The Pretty Woman Who Lived Next Door

by Preston Pairo

  “Is that a gang thing?” Miles asked of the tattoos.

  “No. It’s in honor of their grandfather—he was a Nicaraguan freedom fighter against the Sandinistas for President Reagan. Ernesto and Carlos graduated last year.”

  “From Kensington?”

  “Yes. We all played on the soccer team. Bremmer was always calling us beaners, especially Ernesto, because he was very good and there’s a vote every spring as to who should be athlete of the year. And Ernesto was very popular because he scored the winning goal in the state championship game, and broke all the scoring records. Bremmer didn’t like that. He likes to be the big star. So he had this stoner kid plant heroin in Ernesto’s locker to try to get him arrested, only Ernesto found out and got rid of it before the police came to search his locker. The other two—Santiago and Diego—went to Germantown and were friends with Carl Mandrich, who Bremmer broke his leg.”

  “The quarterback?”

  “Yes—you heard about that?”

  “Jennifer told me.”

  Juan smiled. “Jennifer: she likes you.”

  “Yeah.” Miles smiled in reply.

  “She’s very hot. Everybody thinks so. Bremmer, too. But she thinks he’s an asshole and told him so last year after he got into a fight with a guy she was hanging out with. Broke his nose.”

  “Bremmer broke the other guy’s nose?”

  “Punched him straight in the face. Gave him a concussion, too. But still not like when he broke Carl’s leg. Carl has pins in his bones now and one leg shorter than the other and still walks with a limp. And lost his scholarship. It wasn’t a big school but would have paid for him to go. Now he’s just at community college.”

  “Any particular reason Bremmer went after him?”

  “Carl: he was all-county at Germantown. And second team all-state. And that was in football. In soccer he was first team all-state. Fantastic goalie. That’s what he had the scholarship for. Soccer.” Which Juan referred to as futbol real, then, hard serious, said, “Bremmer had it in for him—told him before the game he was going to leave the field in a body bag. Pendejo doesn’t like anyone thinking they’re better than him. And we’ve had enough. So we’re going to beat the shit out of him—see how he plays football…” Juan used a mocking tone of voice for the sport which was not futbol real to the vast majority of the world. “…with pins in his legs, maybe a plate in his head.”

  Turning onto the highway, Miles didn’t respond until stopped for a traffic light. “So this is going to be an attack then?” He looked over at Juan. “You guys going after Bremmer?”

  “Yes.”

  “You five against him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Assuming you can get Bremmer alone, without two or three of his friends. Because all five of you against Bremmer might go off at even odds. Might,” Miles emphasized.

  “You would make six,” Juan proposed.

  Miles shook his head. “You don’t do something like this as a group. You do it on your own—and don’t tell anyone you’re even thinking about it, not even in jest. You don’t want there to be any known reason why you might want to do it. No motive. Like you don’t even know the guy, why would you want to hurt him? Because things go wrong. Things don’t go as you plan. And someone gets caught and talks, everyone goes down.”

  “So you’re saying it just needs to be one guy to get Bremmer?”

  “No. I’m saying don’t do it at all. Because now it’s been talked about, which makes it probably a conspiracy already…” Conspiracy was another legal term Miles’ lawyer had explained to him—how it’s illegal to even plan a crime, a fine line between talking about someone getting their ass kicked and taking any action in furtherance of that scheme.

  “These guys,” Juan assured Miles, “none of them will talk.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes—I do. But you don’t want to get involved I understand. You got the police already knowing you with that thing happened to your neighbor kid. So we won’t talk about it around you. But we still want you to teach us to fight. Will you do that? Say we forget about going after Bremmer…” As if Juan had authority for the group to abort that idea. “…but the next time he calls me Jew-Ann, maybe decides to hurt me, I know I have a chance to hold my own.”

  The light turned green. Miles drove forward.

  Juan, a fast learner, reiterated, “No one will mention Bremmer again.”

  Miles nodded. “Every day after school…”

  “Yes.”

  “Except Friday. Friday afternoon is my time with Jennifer.”

  Juan appeared puzzled. “Just Friday for Jennifer? No Saturday or Sunday?”

  “I don’t think her parents know about me.”

  “Oh…” Juan nodded, seeming to understand. He fell silent a while, then: “What about Florida? You have girlfriends when you lived there?”

  “No.”

  “No?” Juan was surprised.

  “No,” Miles repeated, because that’s what he’d always told everyone. Not even his lawyer had known the truth.

  15.

  Two nights later, Miles could tell his father had something on his mind. But it wasn’t until Miles was going upstairs after dinner that his dad said, “You should call Mom.” His father was sitting on the sofa with the TV on, but not really paying attention to whatever was on NatGeo. The only shows George Peterson watched any more were documentary series—how things were made, birds in rain forests, people moving to Alaska. “You haven’t talked to her since she went to Aunt Kay’s,” he told Miles.

  Miles didn’t bother to point out that she hadn’t called him either. Instead, very agreeably, he asked: “Do you think she’s still up now?”

  His father checked the clock, although he had to know the time. It was as though he needed a pause to weigh the pros and cons of Miles making that phone call. Maybe he was worried how the conversation would turn out.

  It hadn’t always been this way. Miles’ mother had adored him as a child, indulged him. But as he grew into a tall seventh grader often mistaken for someone years older—not just because of his height but overall maturity—she felt as if he’d abandoned her.

  “Maybe it is a little late,” his dad decided. “Maybe this weekend...”

  “Sure.” Miles made it sound as if he was looking forward to it.

  Two mornings later, Saturday, right after breakfast, Miles phoned his Aunt Kay’s house. The phone rang eight times, then went to voice mail.

  Miles left a message: “Hey, Aunt Kay. Hey, Mom. Just calling to see how everyone’s doing. Look forward to hearing from you.”

  Waiting for a call back, Miles hung around the house, doing chores with his father. Washing George’s car and his own truck. Raking leaves—which they’d never done in Florida, where they’d simply stacked fallen palm fronds at the curb for the trash men to take.

  Once their small yard was leaf-free, George—slightly sweaty and red-faced from exertion—knocked on Cara Blakely’s door, asking if she’d like to have them rake her lawn. When she came out to join the effort, Miles thought he caught a glimpse of what his father might have been like 25 years ago.

  His dad was almost playful, crossing his rake with Cara’s as if dueling, which made her laugh.

  An hour later, as the sun set on the first day of October, Miles stomped the last of the leaves in the bed of his truck, strapped down a cover to keep them from blowing away, and headed off for the county landfill. Cara Blakely went home to shower. George did the same. Later they had dinner together—carry-out pizza and salad.

  It was a happy night. Cara was optimistic about Ian, with whom she’d spoken by phone for the first time since her estranged husband had taken him. She said her son sounded fine, which was a relief although not entirely surprising. She’d assumed Sean would make it seem like an adventure for Ian, and that’s just what he was doing. While she worried about many things, the possibility of Sean harming their son wasn’t one of them. Sean was only mean to her.


  Cara said the telephone call had been arranged by her mother-in-law in Ireland after the international divorce law specialist in Baltimore who Cara had been referred to phoned an overseas associate, who’d made contact with Sean. The result of the lawyers’ efforts seemed to have made Sean realize an ocean wasn’t going to be enough of an obstacle to keep the court system at bay...or so Cara hoped.

  As Cara and his father talked, Miles felt as if a new routine was being established. He’d spent the past three afternoons teaching Juan and his friends karate at the warehouse gym they referred to as the “Concrete Palace.” Yesterday, he’d spent another Friday in Georgetown with Jennifer and ended up in their favorite alley. Now, he and his father were having another nice dinner with their pretty neighbor, who greatly brightened his father’s mood.

  Cara stayed until ten, at which time Miles watched her walk back to her house from his bedroom window. When his father came up the stairs a short time later, he was whistling.

  For the next twelve days everyone seemed happy. Even Rusty Bremmer looked as if he might be ready to leave Miles and Juan alone, or maybe he was concentrating on the upcoming rematch against Germantown. Last season, Bremmer had broken that team’s quarterback’s leg, and Jennifer claimed rumors of retaliation were spiking online.

  Then, in the middle of the night, as Miles laid awake in bed with his window open, he heard Cara Blakely. Behind her closed bedroom curtains less than thirty feet away, she sobbed mournfully.

  #

  The following night, over dinner of Chinese carry-out, George Paterson was in a somber mood. He told Miles he’d spoken with Cara. “She said her husband found out his mother’s been letting her talk to Ian. So he’s gone off somewhere else and taken Ian with him. No one knows where they are, and Cara’s lawyer says it could be very expensive to find him. I can’t imagine what she’s going through.”

  Miles believed his father knew exactly what their neighbor was going through, being separated from her child by continents, just as George had been separated from Miles by barred windows and concrete walls, not knowing how that might change, if ever.

  His father went on to recount what Cara had revealed of her financial situation: that her bank accounts were near zero; she was two months behind on her car payments; a month behind on the mortgage to the house, which was worth less than what she owed on it; her credit cards were maxed; and her new job wasn’t paying enough to keep her from falling further behind.

  “Can we help her?” Miles asked.

  George shrugged despondently, the remaining chicken on his plate looking as if it would go uneaten. “What can we do?” He kept his eyes down. “We’re running close to empty ourselves.”

  The revelation jarred Miles. Not that he hadn’t suspected his family’s money situation, but it was unsettling to actually hear his father say it. And it was all because of him—because of what his parents had spent on his lawyers, because of what it cost to sell their house in Florida and move to Maryland to get away from the notoriety that ended up trailing them here anyway.

  “I’ve been thinking about getting a job,” Miles said.

  His father’s head remained bowed, as if he was the one to blame—the provider who thought he’d planned for every contingency, who had all the recommended insurances, made all the advised contributions to his retirement plan at work, watched the budget so they didn’t overspend, and wisely accumulated savings. But who figured on setting aside tens of thousands of dollars for legal costs in case their son was arrested for murder?

  Miles said, “Juan says his father needs help on his food trucks.”

  George closed his eyes.

  Miles reached for his father’s hand. “It’s okay, Dad.”

  His father nodded, getting up from the table and taking his plate into the kitchen. Bracing his hands against the aged countertop, George Peterson spoke as if delivering his own eulogy. “I used to be able to help people.”

  “You still, do,” Miles assured him. “You help me every day.”

  #

  Miles was surprised when his mother answered the phone. It had been two weeks since he’d left that voice mail message without getting a reply.

  Her “hello” sounded like it came from someone on the verge of physical and mental exhaustion—at 10:30 Saturday morning.

  “Hi, Mom.” Miles’ greeting was pleasant, though without the enthusiasm his father often employed as if tone of voice could free his wife from that thicket of despondency into which she often descended.

  “Oh…Miles…hello…” Her words floated dreamily, causing Miles to remember the first time he’d ever seen his mother medicated—his father’s word, when Miles believed she was actually stoned: it had been the second weekend he’d been out on bail, those murder charges very much weighing on them, a hard stress pulling at the family chain, snapping his mother first—the weakest link. His mother had called to him from the bedroom, the window shades closed against that trumpeted Florida sunshine, asking Miles for some water because her mouth was “so, so, so dry…” And Miles’ father had been concerned with how many pills she’d taken, trying to figure out how many should still be in the bottle against the actual count. He’d debated taking her to the emergency room, but Miles’ mother begged him not to, crying that then everyone would know that about them too.

  Now, on the phone, Miles said, “I just wanted to say hello, Mom. And hope you and Aunt Kay are having a good visit.”

  There was a moment of silence before Jackie Peterson responded. “We are…” The sentence drifted off instead of ending. Then, silence.

  “Dad’s raking leaves,” Miles said. Through the kitchen window, he watched his father looking like someone in an advertisement—an image of happy suburbia.

  George Peterson was dressed in a nubby sweater and corduroys, championing that best-reviewed rake, collecting a pile of leaves on a tarp near the side of Cara Blakely’s house, and no doubt wishing their pretty neighbor would come outside to join him.

  On the phone, Miles’ mother made a sound of vague acknowledgement, as if drifting in and out of sleep—indication she’d have little memory of this conversation other than a tickle of recognition through confused webs of anxiety.

  “School’s going really well,” Miles said, breaking another ten seconds of dead air. “It’s a good school.”

  “Yes…”

  “There’s no problems here, Mom. Everything’s fine.”

  “Good…”

  He was going to say they missed her and ask when she was coming back. But outside, his father looked very fit and virile raking those leaves—no doubt putting on a show for Cara Blakely. Miles hoped their neighbor would look outside and see his dad before he ran out of steam. “Say hi to Aunt Kay for me. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  “Mm…”

  “Bye.” Miles hung up the phone and went outside to help his father rake. He didn’t mention having just spoken with his mother.

  “Fabulous day, isn’t it?” George asked, his face flushed from cool air and exertion.

  “Yes, it is.” Miles hid his worries about his mother, putting them behind the emotional armor he wore to deal with her.

  His mother had never been good at handling stress, needing everything around her to be untroubled in order to maintain a relative calm. Then her son killed a man.

  #

  After Miles and his dad dumped a third tarp of leaves into the bed of his truck, Miles strapped on the cover and headed for the landfill, telling his father he should go next door and ask Ms. Blakely if she’d like them to rake her lawn for her.

  An hour later, returning home, Miles saw two rakes against the trunk of the maple tree where they’d left them. His father was nowhere in sight.

  16.

  Miles’ dad was inside their rented house, his laptop and some work files opened on the small dining room table that had been someone else’s when it was new, the kind of table never intended to be celebrated, merely used. George didn’t look up when Mi
les came in through the side door—not so much focused on his work as distracted by thoughts that seemed to hold him in a sort of suspension.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  George Peterson broke from his stare.

  “We going to rake Ms. Blakely’s leaves?”

  His father shook his head. “No, I think that’s enough for one day.”

  Miles thought his dad looked tired. Maybe the calisthenics of putting on a show in case their neighbor happened to look outside had worn him down. “I’ll put away the rakes then.” Miles turned to go back outside.

  “Cara’s not coming for dinner tonight.” His father sounded disappointed. “She’s not feeling well.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” Miles replied. “Maybe we could take something over to her.”

  “I asked, but she said she already has some soup thawing.”

  Miles paused at the door. “You want to go out to eat then? Maybe catch a movie?”

  “I think I’m going to work on this claim if that’s okay with you.”

  “Yeah…sure.”

  So they had dinner at home—spaghetti and meatballs Miles fixed—and the house felt empty on a Saturday night without Cara there. George called her later to see how she was doing, and it was a short conversation Miles could tell his father wished had been longer and with a different result.

  “Does she need anything?” Miles asked his dad.

  “No—say’s she just going to bed.”

  “You think it’s the flu?”

  “She didn’t say. But it sounds more like she’s…” He hesitated. “…sad.”

  Miles wondered if his father had started to say Cara seemed depressed, but didn’t want to place the same tag on her that Miles’ mother wore so prominently.

  With the pots cleaned by hand and everything else in the dishwasher, Miles went up to his room and sat on his bed with the window open and cool air coming in. He closed his eyes. It was early and he wasn’t tired, he just found himself doing this sometimes—a habit picked up in jail when time drained so slowly. What Mr. K referred to as finding a Zen space. Which seemed more holistic or sacred than many of the thoughts Miles often found going through his head, either purposefully or by the random wanderings in his brain.