The Neighbors (11 page)

As a kid, Drew would take to the streets on his bike after arguments with his mom, and he’d usually end up at the Fitches’ place. So it struck him as odd that after his argument with Mickey, Drew found himself cruising along what could have been every street in Creekside until he reached Cedar Street, his mother but a few hundred yards away. He parked along the dirt shoulder, far enough so that he wouldn’t be noticed in case his mother was
staring out any of the windows. The sky was growing dark with a thick roll of clouds. A storm was closing in from the west, and his old house always seemed to be hit first.

A twister had whipped along their street when he had been four or five. Distant sirens wailed, but Drew ran to the window instead of to the basement, where he’d been taught to go. A black cyclone, thick and slow, touched down and tore trees from the earth. With his nose pressed to the shuddering glass, he wondered what it would be like to run into that wind; wondered if he could catch it like a butterfly in a net, wondered if he could run through to the center without being plucked from the ground like Dorothy.
There’s no place like home.

Watching those clouds churning overhead now, he imagined the house on Cedar Street and everything in it being swallowed by the wind, speculating on how it would feel to lose his past, his mother, his entire identity.

“You’d cry like a baby,” he told himself. “And now, if it happens, you’ll never forgive yourself.”

He spent more than an hour sitting along the dirt shoulder, deliberating whether to go inside. He could call the whole thing off with Mick right now and return to comfortable familiarity. At least here, on Cedar, he knew what was behind every door. But coming back meant giving in; it meant giving up Magnolia and returning to a life he couldn’t handle anymore, living with a woman who was scared of her own shadow.

Drew looked away from his old house, his mouth sour with realization: He’d never look at his mother the same way again. Because he’d looked into the sun, and the sun had blinded him with its brilliance.

He still loved her. He always would. But Julie Morrison would have to learn to live without him. Because he couldn’t do it anymore; he couldn’t ignore all the things he deserved when they were right there, waiting for him on Magnolia Lane.

That night, a neighborhood dog had a barking fit. It wasn’t the Pekingese. It sounded bigger, like a retriever, and the thing refused to let up, yowling like it was being skinned alive. Drew considered shoving his feet into his shoes and stalking across the street to bang on the owner’s door; the entire neighborhood would surely thank him, because what kind of pet owner left a dog outside during a storm? But in the end he rolled over and pulled his pillow over his head to muffle the noise, and that was the way he slept.

Whether it had been a few minutes or a few hours, Drew’s eyes shot open to a metallic bang outside. With the pillow secured over his head, he wasn’t able to discern where it had come from; probably the wind knocking over someone’s trash can. But it had sounded closer—almost directly in front of the house. If it
had
been a trash can, it had probably slammed into the side of his truck. The dog that had eventually settled down was in an uproar again, barking its head off from an undisclosed location. Groggy, Drew threw the pillow across his bed and pushed the window curtain aside, sleepily peering out onto the street.

His truck was parked along the curb, no trash can in sight. It was nights like these that Drew was thankful he didn’t have a nice car. With his luck, a tornado would spear a tree branch through the front windshield of his brand-new ride before he could peel the temp tag from the back bumper.

Not seeing anything, he let the curtain slip from his fingers. He pulled the sheets over his head, burying himself again.

A
ndrew’s alarm clock buzzed bright and early. His arm sprang out from beneath the sheets like a jack-in-the-box, and he slapped the snooze button without opening his eyes. He exhaled a groan into his pillow. He had expected graduating high school to miraculously change him into an adult, to make early mornings more bearable, but getting up had never gotten any easier. Drew was the same sleep-deprived kid in his early twenties that he had been as a freshman.

He dragged himself down the hall, paused in front of the bathroom, and glanced toward Mickey’s door. He hadn’t spoken to his housemate since their blowup the morning before. He regretted flipping out, but Mick’s suggestion that someone had broken into the house was crazy.

He brushed his teeth, took a hot shower, and prepared himself for another day of filling out applications. Despite his better judgment, he was determined to visit Walmart—or as his mom lovingly called it, Wally World. Perhaps old Wally could give him the opportunity of a lifetime by allowing him to collect carts, or push a giant floor waxer up and down the aisles during the
graveyard shift. Or, if he was
really
lucky, he’d be spending eight hours of his day cheerfully greeting old ladies at the door.

He stood in the center of his room, a tie hanging from around his neck, his cell phone in his hand, waiting patiently as the tiny computer tried to retrieve instructions on how to tie a Windsor knot on a single bar of reception. But it was impossible. Eventually tiring of the wait, Drew gave the necktie a firm yank and tossed it onto his bed. He grabbed his wallet, shoved it into the back pocket of his khakis, and marched down the hall to the front door.

Despite the storm the night before, the sun was hotter than ever. He squinted against the glare, crunching across the parched lawn, keys jingling in his hand. He climbed in and shoved the key in the ignition; the engine turned over, sputtered, and died.

Andrew furrowed his eyebrows. The Chevy was an old piece of crap, but it had always been reliable. He tried again, but it was the same story. After a third try, Drew exhaled an exasperated laugh, his hands falling to his lap in defeat.

“Awesome,” he said, full volume so the truck was sure to hear him. “That’s awesome. Seriously.”

He popped the hood and trudged around front to peer at an engine he didn’t know a damn thing about. It was little details, like learning how to fix a car, that he had missed after his father had failed to return. He knew how to change a tire, and he’d learned how to change the oil off a website, but it was textbook knowledge. It wasn’t ingrained in him the way it would have been if his dad had taught him those things.

Tangling his fingers in his hair, he took a deep breath and counted to ten. This was his
dad’s
fault, his
dad’s
shitty truck. Taking off to God only knows where, he had left Drew with little more than a handful of memories and a pickup that now sat dead in the street. But Andrew supposed that was only appropriate. His father had left him stranded just like this heap of scrap metal.

He shot a glance toward Mickey’s TransAm, wondering whether Mick had learned to work on cars with his father before
he had died. Standing in the shade of his popped hood, Drew remembered seeing Mick’s dad in their driveway every now and again, the legs of his oil-stained jeans sticking out from beneath a Ford station wagon. There was no doubt that Mickey had learned how to be a mechanic the way a boy was supposed to. And that was great, seeing as how Andrew had gone and screwed up their rapport by banging on Mick’s door the morning before. Crossing his arms over the lip of the open engine compartment, he rested his head against his forearms, wondering what the hell he was going to do.

“Son?”

Drew looked up with a jolt, surprised to see a man standing just a yard away. He had never seen Harlow’s husband up close before, couldn’t remember whether he’d ever caught the guy’s name. But he was unmistakably Harlow’s: perfect teeth like off a toothpaste commercial, loafers glinting in the sun. Guy Smiley personified.

“Looks like you’re having some trouble,” the man said with a smile. “You’re Andrew, I take it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Harlow’s told me about you. She said you were kind enough to come over and help her out.” He extended his hand toward Drew. “Red.”

Drew took the guy’s hand in greeting, shook it.

“Redmond,” he clarified. “Though nobody ever called me that save for my mother, and she only called me that when she was good and steamed.”

Drew couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face as Red turned his attention to the truck. The Wards just kept getting better and better. Harlow was perfection, and Red...well, Red had Ward right in his name: Ward for Ward Cleaver, the perfect TV dad.

“First time you’ve had problems?” he asked.

Drew nodded. “Yeah, she’s never broken down on me before.”

“How long have you had her?”

“Since I was six.”

Red gave him a curious glance.

“She used to be my dad’s. He left and I got the truck.”

Red raised an eyebrow and looked back to the engine.

“Consolation prize,” Drew confessed.

“That was nice of him,” Red murmured.

As the man tinkered beneath the hood, Andrew took a few steps forward to look himself.

“You know anything about cars?” Red asked.

For a split second Drew was about to lie. Not being able to fix his own truck—well, that was embarrassing. Automobiles were supposed to be a common denominator among men: cars and football, both of which excluded Andrew Morrison from all of man-dom.

“I don’t,” he confessed, “other than changing the oil, really.”

“Try to turn her over for me,” Red suggested.

Drew climbed behind the wheel and gave the key another twist. The engine sputtered. Red waved a hand at him from behind the hood.

“You’ve got fuel, right?” Red asked, Drew rejoining him next to the front bumper.

“Half a tank; filled up a few days ago.”

Reaching into his pocket, Red drew out a small Swiss Army knife. He flipped through the various tools, came to one that functioned as a screwdriver, and began to unscrew the distributor cap.

“What about your spark plugs?”

“Those should have been changed out a few months ago,” Drew said. “I paid for it.”

Red shook his head. “Just because you paid for it doesn’t mean it was done, son. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.”

With one screw down and one to go, Drew watched Red carefully remove the cap, exposing the distributor.

“Well, there’s your problem,” he announced. “See this?” He held up a small part for Drew’s inspection. “That’s your distributor rotor.”

Drew cleared his throat as Red waited for some sort of response, and despite the lightbulb Drew wished had appeared over his head, there was no sudden realization, no true understanding of what the small part between Red’s fingers meant.

“OK?” Drew said.

“It’s come loose,” Red told him, “which is why your truck won’t start. No rotor, no spark, no go.”

“Is that normal?” Drew asked. “For it to come off like that?”

Red pressed the rotor back onto its stalk. “I wouldn’t say it’s common, but it’s not unheard of.”

“Huh.”

Drew watched Red press the rotor into place.

“Should have asked your roommate,” Red suggested, nodding toward Mickey’s sleeping Pontiac. “He probably knows cars.”

Drew rolled his eyes before he could stop himself.

Red gave the kid beside him a knowing look. “I had a roommate once; worst decision I ever made. Seems like it’s always the same old story.”

“Mrs. Ward mentioned something about Mickey,” Drew admitted, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “Something about his history; she didn’t say what it was.”

Red nodded, apparently familiar with Harlow’s reservations about their neighbor. But he didn’t waste time on gossip, motioning for Drew to try the engine once more.

“Go ahead, give it a shot.”

Andrew walked around the front of the truck and climbed into the cab. Pushing the clutch to the floor, he gave the key a turn. The engine sputtered once, then roared to life.

“Hell yeah.” He laughed, smacking the steering wheel with satisfaction.

Red appeared in the driver’s window, smiling at Drew’s approval.

“Well, there she goes,” he said. “Lots to do?”

“Job hunting.”

“That’s no fun. What kind of work are you looking for?”

“Anything,” Drew admitted. “I’ll take whatever I can find.”

Red looked impressed, his expression drifting toward contemplation a second later.

“I’ve got a lot of odd jobs around the house,” he said after a moment. “Harlow’s a handful, and any renovation takes three times as long with that woman. She’s a perfectionist.”

Drew grinned. He knew she was. She wore that personality trait like a badge of honor on her dress lapel.

“I like you,” Red confessed. “I like your work ethic. And you can’t get a job better than the one next door. What do you say?”

Andrew blinked. It was too good to be true. He was hit by a wave of relief. Now he’d been saved not once, but twice—and both in the same morning. Working at that perfect little house, fixing a kitchen faucet or, hell, even retiling an entire bathroom—it was leaps and bounds above scrubbing dirty toilets at a fast-food joint.