Kiki Lowenstein Books 1-3 & Cara Mia Delgatto Books 1-3: The Perfect Series for Crafters, Pet Lovers, and Readers Who Like Upbeat Books!

by Joanna Campbell Slan

  So much for making friends. At least I could tell George that I'd tried.

  4

  Maybe I'd caught Sven at a bad time. Perhaps he'd been embarrassed by falling off his bike. I did my best to control my emotions by setting off at a brisk pace for a walk around the block. Getting Anya’s buggy up and down, over the curbs, and along the sidewalk provided her with endless entertainment and me with great empathy for the handicapped. A couple of times, grabbing the stroller and hoisting it over an obstacle seemed nearly impossible.

  Anya wasn't that heavy. The stroller wasn't that big. But, together, the task proved challenging, especially when the stroller wheels touched down on a flat surface before I had the buggy fully under control. At one point, a wheel jammed into a crack between two paving stones. At first, I tugged and tugged on the handle. Next, I squatted down and pulled directly on the tire. Finally, I straddled the front of the stroller, bent over, and tried to jerk the wheel free.

  "What ho?" A masculine voice shocked me into losing my grip. If a hand hadn't reached out to steady me, I would have tumbled to the ground.

  "Are you stuck?" asked a tall man with a sprout of white hair in the middle of his bald pate. Although he leaned on his cane, he seemed sturdy enough. His black lace-up shoes appeared oddly formal, since his pants were corduroy. The maroon cardigan he wore had been buttoned wrong, a problem that happened to me all the time.

  "The wheel."

  "Right. I'll get it out of that hole for you. You get behind the pram. Make sure it don't topple over, will you?"

  I did as told. Anya blinked up at the stranger. She observed, carefully, as he used his cane like a lever and popped the wheel free.

  "Thank you so much. I'm Kiki. Kiki Lowenstein. This is Anya. We live around the corner."

  "Talbot Bergen. Where’d you say you live?"

  “Ours is the new house. Actually, it’s still under construction. In fact, I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Bergen. You’re the first person I’ve officially met in this neighborhood.”

  Okay, I suppose you could count Sven Nordstrom, but I’d decided to make a fresh start of it.

  “Oh.” Momentarily, Mr. Bergen looked confused. “Alma takes care of all that. She drops by when folks move in, and invites them over for dinner."

  “That sounds lovely. We’d love to meet our neighbors. My husband, George, has been pushing me to get acquainted with everyone. Is Alma home right now?”

  "Alma?" I assumed he was talking about his wife.

  "What's this little girl's name again?" Either Mr. Bergen hadn't heard me, or he wanted to change the subject.

  "Anya. Her name is Anya."

  "I had a grandmother named Anya. Pretty name for a pretty girl." As a punctuation mark, he patted my daughter on the head.

  “Which house is yours?” I asked.

  “That one.” He shuffled closer to a gray ranch with dark green shutters. From the design, I could tell it was one of the older, original houses in this subdivision.

  “Kitty!” Anya’s chubby finger pointed toward a black shape in the window. “Kitty, kitty!”

  Mr. Bergen chuckled. “That’s Bartholomew. Do you like cats?”

  “Kitty. Me-ow.” Anya grinned up at him. Her two newest teeth were on full display.

  “She loves animals,” I said. “Loves them. Absolutely nuts about them.”

  “Good old Bart! What a rascal.”

  “He’s Persian, isn’t he? Beautiful.”

  “You’d think he was prissy, wouldn’t you? But he’s not. He loves to slip out and explore. Especially loves to prowl in that empty lot. Yes, ma’am, Bart is a small-sized panther. Meant the world to...” Mr. Bergen wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “Talbot?” The voice came from a woman in brown knit slacks and a tired beige sweater. She came hurrying down the sidewalk with us in her sights. Her reddish hair was set off nicely by gold jewelry, but on closer inspection, it looked like very inexpensive costume stuff. “Talbot, dear, here you are. I’ve been looking all over for you.” With a possessive air, she slipped her arm inside of his.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m Kiki Lowenstein, and this is Anya. Are you Alma?”

  “Not Alma.” Talbot’s eyes moistened.

  “Enid James,” she said, but she didn’t offer me her hand. In fact, she didn’t even look my way. The softness around the jowls and the crow’s feet suggested she might be in her sixties, and, once upon a time, she might have been a looker, but the years had run roughshod over her. However, she’d clearly taken great pains with her appearance. Her hair had been died a rich shade of red, and it brought out the gold flecks in her eyes.

  “This here’s my new neighbor.” Talbot sounded proud to introduce me.

  “Really?” Enid gave me an up-and-down examination. She wasn’t unfriendly, but she was definitely judgmental.

  “Just moved in,” I said. “Across from the Nordstroms.”

  A shift came over her, like a cold front blowing in.

  “Leesa and Sven. The perfect couple.” Enid practically spat out the words, before gripping Talbot’s arm more tightly. “You don’t know how worried I was about you, Talbot. You don’t want to catch a chill, do you? Let’s go back to the house. Your favorite programs are on. We can play gin rummy, if you want.”

  “Goodbye,” I said, as they turned away from us.

  “Bye-bye!” Anya waved, but they didn’t seem to care. Enid and Mr. Bergen seemed to be in their own world, a transparent bubble that separated them from the rest of us.

  5

  Ten days after we moved in, and three days after I tried to help Sven Nordstrom get up off of the ground, our house was still a disaster. My plan to whip it into shape had proved a non-starter. Workers still needed access on a daily basis. Various switches didn’t work. “Mud” needed to be applied to the drywall. Blinds had to be measured, fitted, and installed. Each day brought a parade of new faces, wearing dirty shoes that marched in and out.

  Of course, George didn’t see any of this, because he left for the office each morning. When he came home at night, the look on his face told me he was disappointed in how little progress I was making, cleaning and picking up.

  But he had no idea how tough it was to take care of an active little girl, answer questions, respond to deliveries, make decisions on the spot, unpack boxes, make meals, and then only then, try to clean up the messes left behind from construction. The parade of strangers totally unsettled me. By nature, I’m a shy person. When I get excited about something or when I am comfortable, I can talk a blue streak. Plunk me down in a new situation, and I tend to freeze.

  My low self-esteem was exacerbated by the fact I knew I didn’t look my best. All of my hair products had disappeared in the scramble of our move, leaving me looking like the wild woman of Borneo. I was still carrying extra baby weight, and none of my clothes were stylish. Anya had grown more demanding, the house was a constant nagging problem, and I never put on make-up anymore.

  After settling Anya in her playpen after our walk, I got a glance at my reflection in the mirror hung over the mantelpiece. My lack of personal care was evident. I gazed at the distorted image and shook my head. Maybe I’d scared off Sven Nordstrom and the kindly Mr. Bergen. Something had to be done, and done quickly.

  I ducked into a powder room and slicked my hair down with water. Belatedly, I realized that I didn’t have a towel. Bent over the basin, I twisted my hair to squeeze out the water. That helped a little, but my curls were still dripping wet when the doorbell rang.

  “Hello?” I opened the door to a stranger in a suit and tie. I thought that he wore an air of irritation as he stared down his nose at me. But perhaps the water streaming between my eyes made it hard for me to see him clearly.

  “Mrs. Lowenstein, I presume? I’m Jeff Colter. Your neighbor on the other side of the block. Big red brick two-story.”

  “Hey, so good to meet you. Come on in. I can offer you coffee —”

  “This isn’t a social call,
Mrs. Lowenstein.” He straightened his tie. “I wish that it was. I came in response to complaints.”

  “Complaints?” I echoed.

  “That’s right. I’m the president of the home owners association, so all the calls come to me. People are sick and tired of the ongoing problems caused by your construction.”

  That knocked me for a loop. The peculiar layout of this subdivision had been one of the reasons we’d overpaid for the lot. No one could be bothered by the commotion but the Nordstroms — and since the Nordstroms were hardly ever home during the day, how could we be disturbing them?

  Maybe I’d insulted Sven’s manhood by offering to help him after his tumble. Was that even possible?

  “I can’t apologize enough that we’ve been a bother,” I said to Mr. Colter. “The good news is that they tell me they’re almost done. A day or two at the longest. We’ll just have one guy come back over to handle the punch list and the nail pops.”

  “Punch list? Nail pops?” Mr. Colter raised an eyebrow. “Won’t that be noisy?”

  “Not really. A punch list is a list of all the small stuff that doesn’t work right. Nail pops are a natural occurrence. As a house settles, the heads of the nails tend to rise. Typically, a workman comes back and knocks them down. Since my husband was our subcontractor, it’s been —”

  But Mr. Colter wasn’t interested in hearing more about our situation. “The long and short of it seems to be that this nuisance will come to an end. Am I right?”

  “Yes, absolutely. If you’d like, I can speak directly to the people we’ve upset and apologize —”

  “No.” He cut me off yet again. “They asked to remain anonymous. I’ll report that the work should be finished soon. If there’s any change or delay, I’d appreciate a heads-up phone call.”

  With that, he handed over his business card. I took it, but I didn’t get the chance to look it over. A whimper from Anya in the next room warned me that she needed my attention.

  “Thank you. I will.” I moved to shut the door, but he stopped me.

  With a deadpan expression, he said, “Welcome to the neighborhood. Oh, and I trust you plan to do landscaping? Your lawn looks like a mud pit.”

  6

  When George came home that evening, I told him about Mr. Colter’s visit. "I never realized we were causing a problem. Our house isn’t on the main drag. I have no idea why anyone would complain.”

  “It had to be the Nordstroms,” George said. “They’re the only people who could possibly be bothered by the workmen coming and going. No one else is close enough to be disturbed.”

  “That’s what I thought, too.”

  "I think you need to go over and play the peacemaker. That’s how Mom would handle it."

  I couldn’t imagine Sheila soothing troubled waters instead of ruffling feathers, but mismatched analogies aside, I got the point.

  “Look, I tried to be nice when he fell off his bike, and he was not very friendly.”

  “Would you be, if you’d just fallen in front of a new neighbor? If you were this hotshot biker and you took a nosedive in front of the woman who lived next door?”

  I certainly wouldn’t have acted like Sven did. Thanks to his curt behavior, Mr. Bergen’s weirdness, Enid James’ frosty reception, and Mr. Colter’s ultimatum, I was definitely not eager to meet more people in the neighborhood. But George stared at me with an endearing eagerness. I wanted to please him, so I gave in. “Okay, all right. Do you know anything else about him and his wife? Conversation starters? What does he do for a living? Does she work outside the home?"

  "Sven’s a software designer. He developed a popular program, sold it, and now he's working on a new one."

  "And her? His wife?"

  "Her name is Leesa. She's younger than he is. I believe she’s an exercise instructor. She looks like she’s solid muscle,” George said, as he went over to our front window and glanced across the street. “At least, I think I heard somewhere that she teaches classes.”

  A little voice inside my head heard my husband adding, “And you, my wife, need to lose a few pounds. Maybe she will help you get into shape.”

  Okay, he did not say that, but I imagined he did.

  Since giving birth to Anya, I’d gone from rounded to roly-poly and from soft to squishy. I tried to look at my body as infrequently as possible. The inflated inner tube of fat around my waist embarrassed me.

  “Has their garage door been open all day long?” George peered through our blinds at the Nordstrom’s house.

  “Yup. I asked Sven about that. He told me I was nuts.”

  “Hmmm. Maybe she’s leaving it up, and he doesn’t realize it. I hate looking straight into their clutter.”

  “Me, too.” Day in and day out, we were treated to a view of their cars, their bikes, their shelves, all their various car and lawn chemicals, and their garbage and recycling bins.

  “Anya and I met a sweet, little old man. Mr. Bergen. He and his wife Alma live in the gray house with the green shutters.”

  "That’s nice,” George said. “I bet that’s Talbot Bergen, the chemist. You’ve heard of Bergen Laboratories, right? Has to be the same guy.”

  “Anya was particularly taken with the family cat, Bartholomew. He’s beautiful.”

  “Don’t even think about suggesting we get a pet.”

  It was as if he’d read my mind. Anya got her love of animals from me. I’d never been without a furry pet, and George’s refusal to even consider a dog or a cat was a source of conflict between us.

  “Good for you, meeting the old man. All I'm asking is that you make an effort," George said. "That's all. You should introduce yourself to more people. It would be nice for us to have new friends.”

  I promised I would.

  7

  But the very next morning, something happened that made me rethink that promise.

  George had come home for lunch, because he planned to talk to a landscaper about the ugly mess that should have been a lawn. The guy didn’t show; however, the three of us had an enjoyable family meal of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, an absolute favorite, especially in the fall.

  The weather was beautiful, a perfect day with a light breeze and the promise of cooler air on the way. Instead of simply walking George to his car, I decided to pop Anya in her stroller and take her for a quick tour of the neighborhood. Meanwhile, George walked over and waited by the driver’s door, making a big deal of waving to Anya and shouting, “Bye-bye.”

  Because of the way my husband had parked his Mercedes Benz, I couldn’t get the stroller between the vehicle and the garage door. Instead, I had make a detour, walking behind the back bumper. We didn’t swing out far, but two of the stroller wheels were in the street.

  Suddenly Sven and his bike came whirling out of his garage and into the cul-de-sac.

  A sprinkling of rocks on the pavement had been left behind by the many workers’ trucks. Sven must have hit one, because I heard a funny noise, a cross between a crunch and a scrape. Turning toward it, I watched with horror as Sven lost control of the bike and headed straight for Anya.

  “Hey!” George screamed.

  “Stop!” I yelled.

  “Move!” Sven responded.

  Grabbing the stroller handlebar, I struggled to lift my child up and out of the way. But the combination of the angle and her weight defeated me.

  Sven was still headed toward us. In a herculean effort not to hit Anya, he threw all his weight to one side and screeched to a sliding halt. The bicycle tires screamed in protest, while he locked his brakes and skidded in a half-circle. For a heart-stopping second, it looked like his back tire would still slam into Anya’s front bumper.

  At the last second, I jerked the stroller backward. But Sven had come so close to hitting it that Anya and I could both feel the whoosh of air that he had created. Anya sucked up air, filling her lungs. Her lower lip quivered.

  But before she could bellow in fear, George came flying into the street the way an
Olympic runner launches himself out of the block. With one hand, he grabbed Sven’s handlebars, hauling man and bike to an upright position. “You almost hit my daughter!”

  On cue, Anya screamed so loudly that my ears hurt.

  “Let go of my bike.” Sven snarled at George and gave him a sulky glare.

  Leesa stepped out of their house. Shaking her fist, she approached us. “You was in street!”

  George made a sound surprisingly like a growl.

  “This would never have happened,” said Sven, “if your stupid wife hadn’t pushed your kid into the street.”

  Plucking Anya out of the stroller, I rocked her in my arms. She was working herself up into a real tizzy. It registered that I’d been called “stupid,” but my daughter’s needs were uppermost. “Sh, sh,” I said as I tried to comfort her.

  George and Sven stared at each other, like two stray dogs sizing each other up. Leesa stopped at their curb, her eyes darting from one man to the other.

  Fortunately, for all involved, the confrontation ended abruptly, as Anya let out a particularly plaintive howl. The ear-splitting wail from her lips distracted George. He turned around to check on her. His change of direction allowed Sven to ride off into the sunset...sort of.

  8

  “That idiot nearly hit my grandchild? With his bicycle?” Sheila’s eyebrows rose toward her hairline. In her slender fingers, the ruby colored wineglass glowed like a precious gem, thanks in part to the Sabbath candles. The starched white tablecloth and heavy silver candlesticks added elegant touches to our Friday night meal. “That’s outrageous. However, the man was right. Kiki had no business pushing the stroller into the street. That near miss would have never happened, if she’d been more careful.”

  We had dinner at Sheila’s house at least once a week, usually on Friday to celebrate Shabbas. My mother-in-law was a recent widow; her husband Harry had been dying of cancer when I met George, and the older man succumbed shortly after. Sadly, he had not lived long enough to meet Anya, but Harry had left such an impression on me that I would never forget him. He had been wonderfully kind and welcoming. Spending time with his grieving wife was my personal attempt at honoring a man whose memory was a blessing.