The Neighbors Are Watching (3 page)

Of course, Allison thought, she and Joe had just made it easier for dear Dot to maintain that superior stance forever. Dorothy had been there, kneeling in her star jasmine with her stupid yellow clippers in hand and watching when the girl had shown up. God only knew the conclusions Dorothy had drawn behind that ugly purple visor she always wore. Allison figured Dorothy was already whipping up a cake from a mix that she’d bring over for “you and Joe,” but really to find out why there was a pregnant teenager living in their house, information which she could then take back to Dick, who, as the arbiter of decency and American-ness on the block, would probably blow some sort of fuse inside his head. It was already killing him that there were lesbians living on the street and that he was separated from them by only two walls and a eucalyptus tree. Not that she’d heard this directly from Dick. But Dorothy, who had turned passive-aggressiveness into a high art, had dropped enough clues as to his point of view. “Dick’s so funny,” she’d said once. “He couldn’t find our power saw last night so he was going to go next door and ask one of the girls (Dorothy never referred to Sam and Gloria by name—they were always “the girls”) if he could borrow theirs. How silly is that? I mean, just because they, you know … well, anyway, it doesn’t mean they have
tools
. Men are so … Right?” And what was really the funniest thing, if you thought about it, was that Dorothy only shared this information with Allison because Dorothy thought of her as a like-minded
friend
.

But Dick and Dorothy weren’t Allison’s problem. No, her problem was downstairs, nestled under the bright yellow afghan her grandmother had knitted for her before she’d passed away, in the hope that there’d soon be a great-grandchild to celebrate. Allison was glad the woman hadn’t lived to see who was sleeping under it now.

It wasn’t the girl’s fault. Of course it wasn’t. Allison knew this intellectually even though there was nothing—
nothing
—appealing about Diana. From the sneering expression on her young face, to her swollen belly, which was proudly exposed and, yes, pierced, Diana was all hostility and bad attitude. The tattooed ankles rounded out the picture nicely.
Diana had a snake on one and an apple on the other and Allison didn’t apprecíate the biblical references
at all
. And, although the girl’s mother was surely to blame for the poor parenting skills that had led to a pregnant, tattooed teenage daughter, Allison couldn’t lay fault for her sleepless night there either. No, it was Joe—all Joe. Allison clenched her thighs under the blanket creating a tiny tremor in the fabric. She was desperate for a drink, even though she’d hit the wine pretty hard before going to bed. She just wanted oblivion.

The worst part was that Allison didn’t even know how she was supposed to feel. She and Joe had been married
eight years
and in all that time, not even a hint that he had a child somewhere. How could it have been so hidden—so out of her reach? How was it possible that through all the casual intimacies of their life together—shared meals and movies, paying bills, football on Sundays, washing dishes, brushing their teeth, their discussions about their future—there was no whisper, no accidentally dropped words about this girl? It would almost be easier to have woken up and found that
everything
about her life was a lie—that she was part of some grand government experiment, that her memory had been erased, that she was living with space aliens—instead of just this one awful truth. It wouldn’t get any better either. Because the girl was here and she was having a baby and Allison had absolutely no idea what role she was meant to play in this sordid little drama. Did Joe really expect her to be a grandma now? The very concept made her entire body stiff with anger. And beneath that anger was a kind of hurt she’d never felt before.

But no, that wasn’t true. Of course it wasn’t. She
had
felt this way before and then … then it had felt so bad Allison couldn’t imagine how it was even happening, how she was able to stand it.

Almost over. Another minute. One more minute
.

How many minutes in forever? Because that’s how long it took.

No, don’t. Don’t squeeze my hand like that
.

There was nothing to hold on to, outside or in, while she was carved and torn.

Just about done now. That’s it
.

The doctor was wearing a belly pack and the nurse kept her hands far from reach. The noise—that horrible mechanical groan—raging in her ears. Allison wanted to scream, but she had no breath.

Okay. All done now
.

It was a mistake, a terrible mistake that couldn’t be undone. Joe had been kind and sweet and sorry and they’d talked about it then, talked about how it was the best thing—the
right
thing to do—and that of course it was Allison’s choice ultimately. Her choice, of course. But it wasn’t, not really. And then, the second it was over, regret, immediate and piercing, opened a wound inside Allison that she didn’t know if she could ever close. The only thing she’d felt sure of then was that it would be impossible to experience that kind of pain again. But she’d been wrong about that too. She’d started to tell him this earlier today, but just bringing it up stung like fresh salt in that unclosed wound. Besides, he didn’t understand. She didn’t know if he ever would.

Joe’s breath was coming slow and deep now. His shoulder muscles twitched. He was falling asleep finally. Allison felt her anger spike. He had no right to enjoy the release of unconsciousness while she lay next to him awake and destroyed. She was going to get up, she decided, slide out of bed, go downstairs to the kitchen, and pour herself a big glass of the vodka that had been residing in their freezer for the past three years. She was going to drink it all and too bad if she threw up or had a hangover. She wanted to be drunk into the next day and beyond. As far as she could see, there was no other way to handle this nightmare. At least school was out for the summer. There would have been no way she could have gone to work at this point—drunk
or
sober.

Allison slid one leg to the edge of the bed as if testing the temperature of a bath. She shifted by inches, preparing to roll off and escape, but before she could lift the sheet she felt the warm pressure of Joe’s hand on her arm. They both lay suspended for a few seconds—Allison rigid with the bottleneck of her competing emotions and Joe waiting to see what she’d do—and
then he leaned in close enough for her to feel the naked skin of his chest against her back.

“Allie?” he said, his voice amplified by the silence of their bedroom. There was so much in it, Allison thought: apology, pleading, an edge of impatience, and warning. She knew this husband of hers so well that she could hear all of these nuances in the way he’d said her name. How then had she missed something so important? He moved his hand to her shoulder and gently rolled her onto her back. Allison didn’t resist. He stroked her face and touched his lips to her neck. Allison’s legs started shaking as he parted them with his hand, smoothing the skin of her thighs. She didn’t help him as he pushed her underwear down below her knees and said nothing as he climbed on top of her. But as he shifted her hips to meet his in exactly the right place, Allison started to cry.

This is the last time
. The thought was loud inside her head.

Allison didn’t have to wait too long before Joe’s heavy breathing turned into satisfied snoring. Her eyes, still sprung open as if by cartoon matchsticks, had stopped leaking tears. No need to worry about waking him now. She pulled her underwear up and slid out of bed. She took a last look at him; his arms sprawled in postcoital surrender as if he’d been shot down where he lay.

In a hurry and unwilling to root around in the dark for a T-shirt or pajama bottoms, Allison grabbed a bathrobe off a hook on the back of their bedroom door. She pulled it tight across her naked breasts and cinched the belt hard.

Never mentioned he had a child. Not once. Not even when she was carrying one herself
.

Allison padded barefoot down the beige-carpeted stairs in the dark, making a beeline for the kitchen and the cold oblivion that waited for her in the freezer. She had to stop thinking, had to turn off her brain, if only for a few hours. She visualized the bottle of Absolut Citron and her hand
excavating it from behind the bags of frozen vegetables. She didn’t turn on the kitchen light. No need. A tumbler sat out on the faux granite countertop. Perfect. Allison yanked open the freezer handle, bathing herself in a frosty mist of light. She reached and rustled inside, searching. And stopped. There was a noise so faint it took a second for her to realize she’d heard it. Sounded like a sigh. Allison felt cold tension gather between her shoulder blades.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

Allison jumped back, her throat closing and choking off a scream as she turned her head in the direction of the voice. “Jesus!” Her hands were already shaking. “Jesus, you—you—”

Diana was sitting on a rattan chair in the breakfast nook, barely visible between the pale light of the still-open freezer and the moon coming through the window behind her. Allison could make out the round outline of the white T-shirt stretched impossibly taut over Diana’s pregnant belly and the dark tendrils of her curly hair falling down her shoulders.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Diana said. “I thought you saw me when you came in.”

“I—” Allison had to catch her breath. She closed the freezer door and flicked on the kitchen light, causing them both to cringe in the sudden glare. “Of course you scared me,” Allison said finally. “Why would I have seen you sitting here in the dark?”

Diana drew up her shoulders, her hands moving to her belly as if to protect it, but Allison could see that her eyes sparked with anger. Sulky teenage anger. Because that’s what she was—a sulky, pissed-off, pregnant teenager. Allison wanted that drink more than ever.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Diana said again—more defiant now. “Too much
noise.
”

Allison took the tumbler, still clutched so tightly in her hand she was surprised it hadn’t shattered, filled it with water straight from the tap, and drank as much of it as she could before the chemical chlorine taste made
her gag. Normally, Allison would never even consider drinking San Diego tap water, which was so hard it was almost crunchy, but she didn’t care—the watercooler was beyond Diana on the other side of the table and Allison just didn’t want to have to maneuver around the girl to get to it.

“It’s summer,” Allison said. “Everyone has their windows open and the houses are close together. Sometimes it gets a little noisy at night.”

“Not that kind of noise,” Diana said. “You know where I’m sleeping? It’s right below your bedroom.” Diana waited a beat for it to sink in. “I can hear everything, you know?” Diana made a sound, some kind of guttural grunt, and Allison felt her breath catch in her throat. “You two were—”

“Stop it!” Allison gripped the side of the sink. Shame spread through her in a thick red flush, heating her thighs, her neck, her face. She was hot now and felt sick—filthy. Whatever happened next—tomorrow, next month, next year—wouldn’t matter at all because Allison knew her relationship with this girl would forever be defined by this horrible, horrible moment. God, how she hated Joe. And how she hated this daughter of his.

“I didn’t want to come here, you know,” Diana said. “This wasn’t my idea.”

Allison’s face was burning and there was a faint ringing in her ears. She couldn’t look at Diana. “It’s been a long day for
everyone,
” Allison said and worked mightily to unclench her jaw. “You should go back to bed. I’m sure you’ll be able to sleep now.”

Diana got up and walked toward Allison, who turned her head, staring into the eye of the sink’s drain. “Hey,” Diana said softly, the slightest note of pleading in her voice, but Allison was too angry and embarrassed to answer, and after a second, Diana gave up and walked past her. Allison could smell jasmine in the current of air Diana left in her wake. Allison looked up then to make sure the girl was actually headed to her room. It was funny—almost cruel—how you couldn’t tell from behind that she was pregnant at all. The slim tight skin on her café-latte-colored hips and thighs
betrayed nothing. Nor did her skinny behind, and Allison got a good long look at
that
because aside from the too-small T-shirt, all Diana was wearing was a little black thong.

Allison waited until she heard the click of the guest bedroom door closing before she reached into the freezer again and turned off the kitchen light.

She took the first drink straight from the bottle.

J
oe stared at his reflection in the bedroom mirror as he dressed for work, looping his black and yellow–striped tie around itself to form a knot. His hands fiddling with the fabric, Joe observed his face—the Roman nose, rounded chin, wide-set eyes—as if for the first time. The funny thing, he thought, was not that Diana looked like him but that it had taken him weeks to notice the resemblance.

He’d seen it this morning and now it was impossible to
un
-see, like one of those black-and-white pattern-recognition pictures where you see either the vase or two profiles but never both simultaneously. It was during breakfast and the two of them were lifting bagels to their mouths in almost perfect synchronicity. His eyes had just happened to land on Diana instead of being glued to the sports section, which was a safer bet these days than looking at either of the women in his house. In that moment, as he and she were both biting into their chive-cream-cheese-laden “everything” bagels, he saw the curve of her eyebrows, the shape and color of her eyes, and felt as if he were looking at a younger, feminized version of himself. The recognition stunned him, stopping him mid-chew.

“What?” Diana asked, and he realized he was staring. Allison took a long sip from her orange juice (which Joe suspected was spiked with vodka) and banged her glass down on the table loud enough to let him know that
she’d seen that look he’d given his daughter—not that she had or ever would use the word
daughter
—and wasn’t pleased with it.