Next To You

by Sandra Antonelli

  She found a yellow bath towel—finally a towel. She took it out of the carton only to see that it was wrapped around a ceramic trinket box full of costume jewelry. She sifted through the stuff, hoping to find the ugly mood ring, the one her husband had given her because he said her eyes were green or a weird blue depending on her mood. How she wished she had that silly rock now. The little barometer could tell her how it was she was feeling. She was hungry, but she was also frustrated and some other weird emotion that seeing Alex had triggered. She hoped the ring was stuffed in a jewelry bag and crammed inside a box labeled Pajamas or Winter Clothes.

  So much had been in storage for the past eighteen months. No, it had been over eighteen months. It had been over eighteen months away from Alex and even longer without Drew. She took a very deep breath and exhaled as long as she could, trying to push out the lingering fear … and shock, anger, excitement, or whatever else came from thinking that a red-bearded hoodlum was assaulting her in a public place—before she realized it was Alex.

  And here comes the self-doubt … Why had she let Julie convince her she was ready for this? Why had she let her uncle talk her into returning to the city to live, instead of staying in the safety of the northern suburbs, working as an assistant for a bachelor rabbi who farted a lot and ate nothing but tuna?

  Uncle Sly Fox had lured her from the self-imposed exile, coerced her into buying this palatial twenties-era three-bedroom apartment with water views. And as he persuaded her, she had fanciful images of fixing up the Art Deco place in the swanky style of My Man Godfrey and The Great Gatsby. She ran with that daydream while Uncle Sly made a big deal of saying that she was his only family, and with her parents gone and Drew gone the apartment was a solid investment, which was important to have and blah, blah, blah …

  She’d come back to town under the misconception the transition from sleepwalking to bustling would be undemanding and involve painting walls and redecorating. She assumed there would be a settling-in period over a few weeks or couple of months, but in sixteen hours, things went from zero to a hundred before she even got a coffee buzz.

  Coffee. She wanted coffee. Where’s the damn coffee maker? How can I grab life by the balls without coffee?

  A paw padded softly against her calf and she looked down. The brown eyes on the little dog sitting at her feet peered up at her, his black and white face bat-like and dotted by tan eyebrows. His usually erect, pointy ears lay back against his little head like soft rabbit ears.

  Caroline smiled. ‘What do you think, Batman, are we going to find the coffee maker?’

  Batman cocked his head. He stood and poked his tongue out of his pointed snout. Then his ears snapped upright as the door buzzer reverberated, a hive of bumblebees humming through the apartment.

  Dog at her heels, she went to the intercom for the downstairs entry. ‘Yes, who is it?’

  ‘Hi. It’s Carlo and Doug from Schildkraut’s. We’re early, but we’ve got your living room suite and bed.’

  ‘I’ll buzz you up. I’m all the way up at the top on the left.’ She pressed the downstairs buzzer to let the men into the foyer and opened her door. She caught a brief glimpse of her white-haired neighbor as he went into the apartment across the landing.

  Her uncle told her two bachelors lived in the building. The nice bachelor neighbor next door had a skin condition and liked to sing. The other guy was a cranky, reclusive crime writer who lived one floor down. The dog darted out through the open door, tracking the unfamiliar scent of the ‘nice’ man next door. Caroline grabbed Batman before he got too far. She tucked him close under an arm and carried him down the hall to the kitchen, pausing to take a dog biscuit from a green jar. Then she moved through the French doors, out on to the partially covered terrace, and set him down outside with a pat to his slender back. ‘Stay,’ she said, giving him the cookie.

  The voices of two movers arguing echoed up the hallway and grew louder as they came up the stairs. One of them said, ‘I bet you twenty he is.’

  ‘You just lost ten and now you want to make it thirty?’

  ‘I’m telling you he—lift that left side up a little higher or I’m gonna hit the railing—he is. He looks exactly like my cousin’s kid.’

  ‘Well, if you’re so sure, how come you didn’t ask him out front? What are you gonna do now, knock on all the doors in this place till you come to his, and ask?’

  ***

  Sharp, vigorous, barking greeted Will the instant he set foot on the terrace. He shifted the basket of damp laundry under his arm and the woofing, or more accurately, the warfing, drowned out the music coming from the tiny hidden speakers on his terrace. The radio was tuned to an oldies station. Will wondered if the dog was barking because of the high-pitched voice of Melanie singing about a pair of brand new roller skates.

  The warf-warf-warf followed him as he moved to the clothesline attached to the brick wall and began to hang up his washing. Once he’d pinned up sheets, towels, and a pair of blue and white striped pajamas, he turned to the noisy dog.

  He liked dogs. A new neighbor with a dog was preferable to an old neighbor with three cats, especially cats that occasionally performed howling, midnight operas and left putrid smelling urine all over his BBQ.

  Outside of his tinkling, yowling kitties, Reginaldi had been a fine neighbor. He had lived in the building since the forties. His wit was quick, and he was full of stories of days with pro golf tours, the Korean War, his two marriages, and his brief foray into television sitcoms, which was how Will placed him when they’d first met nearly five years ago. The man had been a well-known professional golfer. He’d played himself on an episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show, which led to appearances The Beverly Hillbillies, I Dream of Jeannie, and the Western The Big Valley, shows Will had seen countless times on cable. He was going to miss Reginaldi sharing bottles of his home brew with his ‘favorite neighbor.’ He was going to miss the TV gossip, the tales of golfing in the US Open, and all those stories about his family. He’d miss the beer, the stories, and Reg, but not the cats. Despite the dog’s yipping, canine whizz was infinitely easier on the nose than feline cologne.

  The day had turned humid and warm as the sun began to shine between wide parted clouds. Will put on his sunglasses. The dog shut up and poked its tiny black nose through the crisscrossing, ivy-covered latticework. ‘Hey there dog,’ he said in a playful voice, moving closer to the lattice, crouching down to have better look.

  The dog jerked back and let out double time warf-warf-warf-warf in an obvious display of territoriality.

  Will placed the back of his left hand near an open spot in the vines and lattice. The dog growled. The little nose poked through the ivy again, black mouth pulled back over bared, sharp little teeth, but Will didn’t move his hand. ‘Hey there puppy,’ he said in the same friendly tone as before. There was a series of speedy sniffs and his knuckles were licked all over.

  A small, white paw with short, black nails scratched and pushed through the lattice. Will stuck his thick fingers through to try to pat the dog’s black head. ‘Hang on, hang, on,’ he said. He stood, looked around the terrace, and grabbed a damp, old dishrag from the clothesline. He tied three knots in it and stuffed one end through to the other side of the terrace, wiggling it. ‘Hey! Over here!’

  The dog was eager to play and latched on to the dishrag, pulling hard. For ten minutes, Will played a game of tug-o-war with his new little neighbor before he let the dog win and have the towel.

  On the other side of the terrace, the dog shook the knotted rag like a captive rat. On his side Will hung up his laundry, singing ‘Black and White’ along with Three Dog Night on the radio. He caught glimpses of the puppy scampering about with his raggedy rodent and changed the lyrics of the song for the benefit of the dog and sang, ‘Your face is black, your paw is white, you bark all day, but not all night—at least I hope you don’t bark at night, little man.’

  Fifteen minutes later, laundry done, music off, he was ready to ride. With his
black leather jacket zipped up, he headed out the door, a black helmet in his hand.

  He ran into Carlo, the furniture delivery guy he’d met earlier. ‘You two were pretty quick with all that,’ Will said.

  Carlo nodded. ‘She didn’t have much, just a couple of big pieces and a lamp. So, you got a bike, huh?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What kind?’

  ‘A Harley Fat Boy.’

  ‘You don’t dress like a Harley Guy.’

  ‘I’m a little more safety conscious than your average middle-aged, bearded Hog rider.’

  ‘Hey, can I ask you somepin’?’

  Here it comes, Will thought. It usually happened shortly after the pointing fingers. ‘Shoot.’

  ‘Are you …?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, how come you don’t got pink eyes?’

  Automatically, Will settled in to educator mode and waited for Carlo’s eyes to glaze over. ‘Most of us have blue or bluish eyes,’ he said. ‘Some have a pink or a pale violet color, and some have brown eyes like yours. It all depends on what category you fall into, oculocutaneous or ocular, and there’re various subdivisions, like Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome, which is pretty rare, but mo—’

  ‘Those are some big words and I don’t got no doctor’s dictionary at my fingertips.’

  ‘Sorry about that. You have to bear in mind that fiction and Hollywood get it wrong. Silas from The Da Vinci Code is pretty much bullshit.’

  ***

  The monstrous roar of a motorcycle leaving the garage sent Batman into a barking frenzy on the terrace. As the bike moved into the alleyway the dog whined, and scratched at the paned glass, wanting to be let in. Caroline hated shutting him outside, but he could get a little aggressive and overprotective, especially when unfamiliar men were around. She didn’t want him snapping or biting the deliverymen from Schildkraut’s.

  After the thunderous clatter of the motorcycle took off up the street, Caroline let Batman in. He trotted into the kitchen with a raggedy piece of yellow towel in his mouth.

  Well, shit. ‘Where did you get that?’

  He played, tossing his head, shaking the rag rat gripped in his teeth.

  She looked out to the damp terrace. Another section of torn fabric lay on the terracotta tiles, right next to an old wrought iron table. Gusty wind had accompanied the heavy rain that had fallen about an hour ago. She guessed the cloth had blown onto the terrace from the neighboring apartment.

  Outside, she peeked through the ivy-covered lattice that divided her terrace from the one next door. Pillowcases, blue striped pajamas, and towels hung beneath a metal-framed clothesline under the cover of a small, sloping roof like she had.

  Caroline bit her thumbnail. Then she took the remains of the towel inside and composed a note to her neighbor.

  ***

  Four minutes into the twelve-minute trip to Quincy’s place, rain pelted down. Will was hot, damp, and annoyed his ride had been washed out again. His irritation faded when he arrived at his friend’s house. Erika took his helmet, kissed his cheek, and led him to the comfortable rumpus room where a group of people shouted, ‘Surprise!’

  Will looked down at himself. His leather jacket was open over his red t-shirt. His black leather pants were beaded with rain and unzipped around the ankles of scuffed black boots. He knew his hair was probably plastered to his scalp, and helmet head was not his best look. Despite it all, he ruffled up his hair and laughed. ‘You got me. You got me. “Stop in and look at this contract.” I can’t believe I fell for that, but you knew I would. Well, there better be cake.’

  ‘Did you think I’d forget, Murph?’ Quincy grinned. ‘I admit I probably would have if Erika didn’t pester me about it for the last two weeks. If you hadn’t already guessed, there is no contract for you to peruse. Happy birthday, my big white Irish friend.’ Quincy inhaled, his hands poised in mid-air as if he were about to start conducting.

  Will interrupted, giving his best friend a back-slapping bear hug, saying, ‘Thanks. Thank you for this, but I beg of you. Please, don’t sing. Howzabout you make that my birthday present?’

  Nodding, Quincy began a very loud, out of pitch, tone-deaf version of ‘Happy Birthday to You.’

  Guests cried out, some with their hands over their ears, ‘What the hell!’

  ‘He swore he wasn’t going to do that!’

  ‘Erika, do something!’

  ‘Erika, make it stop!’

  Making a face, Erika kissed her husband to shut him up. The nine people in the room cheered.

  Two hours later, Will went home in a taxi, nicely toasted, with a shopping bag of birthday gifts. He tipped the driver twenty bucks for a twelve-minute ride and climbed out of the cab on slightly tipsy legs. Like this morning, there was a deliveryman at front of the building. The US Postal Service still made Saturday deliveries and the postal worker stood beside the bank of doorbells. Sweat made a wet long line on the back of his shirt.

  Oh, yeah, another present for the birthday kid! ‘Who’s that for?’ Will asked.

  The postman whirled around, startled. ‘Mrs. Jones, apartment E. Please say you’re Mr. Jones?’

  ‘Nope, but Mrs. Jones is my neighbor.’

  ‘Would you mind taking it up for me? I rang the bell already. I mean, if you’re going that direction, can you please save me the trip up the stairs and sign this?’

  ‘Okey-dokey.’ Hoping he didn’t smell too much like gin or red wine, Will signed the electronic doodad the postman thrust under his nose.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You bet,’ he said, taking the yellow, letter-sized envelope he was offered. He went inside, turning the item over in his hand, reading the address scrawled across the center. Mrs. Caroline Jones, Apt E 3770 West Chase Avenue.

  The odor hit him as he reached the landing on the second floor. Someone had burned popcorn in the microwave. A smoke alarm was emitting a shrill, insistent tweet on the next level. The strident noise came from the apartment of Mrs. Caroline Jones and it was supplemented by the howling of her dog.

  He reached her door, put his shopping bag against the wall, and rapped with one knuckle. He heard vociferous swearing above the racket. ‘Shut up you damn screeching bastardwhoreofathing!’ She strung the oath together, like one long German word, and it amused him. He knocked again and heard her let out a strangled, frustrated cry. The little dog stopped howling and went back to barking.

  She opened the door. The flat-screen TV in the living room behind her showed Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth oozing sexual tension. Mrs. Caroline Jones was watching Gilda—or had been before the popcorn caught fire. The smoke alarm carried on peeping shrilly. She had five bucks in her hand. She licked her bottom lip to say something, and then the little dog he’d met earlier leapt forward across the threshold. Hair fell into her eyes as she made a mad grab for the little guy. The sleeve of her bathrobe snagged on the doorjamb and the cloth jerked halfway off her shoulder, exposing the nightgown she wore beneath.

  ‘Hi,’ Will said.

  Twisting, she caught hold of the dog sniffing at his boots and scooped him away. She tucked the animal on her hip, thrusting the crumpled bill into Will’s hand. ‘Here, take this. I’ve got to turn off this damn alarm before my neighbors decide to kill me.’

  ‘Just pull the battery out.’ With a grin, Will held out the envelope and took in her figure. A little on the lean side, but she still managed to have the right kind of softness that gave her an hourglass shape in a thin, pink cotton nightgown spotted with tiny pink rosebuds. He liked how the matching bathrobe hung off one shoulder, how the hair she’d pinned up kept falling over her eye.

  She grabbed the envelope and, squirming dog beneath her elbow, kicked the bottom of the door, blurting out, ‘Thank you!’

  ‘Just pull the battery …’ the door shut with a bang before he finished, ‘… out.’ Chuckling, Will looked at the rumpled money she’d shoved into his hand and it dawned on him. Mrs. Caroline Jones, his new neighbor, was the
woman from the diner this morning.

  With a shrug, he picked up his bag of birthday presents, crossed the landing to his apartment. A folded dishtowel was draped over his doorknob. There was a note too.

  Dear Mr. Murphy,

  It seems my dog got a hold of some of your laundry. I apologize and hope this towel is a suitable replacement for the one he chewed to bits.

  Your crappy new neighbor,

  Caroline Jones

  Will smiled. He went into his place as the strident peeping stopped.

  ***

  Glenn Ford eyed Rita Hayworth with passionate contempt on the TV screen. Caroline sat on her new sofa and eyed the TV. Contempt wasn’t exactly what she felt as she reread the letter from her uncle. She leaned more toward bewilderment—absolute, incomprehensible bewilderment.

  At first, she’d expected an absurdly generous gift certificate, or a notification of a donation made to St. Vincent’s Hospital in Drew’s name. What she found instead was the contract she’d signed to pay back the loan he’d given her. He’d scribbled void across it in green felt pen. And it was notarized. For a moment she forgot to breathe.

  That sneaky devil. When she went to buy a new bed, he insisted she needed a new couch as well and paid for that too. Now he’d done this.

  He’d made such a point of mentioning his trip to Las Vegas, and apologized because he wouldn’t be able to help her move. She’d offered to take him to the airport and look after his girls, but he said his pal Marco was caring for them. She’d suspected he’d planned this Vegas trip as part of a carefully laid out ruse to guarantee she’d move back to town. He’d finessed her so brilliantly, and he’d been smart to leave town, because if she’d wanted to thank him, or berate him, she’d have to wait until he got back—Monday afternoon.

  Caroline switched off the TV and gave up watching Gilda. Her popcorn dinner was burned and unpacking was more important than Rita Hayworth. Boxes sat in every room of the apartment. An hour ago, still looking for the coffeepot, she’d found the DVDs in a box full of kitchen utensils. She quit unpacking when a cardboard carton labeled Intimates turned out to be full of jeans and slacks, instead of bags of neatly folded underwear, hosiery and socks.