to see a girl her age in a luxury SUV that most of us couldn’t responsibly afford.

  However, had the story of Juniper’s third birthday been known to us at the time, we’d have been a lot less inclined to raise our eyebrows at the vehicle she drove home that day. We wouldn’t have remarked to one another that she was spoiled. We’d have admired that polished white status symbol without envy—or with less envy, anyway—because we’d understand better the kinds of things she’d been through in her early life. The fact was, in taking advantage of Brad’s offer, she’d done the same thing any of us would’ve done under the same circumstances.

  (Our judgment of her parents, though, for actions present and past would be something else altogether.)

  What happened was this: Julia and Juniper were living out in eastern North Carolina where Julia had grown up. Lottie, Julia’s mother, lived in the trailer we’ve heard about, but Julia, nineteen years old and fed up with being subject to Lottie full time, had gotten her own apartment—a room is all it was, really, above the barbershop right in town—the word town being an overstatement of the place, which was more accurately a crossroads hung with a flashing amber caution signal at its center. A few commercial buildings held down the intersection’s four corners. Residents were distributed around those corners in a scattershot pattern of shacks and trailer houses and small farms, stretching out for two miles or so.

  Juniper’s third birthday had a bumpy start. The furnace had been stuck on all night, so the apartment was sweltering, despite the one window near the bed being kept wide open. Neither daughter nor mother had slept very well, sweaty and cranky the entire night through. And now Lottie had Julia on the telephone while Julia was trying to get herself and Juniper fed, dressed, and ready to leave for the day.

  Bear in mind that Julia, who’d be twenty in two weeks, was a single mother who hadn’t yet found time to get her GED—a girl, really, trying to find her way into adulthood with a little more integrity than she’d managed in her teenage years.

  She was on the phone with her mother—a corded phone, because a mobile was too expensive on top of her rent and her car payment (at 24 percent interest) and what she paid the babysitter who watched Juniper while Julia worked. There was no way she would leave her with Lottie, who was still earning her income by cleaning houses for well-off folks in the nearest town of size. Even a landline cost more money than Julia wanted to spend, but how could anyone get by without a phone?

  This morning, Lottie was having a problem with a dog and had called to tell Julia all about it.

  Julia listened for a minute, then said, “Mama, I don’t have time for this, I have to get Juniper to the babysitter and get to work. Just tell Barney to tie up that dog or you’ll call the county, it’s not that hard.”

  “I don’t have the county’s number. What is it?”

  “Look up the number. I sure don’t know it.”

  “You think I have a phone directory? They don’t bring ’em out here, if they even make ’em anymore.”

  “Well, go to the branch library and look it up there.”

  “I don’t want you bringing Juniper out here later if that dog’s still around.”

  “All right, then come here. We’re making cupcakes.”

  “You aren’t going to feed her a hot meal?”

  “I am,” said Julia, though in all probability it would be a hot dog. “Come or don’t. I have to go now, Mama.”

  Without waiting for a reply, Julia hung up and turned to Juniper, who was seated at a card table eating peanut butter from the jar with a spoon. “All right, Juni, my little birthday girl, let’s get your coat on.”

  “I want boots, too,” said Juniper, scooting off the chair.

  “It’s not raining.”

  “Boots!” she declared, already on her way over to the futon that doubled as their bed, under which their footwear was stored along with plastic bins of socks and panties and Juniper’s collection of Beanie Babies, all bought secondhand at the thrift shop one town over, near the branch library Julia mentioned to Lottie and up the road from where Julia worked.

  “Fine, boots,” Julia said. “But we have to hurry.”

  They were nearly out the door when the telephone rang again. Julia hesitated, but hoping it might be her manager at the Dance-n-Dine telling her there was a water main break or maybe the health department had shut them down temporarily and she could take the day off, she answered. It was Lottie again. Her car wouldn’t start and she wanted Julia to come pick her up.

  She said, “Now, Julia, you know I can’t get through this day if that dog is hanging around my door, growling at me. I’ll be a prisoner.”

  “Is the dog there now?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you made it to your car fine, right?”

  “With my life in my hands! Don’t tell me I should walk over to Shay’s—that woman’s white trash and I won’t have nothing to do with her.”

  “Come on, Mama. You’ll make me late.”

  “Patty will understand.”

  “Patty will fire me. I can’t lose my job.”

  “I don’t like you working there anyway. Those men all watching you like you’re … I don’t know what. Fresh meat. Let her fire you. You can move back home.”

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s a choice, ain’t it?”

  “Yes, it is. Be ready when I get there—and you’ll have to get your own way home, hear?
”

  “How—”

  “I don’t care. You figure that out.”

  Juniper remembered being hurried out the door and down the stairs and into her car seat. She was sweaty inside her jacket. The car smelled like stale cigarettes, having been saturated with smoke by its previous owner, or owners. The AMC Gremlin was older than Julia and had seen a fair amount of unhealthy and possibly unsavory behavior over the years.

  After retrieving Lottie and dropping her off at the library, Julia drove at what felt to Juniper like an unsafe speed to the babysitter’s place, a little ramshackle house on a rural road about four miles outside of town. The house was square and faded mint green, with a tar-paper roof. A chain link fence had been set in a complementary square around the house, to corral whatever dogs and kids were being kept there at a given moment. Currently, Juniper was the babysitter’s only human charge.

  “Karen, we’re here,” Julia called, hurrying Juniper inside the gate and up the wooden steps. The door to the house stood open.

  There was no answer.

  Julia ushered Juniper inside. “Where is she? Karen!”

  The house—all four rooms of it—appeared to be empty, save for Karen’s old hound, Doofus, who lay in front of the TV and wagged his tail but didn’t otherwise trouble himself to greet them. On the TV screen, a morning talk show was in the middle of a cooking segment.

  Julia stood with Juniper in the living room and thought for a moment. Then she knelt down and said, “Mommy has to go, Juni. Sit there on the couch, okay, and don’t move. Karen will be back in a minute.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Honey, Mommy has to be at work or she can’t buy you another Beanie Baby next time we’re at the shop.”

  Juniper said, “Don’t go.”

  Julia picked her up and touched her nose to Juniper’s. “Karen’s coming right back. You be my big girl—keep an eye on Doofus, okay? He needs somebody to take care of him.” She set Juniper on the couch. “I’ll see you right after nap time, and then we’ll make birthday cupcakes. Yay!”

  Juniper replied, “Yay,” tonelessly, as if it was an answer to a question.

  Julia left. For a time, Juniper sat where Julia had placed her, her feet with their rubber Dora the Explorer boots sticking straight out. She was careful not to let them touch the couch’s fabric. She kept her jacket on, though she still felt sweaty inside of it. She watched the cooking segment. The people on the show were talking about making a roux, which Juniper translated as Roo, the tiny kangaroo character in Winnie the Pooh stories, and so she watched carefully, waiting for Pooh’s little friend to somehow emerge from the stockpot.

  When it became apparent that Roo was not going to appear, Juniper felt close to tears. They’d said they were making a beautiful Roo. Nothing was going right today.

  Doofus was asleep now. Karen still had not appeared. Juniper wanted to change the channel, but she had been told to stay on the couch and she didn’t want to get in trouble if Karen returned and found her off of it.

  Can you see this child on this blue plaid couch, her light brown hair in pigtails, her pink flowered boots sticking out above a worn braided rug—this one a vintage seventies design in orange and brown and tan? Her jacket was bright green and had a small bloodstain on the front, probably from the previous owner’s having had a bloody nose, but who could say for sure? Juniper’s cheeks were flushed. She blinked away tears.

  Her rainbow-striped leggings peeked from between the boots and her pink ballerina skirt. While she waited, she pinched the fabric over her knees and pulled it up, then let it go. This she did four or five times. She picked her nose. She scratched a spider bite on her neck.

  Her tummy growled, saying it must be snack time. She hoped Karen remembered that today was her birthday. Maybe her snack would be gummy worms.

  Also, she needed to go potty.

  It was this last that gave Juniper the courage to move from her seat. She was certain Karen would be angrier with her for peeing on the couch than for leaving it.

  The windowless bathroom was a small, humid, dark cave. Juniper disliked it even at the best of times. Today it seemed sinister. Something could be hiding behind the shower curtain, waiting to jump out and grab her. She approached with trepidation.

  In order to reach the light switch, Juniper had to pull the step stool out from beneath the sink and climb onto it. Her little bird’s heart pounded as she did these things, then pushed the switch upward. The light flashed and popped loudly, startling her, then went dark. She started crying and at the same time she wet herself.

  And still Karen didn’t come.

  Beyond running out of the bathroom, Juniper didn’t know what to do. She stood in the living room, her soiled clothes growing clammy and cool against her skin, her face streaked with tears. No one was ever coming back. She was alone here with Doofus and would be alone forever and there would be no birthday snack or cupcakes or a present from her grandma. No one would change her into dry clothes. No one would put a movie in the player or read her a story before nap.

  She was three years old to the day; she didn’t have an intellectual sense of what love was, but love as she knew it meant someone who wrapped their arms around you and someone you hugged tight. And now she had no one.

  How much time passed with Juniper alone like this, convinced she’d been abandoned and would never be saved? It’s hard to say. What Karen told Julia later was that she’d been next door tending to her father, who had MS and had needed a little extra assistance with his morning routine. She’d arrived back at her house to find Juniper sitting under the kitchen table pantless, with a bagged loaf of bread beside her. The bag was open and Juniper was eating a slice. Her rain boots were propped upside down in the sink.

  Neither Karen nor Julia was especially troubled by the situation. As far as they were concerned, nothing serious had gone wrong. Yes, Juniper had a little bit of difficulty with the potty while she was waiting, but she’d handled the situation admirably. What a smart little girl! Happy Birthday.

  16

  Xavier’s last day of high school:

  “I am not going to miss this,” said Joseph, the sax-playing white boy with dreads, in response to the 7:20 homeroom bell. He looked rough, as if he’d been up all night or had rolled out of bed ten minutes earlier and run across the school’s ball diamond, which bordered his backyard, in order to make it here on time.

  “I kind of am,” Xavier said from the seat beside him.

  The classroom was two-thirds full; some of their classmates had decided to skip. There wasn’t much on the agenda for seniors today—an awards assembly being the main event. So it was likely that the missing kids weren’t expecting any awards. Joseph would be getting one, for concert band. Xavier would be getting three: for concert band, Citizenship, and Scholarship. He’d finished the year with a 4.2 GPA.

  Overachiever, his uncle Kyle had called him recently, with a mixture of admiration and something like spite; Valerie had managed to leave their working-class life behind her, while he, Kyle, never had. Kyle’s life was blue-collar car-building factory work, paycheck to paycheck, same as their father’s had been. Kyle’s son had graduated from high school three years earlier, but only by the skin of his teeth, and was currently ankle-cuffed for buying weed. “Bet you think you can be the next black president,” Kyle had said to Xavier during the phone conversation, and Xavier had replied, “Um, no. Who’d want that job?” He admired President Obama, as you might expect; he did not have any desire to live with a target on his back or to be subject to the sort of vitriol that was leveled at anyone in politics. Bad enough to be subject to assessment from music teachers, competition judges, and, one day, critics.

  He worried that this aversion to the political meant he was weak. His dad had been both a professor and an activist, teaching undergraduates and speaking to organizations and even Congress about racial discrimination and profiling. In one of Tom’s talks, now hosted on YouTube, he’d addressed his aud
ience, saying, “Why am I doing this? Well, for one thing, white men listen better to other white men. And white men bear the responsibility for undoing the damage their forbears have done. But every person who cares about justice for him- or herself—and that’s all of us, I’m pretty sure—ought to stand for group justice, too. Do you see?”

  Xavier could see. He’d watched that video and others that featured his dad over and over again. He could see; of course he could, but he didn’t want to put himself in any crosshairs and he didn’t want to let anything supplant his own passion. Not now, at least, not when he was just getting started on the road to a career in music, music full time, music as his livelihood, days spent in practice studios, evenings in performance venues, a world populated by people who valued the arts. What was the point of all the progress toward equal rights if a guy like him—i.e., not white—had to keep agitating rather than live in the results?

  So no, he didn’t want anything but a life of music.

  Exception: Juniper. Juniper, he thought, might be able to exist side by side with music. The feelings he had when thinking about her were not all that different from the ones he had when he played a guitar (the sexual desire part notwithstanding).

  Would his dad understand this? Xavier wondered. Would he be proud?

  Now Joseph said to Xavier, “You are a freak. I bet you were up at six practicing.”

  “Five-thirty, actually.”

  “Like I said.”

  Xavier might have replied that if Joseph practiced more, he, too, could have gotten a music scholarship at a school out of state, or at least elsewhere in the state, someplace new and interesting, someplace where every single landmark, every street and strip mall, every big church and big mansion and big oak tree wasn’t as familiar as your own face in the mirror. He might have said that getting up early gave a person a sense (false though it might be) of having control over his life, of being a part of the action that powered the world. Also, Xavier didn’t like to sleep late. He didn’t like the way he felt on the few occasions when he’d slept past, say, nine o’clock; it was as if the day was half gone, like he was behind on everything, like he’d lost time he couldn’t ever get back.