Chip gave her a grateful smile. “Maybe you’re the one who’s going to need a megaphone.”
Mrs. Lewis cinched the belt of her robe with a determined air. “Don’t you worry about a thing. You go on. You can count on me.”
“I appreciate that.” He really did. “You’re a good neighbor.”
Despite how wonderful a neighbor he truly had, nine minutes later, at precisely eight o’clock, Chip gripped his steering wheel with the unleashed power of a python. He stared at the back of a 1971 Nautaline houseboat at an utter standstill in the middle of the road, animals and barterers all around. And as he did so, Chip held on to one, and only one, thought.
Bree Leake was most definitely not a good neighbor.
Chapter 19
Bree
Nearly a week passed in virtual silence.
Quiet, terrible days.
Saturday afternoon Bree did a series of flap-ball-change steps in her socks as she cradled her phone to her ear and moved to the sink with her coffee mug. Roughly four days ago her feet had started to tap-dance without her approval. Also, if she was not belting out the words to “Good Morning,” she was humming it every hour around the grandfather clock. This was what she got for practicing with Birdie twelve hours a day. If she didn’t get the part, at least she could perform on the sidewalk for tips.
Her sidewalk stage name could be That Girl Who Used to Be That Fairy for Barter. She’d do great.
“I tried talking to him, Cass. Honestly. Later that day, I tried.”
“Tried telling him you were sorry?”
“So sorry. I even wrote a note and put it in my window.”
“Pause. You put a note in your window?”
“We do that sometimes.”
“You exchange notes in your windows. Sometimes?” Cassie exclaimed.
Bree shook her head as she popped open the microwave and set her mug inside. Her legs took her into a shuffle-hop-step-flap-step. “Nothing like that. We dabble mostly in I-hate-you notes. Cheap and convenient taunting.”
“But he forgave you,” Cassie countered. “So now the notes are . . . ?”
“Nonexistent. I haven’t gotten any note in a week. And believe me, Cass, that feels worse than the I-hate-yous.”
She set the time for thirty seconds and pressed Start.
“So you said you were sorry and wrote a note. What did he say?”
“That’s the worst part.” Bree dropped her head. “He pulled an incredibly polite voice, said he accepted my apology, and . . . nothing. He went inside and we haven’t had a conversation since.” The microwave beeped as she twirled while tapping. “I didn’t mean for him to miss whatever thing he was going to. I didn’t try to plant that houseboat on the road.”
“Bree. You summoned everyone from Virginia, East Tennessee, and West Virginia, claiming you were a desperate man trying to get rid of his house for a few chickens.”
“I didn’t force them to come. Or stay—”
“You posted the ad on Craigslist for five different cities.”
“I thought I would get a few people crazy enough to believe it,” Bree said firmly. “I mean, honestly, who would believe a man would trade his house for chickens?”
“Are you kidding me? I’ve seen ads on Craigslist for rentable ducks who wear money hats so party guests can pick up dollar bills while they walk by. Nothing is out of bounds on Craigslist.”
“So I underestimated the overwhelming number of unrealistic dreamers in the world—”
“Do you know how many people waste their money on the lottery? Do we live in the same universe?”
Bree frowned as she did a shuffle-hop over to the microwave and popped it open. “The point is, I didn’t mean to make him do that erupting-volcano face. For heaven’s sake, I didn’t even mean to do it that morning. Any of it. If I could take it all back, I would.” Bree popped over to the window yet again and looked out. No note in the window. The grass and trees were a muted gray beneath overcast skies, the street an eerie quiet. “I’m fairly certain I heard a Jekyll-and-Hyde laugh coming from his bedroom window that night though. What do you think that meant? Do you think I actually made him lose his mind?”
“If you’re asking if you are capable of making someone mentally unstable, then yes. I think we’ve been over that topic.”
Bree took a thoughtful sip of her coffee and started to hum.
“Bree, if you are actually worried that you ruined a genuine opportunity for him, why don’t you try something really novel?”
She set her coffee down. Her voice came out more desperate than she’d intended. “What?”
“Go out of your way to do something nice.”
Bree looked out over the distance between her house and his and considered the silence between.
It was ironic.
She had finally gotten what she wanted all along. Peace and quiet. A neighbor who minded his own business.
And it was more maddening than ever.
Bree started humming again.
“Stop,” Cassie said.
Bree stopped and took another sip. “I’ve gotta go. I have a dinner date.”
“What? With who?”
“Theo.”
“Theo? You’ve been dating a man named Theo and you’ve spent the last month giving me agonizingly long details about the neighbor’s dog?”
“Because it’s not as complex. Look, I’ll tell you all about it when I get back if you really want to know,” Bree said, and after a few more parting words, she hung up.
An hour later, seated at the Peppermill with Theo, Bree found herself transfixed by the butter dish sitting on the white tablecloth.
Chip never could have fit a business card onto it. The plate was too short and narrow.
“I’ll have the Shem Creek Sauté,” Theo said and handed the waiter his menu.
They both looked to her expectantly, and she looked up from her own menu, realizing she’d been sitting there for long minutes without reading a single item.
“Same,” Bree said, giving a slight smile.
“Without the shrimp,” Theo added swiftly.
“For yours, sir?”
“Hers.”
The waiter looked back to Bree, who was watching a woman slip off her coat of feathers. What if she botched up his opportunity? What if Chip had been going to something important Monday morning—she’d seen his face, his fresh suit, he had to be—and she had ruined it all?
The thought had visited her frequently—and with each visit, killed her—the past week.
There was a discreet cough and Bree jerked her head up. The waiter was still there, looking at her. “No shrimp for you, miss?”
“Oh. Yes. No shrimp. Thanks.”
The waiter gave a prim nod and drifted away. Bree turned to Theo. She attempted an easy smile. “Thanks for catching that.”
“No problem. I’ve heard those shellfish allergies are easy to forget about,” Theo replied. Though his smile was mirthful, his eyes held hers.
“So,” Bree said, trying to sound upbeat as she pulled down the hem of her dress again. “Tell me, what’s new in the great grand world of corporate finance?”
It took a moment before Theo blinked and stirred. He seemed to put his thoughts aside to take up the unexpected conversation. “This week one of my clients did make an interesting decision with one of his de novo banks in Asheville. It’s not final yet, but . . .”
Even as she stared at his face and focused on his words, she felt his voice starting to grow distant. His perfectly shaped mouth spoke, paused, took a sip of red wine, and continued speaking, but all she could focus on was the rhythm of his movements. Speak, pause, sip, repeat. Speak, pause, sip, repeat.
Her feet started tapping silently on the old hardwood floor beneath her, sliding to the steps.
Flap-flap-step-step-brush-hop-step, repeat.
Flap-flap-step-step-brush-hop-step, repeat.
Which reminded her: she had an audition in a matter of days. She ha
d to wear tap shoes. Which were currently in her house. Across from Chip. Whose dreams may or may not have been destroyed. By her.
“But what do you think?”
Bree’s toes halted halfway through a scrape across the worn hardwood. “Oh,” she began, trying to replay the conversation she had missed. “I quite agree.”
His face was deadpan. “Really. You agree.”
Bree felt herself hesitate, as though she was one foot away from stepping in a trap. Her metaphorical foot lingered over the hole. Felt the draft. Pulled back. “Well, not always. You’d know much more than me. So . . .” She cast her eyes around, searching for anything to talk about. They floated across the dimly lit room full of flickering white votives, white linens, and waiters sliding around couples while carrying trays of Cajun-fried crawfish tails and crème brûlées. They landed on his sharp suit, impeccable, as it always was.
Why had Chip been wearing that suit that day? He never wore suits. A crisp dark blue that showed off the amount of time he spent in the sun out with his dog, biking through the pines between earth and sky. His neck looked particularly tanned. Especially—she swallowed, burning with fresh embarrassment—as he jerked at his tie in frustration, staring at that houseboat, stranded behind the wheel.
“Here we are,” the waiter said, setting down bowls of soup she had no memory of ordering. She looked down at the mystery soup, seeing what appeared to be noodles, and picked up her spoon.
“Bree, is there something you’d like to talk about?”
She realized she was grimacing over her soup.
She looked up.
Theo sat there with his hands folded, a smile playing on his lips. The kind of smile she had a feeling psychiatrists used to coerce conversations out of patients. Slowly, she put her spoon down.
Should she tell him she had been in the middle of a neighborhood war? That there had been a cease-fire? That she had botched it by bringing in a zoo?
He’d think she was crazy.
Maybe she was.
No.
Yes. Absolutely. Positively. Was.
Bree pursed her lips as if thinking.
“I can’t think of anything,” she said at last, then reached for her water glass. As she picked it up she meant to deflect with some fascinating conversation point, but her eyes fell on a man at a table on the other side of the room, raking a hand through hair that looked about a month overdue for a trim.
Like Chip’s. She’d never quite noticed before she stood beside him on her porch that evening. He had smelled of sawdust and coffee grounds when he shocked her to the core and put his arm around her, pulling her deep into his side. Cocooning her from the outside world for a few brief, safe moments.
She had processed and reprocessed that gesture well past midnight.
“Is there . . .” Theo paused significantly. “Somewhere else you need to go?”
Bree shook her head, picking up her soup spoon.
Of course not. She was here. Dipping her utensil into something—she wasn’t sure quite what—made of coconut milk and cumin.
“Perhaps someone else you’d like to be meeting tonight?” Theo pressed.
“No.” Bree dropped her spoon in the bowl. “Of course not,” she said, forcing herself to meet his eyes. “I can’t think of anything nicer to do tonight than this.”
That was true. Theo was one of the most pleasant men she knew.
Theo’s brow dropped, his onyx eyes saying silently, Then what aren’t you telling me?
She pressed her lips together, but her resolve withered under his patient stare.
“It’s just . . .” Bree reached for a bread roll. “Just . . . I may have been involved in an adolescent war on my neighbor and crossed a line.”
There. She’d said it. She was a child.
“You . . . are in a war. With your neighbor,” Theo repeated, a smile beginning to rise. He was looking at her like the parent of a kindergartener listening to his child’s complaints about the rainbow erasers being sold out at the book fair.
“You don’t understand,” Bree said. “I’m not talking mature, adult-level, hate-your-neighbor stunts. I’m talking spending hours scouring the internet to subscribe him to every bizarre magazine on the planet. I’m talking about running up an eBay bid for 250 live eastern subterranean termites to place on his property.”
“You have . . . an eBay bid running for 250 subterranean termites?”
Bree shrugged defensively. “That one was just a backup plan.”
He settled back in his chair for a moment. Pensive.
“Is it that single man who lives perpendicular to you? The one with the leering expression?”
Bree’s forehead creased. She didn’t even know the man perpendicular to her. “No.”
“The woman with the toddler?”
Bree shook her head. Picked up her roll. Started shredding a piece here, there.
“Is this the elderly neighbor I met the other day who lives across from you? The one you have game night with?”
“Mrs. Lewis?” Bree furrowed her brow. “No. She’s a saint.”
“Pity.”
There was silence for a moment while Theo sat back in serious contemplation. She continued to shred her roll until it was a pile of tiny bits on her napkin.
Theo leaned forward, his voice tentative. “Is it the new man we met on the Creeper Trail the other evening?”
Bree felt her chest pinch. Nodded.
“The tall one?”
“He’s got a few inches on me.”
“Athletic?”
“He’s not allergic to working out.”
“With the casual-Californian air, who is taking phone calls with your parents to provide complimentary dog-trick training?”
“That’s the one. Wait. How did you—?”
“You’ve been talking about your neighbor quite a bit. Sometimes directly. Sometimes under your breath.” Theo shrugged. “I listen.”
Bree felt her neck flush. She pushed away the bread pile at her fingertips. “Sorry, if you could just see what all has happened the past few weeks . . . It’s been so chaotic . . .”
He smiled, but his smile seemed to be soft, vulnerable. “Well, I must say, I do wish it was the elderly woman.”
Bree laughed. “Oh sure. Because you would prefer to hear your date’s in a ruthless war with misfit senior citizens?”
“No, I just prefer not to hear that my date’s consumed by her handsome neighbor.”
Bree’s smile fell.
They were quiet for several moments as the waiter discreetly served their dinner plates.
Theo reached for his fork. “Have you ever heard of Allmont Industries?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“The owner was a client of mine five years ago. They supplied nearly every gas station on the West Coast with snack products. That is, every gas station but BP, which used Hathaway. The two companies hated each other. Bickered at every chance meeting, were an absolute disgrace at every public event. I could hardly keep them apart.”
He paused to reach for his wineglass.
“What happened?”
“The thing that always happens. They got married.” Theo shrugged. “In my experience, both personally and professionally, it’s the thorn in our side that gets the most attention. Not”—he smiled softly, a bit sad—“the average man taking you out to dinner.”
“What?” At last, Bree found her voice. “No. No. Let me be clear. I in no way think you are an average man, Theo. You are absolutely not average.”
“Then tell me, Bree, when you call that friend of yours back home, who is it you talk about? Me? Or him?”
Her silence was his answer.
They finished the rest of their meal, a touch speedier than normal but overall a nice pace. She made a point to ask about his newest ventures and listen to his answers, and he in turn made friendly inquiries about her upcoming audition. They both politely declined dessert. Then they said their good-byes at her doorstep in
a way that meant, I’ll be looking forward to meeting again. As friends.
Before he stepped away, she found herself reaching in for one last hug. “I’m so sorry, Theo. You deserve someone much better than me.”
“Nonsense.” He released her from the hug and gave her hand a light squeeze. “I’ll settle for someone half as wonderful as you. You just point me in the right direction.”
She waited and watched as his Tesla pulled out of the driveway. As the car drifted from sight, she turned back toward the door. Put her hand on the knob.
And, perhaps out of habit, turned her head toward Chip’s house.
Her gaze landed on Chip, also at his door, keys in hand, casting his eyes downward and doing his best to avoid hers.
Chapter 20
Chip
He had forgiven her.
Their prank war had gotten out of hand, and she’d almost ruined his chances with the only bank in town willing to hear him out. But since the busy banker had grudgingly rescheduled only because he knew Chip’s father—and didn’t like him—Chip wasn’t going to let her ruin them for good. Not with forty-eight hours to go before the bid.
This was game time.
Focus time.
And nothing would make him miss this meeting.
He was giving her everything she had asked for all along.
Polite distance.
For the past week Russell stayed inside mostly, and when he went outdoors Chip supervised.
He finally got around to putting up new curtains.
Chip gave a polite nod and greeting when they ran into each other mornings and evenings. This morning she wished him luck on the bank meeting when he’d answered her question about his day. He nodded and wished her luck at another day of practice at the warehouse before her audition.
At noon Chip slipped the tie through the hole and tightened the knot at his throat as he watched himself in the mirror. The creases in his suit trousers were so perfect someone could have used them as a ruler on an architectural drawing. His button-up was so white it hurt his eyes. He checked his watch.
One hour until the meeting.
The Cul-de-Sac War Page 22