The House Next Door

by James Patterson

  “Cool,” he says with a smile, checking himself out on the selfie side of his cell phone. He puts the blazer, scarf, and gauze headpiece in a shopping bag.

  As I finish making their sandwiches, my cell phone beeps. A text message.

  I read it.

  Thanks again for yesterday. If you need to reach me my number is 914-809-1414. Easy to remember.

  Chapter 10

  I drop the kids at school. But instead of heading home, I decide to visit my friend Darcy. First I stop at the Human Bean, our local Starbucks wannabe. I order a latte for me, a chai tea for her, a chocolate croissant, and an almond Danish.

  On the way to Darcy’s, I look in Vince’s window. The house is dark. There’s no car in front.

  Of course. He must be at his wife’s bedside.

  Darcy is an artist—tall and red-haired, with a smattering of freckles across her face and wide green eyes. Darcy is quite beautiful. But she dresses like come-as-you-are day at Goodwill. So I am not surprised when she opens the door and I see her midsection is covered with hundreds of tiny blue dots.

  “Let me guess,” I say. “You’re making wine from grapes. And you’ve been stomping them with your breasts.”

  “Not even close,” she says. “I’m spatter-painting a deck chair. But I think I overdid it on the spatter. What’s in the bag? Something rich and gooey, I hope.”

  We sit down at her oak kitchen table. She gets napkins, and I look around. The room is newly painted. It’s an odd shade of pink. The color of tongue.

  “You like it?” she asks. I lie and say I do.

  “You certainly have a knack for this sort of thing,” I say. “Maybe you can help our new neighbors get their place in shape.”

  “The Kelsos?” she asks. “I would…but I still haven’t met them. Have you?”

  “Just him,” I say.

  “I saw him once, at a distance,” she says. “Saw the kid. Even saw the family cat, sitting on the windowsill—though it could have been a pillow. Never laid eyes on the wife, though.”

  I tell her about Vince’s phone call, and about meeting him yesterday. She looks concerned.

  “Hmmm. The whole thing’s a little…creepy,” she says.

  “Creepy? How?”

  “The place is a dump,” she says. “What kind of family would move in there? Especially with a kid. I’ve seen the inside. It’s like lead paint central.”

  “Maybe they’re short on cash,” I say. She frowns.

  “So what’s the father like?” she asks.

  “Nice guy. Not bad to look at.”

  “How not bad?”

  “Hmmm. All-American. Blue eyes. Interesting looking.”

  “Interesting like who?” she asks. “Channing Tatum…or Quasimodo?”

  “Just sort of…preppy,” I say.

  “Preppy? In a house like that?”

  I can see where she gets it from.

  “Nice voice,” I add.

  “I bet,” she says.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you’re blushing.”

  “What? I am not,” I say.

  “Now don’t go getting all huffy. This is me you’re talking to. Tell the truth,” she says, leaning forward, whispering as if we weren’t alone. “Do you have feelings for this guy?”

  “Darcy, I just met him yesterday! I’ve only seen him once.”

  “But obviously he’s seen you,” she says, licking chocolate off her fingertips.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean…it’s just very odd that he asked you to pick up the kid. Why you? And where has his wife been hiding?”

  I tell her what Ben heard his teachers discussing. A sudden illness. A middle-of-the-night ambulance.

  “When was this?” she wants to know. “Monday? Tuesday? My bedroom faces the front. I would have heard something.”

  “I don’t know. All he said was, they took her away.”

  “To United?”

  United is our local hospital. It’s where you go to have a sprained wrist bandaged, or a speck taken out of your eye. But for anything more serious, you go somewhere else. United’s one claim to fame is that it’s won the Hospital Gift Shop Award three years running.

  “I don’t know. He didn’t say where she was.”

  “So, for all you know,” she says, tossing the Human Bean bag into her recycling bin, “she could be lying in a ditch somewhere.”

  “Oh, come on…”

  “No. Listen. You don’t think it’s strange—a new family in town, keeps to themselves, meets no one. Didn’t even move in with any furniture, for God’s sake.”

  “Is that true?”

  “No moving van. No U-Haul.”

  “Well, now that you mention it…”

  “One day the house is empty. Then boom, it’s got tenants. No one meets the wife. Then suddenly, she’s being spirited away in the middle of the night. I’m getting a weird vibe from the whole thing. Hey—can you hand me the Splenda?”

  “What a wonderful imagination you have,” I say.

  “No, really. Think about it,” she says, as she taps a few packets against her cup and tears them open. “And then, when they need a favor, do they ask the person who gave them her number and asked them to call? No!” she continues, pouring the Splenda into her tea. “This Vince guy goes out of his way to pick someone who didn’t even know he was there.”

  Hell. I am soooo sorry I ever mentioned this to her.

  “So, what do you think?” she asks.

  “I think…you’ve been watching too many X-Files,” I say.

  Darcy smiles her beautiful Irish smile.

  “Maybe so,” she says, waving half an almond Danish for emphasis. “But I don’t think you’ve been watching enough of them.”

  Chapter 11

  It’s 6:00 p.m. Ben walks in the door as I’m making the salad dressing.

  He has a big smile on his face.

  “Hi, honey. How’d the presentation go?” I ask.

  “Great. Everybody loved the bandage. They thought the blood looked cool.”

  “Good for you,” I say. “Any mention of Mr. van Gogh’s other achievements? His still lifes? His water lilies?”

  “Oh. You mean his paintings. Yeah, I talked about them, too. But everybody liked the ear story best. Except—Mom, you’re gonna kill me.”

  “Why?”

  He rummages through his backpack and pulls out Ned’s scarf. In the middle of it is a bright-red food-coloring stain, the size of an orange.

  “Oh, no. Your father’s going to kill both of us. I purposely gave you a plastic bag to put that in.”

  “I forgot,” he says.

  “Well, let’s not tell Dad, okay?”

  Just as I hear Ned’s key in the door, the oven timer goes off.

  “I’m home,” Ned calls out. I grab some potholders and take the chicken out of the oven. A minute later, Ned walks into the kitchen.

  “My car is due for an emissions inspection,” he says, holding a letter from the state. “You can bring it in Monday, and I’ll take yours to work.”

  “How will I pick up the kids without a car?”

  “Wait there while it’s being inspected,” he says. He wanders over to the liquor cabinet and pours himself a bourbon. “What’s new here? What’s for dinner?”

  “Chicken. Baked potatoes. String beans. And Caroline lost that ring we gave her for her birthday.”

  “Damnit, Laura,” he says. “You let her wear it to school?”

  I knew it was going to be my fault. I just didn’t know how.

  “I didn’t ‘let’ her. She wanted to show it to her friends. Is that so terrible?”

  “She lost it. So I’d have to say yes.”

  “And Joey got a sixty-two on his geometry midterm,” I continue. I start to set the table.

  “Not true,” Joey says, suddenly appearing in the kitchen. “It was a sixty-three.”

  Ned looks at him and shakes his head.

  “Th
at’s just great,” Ned says. “Well, you can kiss any kind of tennis scholarship good-bye.”

  “It wasn’t my fault! It’s because the teacher hates me.”

  “That makes no difference in geometry,” Ned says. “Your answers are either right or wrong.”

  “Should we get him a tutor?” I ask. Both of them stare at me. Wrong thing to say. I’m about to be blamed again.

  “I got a better idea,” Ned says. “Why limit ourselves to one. Let’s hire a bunch of people. We’ll build a little apartment over the garage. And they can all live here with us.”

  “He says the teacher picks on him,” I say.

  “And my boss picks on me. That’s life. Get used to it,” Ned says to him. “Y’know, if your mother didn’t mollycoddle you so much…”

  I put down the silverware.

  This is starting to be a very unpleasant evening. And just when I think it can’t get any worse…it does. Ned goes to pour himself another bourbon. That’s when he sees the empty dry-cleaning bag hanging on the kitchen doorknob.

  “Did Harry do that tie already?” he asks. Ben and I look at each other. I don’t want to lie. But I know what will happen when I tell the truth.

  “Not exactly,” I say. “We had a little…accident.”

  That’s when it all hits the fan.

  “You used my antique silk scarf?”

  (Memo to self: Remember what your therapist said. You have control, as long as you stay calm…)

  “Well, it was last-minute, and…”

  “Damnit, Laura,” he says, slamming the bourbon bottle on the counter. “I ask so little of you! Of all of you!”

  (Stay cool, I tell myself. He’s been under a lot of pressure at work this week. This month. This year…)

  “I bust my ass all day,” he continues, yelling. “And when I come home, it’s always chaos!”

  “Well, I didn’t think…”

  “No, you didn’t!” he says. “What else do you have to do all day, besides be on top of all this crap?”

  What else? That’s when I lose it.

  “You mean, besides making lunches and dinners and dealing with teachers and waiting all day for the cable guy, like I did last week, who—by the way—never showed up?”

  “Hah. You want to know what kind of week I had?” he says.

  “No. I don’t,” I say. “Because whatever it was—it wasn’t as annoying as wasting hours on hold with tech support, or picking out a birthday card for your mother—a woman you can’t stand!”

  “And that took you—what? All of five minutes?”

  Okay. Now I’m really getting angry.

  “Who do you think makes out the checks around here! And calls the insurance company! And does all the garbage that you’re just too busy or important to do!”

  I punctuate each of these by slamming a plate or a glass down on the table. The table shakes every time.

  “Sure, I’ll wait for your car on Monday. You pick up the kids. See how it feels to spend half your life in a crappy Volvo wagon that, by the way, is due for its eighty-thousand-mile checkup!”

  At some point, Ben and Caroline have heard us arguing and wandered into the kitchen to see what’s going on.

  “See what you’ve done?” he asks, gesturing to the kids, who cower in a corner. “Are you finished?”

  “I’m never finished!” I say. “It’s called keeping life together.” I am yelling at this point. “Their life, and your life…and mine…if you can call what I have here a life!”

  I pause. And then I do something I’ve never done before.

  I scrape the chicken off the serving platter and dump it into the garbage.

  All five of us stand there, stunned. Me included.

  The kids go upstairs quietly. Ned wanders around with a hangdog look. Later, as I walk past him in the den, I see he’s sprawled out on the sofa, watching a bunch of talking heads on TV and eating a bowl of Rice Krispies.

  I head upstairs and read for a while. As I get ready for bed, I hear a ping. I check my cell phone. It’s a text from Vince.

  Linoleum buckling. Ants taking over the kitchen, he writes. He adds a frowning emoticon. Crappy night here. You?

  Same, I write.

  Need to run a few errands on Monday, he texts back. I could use some company. Interested? I smile. At least one person thinks I’m worth spending time with.

  I do a couple of quick calculations in my head. I can drop the kids off, then bring Ned’s car in and leave it there. Vince can pick me up at the Emissions Center. Two birds. One stone.

  Sure, I write back.

  I smile. Things have a way of working out.

  Chapter 12

  By Saturday morning, I have cooled down. The kids are busy with friends, sports, TV, computer games, and their iPhones. Even Ned seems a bit contrite when I tell him I am going to take his scarf in. He offers to drive me to Harry’s.

  I say no. I’m still angry from last night.

  I park across from Harry’s. As usual, Harry is alone behind the cash register. When he sees me, he does something he’s never done before: he comes out from behind the counter and opens the door for me.

  “Hi, Harry. Listen. I was wondering if you could…”

  “Mrs. Sherman! I have your tie ready. Crisp and clean. Like brand-new.”

  He reaches under the counter and pulls out Ned’s tie, spot-free in a cellophane wrapper.

  “You need it in a hurry, I do it in a hurry. Harry does his job!” he says. “You tell your friends.”

  “That’s great. But I’m not here about the tie.”

  I pull the stained scarf out of Ben’s shopping bag and hold it up for him.

  He screams.

  All the color drains out of his face. He puts his hands out in front of him, palms up, and slowly takes a step back.

  “Blood?” he whispers.

  “What? Oh, no,” I reply with a laugh. “Food coloring.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll get it out.”

  “You think you can? I’ve heard food coloring is a permanent stain.”

  “Is tomorrow okay?”

  “Well, there’s no rush, really. The weather’s still warm, so I don’t think he’ll be needing it for a while. Besides,” I add, “tomorrow is Sunday. You’re closed Sunday.”

  “For you, I open.”

  “No, really. Monday is fine. Thanks. What do I owe you for the tie?”

  “Nothing.” He shakes his head.

  “Nothing?”

  “My way of saying sorry. Very sorry.” For what? I want to ask. Being an asshole?

  “Well, that’s very nice of you. But really, it’s not necessary.”

  “No, I insist. You leave it to me. I’ll get this…this…red…out.”

  “Well, all right. Thank you again.”

  “And tell your friends,” he says. “You make sure you tell them!”

  I don’t get it. Overnight, he’s gone from a dybbuk to Miss Congeniality.

  I pull out of my parking space and head home. As I pass Harry’s window, I see him standing behind his counter, watching me.

  Chapter 13

  The guys at the Emissions Center tell me I can have my car back in a couple of hours. As I get out and hand them the keys, I see Vince’s car pull up in front.

  He waves. I’m about to open the door and slide in, when he gets out of the car and opens it for me. He is wearing a gray sweater, chukka boots, and jeans. I laugh.

  “What are you laughing about?”

  “Nothing,” I say.

  A lie. I am thinking about what a friend of mine once said: If a man opens a car door for his wife, it’s either a new car or a new wife.

  “Thanks for coming along,” he says. “We’ve got a dreary hour or two ahead of us. Think you can manage it?”

  “I’ll try,” I say. But once we’re on our way, the conversation comes easily.

  “I thought you drove a Volvo,” he says.

  “I do. That was Ned’s car. And he’s…”
<
br />   “…too busy to bring it in himself? Yeah. We men are like that. My wife used to complain about the same thing.”

  I wonder if I should ask about his wife again. Well, of course I should. But I decide not to. Not yet.

  “So what sort of errands are we running?” I ask.

  “I need to see a few clients.”

  “What exactly do you do?” I ask. “I mean, for a living?”

  “I sell medical supplies,” he says.

  “What kind?”

  “Mostly ostomy products,” he says “Colostomy bags, barrier strips, moldable rings. I’m a sales rep for a company that makes ’em.”

  I shrug. It sounds depressing. Then we talk about movies we’ve seen…rock groups we like…our kids…the high price of real estate (why they’re renting instead of buying)…and where we grew up. (Me: Milburn, New Jersey. Him: Highwood, outside of Chicago.)

  Our first stop is a pharmacy a few towns away. Then another one in the next town. I sit in the car and watch through the window. At both places, the scenario is the same: Vince goes in and talks to someone. There’s a lot of hand shaking and head shaking. Then he gives them a card and leaves.

  “Well, that’s it,” he says, getting back into the car.

  That’s it? I think. Just those two stops? That took all of twenty minutes.

  “So…maybe we could grab a little lunch?” he asks. “That is…if you have the time.”

  Of course I have the time. He knows it. I know he knows it. And he knows I know. Whatever little game he’s playing…I decide I’m going to play, too.

  “Well, there’s some leftover tuna waiting for me in my refrigerator,” I say.

  “Do you think we could convince it to wait a little longer?”

  I laugh. “Sure.”

  “I was thinking of La Lavande,” he adds. Of course he was. La Lavande is the newest, chicest restaurant within fifty miles. I’ve been wanting to go there, but it’s been totally booked. Some people wait months for a reservation.

  I mention this to Vince.

  “Yes,” he says. “Some people.”

  Chapter 14

  The La Lavande parking lot is filled with bumper-to-bumper BMWs and Mercedes and, every so often, a lone Porsche or Ferrari.