Thy Neighbor Read online

  “You’re really not that awful, you know?” she said. “Even awful you isn’t that awful, which is why it’s so funny. Awful you is like sweet you’s idea of awful, and it’s kind of transparent and annoying.”

  “And that’s why you want to go?” I complained. “Because I’m not very good at being a jerk?”

  She threw up her hands.

  “Have you heard a thing I’ve said?”

  “Yes, yes, all right. Look, I told you. I don’t know how else to be. I’m trying.”

  “Trying what exactly?”

  “Trying to relax, be myself, figure out what that is. I’ve never had to do this before with anyone. I didn’t even think it was possible.”

  She turned back toward the window, leaning into the embrasure wall and drumming her head softly against it. She looked bored, disappointed. I was confirming the worst.

  “Your mind is a hard place to live, isn’t it?” I said, lunging further into the mistake.

  “Why do you say that?” she said, raising her head.

  “You’re just very intense, that’s all.”

  She snickered softly and settled back.

  “Ah, right. Intense,” she said, closing her eyes. “Yeah, I get that a lot. I guess it’s the only word in most people’s range that comes anywhere close to reaching me.” Her eyes flashed open and darted toward me, then away. “Except that it doesn’t.”

  “Most people have limited vocabularies,” I said apologetically.

  “Yes,” she said. “But you don’t.”

  “So, therefore, I should do better.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes, you should, but it doesn’t matter. You’re just being lazy, talking the way everyone around you talks, picking up bad habits, covering your difference. We all do it.”

  “That’s gracious of you.”

  If she heard this, I couldn’t tell. She had tilted her head to the side dreamily and was watching the slow progress of something on the street outside—a passing car, maybe, or someone picking up the mail.

  “You want to know why I’m looking out the window? Why I’m always looking out the window?” she said with taut exasperation.

  She turned toward me, narrowing her eyes cruelly.

  “Because this is the quality of your conversation.”

  She had been watching the garbage truck outside. It was close now. I could hear the whine of its compressor and the jolting release of the brake. The back man called something to the driver—“Up” or “Yep”—and they lurched the twenty yards to the next drive.

  “How do you want to talk about this?” I asked. “I’m just trying to find a way in.”

  “Suddenly now you want to know?” she said. “Or is it just to relieve the discomfort of the silence?”

  “Is there a difference?”

  “Yes, there’s a difference. A big one. Either you want to know me or you’re scratching an itch—which is it?”

  “I’m trying to minimize the damage,” I shouted suddenly. “I’m sitting here looking at you sitting there, way off somewhere in your head the whole time as if you didn’t want to be here. But you always come back. And so I ask myself, why? Why does she keep coming back if she doesn’t like it or need it or something? What’s the reason? Except that I don’t really want to know the reason, because I have this terrible sneaking suspicion that it’s going to make me feel like shit.”

  “How could it possibly do that? You do this all the time.”

  “I don’t. I’ve done it with dozens of people who have nothing going on in their heads. People I picked because they were drunk and willing.”

  “So you’re like everybody else. So what? I told you that already.”

  “And you’re not. You said that, too.”

  “Yeah, I did, which means you don’t have the depth for this kind of conversation. Get it?”

  That pierced. I was shouting again. “You don’t have any idea what I’m capable of? You’ve known me all of what? A few months? And that only in snatches between fucks. And suddenly now you’re sure of everything about me. Forget it. I’m sorry I asked. You’re the one who’s incapable of this conversation, clearly, but you’ll make it look like it’s my shortcoming and, worse still, I’ll believe you.”

  “That is definitely not my fault.”

  “No, you’re right. It isn’t. And I guess now I’ve answered my own question. You’re here because you enjoy making people feel inferior and stupid, and I put up with it because I think I deserve it.”

  “Oh, don’t be such a victim. God, you sound like one of those weepy fat women who’s always whining to her girlfriends about getting dumped every few months by the unobtainable man who wipes his boots on her. Your low self-esteem is not a virtue, and I didn’t put it there or worsen it. I’m not making you feel anything. You’re here to get laid, and you buzz around me before and after because you can’t crack me. I’m not one of your Tic Tac lays that you can spit out after the suck-off, and that bugs you. You don’t quite know what to do with it. Well, so what? You’re intrigued and you’re horny, and you think that means you’re in love. Sorry, but it’s just not very interesting.”

  “I never said I was in love.”

  “I didn’t say that, either. I said you think you are.”

  “What if I am?”

  “You’re not.”

  “So you know that, too, huh?”

  “Yeah, I know that, too, and not because I know you so well, but because it’s so commonplace.”

  “That doesn’t make it any less legitimate. I’m confused and I’m a little scared, to be honest. I wish I could brush this off and you off, too, but the thing is, I want to know you. I want to talk to you. I’m lonely, and not just that, I’m lonely for someone like you who feels things deeply and has been through a lot.”

  “You don’t know what I’ve been through.”

  “I know I don’t. But I know damage when I see it, and I know you’re the only person I’ve met who can talk to me about my parents, and I think you could only do that in the way you have if you’d been through something terrible yourself. I just want to share with you. I want to know something more about you. Please don’t be angry at me for that.”

  This seemed to calm her. She sighed loudly and put her feet on the floor once more. She stood and came and sat beside me on the couch. She placed her hand lightly on my thigh.

  We sat that way for some time.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, finally. “I’m used to people who don’t care or can’t understand, and I guess I’ve blocked myself off from everyone. I’ve forgotten how to talk.”

  I put my hand over hers.

  “I know it’s a lot to ask, but would you tell me something about yourself? Anything?”

  She smirked.

  “You mean like your raspberries?”

  I squeezed her hand lightly.

  “C’mon. Don’t do that. I’m not a threat.”

  “Disclosure is always a threat.”

  “Okay. I get it. But maybe you could think about trusting me just a little. I’m not saying now. It doesn’t have to be now. But just think about it. Just think about telling me one thing. Even if it’s hard. Will you do that?”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “You’ll think about thinking about it?” I said, smiling.

  She laughed. “Yeah.”

  “Okay,” I said, putting my arm around her and pulling her to me. “Fair enough.”

  She made a move to lie down and I squirmed in behind her lengthwise, sorting the cushions beneath us. She folded down into me, wrapping her legs around mine and putting her face into the open collar of my shirt. The tip of her nose was cool, the breath moist and sweet.

  I lay back, propping my head gently
against the hard arm of the couch, and looked down the length of our bodies, letting my eyes roam aimlessly over our twined limbs and then up the walls and over the ceiling, coming to rest on a shifting pale trapezoid of shadow above the door.

  The light was going. The room was blue-gray. The air had turned still with the onset of the evening, and every sound was amplified and dampened, like the felted thump of the pedal on a bass drum. I could hear the huff and squeech of Gruber closing his back door, and the whisper hiss of a passing car, and I could see the single bulb in Mrs. Bloom’s upstairs window going on for the night. I thought I could even make out the head of the sleeping giant in the trees over the Blooms’ house, and I smiled at myself for being such a baby, still.

  Darling,

  You must keep our secret.

  You must hide it as you hide your heart and mine

  In the place where we whisper and smile.

  If you tell, if you betray our silence

  Life as both of us know it will end forever.

  Do you understand?

  I will defend this to the last.

  You cannot imagine what I would do.

  10

  The doorbell woke me at noon.

  Way, way too early for Dave.

  I was lying naked on the couch, entwined in a rope of blanket. Monica had slipped out without rousing me. She’d left a note on the arm of the couch that said, “Thank you.” Below that, in tiny letters, she’d written, “IOU one difficult disclosure.” Next to that she’d left the print of her lips, barely discernable, in ChapStick. Mint ChapStick.

  My girl.

  The doorbell went again. Just once. Politely.

  Definitely not Dave.

  I went over to the bay window and peeked around toward the front door.

  Couldn’t see the face. Just the body and dark brown hair. Long down the back. Neatly combed, thick and shining.

  And then a pair of cutoff shorts, scrawny legs, and sneakers.

  A kid.

  Some Barbie, no doubt, selling candy for her synchronized swim team or collecting for UNICEF.

  No thanks.

  Ogre in residence. Move on.

  She rang again. Once.

  Bing.

  Damn it, girlie. Nobody’s home. Skip off already.

  I waved my hand in a shooing motion.

  Come on, come on.

  She retreated from the step, looked up at the second floor, then right toward the living room, then left, straight at me in the window. Caught me full on.

  Jaybird.

  I ducked.

  Fuck.

  It was Dorris’s kid Miriam.

  I covered myself with my hands and peeked up.

  She waved.

  I slid to the floor.

  I just flashed you, you little perv, now run. Didn’t Mommy warn you about this?

  Bing.

  Jesus. Was I going to have to look her in the face?

  Bing. Bing.

  Just great.

  I grabbed my jeans and T-shirt off the floor and pulled them on roughly, staggering toward the door.

  I yanked it open, still falling.

  “Whaattt?”

  Yep. Miriam. Unfazed.

  “Hi, Nick?” she chirped.

  “Miriam,” I gasped. “Couldn’t you see that no one was home?”

  She narrowed her mouth into a line.

  “But you are home.”

  “Technically, yes. But haven’t you ever heard of not being at home even when you’re home?”

  She looked at me quizzically.

  “No.”

  “Haven’t you seen any old movies?”

  She paused to think.

  “You mean like The Matrix?”

  “Uh, no. I mean like The Magnificent Ambersons or Miracle on 34th Street. Black and white.”

  “Oh, yeah, yeah,” she said, as if I’d tripped over the painfully obvious. “I saw Amistad in school.”

  “No. No, I mean black-and-white film. It’s a Wonderful Life. Surely, you’ve seen that?”

  She sighed impatiently. “Only every December.”

  “Okay. So you like it.”

  “I hate it.”

  “School again?”

  “Yep.” She rolled her eyes. “Boring.”

  “Do you ever read?”

  “Nope.”

  “Can you read?”

  “Duhhhh.”

  “Right.” I leaned toward her and narrowed the door. “Well, I guess I’m going to have to get one of those signs that says, DO NOT DISTURB.”

  “Nah,” she said. “Isaac has one of those on his door. I don’t even see it anymore.”

  I was peeking through a three-inch crack.

  “Does your brother beat you?”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  I started to close the door.

  “Oh, you mean like at tennis. Yeah, but he still sucks anyway. I just suck more.”

  “Nice.”

  I opened the crack again to three inches.

  “Look. Can you go away?” I said. “I’m tired.”

  Her voice turned suddenly plaintive.

  “But you said I could come by whenever I wanted.”

  “I most certainly did not!”

  “Did so.”

  “Oh, yeah? When?”

  “When you were over a few weeks ago with Dave and everybody was acting like they didn’t know each other.”

  That had the ring of truth to it. Give her that.

  Play dumb, Nicky. Play dumb.

  “So your mom and Dave know each other, huh?”

  “He’s over now. He stayed the night again and he won’t leave. I hate him.”

  “Hate? Really? That’s strong. More or less than It’s a Wonderful Life?”

  “More. Much more.”

  “That’s bad, then, huh?” I smiled.

  She didn’t.

  “Yeah. It’s bad all right.”

  “Why?”

  She crossed her arms.

  “’Cuz they’re always loud and shouting and locked in Mommy’s bedroom.”

  “Bummer,” I said.

  She moved closer to the cracked door.

  “Can I please come in?”

  She put on her best sad eyes.

  “Please?”

  I had to admit, she looked pretty genuinely upset, unless she was a better actress than her mother. But why would she want to wheedle her way into my house of all places, when most kids, like the Gruber boys, had grown up thinking it was haunted or cursed or both?

  “I think he’s hurting her,” she said, her voice catching in a sob. “Honest.”

  Terrific. This was all I needed. A child in crisis on my doorstep. She knew what I knew. Clearly. Or as much of it as she’d overheard. Poor thing. Christ, a young kid privy to Dave the satyromaniac goating it up with Mommy.

  No wonder the full sight of me hadn’t flipped her. She was fleeing Caligula.

  I had the visual on Dave and Dorris in the act, and it was bad enough, but what would it sound like coming through the walls? And to ten-year-old ears that don’t have the first idea how to make sense of the noise? To kids, if they have the misfortune to overhear it, sexual pleasure always sounds like pain, doesn’t it? It did to me. And the idea of my parents getting it on, whatever that was, was way too scary to contemplate.

  “All right, all right.” I caved. “Come in.”

  I swung the door wide. She walked under my arm and crossed into the foyer, wiping her eyes. She was crying in earnest now, snuffling and gasping as she went. I led her into the living room and sat her in Mom’s
old reading chair. She looked like a doll there, sunk in a suede manger, dwarfed by the high back and the wide, padded arms.

  “Do you want a glass of juice?” I said. “I have apple, I think.”

  She wiped her nose on her wrist and struggled into a more upright position.

  “No, thanks.”

  “What about milk? I have that.”

  “I’m fine.”

  She wiped her wrist on the side of her shorts. In an effort to recover her dignity, she adjusted the front of her shirt.

  “Sure?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’m sure. Thanks.”

  “Listen,” I said, sitting down on the footstool. I leaned toward her, resting my forearms on my thighs. “Your mom and Dave are just having fun. They’re only playing. It’s just playing the way adults play.”

  Her eyes were on the floor.

  “Well, it doesn’t sound fun.”

  “I know, I know. I thought that, too, when I was your age. But when you’re older, you’ll understand. Really. Don’t worry.”

  She looked up, skeptical.

  “But she has bruises.”

  Christ. Fucking Dave. Perfect. Just perfect.

  He was in for a beating on this one. Later.

  Definitely later.

  But now.

  What now?

  Think fast. She’s waiting. Tell her something. Anything.

  “Don’t you get bruises sometimes on the playground?” I asked.

  Her eyes locked on my face pleadingly, wanting to believe, to believe whatever I would say if it would make the bad feeling go away. She tilted her head to the side, wondering.

  “Sometimes, I guess,” she ventured.

  “Okay. Well, it’s like that. Just a scrape here and there that you get in the course of having fun. Nothing a little time and TLC won’t fix.”

  “But I don’t want more time. I want him to go away.”

  She began to cry again, her chest heaving and shuddering.

  “Can you make him go away, Nick? Please?”

  I knit my fingers and pressed them hard against my mouth so that she wouldn’t see me sneer.

  Bastard.

  I looked away, out the window toward the street, and pressed harder until my teeth dug into my lower lip.

  “Where is your brother?” I asked.