A Good Neighborhood

by Therese Anne Fowler

  His mom was an early riser, too, and they’d gotten so that they sat in the kitchen in the mornings as the sky lightened, drinking coffee and just talking about whatever came to mind. Lately the subject was the big oak tree and how long it might hang on and how much she was dreading the day when it would have to go.

  This morning being his last day of public school forever, she’d said, “I know I say this a lot, but today especially I wish your dad could’ve been a part of your life.”

  Xavier said, “Yeah, me, too,” though until she’d said it, his dad hadn’t been on his mind at all.

  Fact is, he tried not to let his brain go in that direction too often—because what was the point of indulging the pain of loss? Focus on what truly matters: that’s the practice that had gotten him through all these years successfully. Did he sometimes lose that focus? Sure he did (viz., Juniper Whitman). It had gotten easier over the years, though, maybe because he was closer and closer to being in charge of his own destiny—inasmuch as anyone ever is.

  He wished he’d had his dad all along. He hadn’t had his dad all along. Life’s a bitch, his uncle Kyle had said the other day. If you don’t know that already, you will. Mamas can’t protect their precious angels forever.

  Xavier knew. Sort of.

  He didn’t relate any of this to Joseph. He said, “Well, I got to see four deer in my yard at sunrise. What did you see when you got your sorry ass up?”

  “I saw this place—but not for much longer!”

  Their homeroom being seniors only, and this being the last time this group of students would gather in this room, Mr. Hopkins, whose teaching duty was English, including a whole course just on F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, didn’t bother with his standard effort to quiet the class while the day’s announcements were being broadcasted over the PA. Instead, he went around the room with a plastic bin full of packaged breakfast bars and muffins and offered them to the students.

  Xavier took an orange-cranberry muffin. “Thanks,” he said, and Mr. Hopkins—a black man, we should add, because no white teacher would do this for any number of reasons—reached over and mussed Xavier’s hair. Joseph took a breakfast bar. Mr. Hopkins did not muss his hair.

  When Mr. Hopkins was past, Joseph said, “Suck-up.”

  “I love you, too, bro.”

  “Hey,” Joseph said, “there’s a thing tonight at Marco’s. We should go.”

  “Okay, sure—but I gotta work tomorrow morning.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning,” Xavier said, unwrapping the muffin, “I’m not staying over.”

  “Dude, what’s the point if you don’t stay over?”

  “The point is I’m looking at a thirty-G bill for school next year. I can’t afford to miss work.”

  Joseph said, “What, you lost your scholarship?”

  “No, man, that’s after my scholarship and financial aid.”

  “Damn. You should just go to State.”

  It wasn’t as if Xavier hadn’t considered it. Both Dashawn and Joseph were going—Joseph (a C student at best) by virtue of choosing communications as his major and by having a mother who worked in the Office of Admissions. Xavier loved him like a brother despite his slacker ways; Joseph, whose saxophone was very nearly a fifth limb, understood and shared Xavier’s compulsion for playing music, the same compulsion that has driven musicians since the time of the first bone flutes and skin drums.

  Xavier said to him, “And major in what? Nobody’s doing classical guitar at State.”

  “Anything. Who cares? It’s not like there are any jobs for grads now anyway. We could get an apartment together and party as much as we want.”

  “Freshmen live in the dorms, not in apartments.”

  “Whatever. At least you’d be around. Wouldn’t he?” Joseph said to Andrea, the girl sitting to his left, nudging her leg with his foot.

  She turned. “Keep your nasty feet off of me.”

  “Wouldn’t it be good to have Zay at State next year so we could all hang together?”

  “I wouldn’t mind,” Andrea said. She smiled at Xavier.

  Xavier said, “Well, it’s not happening.”

  He didn’t smile back or even look at her. Andrea was one of the girls he’d hooked up with last fall and who since then had texted him every week or so with what were more or less invitations for repeat encounters. He knew he was supposed to want to jump if and when any girl asked. What normal cis male wouldn’t? Sex without obligations, without expectations—that’s what hookup culture was supposed to be. Well, fine, if that’s what worked for her and for some of his friends, but he’d figured out fast that he wasn’t built for that.

  He’d wanted to have sex, sure. He’d been glad, even grateful, to do it. At the same time, though, he’d felt weird getting naked with a girl he didn’t know very well and wasn’t interested in knowing much better. There’d been a few minutes of intense physical desire and release, and then she said as she got dressed, “I’m supposed to meet my friends downtown in, like, twenty minutes, so I’ll see you at school, okay?” And he said, “Sure.” And then it was just him alone in his bedroom with his lamb lamp and his mobile and a used condom he’d quickly wrapped up with notebook paper and stuffed in his trash can. He’d felt empty and strange. It wasn’t like he wanted more of anything with Andrea, he just wanted … more. Of something. Connection, maybe. Emotion. Was it lame and old-fashioned to think sex and love should be linked?

  Then he’d done it again with a different girl, as much to see if the results would be the same as to take advantage of a sure-thing offer. That girl, Rachel, hadn’t been as abrupt as Andrea. Even so, the encounter was nothing more than a few recreational minutes spent matching up parts that fit together. It felt good, and then it also kind of felt bad. He wasn’t doing it again.

  Andrea said, “You guys going to Marco’s tonight?”

  “We are,” said Joseph as the bell rang, ending homeroom.

  “See you there,” she said.

  “See her there,” Joseph said to Xavier, watching her leave.

  Xavier slung his book bag over his shoulder and got up. “You see her.”

  “You’re not backing out.”

  “If all the party’s gonna be is—”

  “Chill. It’ll be a lot of things,” said Joseph. They went into the hallway and entered the stream of teenagers moving along to first period. “Is this about that girl?”

  “Which girl?”

  “The neighbor, the Blakely chick we talked to that night out front of your house. Dashawn told me.”

  “What? No, it’s not about that. And her name is Juniper.”

  17

  “So, listen,” Valerie said that evening as she and Xavier walked together from her lab at the university toward the parking lot. “I didn’t want to say anything about this until the details were set, but now they are, so here’s what’s up: I’ve hired a lawyer and I’m suing the Whitmans’ builder and the city and Brad Whitman for killing our tree.”

  “You can do that?” Xavier asked. He was carrying a tray of seedlings, as she was.

  “I can. A civil suit, not a criminal one. Nobody will go to jail. The penalty is financial. It’s meant to disincentivize these people from continuing harmful and deceptive building practices.”

  Xavier said, “You said Brad. Not his wife, too?”

  “No. Our assertion is that he and the builder made the relevant decisions.”

  “Do they know? Do the Whitmans, I mean?” Xavier sounded mildly alarmed.

  “Not yet. The first step, service of process, will happen by registered mail after my lawyer gets all the paperwork in place—in a couple of weeks, I believe. You’ve heard the expression ‘being served,’ right? This is that. Sometimes the sheriff does it in person, but that’s not how this will go.”

  Xavier stopped in place. “I don’t see why you had to take it this far.”

  She gaped at him. “Are you serious? Have you not lived with me every single
day for eighteen years and, what, seven weeks? Did you not sit in my summer-semester classes for, like, five years straight so that I wouldn’t have to send you to day care? We have to fight for what’s right or nothing ever changes.”

  “You said you were going to be a good neighbor.”

  “This isn’t personal.”

  Xavier smirked. “Oh, what, you think Brad Whitman’s not going to take this personally?”

  “I don’t see why you’re getting worked up about it—you’re not even going to be here while it gets sorted out. It could take six months, maybe longer.”

  “Sorted out?” he said, and now he was clearly agitated. “Mom, it’s a lawsuit. If you wanted to ‘sort it out,’ you could’ve just gone over there and talked to the guy.”

  “Oh, you think so? Just ask him to pay a hundred-grand penalty and swear never to do it again? Ask him to get his builder and the city to cough up four hundred?”

  “What—five hundred grand? Is that how much you’re suing for?”

  “I know,” she said. “It sounds excessive. My lawyer came up with the figures, and when he explained his logic, I agreed. Need I remind you that the college you chose costs almost seventy thousand dollars a year?”

  “Wait—you encouraged me to pick my dream school and now you’re, like, blaming me for the cost?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Besides, my scholarship—”

  “Pays half. I know. But if something gets screwed up or if you don’t sustain the required GPA—”

  “I will.”

  “I expect so. But things happen. Maybe you’ll have a really tough semester along the way, and … All I’m saying is that while I wouldn’t have pursued this just for the money, the money can make all the difference in what the next four years will look like for you. Think how much more time you’ll have for your music if you don’t have to hold down a job along with everything else. You could earn your degree without either of us taking on any debt at all. You could think about grad school.”

  Xavier was quiet, but he looked upset. She could see his mind working. “What is it?” she said. “Why is this so troubling to you?”

  “Nothing,” he said. He started walking again. She did, too, and he went on, “It’s fine. Probably better this way—that the Whitmans become our enemies.”

  “Enemies? Don’t be so dramatic. We won’t have to be enemies. When Brad Whitman understands how much damage his choices caused—”

  “Then, what, he’ll have you over for a barbecue? Hey, my bad, here’s a check. Let’s let bygones be bygones,” Xavier said in an imitation of Brad.

  “No, but if and when we run into each other—”

  “You aren’t going to tell them?”

  “That’s not how it’s done,” she said. Truer was that she didn’t want to confront Brad directly; he was, no question, the kind who’d try to charm her into changing her course, and she wasn’t having it. As for Julia, she didn’t want to offend her personally, which was what would happen if she tried to explain. Better to let that situation lie. It would speak for itself.

  “If and when we run into each other,” Valerie repeated, “I’m sure he’ll be civil and I’ll be civil, and that’ll be good enough for me. I’ve had a lot of practice coexisting with people who’ve got nothing but disdain for who I am and what I’ve done with my life, the choices I’ve made, the issues I’ve supported. I don’t care if Brad Whitman likes me, I care about what’s right.”

  “I thought you and Julia were getting to be friends.”

  Valerie said tightly, “I have all the friends I need.”

  They’d reached the car and now loaded their seed trays in silence. They drove in silence. When they got home, Xavier retreated to his bedroom, where Valerie heard him take up one of his guitars—the José Marín Plazuelo, it was—she could tell from the sound—a $6,000 spruce instrument he’d paid for himself. He played a piece he’d been working on for a while now, Asturias, a nineteenth-century Spanish composition. It was complex and expressive, full of both melancholy and passion. Appropriate, she thought, for where he was in his life right now. And so true to who he was as a person.

  Listening, Valerie felt equal parts pride and fear and sadness. In too few weeks he was going to launch himself out of her immediate reach and into the world. How had he gotten so tall, so grown-up, so past the place where she could pull him onto her lap and wrap her arms around him and assure him that everything was going to work out all right? When she’d held him, she, too, could believe it, for a little while anyway. How would anything possibly be all right, though, when she wouldn’t be able to hear or see him daily?

  Ah, the curse of motherhood.

  A little later, when Xavier was about to leave for a party at his friend Marco’s, something occurred to Valerie. She said, “Hold on, we got off track earlier. What did you mean when you said it’s probably better to be enemies the Whitmans? Why probably better?”

  “Nothing.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “Try again.”

  “Nothing. I like Juniper, is all. We were—I don’t know. I thought we might go out, you know, if her parents were willing to let her.”

  “You want to date Juniper Whitman? She’s … I mean, did you not see that picture of her with Brad, the purity thing, when we were at the housewarming? Xavier Alston-Holt, that is not a girl you should spend two seconds thinking about.”

  “That picture’s from when she was fourteen. She isn’t buying into that crap anymore.”

  “It’s a worldview. She was raised up with that. You think she can just take it off like an old sweatshirt?”

  “You don’t know her. But it doesn’t matter anyway. It doesn’t make sense for me to date anybody here.”

  “Especially not her.”

  “She’s fine,” he said.

  “No doubt. I like her, too. But—how do I put it? She’s very, very white.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Seriously? That’s all you got? Nobody cares about that anymore.”

  “Some don’t. But some do care. A lot. Think about what happened to your dad.”

  “A long time ago. It’s different now.”

  She shook her head. “Not as much as it seems from where you stand. This country’s only partway integrated. In bubbles, pockets of populations where tribalism isn’t so strong. You’re inside, so you can’t see it—and maybe that’s on me, raising you so middle class, thinking that if I lived my own life like I was in The Cosby Show and race didn’t matter, the whole world would come along for the ride.” She put her hand on his forearm. “Really, Zay, it’d be better for you if you didn’t date anyone who’s white.”

  “That’s some hypocritical bullshit, coming from you. You married a white man.”

  And look where it got us, she thought. Look where it got him. She didn’t say this, though. She said, “All right, I’m probably being overcautious. But not where Juniper’s concerned—not where her family is concerned, I should say, specifically Brad. Making her do a virginity pledge? Come on. Those kinds of people are all about keeping their girls and their bloodlines ‘pure.’ Forty, fifty years ago his kind would lynch you just for looking at her. Maybe they’re not stringing boys up anymore, but the attitudes haven’t gone away.”

  Xavier said, “Whatever.”

  “You’re resorting to whatever with me?” She shook her head in wonder. “You must really like this girl.”

  “Even if I did, so what? You’re going to ruin it with that lawsuit before it could even be a thing.” He opened the front door, saying, “I’ll be home by midnight,” and left Valerie standing there nonplussed. Half an hour ago, she’d lamented there being so little time before he left for college. Now she felt like it couldn’t happen soon enough.

  18

  And now we have come nearly to a turning point in this story. Here are some things to bear in mind:

  The stories we as a culture love best almost always have a villain.

  If w
e were to ask Valerie Alston-Holt who in this story that villain might be, she would name Brad Whitman. She wouldn’t say he was your typical TV villain, a metaphorically black-hatted, blackhearted egotist or psychopath. If anyone understood the fine gradations of what could be considered villainous, Valerie surely did. Just the same, had the question been put to her, she’d have pointed at Brad as the architect of her current troubles, and she wouldn’t be wrong.

  Who would Brad Whitman name as this story’s villain? At the current stage in the goings-on, when he’s soon to be hit with a six-figure lawsuit, that answer seems obvious.

  The obvious, however, isn’t always the answer.

  Who would we have named? Would we have named anyone at all? Or would we have said something like, “These things happen,” as if there were nothing anyone could do?

  PART II

  19

  On this, Juniper’s fifth day at her grocery store job, a hot June day in the week after school let out, she and Xavier stood in the Fresh Market parking lot between her new car and his old one—a twelve-year-old silver Honda with faded, flaking paint on its hood, roof, and trunk, the flakes held in place by pine sap, a result of its being parked at home and school beneath North Carolina’s ubiquitous longleaf pines. The contrast between the two vehicles was stark. The kids didn’t care.

  They’d been dismissed early from their respective work shifts because a delivery truck had broken down, failing to deliver what would otherwise have needed to be stocked. So now, together, they were free of both obligations and supervision.

  Today was the first time their shifts had aligned and the first chance they’d had to speak in person and in private since their tête-à-tête in the corner of Juniper’s backyard. Both were dressed in the khaki-pants-and-green-shirt uniform all the employees wore. Juniper had plaited her hair into two French braids. Her mother had told her she looked tidy and efficient. And cute. Juniper hated the word cute. She wasn’t so keen on her mother, either, for that matter; Julia seemed unable to stop herself from remarking repeatedly on how surprising it was that Juniper got that Land Rover, and in the process she was making Juniper feel increasingly bad about it and herself. While we doubt this was Julia’s intention, the effect was the same.