The New Neighbor (20 page)

“What happened?” Kay asked.

“A bee, Kay. Oh my Lord. I got stung by a bee.” I noted with detachment a certain hysteria in my voice. “I’m plagued, I’m plagued, I’m plagued.”

“Shhhh,” Kay said. She got out her flashlight and checked my wound. “The stinger’s still in there,” she said. She found some tweezers and removed it. She touched the throbbing spot lightly with her finger and for an instant it seemed to cool. What a good nurse she was. I wanted to talk to her like the boys on the tables talked to me. I wanted to say she made me feel safe; I wanted to beg her not to let me die.

“I’m going crazy,” I said.

“I’m not going to let that happen,” she said. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

I believed her. I remember that I really did believe her, though it made no sense. She sat next to me, our shoulders touching, and we listened to the rain. She told me I was lucky I wasn’t allergic to bees.

I said, “I
am
lucky,” and she said, “You
are
lucky.” She picked up my hand and wove our fingers together. I looked at our hands. Flesh and flesh and flesh. I looked at her face. She looked back at me. And then I kissed her.

It wasn’t a long kiss. It was just a little kiss, a closed-mouth kiss, on her lips, and though I felt an answering pressure, her mouth against my mouth, she pulled back almost immediately. That was the end. That was all. So many things happened because of that kiss. But it barely existed. It could so easily have been erased.

And I don’t even know, Jennifer, if it meant what you doubtless think it means. You probably think I’m lying when I say this, in this age when all love must be neatly categorized. But I’m not lying. I don’t know, Jennifer. I just don’t know. I’d been so shaken, so upset. That boy, the screaming. I did love her. But I don’t know what kind of love it was.

I saw in her face that I had changed things, and I was sorry, immediately. “Oh,” I said, “I didn’t . . .” But we had no language to discuss these matters. So I couldn’t finish the sentence.

“It’s all right,” she said. But she didn’t look at me. “I’m going to turn in.”

She moved slowly, painfully, over to her bedroll. I wanted to offer commiseration but my tongue throbbed in my mouth, bee-stung. I couldn’t speak. In the midst of horror I’d had one person. Now I couldn’t speak.

Once upon a time there were two girls. And then I ruined everything.

Jennifer, you told me I should be glad. I should be glad I’ve lived so much of my life alone, in the tidy confines of solitude. Maybe you were right. Maybe I should be glad.

S
urrounded by people—Megan
and six of her numerous friends—Jennifer is doing her best to pretend she belongs there. There, and not at Margaret’s house, helplessly listening. It’s begun to seem to Jennifer that when she goes to that house she enters a fairy tale; Margaret’s story is a spell she’s casting, and at the end, when they reach its awful heart, Jennifer’s transformation will be complete. And what will she be then? She’s thought about quitting but can’t. She needs the money. Behind this need, there’s another, despite her efforts to wish it away: she wants to know. What happened to Margaret. What Margaret knows. But there will be a price for understanding.
Bodies upon bodies upon bodies.

After their session today, Jennifer went home and took a drained accidental nap on the couch. A hand touched her side as she lay there. She could distinguish each component part of the hand, the heel against her back, the palm cupped over the curve of her side, and against her front the pressure of each insistent fingertip—a pressure somewhere between a threat and a caress. She was close enough to the surface of consciousness to be aware of herself curled up on the couch. If she knew where she was, then the hand must be real. She woke, with a jolt of terror, to find herself alone.

Even now the feeling of the hand on her side remains uncomfortably vivid. The lively talk among the other women is a welcome distraction. They’re at a fancy restaurant at one end of Sewanee, occupying a table in the back. The place is BYOB, and each person, even Jennifer, brought wine, with the result that they have a great many bottles. The waiter opened half, to start, and they all filled their glasses quite full. Even Jennifer, as that seemed simpler than explaining that she doesn’t want any at all.

It’s their monthly girls’ night. Some of the women say
girls’ night
with a touch of irony. Some of them say it in a toast-making voice, a pep-rally voice.
We’re gonna whoop it up.
Tommy used to talk about “the boys.” Going out with
the boys
. Jennifer remembers riding in the back of a pickup truck, the driver Tommy’s most sober friend. She’s pressed against Tommy. His hand is on her knee. She’s warm where he touches her, cool otherwise. She feels the stereo’s bass in her throat. The wind makes a flag of her hair. We call ourselves girls and boys when we want to go back in time.

Jennifer is, at Megan’s request, one of two designated drivers; the other—Amanda—is making a great show of taking only the tiniest sips of her wine. “The only good thing about being the designated driver,” she says, “is that next month I don’t have to do it.”

“Oh, poor Amanda,” Terry says. She leans over and gives Amanda a squeeze. “Don’t you know you don’t need booze to have fun?”

Megan turns to Jennifer and says, “Thanks again for driving tonight.”

“Oh, you know,” Jennifer says. “It’s not much of a hardship for me.”

“Last month it was my turn,” Megan says. “I hate my turn.”

Erica, who sits on Jennifer’s other side, leans in. “Sebastian’s the one who made the rule.”

“Yup,” Megan says. “We used to just see who was sober at the end of the night, but he didn’t think that was sufficient.”

“Ah,” Jennifer says.

“That’s how he talks when he’s mad at me.” She deepens her voice and says, “That’s insufficient, Megan. That’s insufficient.” Another conversation catches Erica’s attention, and Megan lowers her voice so only Jennifer can hear. “He hates to lose control. Hates big displays in anybody—especially himself. When Ben has a tantrum, he practically turns into an English schoolmaster. A
Victorian
English schoolmaster.”

“His upbringing, maybe,” Jennifer offers.

“Maybe,” Megan says. “His mother’s very sweet, but prone to melancholy, and his father has a temper. So maybe. I sometimes think that he might be more emotional if I were less. You know how that is in a marriage. You have to balance the seesaw.”

Jennifer nods.

“But it’s a good rule,” Megan says. “A good rule.” She turns back to the rest of the table and raises both her voice and her glass. “To our drivers, for making this all possible!”

All the women cry, “To Amanda! To Jennifer!”

It’s a nice feeling, to be cheered. A smile overtakes Jennifer’s face as she looks at all their happy ones. Smiling, smiling.

But then in her head she hears
Maybe you should be glad
. It’s her own voice speaking, or Margaret’s. And then she thinks, I’ll ruin it.

Megan notices that she’s not talking much, from time to time offering a fact about her to the table or asking a question that’s meant to draw her out. They have a young and handsome waiter who clearly recognizes them and grins with genuine pleasure when he sees them, and as they flirt and banter no one seems to care whether his pleasure is based on their company or their large order and forthcoming generous tip. Why should they care? Why should Jennifer?

When the meal is over, they tell the waiter they might have dessert, but first they have to polish off some more of this wine. “Good luck,” he says, promising to return shortly. “Godspeed.” They fill their glasses again. When Erica holds the bottle over Jennifer’s original glass, still nearly full, Jennifer covers the top with her hand.

Megan is drunk. Megan is so drunk that at times she half-leans on Jennifer, and Jennifer assumes that the rest of the time she’s leaning on Amanda, who sits on her other side. Her features have loosened. There’s a dreamy dullness in her eyes. When the waiter brings the dessert menus, Megan puts hers down with a laugh. “I know all your desserts, but I’m too drunk to remember,” she announces cheerfully. “I’m also too drunk to read.” She smiles up at the waiter. “You tell me what to have.”

“You like chocolate, right?” says the waiter.

Megan shakes her head slowly from side to side, but means this shake as agreement. “Who doesn’t?” she asks.

“Okay,” the waiter says. He gives her a knowing nod. “I’ll bring you something good.”

“I want something amazing,” Megan says.

“Oh, don’t worry,” the waiter says. “It’s the torte. I’m pretty sure I’ve brought it to you before, and I’m pretty sure you loved it.”

“Did I?” Megan says, her eyes lingering on him. He moves around the table, taking more orders, and Megan leans into Jennifer and says, “I love him.” She doesn’t say it particularly softly. He’s right there.

Jennifer shushes her gently, feeling the embarrassment that Megan is spared by the grace of alcohol. “Megan, you cradle robber,” Amanda says as the waiter moves away, and Jennifer laughs along with everyone else. It’s easier if she can just find this funny. “Is that your phone?” she asks, because somewhere in the vicinity something is quacking like a duck.

“Oh!” Megan laughs, swaying, as she rummages in her bag. “Isn’t that funny? That means it’s Sebastian.” She locates the phone and lifts it so she can see the screen. “Quack, quack,” she says, before she presses answer.

Jennifer scoots away as much as she can, trying not to eavesdrop. On her other side Erica and Juliana are engaged in a passionate discussion about a TV show that Jennifer doesn’t watch. She tries to look interested anyway.

Suddenly Megan takes the phone from her ear and thrusts it out into the group. She presses the button that puts Sebastian on speakerphone, and they all hear him saying, “Come home now or the next time you want to go out with the girls you can forget it.” They fall silent, staring at the phone.

“Okay!” Megan shouts, and then she presses end and drops the phone on the table.

Jennifer is astonished—an open display of hostility from Megan! Already she’s apologizing. “I shouldn’t have done that,” she says.

“We won’t tell him,” Terry says. “Don’t worry.”

“No, no, I know,” Megan says. “But he’d hate that I did that.”

“Oh,
who cares
,” says Amanda, hitting each word hard as a drum.

“I don’t want to ruin your good time,” Megan says. “This is not the moment for marital drama. That’s not why we go out.”

“You’re ruining nothing, Megan,” Juliana says. “There’s no censorship here.”

The others chime in with encouragement and support. Everything Jennifer never got when she brought up Tommy to her old friends. Her complaints always led to an awkward silence. Maybe because she wasn’t as sweet as Megan. Wasn’t, isn’t, never has been. Maybe she was disconcertingly angry. Maybe she was uncomfortably raw. Maybe she was plain unlikable. Or maybe everybody just really loved Tommy. It comes over her that of course the right analogy isn’t Jennifer to Megan but Jennifer to Sebastian. She keeps thinking about Sebastian’s voice when he said
with the girls
. The way it sharpened on those words. That was how she used to sound. Tommy on the phone, the happy rumble in the background, her bitter edge as she said, “Out with the boys?” As she made the same fruitless demand:
Come home now.
She knows exactly how much Sebastian hates
with the girls
, that cheerful euphemism. Jennifer to Sebastian. Bad guy to bad guy. The one who wants to leave the party is never the favored one.

“Maybe I should call him back,” Megan says.

“I can take you home if you want,” Jennifer says. “And then come back for everyone else.”

“No,” several of the others say. Erica, drunk and forceful, slaps the palm of her hand on the table. “Fuck him,” she says.

“Y’all, don’t hold this against him,” Megan says. “He’s just looking out for me.”

“Megan, you’re a saint,” Terry says. “I wouldn’t be that nice about it.”

Erica, clearly relishing the freedom of alcoholic truth-telling, says, “He’s a
dick
.”

Megan bows her head, torn between accepting the compliments and resisting this characterization of the man she’s married to. Jennifer sits in silent struggle against her own dark thoughts, but the rest of them continue to vilify Sebastian and sanctify Megan and in the end Megan gives in to the warm bath of affirmation and announces that she’ll stay. This is greeted by cheering and more pouring of wine. Erica says, “To one more round!” and Amanda adds, “To freedom!” and they laugh and clink glasses and in their triumph it never occurs to them that what they’re toasting is selfish hedonism and the willful disregard of its consequences.

It occurs to Jennifer, of course. But she is toasting, too. Because she doesn’t want to be the person Tommy made, the person Margaret’s spell will make her, wants to will into existence the possibility that she can be different. What the other women do she will do, so that no one looking at the group could tell her apart from the rest of them. So when Erica rounds on her suddenly, points at her vigorously, and says, “Oh my God! I keep forgetting you’re a massage therapist! I should make an appointment with you!” Jennifer points back, matches her tone of drunken epiphany, and says, “You should!” Though of course she isn’t drunk. But where’s the harm in pretending?

“Get out your calendar,” Erica says, with a grand gesture of command. She produces her own phone. “We’ll make an appointment right now.”

“Appointment for what?” Samantha asks.

“For massage!” Erica says. “Remember?”

“That’s right!” Samantha says. “I want an appointment, too!”

Suddenly they all want appointments. Each of them, phone in hand, saying,
What about this day, what about that, oh—you took the time I wanted! No, no, that’s okay, I’ll just hold it against you, don’t worry at all
. Jennifer schedules them all, with a reckless disregard for times she usually devotes to Margaret. She’ll worry about that later. Or she won’t worry at all. At the thought of slowing the pace of Margaret’s revelations, she feels a lightening of spirit. Maybe she won’t worry at all.