The Good Neighbor (7 page)

The passenger door opened and Ray's wife, Meredith, stepped out. She walked to the sidewalk without glancing back toward her husband.

Mrs. Feldman held my arm tight as we descended the steps.

“We have twelve-thirty reservations.”

Ray said it loud and Meredith shook her head. Show-off. Just like in the photos where he flexed his muscles or held up trophies. Mrs. Feldman looked at me and whispered loud enough for Ray to hear, “Because if I don't eat a fancy brunch, I will starve.”

Was it a special occasion and I'd forgotten? Mrs. Feldman's birthday was near mine, in March. I knew she'd be eighty-six, but the end of January seemed early for a celebration. And Ray didn't seem the type to splurge on a random Sunday.

He looked away, avoiding my laser-beam glance. I walked Mrs. Feldman to Meredith, not letting go until the two women linked arms. And like a parent giving away a bride, I prayed she was in loving hands.

“You look pretty, Ma,” Ray said.

Meredith walked Mrs. Feldman to the car, and Ray came around and opened the door to the backseat.

“Have a nice time today, Mrs. Feldman!”

She turned to me and shook her head. Mrs. Feldman wanted me to call her Geraldine.

But there was just something about
Mrs. Feldman
.

 

Chapter 7

Mousetrap

W
ITH MY MATERNAL WELL
filled, my limbs thawed, and Noah playing Angry Birds on my laptop, I felt a lightening, an ease of tension in my shoulders. Then I checked my phone. Six texts and two missed voice mails from Jade.

“Where have you been?”

“Outside playing with Noah.”

“In this weather?”

“It was fun.”

“Okay, okay, I'll take your word for it. Do you have a little time now?”

Jade respected the responsibilities of parenting, I knew that. She built blanket forts that put Boy Scouts to shame, read more books aloud than a librarian on NoDoz. She knew the value of the latest toy and the value of a roll-around snuggle on the floor. But she didn't pretend to understand the unfettered joy of motherhood or the pangs of parenting guilt. She didn't want to.

“I'm here now,” I said as I side-hopped onto the kitchen counter. It was my go-to spot for talking on the phone since the days when the cord only reached that far. “What's on fire?”

“I wanted to explain more about what's going on with
P-O-F
.”

“P-O-F?”

“Philly over Forty?”

Jade loved acronyms as much as she hated air quotes
.

I wished for a phone cord to twist away my nerves. “Tell me everything I need to know.”

“I needed an influx of cash for Pop Philly and Drew provided it.”

“The guy from Meema's? Why?” Coat Guy was a cash cow?

“Because we're friends. I met him years ago and just gave him a call. I thought it would be a good fit, and it was—or it will be.”

“I'm not taking your money if things are this bad.”

“They're not awful. Not yet. It's just taking a lot more money than I thought it would to upgrade and hire really good people. Drew's money buys him ad space, and the cash helps me. It's a win-win. Plus, he has a lot of good ideas, so he's like an unofficial adviser.”

Jade talked faster than I could think. I let my thoughts catch up to her words. I knew the site had ads, but I hadn't given much thought as to how Pop Philly paid for itself, for Jade, for me. For anything.

“So, these ads…” I said.

“Are going to sponsor
P-O-F
.”

Coat Guy was my sugar daddy.

“The more people who see the ads, the more valuable you and Pop Philly are to Drew and to other potential advertisers. So, you need to engage your readers. Let them get to know you, to get inside your life.”

I felt the pounding of love for my friend. I felt contempt for myself.

“I just want to write the blog posts, J.” I shimmied off the counter and walked around in a circle. “I thought you said I got to do this on my own time and post three times a week. That's not a big commitment.”

“Things have changed a bit, but you'll be fine, I promise.”

“What things have changed?”

“I hoped this would be big, Pea, but I didn't realize how big it could be, and Drew agrees. Launching this new section of Pop Philly gives us a whole new reach. It's not just about dating and it's not just about you and Mac. It's about the city from a new angle. It's exciting, it's going to open doors. You should be excited! Today's weekend traffic has been a third higher than usual. There are singles in their forties who are parents, and some who aren't parents. Some are divorced, some never married. What do they all have in common? They all want to know how to navigate the wild frontier of dating over forty. And you're going to show them!” Jade stopped talking. “You didn't realize how many people were going to see this, did you? Or how important it was?”

“I know how big Pop Philly is, Jade.” I didn't know, but I knew. I knew that Jade was listed as one of
Philly
magazine's most eligible entrepreneurs under forty, and as one of B'nai B'rith's Forty Under Forty. And I knew that the teachers and staff at Liberty were smitten with Pop Philly as soon as I mentioned—okay,
bragged
—that my best friend started it. “But this is not what I signed up for. This is not what we talked about.” How much had we both had to drink that night at Meema's? “I thought I was supposed to write about my dates and being a single mom who's dating. Maybe parcel out bits of advice. Maybe a recipe or two. And be anonymous. Don't forget anonymous.”

“Anonymous doesn't cancel out popular. Some of the most popular bloggers out there started out anonymous, or with a pseudonym. And it didn't start with blogging. Think about Dear Abby!”

“I'm not just starting out anonymous. I'm staying anonymous.”

“Fine. I need to keep Drew happy. Because the stakes just got higher.”

“For who?”

“For everyone! I hope you're taking this seriously because it's going to be seriously big.”

“Well, talking about big, I was thinking of sort of changing the focus of the blog a little bit. I mean, I saw the logo and that photo of me you dug up, but—”

“Impossible.”

“What do you mean, impossible?”

“I promised an always-introspective, sometimes hot, look into the world of dating in our forties—and he committed to thousands of dollars' worth of ads for the next three months. So, yes, impossible.”

“Hot? I'm supposed to write
hot
?”

“Hey, if your dates with Mac aren't hot, that's not my fault. Drew knows that.”

My insides rippled. I said nothing.

“It was a joke, Pea. Oh my God, are you okay? Did something happen with Mac? If it did, don't tell me. Just find a new guy really fast.” She chuckled.

Maybe I'll name this one Dell.

“Is this friend Jade or boss Jade?” Apparently there was a difference.

“It's just me. What happened? Do you still want to do this? Let me know if I need to dial 1-888-LAWMANN.” She sang the jingle that went along with tacky TV commercials.

“What does Andrew Mann have to do with this?” He was “the Delaware Valley's number one divorce lawyer,” with billboards on I-95 to prove it.

“What do you mean, what does he have to do with it? I just explained it to you.”

“
Drew
is Andrew Mann?” Now I knew why he looked familiar.

“I thought you knew.”

“If I had, I wouldn't have let him hold my coat.”

*   *   *

Mrs. Feldman was coming for Sunday dinner. My version of Sunday dinner. Pizza. I'd invited her before, but she'd always declined. You'd think she needed to ride the bus, get a transfer, hop on the el, and then walk six blocks. But, since I'd moved back, we always seemed to talk at her house. I was thrilled she'd agreed to come over. I shuddered with giddiness and flitted around as if expecting a date, not my next-door neighbor.

We all used the smallest-size paper-towel squares and patted away the grease atop our pizza slices. My phone vibrated in my pocket and I ignored it. When it didn't beep to indicate a message had been left, I knew it wasn't important. It could have been Bruce, but I wasn't going to ruin our pizza party. Not yet.

We folded the slices in half and each took a bite. Grease funneled out of Noah's slice; I took it from him and dried the top.

“I think that's supposed to be there. Or they wouldn't put it there.” His speech was clearer sometimes, more confident. The improvements were intermittent, yet present.

“If you wipe it away, you'll have room for dessert,” Mrs. Feldman said.

Noah took the paper towel and dabbed until the glistening cheese had a matte finish. And lint.

I allowed Noah to take the pizza into the living room and sit on my dad's recliner with a tray on his lap. It was nice to have a relaxing Sunday dinner after a busy day, and what would be a busy night. I slid another piece of pizza onto my plate. “Thank you for coming over here tonight. Noah and I had a busy day, and I know he likes just being able to hang out here. Not that he's not comfortable at your house, he is. And I am.”

“You don't have to explain. There's no place like home.”

She winked at me. Sharp as a tack, that one. Her cliché tendencies were rubbing off on me and I didn't mind.

“What's it like being home, Elizabeth? Living in the house where you were a little girl?”

“I can't really compare it to anything. It just
is
.” Until now I had pushed aside the shame of moving back home and replaced it with optimism. “It was either move here or find an apartment somewhere unfamiliar. The elementary school is still good, but I thought…” My thoughts wandered out the window and onto the empty sidewalk. “I thought it would be more like it was when I grew up—with lots of kids for Noah to play with. With neighbors sitting outside on the steps at night—I mean, not now, but in the fall. I didn't realize then how abandoned it would seem. I was too busy moving in and getting the new carpet, painting, figuring out how it would all work. It's not that I don't like being here. It's so familiar, I guess. I don't think about it.” I kept putting my foot right into my mouth along with the pizza. “I do think about you. I'm glad you're here. That makes up for a lot.”

“I think you're brave. Going back can sometimes feel like going backwards. But you seem to be moving forward somewhat. I'm not sure I could've done that.”

“Done what?” We cleared the table and threw away the paper plates. I kept my back to her, knowing she didn't like to answer questions about herself. I kept moving around the kitchen, wiping the counter, pretending I wasn't interested that much. Maybe she'd keep talking.

“Girls in my day didn't do all the things you girls do now.”

I turned around. Mrs. Feldman had never before expressed an ounce of serious discontent. “What did you want to do that you didn't get to do?”

“I would have liked to have gone to college, but my parents said there was no reason for a girl to go. I lived at home with them until I married Sol.”

“How old were you when you got married?”

“Twenty-three. My parents thought I was going to be a spinster.”

I laughed, but Mrs. Feldman wasn't laughing. Then she shook away her staid demeanor and smiled. “I knew Sol from shul. He was older than me and he led the junior congregation services when I was growing up. Then he went away to war, like all the boys did. We met him again years later. I'd always thought he was handsome and had wanted to sit in the front row and just stare at him as he davened. Who knew praying could be so sexy?” She blushed. “But it was. My parents said he was a nice boy. A boy! He was twenty-eight. I think deep down we both thought it was our last chance. So we got married.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“And since we were both already living in the neighborhood, it was easy to move next door. No stress of going somewhere new.”

“I knew you grew up around here, but Mr. Feldman did, too?”

“Yes, right over on Beecham Street.”

“Do you wish you'd just gotten married and moved away?”

“Where would we go? Plus, I couldn't think of living anywhere else but Good Street.”

“Why not?”

“My parents moved to Good Street when I was fifteen.”

“You lived on Good Street when you were growing up?”

“Yes. In this house.”

“
This
house?” How did I not know this? Why had she never told me?

“Yes.” Mrs. Feldman leaned back in her chair and against the wall, as if settling in for story time. “My parents sold this house to your parents. But when Sol and I got married years before that, we moved in right next door. My parents wanted me close. I wanted to be close, I didn't know any different. It's what families did back then. Two of my aunts moved around the corner, so my cousins were here, too. Which was easier when I started a new high school when I was sixteen.”

“You lived in
my
house!”

“No, you grew up in
my
house!”

We laughed and the invisible thread between us tugged. Our lives had been sewn together long before I sat in Mrs. Feldman's kitchen after school, long before she was my teenage confidant, my surrogate mother-grandmother-friend. We were not connected by blood but by bricks. Sturdy, impenetrable, permanent bricks.

“Why didn't you tell me? This is something I could have known since I was little.”

“It didn't seem important. I'd moved on. Different house, different life.”

“Not important?”