The Neighbors Are Watching (6 page)

“Okay,” Sam said.

“See ya.” And then she was gone. Sam hadn’t spoken to her since then, had only seen her slipping across at odd hours of the day and into the evening—a phantom with child. The next time that girl popped around, Sam decided, she was going to make sure she said hello—make sure she
gave Diana a little friendly, nonjudgmental advice, because it didn’t look as if anyone else was going to.

Sam realized there were tears at the corners of her eyes and she sniffed, jerking herself away from her reverie at the window and grabbing a sponge to mop up the now-congealing carrot juice.

“Gloria!” she called a second time. Again, there was no response, even though Sam knew that wherever she was in their house, Gloria could hear her. Not to mention that Sam’s voice carried well enough to be heard through their open windows and out onto the street. But Gloria was in a mood and that meant Sam was going to suffer. Those dark clouds of Gloria’s were coming in thicker and more frequently these days and were in direct proportion with Sam’s decreasing ability to pull her out of them. But that she had somehow slipped—or been placed—into the role of cajoling cheerleader bothered Sam more every time she found herself trying to head off Gloria’s slide into depression. They’d gotten into this thing together with their eyes open, knowing (at least partially) what it would mean.

Not that they had fooled anyone—not then, when they arrived in the neighborhood with their boys or now, after their children had been taken away. Sam remembered the day they moved in, the chaos of toys and boxes and phone calls and pizza. The kids were underfoot the entire day. Those boys were best friends, closer than brothers, and they were thrilled to be living under the same roof. They were so excited about it that they were even looking forward to doing homework together. Sam lined drawers, stacked plates, and sorted utensils. Gloria constructed two twin beds in the boys’ room and then made them up with matching blue sheets and pillows. Every five minutes, Connor or Justin would run in with another question or revelation. There was a tree in the backyard perfect for a tree house! Where was the box with Justin’s PlayStation? When was the TV going to be hooked up? Connor found a cat in the driveway! Could they go see if there were any other kids to play with on the street? It was exhausting
and exhilarating, and, despite the constant anxiety Sam had been feeling since she and Gloria had decided to leave their husbands, she was truly happy that day and allowed herself the possibility that it might just work out.

Of course Dorothy had materialized at their front door that day to welcome them to the neighborhood and offer them a “fresh baked” pumpkin pie that looked like it had come directly from a supermarket shelf. When Sam expressed ironic amazement that people still came over with pies and to borrow cups of sugar and the like, Dorothy looked at her with a curious mix of bafflement and mistrust as if to say that she didn’t quite get the joke but that she knew it was at her expense. Sam remembered thinking right then that the nosy, straight arrow Dorothy was going to be a problem. And that was before Dick wandered over in his conservative weekend casuals (god, those slacks were too awful for words) and introduced himself.

“Hello there. Dick Werner.”

“Hi. Sam.”

“Sam? Like Samantha?”

Was it his tone, Sam wondered now, brimming with condescension and sexism (yes, the sexism was there, even in those five syllables) that kept her from telling him that her full name was Samara? Or was it just a desire to protect even this small part of herself from being exposed?

“No,” she told him, “not like Samantha.”

In itself, her answer might not have been enough to make an enemy out of a man who actually called himself Dick, but what happened next surely had. Gloria came downstairs and over to the open door where Sam was standing with the Werners. She was wearing tight spandex bike shorts that showed every lush curve and a cropped T-shirt that advertised her flat tan belly. Her hair was still long then—before she had it hacked off into that short brutal cut she wore now—and flowing around her head and shoulders like a rush of gold. Gloria was glorious, even on moving day,
without makeup or any artificial enhancements, and in need of a shower. Sam could see the instant leer in Dick’s eyes and the jealousy in Dorothy’s. Sam had seen this combination so many times; lust and envy greeted Gloria wherever she went, and she could tell the Werners were trying to assess the situation in their own minds. What, their faces asked, was the story with these two women—one of them an absolute stunner—without wedding rings or visible husbands but with two overexcited little boys who clearly belonged to them? If it had just stayed there, with introductions and pie, they might both have come to the same conclusion, that they were recently divorced women who were moving in together to save money. But then Gloria did something that Sam still didn’t understand—something that slightly but permanently altered everything. Gloria leaned forward to shake Dick’s hand and at the same time, looped her free arm around Sam’s shoulders. It wasn’t as overt as a hug, nor was there anything sexual in it, but the gesture was proprietary and had an unmistakable intimacy. Even Dick and Dorothy—surprise, disgust, and prurient interest flitting across their American Gothic faces in quick succession—could see that very clearly.

Sam wondered now why she’d never said anything about it to Gloria afterward, why they hadn’t even exchanged a knowing look or admission of what she’d done. It was too easy to believe that it hadn’t meant anything, that it wasn’t a calculated move on Gloria’s part, and that the whole exchange was simply a vaguely uncomfortable welcome-to-the-neighborhood interlude. Perhaps that had been the beginning of Gloria’s need to push the envelope, to keep driving forward until she got a reaction. Well, she’d gotten one all right. How long had it taken for Gloria’s sadistic ex, Frank, to erupt and for their children to become merely visitors in their home? The length of a whisper, Sam thought, and they were gone.

And now Sam was stuck with all the heavy lifting. They were meant to be
each other’s
support, she thought. Gloria wasn’t the only one who
missed her child—Sam was having just as hard a time of it. But Gloria … There was something breaking inside her and Sam didn’t know how to fix it.

Sam put her hands to her temples and pressed as if that alone could rid her of the tension and pain created by their ex-husbands. Sam knew the hurt she’d caused Noah by leaving him for Gloria went far beyond just the insult to his masculinity, and she was deeply sorry for that. She still cared for him—he was Connor’s father, after all, and a good one—and had tried to make things as easy and nonconfrontational as possible. She didn’t understand how he could have allowed himself to get so influenced by Frank and join forces with him to take their boys away from their mothers. Sam remembered Shakespeare’s line about killing all the lawyers and sighed. Both Noah and Frank were attorneys. What were the chances? And that was the only reason they’d been able to pull off what they had with the boys. Frank’s cruel treatment of Gloria since then—well, that was just an added bonus. At least Noah wasn’t attempting to poison Connor against his mother the way Frank was with Justin.

Sam put the kettle on for tea and cleaned up the remainder of the carrot juice mess as she waited for the water to boil. They couldn’t have hidden their relationship—not really—but they could have been more discreet about it. And by discreet, Sam only meant not rubbing Frank’s nose in it, which was what Gloria seemed to want to do.

“I don’t want us to sneak around,” Gloria said. “That’s not who I am. I’m not ashamed of anything.”

All well and good, Sam thought, until the phone call from Frank’s partner at the firm. God, he’d marshaled half the damned county. Too much money. Too much ego. Sharp tears stung Sam’s eyes again when she thought of how horrible it had been to tell the boys that they had to pack up and go back to live with their fathers. Gloria had handled it so well—smiling, joking, making them all Mickey Mouse waffles with
whipped cream for dinner with to-hell-with-it abandon. But later, when the kids had gone to bed and after she’d gone upstairs and closed herself in the bathroom, Gloria lost it completely, sobbing like a lost child, as unhappy as Sam had ever seen another human being.

The kettle whistled. Sam put boiling water and a peppermint tea bag into a large clear mug and carried it upstairs.

“Gloria?” she called again. “You okay?”

But of course she wasn’t.

Gloria was lying on their bed, the familiar damp washcloth over her eyes and blue foam earplugs in her ears. Well, that explained the lack of response at least. She didn’t stir until Sam sat down next to her, making the bed shift.

“Hey.”

Gloria removed the earplugs and washcloth. “Headache,” she said. Her eyes were red and watery.

“I made you some tea.”

“Thanks,” Gloria said but made no move to take the mug. Sam set the tea down on the end table and took Gloria’s hand, clammy and cool, in hers.

“I was thinking,” Sam said, “that maybe we could take the train downtown and go to Extraordinary Desserts? What do you think? It’s a beautiful day and it would be a nice ride. Something different. I’ll treat.”

Sam gave Gloria credit for at least trying to force a smile and didn’t take any away when it failed to materialize. Gloria gave her hand a little squeeze.

“I don’t think so, Sam. Don’t think I’m up for it. Maybe a drink later. Or something.”

Suddenly exhausted, Sam lay down on the bed next to Gloria who rolled into her, wrapping her in a full body embrace. They lay like that for a minute, then two. Sam’s breathing slowed and her eyes started to close. Then Gloria started crying, softly at first, then increasingly hard until her whole body was shaking.

“Honey,” Sam said and stroked Gloria’s back with long sweeping passes of her hand.

“It’s too hard,” Gloria said, her words muffled with tears. “It’s not supposed to be this hard.”

“I know,” Sam said.

D
orothy stared at the picked-over remains of a roast chicken that she’d just pulled out of the fridge. Two days ago, it had seemed like a good idea to make chicken salad for the block party, but now she couldn’t figure out how she’d even come to that conclusion. Didn’t matter if it was the best chicken salad in the world—it would still just be chicken salad. How boring and uninspired could you get? And Dorothy had arranged this block party herself. As the organizer, shouldn’t she bring something exciting—something that at least had a little flair? Of course. It was Labor Day and certain kinds of food were expected: burgers, hot dogs, that kind of thing. But Dick was taking care of the burgers and she should really make something special of her own. Something that might even become a signature dish in years to come. It was important that she make something memorable. She wanted to be complimented. She wanted people to go home after the party and say, “Wasn’t Dorothy’s—fill in the blank—amazing?” Whatever Dorothy made should be good enough for her neighbors to ask her for the recipe. And then, of course, Dorothy would laugh and tell them that there was no recipe, that this—fill in the blank—was something she just threw together.

Yes, that was it. That was it exactly.

Dorothy shoved the chicken back in the fridge and opened the deep
drawer beneath the silverware where she kept the stash of cookbooks she used most frequently. There was a larger, more expensive cache of cookbooks in the garage, buried under boxes of Christmas ornaments and Kevin’s old baby clothes, but she consulted those only when there was something really big coming up: holiday cakes, for example, or multicourse French dinners for parties. People
expected
you to use cookbooks for those kinds of things. But for the smaller occasions, when it was important that the dishes she cooked
appeared
to be made from her own imagination, Dorothy went to the secret drawer. It probably wasn’t necessary to actually hide these cookbooks, but hiding things had long been second nature to Dorothy, as much a part of her as the diamond-shaped mole in the crook of her left arm.

There were neatly folded wads of one-, five-, and ten-dollar bills all over the house, for example. Dorothy knew every individual location, if not the exact amounts. There was one in a rolled pair of socks wedged between two never-used blankets, one in a storage box containing Kevin’s old school projects, one behind some plastic San Diego Chargers tumblers on a kitchen shelf, one stuffed inside the hollow metal toilet paper roller. And that wasn’t even all of them.

Dorothy also hid documents. She had a secret safety deposit box, the paperwork for which she hid in the box itself, and the key for which she hid in another safety deposit box at a different bank. Because you couldn’t be too careful and you just never knew. Which was why Dorothy had also hidden a pack of cigarettes in the kitchen, in an old round tin that had once held caramel-covered popcorn. Dorothy could see it in her mind’s eye, the faded red and white image of Santa Claus still visible on its surface. Dorothy didn’t smoke (well,
hadn’t
smoked for a while anyway), but, again, you never knew when you might really, really need a cigarette and wouldn’t have time to go to a store to get one. Of course she would
never
smoke unless she was sure that nobody was watching.

Just as she was finishing that thought—at the moment, in fact, when
the concept of being watched entered into her brain—Dorothy felt the chill of a stare at her back and whirled around, her hands clenching at her sides.

That pregnant girl—Diana—was standing in the kitchen doorway, quiet as you please.

“Hi, Mrs. Werner.”

Dorothy inhaled slowly. There was nothing to feel guilty about.

“Hello, Diana. Have you come to see Kevin? He’s upstairs.”

Dorothy didn’t know why she felt the need to tell Diana that Kevin was home—or upstairs for that matter. Diana knew where Kevin was all the time; that was why she was here in the first place. Nor had Diana ever once entered the house through the front door, greeted Dorothy before she saw Kevin, or announced her presence in any other way before she sneaked into Kevin’s room and the two of them did whatever it was they did for hours on end. But Dorothy felt compelled to adhere to the social ritual just as she had in the past every time one of Kevin’s friends had come over to play.