The Neighbors Are Watching (30 page)

She’d never told anyone, so many years now—more than thirty, though it hardly seemed possible—about that other life she’d had. She was a girl, just a girl, fallen in with a bad crowd and a bad boy to go with it. He had a motorcycle, Dorothy said. Have you ever been with a boy on a motorcycle? It’s not something you forget. Do you remember what it was like
back then? Dorothy asked Sam. In the seventies we all wanted to be Charlie’s Angels. That hair, those bikinis. Everybody beautiful and having fun. We had a pool—a swimming pool—because it was so hot in the summer. The adults hung around with drinks. You know, you had cocktails at the pool in those days.…

Although she didn’t know where Dorothy was going with any of it, Sam let her ramble on without interrupting. Dorothy’s eyes were turned inward to her long-buried memories, watching a scene she hadn’t allowed herself to see for three decades and relating what she found there in a breathless rush. She hadn’t known any better, Dorothy went on, and she hadn’t given it any thought. She was bad, of a weak character. It was so quick from that first little taste. Almost no time at all before she couldn’t live without it. They say it’s a gene, that addiction runs in families. Well, her parents had been huge drinkers and maybe that was it right there. But she had never been interested in alcohol, no. Even now, even now …

“I had to run away,” Dorothy whispered. “I had to.”

“But Dorothy,” Sam had said then, “you were just a kid and it happens all the time. You weren’t hurting anyone but yourself. You could have gotten help.”

Dorothy had closed her eyes then, and Sam saw that the lids were red and rough from crying. “No,” she said. And then, “Please, Sam, please don’t—”

“No, I won’t say anything to anyone, Dorothy, of course not. I promise you.”

It felt so awkward, Sam recalled now, to reach over to Dorothy and touch her. She was holding Zoë in one arm and had to lean across the table to find Dorothy’s hands, which were both clenched in front of her, so that she could cover them with her own. Dorothy’s hands were cold and trembling. She didn’t give any indication that she felt Sam’s hand, didn’t move closer or pull back. Sam couldn’t help thinking how strange it was that she was trying to comfort someone who wouldn’t have even invited her in only a few weeks before. It was stranger still that she was able to feel not pity or
even sympathy, but empathy for Dorothy. As she felt Dorothy’s skin under her own palm, Sam experienced a moment of true compassion and connection with the woman sitting across from her. The secret that Dorothy had revealed shed some light on her personality and perhaps explained why she seemed so buttoned up, but it didn’t change who she was. Sam doubted that she and Dorothy would ever read the same books, enjoy the same movies, or ever have one of those girls’ nights out that women seemed compelled to go on, no matter what dark skeletons either one of them pulled from their respective closets. And that Dorothy had been a junkie in her wild, misspent youth didn’t make the fact that she had grown up and married Dick Werner any easier to understand—or tolerate. It wasn’t that Dorothy underwent some sort of transformation in Sam’s eyes when she opened up those floodgates and let loose, but Sam felt her pain as acutely as if it had been her own. Maybe, Sam thought, that was because it
was
her pain too. The whole world was in pain and Sam felt it swirling around them, enveloping them—their connectedness a ribbon of sweetness in the sorrow.

It had helped Dorothy to talk to Sam, a slight release of the pressure that had been building for thirty years. Dorothy told Sam that she had never told anyone a single word of the story she had just shared and Sam believed her. Even then, stripped bare and eyes watering, Sam could see the tautness still inside Dorothy—a tension that was threatening to break her. Telling Sam, who couldn’t figure whether she had just been in the right place at the right time for the confession or if Dorothy just sensed that she could trust her, had alleviated some of Dorothy’s stress. But when Sam left later that afternoon, she could tell that Dorothy was deeply troubled and perhaps even more paranoid than before. In the days since then Sam felt Dorothy’s silent despair like a vortex pulling at her from next door.

Sam heard splashing and the hiss of steam. She looked at the stove and saw that the pasta water was boiling over. She’d drifted and let it go too long. She turned the stove off and drained the pasta. Without even sampling she could see that the shells were way overdone and that the penne
was right on the edge. It couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes, what the hell? And where was Gloria? Sam looked at the clock again. Gloria had been gone over ten minutes and Sam was annoyed despite her resolve to put aside all of her complaints until after dinner. She poured a small amount of olive oil on the pasta and transferred it back to the pot, putting the lid on. The sauce was past ready so she turned the heat off there as well. She sat down at the table and folded her hands.
I’m not going to get angry. I’m not
.

After another five minutes spent staring at the brown weave of the place mat in front of her, Sam reluctantly picked up her cell phone and dialed. So she was a nagging bitch, but it had been more than fifteen minutes and Gloria had promised, damn it. But before she could hit the send button, Sam snapped the phone shut and laid it down. She waited another minute and another after that. The air in the kitchen had cooled off, but the aroma of the tomato sauce hung like a scented cloud in the middle of the room. Sam picked up her phone a second time, hesitated again, and then dialed Gloria’s full phone number rather than the speed dial digit she’d been assigned, so as to take more time. It rang and rang—Sam lost count of how many times, so surprised was she that Gloria didn’t pick it up, even just to say, “Can’t talk, Sam, on my way.” Finally, it just went to voice mail and Sam heard Gloria’s curt voice instructing her to “speak after the beep and make it good.” Sam clicked her phone shut before the tone ended. There was no message.
That
was the message. Sam poured herself a glass of water and forced herself to drink it very slowly.

After another ten minutes, Sam was seized with that familiar mother’s panic—
what if she got into an accident and is lying dead in the street
?—the irrational fears of death and destruction that couldn’t be palliated with logic or reason. But no, she would have heard sirens. Or something. Maybe she stopped to talk to somebody at the store, Sam thought. Which would be fucking inconsiderate, but a better option than sprawled headless and bloody on the windshield of her car. Sam dialed Gloria again and again it went to voice mail. This time, Sam almost beat the tone when she said,
“Gloria, what the
fuck
? You said five minutes and it’s been a half hour. You could at least call me.”

There was nothing for it now, Sam thought as she hung up. Dinner was ruined.

After fifteen more minutes, Sam got up and closed the garage door that Gloria had left open. It was dark, and she felt exposed with the door open like that—a big empty space just asking for trouble. She went to the fridge and took out one of Gloria’s beers and popped the top, took a long drink, and fought the urge throw it back up.

It was only after another hour and the second beer, almost two hours since Gloria had gone out, that Sam threw the food away. She dumped the pasta in the sink and tossed the sauce in after it, turning on the garbage disposal and listening to the growl and grind of mechanical mastication. It was impossible to name the emotion coursing through her blood, pounding at her head, making her throat tight and sore. It was beyond anger or frustration or even sadness. Sam was somewhere in the middle of ashamed and humiliated and she was not nearly drunk enough.

Ninety minutes later, after several pony glasses of a bad cut-rate port she’d found at the back of the highest cabinet in the kitchen, Sam stumbled out of the kitchen into the darkness of the living room and fell onto the couch. Fuck the dirty pots and pans and sink. Fuck everything because she was never going to eat another fucking thing ever again anyway. Feeling stifled, Sam opened the sliding glass back door to get a little air and almost fell through the screen door in the process. Her stomach lurched. A puff of wind blew in, bringing with it the sound of a baby crying. It must be Zoë, Sam thought, and started to weep, big fat splashing tears that seemed to have no end. She fell down on the couch and cried until she passed out.

Hours later, in the blackest part of night, Sam’s nausea woke her up and she raced to the bathroom just in time to hurl the contents of her stomach into the toilet. But in all the time she spent throwing up—and it was much longer than she ever remembered doing when she was in high school and college and drinking to excess—Sam didn’t even consider how
sick she felt or how miserable she was going to be if it ever decided to be morning again. What she thought, over and over again, was that the old saw was really true, it really happened and wasn’t just a saying. People really went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back. It was almost funny.

Gloria came home at 5:01
AM
. Sam knew this because she opened her eyes and looked into the red glow of their bedside clock as Gloria ascended the stairs. Sam was under the covers and shivering a little, her back to the bedroom door when Gloria came in and stood at the edge of the bed for a long time unmoving. Sam could hear her breathing. Then, very quietly, Gloria sat down on the bed. Sam shut her eyes tightly and didn’t move. She could smell alcohol fumes radiating off Gloria despite those that were surely coming from her own pores. She’d had more than a few, had Gloria. Sam didn’t want whatever was coming next, but she couldn’t stop it.

Gloria reached over, put her hand on Sam’s hip. “Sam?” She could sense that Sam was awake. She knew. Sam didn’t answer. The hand stayed there, a light pressure through the blanket and sheets, for several minutes—so long that Sam thought Gloria had passed out sitting up. But then she leaned over and lay down, spooning Sam’s body with her own. Gloria brought her arm around, held Sam tightly, pushed her face into Sam’s hair. She breathed in and out, in and out.

“Sam.”

“What are we going to do, Gloria?” Sam asked without turning around, without moving a single muscle in her body. “Please, just tell me.”

Gloria breathed in and out, her body warm and firm against Sam’s. “I’m sorry, Sam,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

She’s sorry, Sam thought, and wished she knew for whom.

A
llison took the freshly baked crescent rolls out of the oven and set them on a cooling rack. They smelled delicious even though they had come out of a cardboard tube and were loaded with preservatives. She felt vaguely guilty about serving something so artificial, but she wasn’t trying to fool anyone and nobody was going to believe that she’d stood in her kitchen and prepared perfectly shaped, risen, and browned dinner rolls anyway. She’d bought cookies as well and good-quality coffee for the occasion. She put the rolls on a serving platter and the cookies on a plate and took both into the dining room where she’d already laid the table with a serviceable but attractive yellow tablecloth, napkins, and small paper plates. She needed to put cups out—paper or ceramic?—spoons, creamer, and sugar. Suddenly the rolls and cookies looked lost and half-finished on the table, as if something central was missing. Still, food was really beside the point. It wasn’t a party. Far from it. But Allison didn’t know how to classify what it
was
, either. There weren’t any truly accurate names for this kind of gathering.

Was it a neighborhood meeting?

Close enough.

Back in the kitchen Allison checked the clock and decided it was time to turn on the coffee. She then put water in the kettle and turned the
burner on. It was going to have to be decaffeinated tea for her. She was already feeling jittery flips in her stomach and didn’t want to take the chance of being kept awake and buzzed later. Sleep was elusive and hard-won for Allison these days—a punishment perhaps for the months she’d spent in bed—and she had to be careful not to tip herself into insomnia. She still had sleeping pills, of course, a few different kinds in sample packs the doctor had given her, but they were all becoming ineffective and Allison was scared that she’d end up taking too many. She wasn’t stupid—she knew how easy it was to build up a tolerance and then just go overboard. She didn’t want to die—just sleep.

Truth be told, she also wanted a drink. The craving was so strong it made her eyes water, but satisfying it was completely out of the question. Allison was straining, exerting willpower she didn’t know she possessed to avoid any and all alcohol. Although she was succeeding in overcoming the urge, it was only by a hair.

Allison had spent more than three months in a booze-soaked haze and in the last three sober weeks she had relived every minute of them. One would have thought that some of that extended lost weekend would be gone, washed away or drowned in all the wine and vodka she’d consumed, but no. Blackouts were terrible things and people always lived to regret them, but in a way they were merciful, Allison thought. Given the choice, she would have turned July through October into one long black hole that she could never again see into. It would have been an indescribable relief. But if anything Allison was experiencing a reverse blackout. The long days and endless trailing nights of those months stretched out for Allison like a badly painted canvas. Without the dulling benefit of a single drink since that horrible day when the county had gone up in flames, Allison had been forced to look at and remember every detail. It was torturous but also necessary. In playing back the film of her life since the summer Allison realized that she’d become—in a matter of minutes it seemed—a spiteful drunk whom everyone hated and, let’s face it,
blamed
. It was funny, she
thought, how quickly you could go from being the injured party to being the perpetrator.

Still, the instant sobriety she had tumbled into had shown Allison that from the day of Diana’s arrival onward, she had only made life more difficult for herself. It was impossible to generate sympathy when you were so obviously drunk off your ass. At all hours of the day. Every day of the week. It was too late to undo any of that now and useless to fixate or wallow in shame over her actions. But she could manage the here and now and reshape the twisted opinions of her that people now had. All of this required not drinking. And not drinking required Allison to fake a level of equanimity that she did not have. But she believed in the “fake it until you make it” philosophy, which was exactly what she was doing and why she was hosting this nonparty to begin with. It was why she’d come home in the first place.