The Neighbors (12 page)

“Are you serious?”

“Absolutely,” Red said. “Harlow seems to like you as well, so why not?”

“As long as you don’t need me to work on your car,” Drew said. “Because, honestly...” He lifted his hands from the steering wheel, shaking his head. Red laughed.

“We’ll start tomorrow morning,” Red told him. “Eight o’clock.” He extended his hand.

“Awesome, yeah,” Drew replied, shaking just a little too eagerly, not even bothering to ask what Red was going to pay him. The idea of working for Harlow was so alluring that at that moment, money was the last thing on his mind. “Really, thank you. This is great.”

Red waved at Drew as if to say it was nothing. “Nonsense; thank
you
,” he told him. “See you tomorrow.” And then he turned and walked away.

From behind the curtain, Harlow smiled.

A
few blocks north of Magnolia, Drew found himself standing in the dirt parking lot of the local farmers’ market. The market was in full swing despite the storm the night before, regardless of the fact that it would more than likely roll in again. The place was dotted with little booths and hand-painted signs: strawberries, three dollars a pint; freshly baked loaves of bread, two for five dollars. A little girl and her mother sold lemonade while others hawked their watermelons and organically grown zucchini.

Overwhelmed with gratitude, Drew was determined to give the Wards a proper thank-you for all that they’d done. Sitting in his just-fixed pickup, he was no longer unemployed, and while he barely had enough cash to scrape by, he owed a debt, and he planned on paying it.

An older woman occupied the booth closest to him. Her carefully painted sign assured anyone who was looking for a unique gift that yes, she had cellophane and would arrange the purchase into an attractive gift basket, perfect for that special someone. Drew didn’t know the Wards very well, but a fruit basket was a classic gift. Anytime someone greeted a new neighbor
on television, they presented a big basket full of fresh produce. He thought he remembered the ritual signifying bounty, or that the recipient would never know hunger. Whatever the meaning, he was sure Harlow would appreciate the retro touch.

“Do I buy the basket first and come back to have it arranged?” Drew asked the woman behind the precarious wall of wicker. She sat on a collapsible fishing chair, her hands busy with two aluminum knitting needles looping through the air like twin conductor’s staffs. She nodded at him with a smile.

“For someone special?” she asked.

He picked up on her tone. Someone special, in her eyes, should have been a pretty young lady in a free-flowing summer dress—a beautiful girl with an easy smile and hair that rode upon the wind. Once upon a time, that girl had been Emily, but Emily was gone. And while Harlow may have not been Andrew’s age, she was still beautiful, still pure and elegant and utterly sophisticated. Drew offered the woman a smile.

“For a neighbor,” he answered. He flushed when he realized he had almost said “a friend.”

“Sweet child,” she said. “Neighbors are important too. Just don’t forget Robert Frost.”

“Sorry?”

“Frost, dear,” the woman repeated. “The poet. Don’t tell me you haven’t read him.”

He knew the name, and he was sure he’d read an obligatory poem or two in his senior English class, but nothing specific came to mind.

The woman rose from her chair, put her knitting aside, and picked out a basket from the pile.

“Good fences make good neighbors, dear. But a pretty basket never hurt anyone.”

She handed the basket over with a smile. Drew reached into his back pocket for his wallet, but she waved the notion away.

“Pay later,” she told him with a wink.

Drew blinked at her refusal. “Are you sure?”

“Well, are you going to run off with my basket without coming back?” she asked with a teasing smile. “You wouldn’t deny an old woman a few minutes of your time on your way out, now, would you?”

“Of course not,” he told her, taking the basket from her hands. He couldn’t help shaking his head as he walked away from her booth. Since he’d moved onto Magnolia, everything had turned to gold.

By the time Drew had walked around the entire market, he had collected a bouquet of fruit, complete with a grapefruit as big as his head. There was a pint of freshly picked strawberries, a couple of oranges, and a giant slice of Saran-wrapped watermelon. He plucked up a pineapple as well, recalling that it was a symbol of hospitality, and filled the remaining nooks and crannies with plump cherries. Unable to resist temptation, he popped one of them into his mouth, tasting summer. He spit the pit onto the ground before heading back toward the baskets, remembering his Gamma’s warning:
Don’t swallow the seed, or a tree will sprout inside your stomach and roots will shoot out your toes.

He set the heavy load onto the old woman’s table, and she put her knitting aside once again and got to her feet. She was a lot like Drew’s Gamma before she had passed away—shrinking down toward the ground while Andrew grew up toward the sky.
It makes it easier to reach for the stars,
she had told him.
So reach while you’re young.
He missed her; the way she used to balance him on top of her feet and dance with him on the wraparound porch. PopPop knew how to play the guitar, and he’d play old country songs while Drew and his Gamma danced, his mom and dad dancing and laughing together just a few steps away.

He watched the older woman work in silence, arranging the produce with a contemplative expression, stacking and draping, making sure it looked like Drew had picked it out of a glossy-paged magazine. A pink ribbon was the finishing touch.

“For friendship,” she told him. “May it go well for you, my dear.”

She offered him the basket with a fond glint in her eye. He paid her, thanked her, and nearly skipped back to his truck.

Once on Magnolia, with the basket precariously balanced on his knee, Drew struggled with the Wards’ front gate, fiddling with the latch. Moving up the walkway, he took deep pulls of air that smelled of fresh-cut grass, thrilled to be on the other side of the picket fence yet again. A momentary breeze carried the perfume of Harlow’s roses across the yard, while breezy licks of jazz danced out an open window. A pair of fresh white curtains billowed outward into the afternoon sun. It was absurd in its perfection; another world—one that Andrew would be allowed to experience on a daily basis starting bright and early tomorrow morning.

He pressed the glowing doorbell button and heard it ding above an accompanying piano. But the footsteps he expected didn’t come. He pushed the doorbell again, but still, nothing. Taking a few steps to the side, he peeked in through the long window beside the door. The place looked empty. His anticipation dwindled, a tinge of disappointment coloring his good spirits.

Just as he was about to give up, Harlow called from the sidewalk.

“Andy, honey...” He turned, and there she was, appearing out of thin air. “Good heavens, darlin’.” She paused, placing a hand to her chest as she blinked at the comically oversize fruit basket in Andrew’s arms. “What’s
that
?”

Drew grinned as she made her way up to the front door, holding the basket out to her.

“I just thought, since Red was nice enough to offer me a job...”

Harlow’s surprise melted into what looked like genuine enchantment, and for a split second she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen: the way her hair shone in the sun like gold,
the way her bright red lips pulled back with exhaled laughter—just like his mother, once upon a time.

“For me?” Her lashes fluttered almost flirtatiously.

He nodded, and she shook her head as though it were the nicest gesture she’d ever known.

“My goodness, you’re the sweetest thing in all the world, do you know that? The
sweetest
thing.”

Drew felt his face flush as she leaned in to kiss his cheek. She smelled like sweet vanilla. He pictured her pushing that basket of fruit from his arms and onto the ground, oranges rolling down the front steps and onto the lawn. She’d shove him against the wall next to the door, her mouth against his, her knee coming up on his hip, the entire neighborhood peeking through their blinds at Mrs. Ward and the boy next door.

Startled, he took a step away from her.
What the hell was that?
His heart thumped against his ribs. His initial thought was that Harlow was seducing him, but that was ridiculous. She hadn’t done anything at all, save for giving him a peck on the cheek. He stood staring at her as she plucked the basket from his hands and stepped around him, her high heels clicking against the porch. Pushing open the front door, she offered him a look over her shoulder.

“Come in,” she told him.

The door had been unlocked.

Andrew hesitated, that flash of fantasy making him uncomfortable in his own skin. There was something wrong with him. Harlow was gorgeous,
hot
, even, but she was old enough to be his mom. Hell, that was one of the things that drew him to her—the fact that a long time ago, before the world fell apart, his mother was a lot like Harlow. And yet, there he was, imagining things that made him feel like a total creep.

But he couldn’t refuse her invitation to go inside. That would have been rude—a complete contradiction to the gift basket she held in her arms. Taking a steadying breath, he followed her into the house.

Mickey cracked open the screen door as he watched Harlow click up the sidewalk. He saw Drew offer her a giant basket, a ridiculous pink ribbon fluttering in the breeze. He clenched his jaw as Harlow leaned into him. When Drew followed her inside, he almost called out:
No! Stop! Don’t!

Something tightened in his chest, like a tourniquet around his heart.

“So you just randomly decide to grow a conscience now?” he asked himself, disgusted. “You let her bring him here, and now you have morals?”

He grimaced, let the screen door slam closed behind him, and turned to look at a fresh plate of cookies on the coffee table.

Harlow’s perfume still lingered in the air.

Mickey had been in his early twenties when he came out of a Narcotics Anonymous meeting to find a strange woman leaning against a slick black Cadillac, looking like the president’s wife. Her hair shone beneath the streetlight like spun gold. Her lacquered lips looked as though they’d been coated in ruby-colored glass. The porcelain finish of her skin glowed ethereal in the moonlight, and her curves...they invoked images of classy pinup girls posing with fighter jets and power tools. With his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans and the hood of his sweatshirt pulled over his head, he couldn’t help glancing her way, and she smiled widely enough to show off her perfect teeth. She gave off the scent of money like a pheromone. Some poor junkie’s over-protective mother, he thought.

He hesitated when she flagged him down. She told him she was waiting for a “friend,” that she hadn’t expected to run into a dashing young man such as Mickey when she had set out for
the community center that night. He smelled vanilla when she leaned into him a little too close, her lips brushing his cheek as she invited him to a late dinner.