The Neighbors (15 page)

“Thanks for the date, Danny,” she murmured, her eyes narrowed at the dead boy on the floor.

She got home late, sneaking up the stairs to her bedroom while her father watched
The $10,000 Pyramid
, Dick Clark’s grinning face welcoming her home. She didn’t make a sound as she crept up the stairs in a pair of Danny’s jeans, one of his shirts hanging limply from her shoulders, his trophy tucked safely into
her purse. She stuffed her ruined blouse and skirt into the corner of her closet. She’d burn them tomorrow.

A day later, Danny Wilson’s name flashed across the TV screen. Harlow sat at the edge of the couch, her fingers curled against her bottom lip, waiting to see her photo blink onto the screen. But the police announced that they currently didn’t have any leads. Harlow squinted at the screen from behind her father’s TV chair, her arms crossed protectively across her chest. If her story had been written on the pages of the Good Book her father preached from, he would have stood in front of his congregation and called it a miracle—an innocent girl with blood on her hands, redeemed by the glory of God.

Jesus saves.

The news flashed an image of paramedics rolling a gurney out of Danny Wilson’s apartment, his collapsed skull veiled by the white sheet they had pulled over his body.

“My Lord,” Reggie murmured.

Harlow spoke up from behind his chair. “The Lord has nothing to do with it. He was probably bad.”

Just like the man who had left Bridget Beaumont on the side of a rural highway. Just like her own daddy, who’d eventually get his too.

Andrew had been in love once, and the girl of his dreams was the complete opposite of Red’s. While Harlow strutted around the university campus with her hair blowing in the wind, Drew’s fantasy was a quiet girl who sat at the back of the class, hiding behind her long brown hair, doodling aimlessly in the margins of her notebook.

Though their fame had faded twenty years prior, Emily’s favorite band was A-ha; she loved Christopher Walken movies and wanted to be an artist. Her dream was just like everyone
else’s: she wanted to get out of Creekside, move to a place like LA or New York. She wanted to
be
somebody, because everybody was a nobody in a town like theirs.

Drew fell in love with Emily the first day of his freshman year. Walking into his biology class, he spotted her hunched at a desk. Andrew got there late and was stuck directly in front of the teacher’s desk; a hulking football coach who, by some unfortunate miracle, got talked into teaching biology to a bunch of brainless kids.

Despite his feelings for her, Andrew sat back and watched Emily float through the halls of Creekside High for more than two years. They hung around the same circles, had the same friends, worked together as techs on the same school productions. During the summer between his sophomore and junior years, he even sat next to her in a mutual friend’s basement while eating Doritos, drinking Mountain Dew, and rolling thirty-sided dice, neck-deep in a weekly role-playing session—an activity that assured them geek status upon their return to school in the fall.

A week after classes started up again, Andrew walked up to Emily while she stuffed books into her locker, pressed his palm against the locker next to hers—trying to play it cool—and asked her out. Ducking her head with a bashful smile, she tucked her hair behind her ears and lifted her shoulders up in a shrug.

“Sure,” she said, “if you want.”

Drew did want.

She walked away from him without another word, but she had said enough. Andrew’s life had been transformed.

They were the typical high school couple. They fought. They got jealous. In the two years they were together, they broke up half a dozen times, only to reconcile over rented movies and mutually adored CDs. They’d spend hours in darkened rooms, Drew’s hands beneath her shirt, Emily’s fingers working the top
button of his jeans. They had their own song.
There’s something about you, girl...that makes me sweat.
During their last semester, they were inseparable.

But what solidified their relationship was the pregnancy scare. Emily wept in a panic on Andrew’s bed, announcing a missed period between gasps of air. It was at that very moment that Drew made the decision: he would accept the consequences of their actions. He would sacrifice everything for this girl.

It turned out to be nothing, which at first felt like a blessing, but quickly transformed into a curse. A baby would have saved him from the other woman in Andrew’s life—the one who would ultimately tear them apart.

Emily was serious about getting out of Creekside, and Drew was the first to know when the Art Institute of Chicago accepted her. He tried to be happy for her, tried to pretend that he was excited, but it wasn’t easy. He wanted to leave as much as she did, but knew he never would.

Standing on the sidewalk next to her old Ford Festiva outside of Emily’s house, she turned to look at him, her eyes bloodshot. She had pleaded with him to come with her, to be irresponsible for once and do what he wanted. But in the end, Andrew watched her drive away, down the block and out of his life.

They had promised to keep in touch, but long-distance relationships were tough; despite their never officially breaking up, Emily started to write less and less. Every night, just before he drifted to sleep, Drew pictured her falling for a brooding artist with more talent than he knew what to do with—more talent than Andrew would ever possess. He knew that, inevitably, they’d drift apart like buoys in the ocean; only he was anchored, and she was free. After a few weeks, his incessant thoughts of her being with another guy began to fade, buried beneath daily frustrations, beneath exhaustion and defeat. But there was one consideration he couldn’t shake: the fact
that despite how much it had hurt, he couldn’t blame her for leaving.

He let her go because he loved her.

He wouldn’t have come back either.

A
ndrew’s first assignment was to work on the yard, despite its already preened perfection. He had expected to work inside, but he wasn’t about to complain. Work was work, and he was happy to do anything Red asked of him. Red explained that the grass had to be cut twice a week with the push mower, exposed blades and all, because it created the cleanest, closest cut.

“Those fancy mowers,” he said, “they tear the grass instead of cut it. The lawn is a living, breathing entity, Andy. That’s like a barber tearing out your hair instead of using scissors.”

Drew stood next to him in the compulsively organized garage, trying to put all the details to memory. This was Drew’s chance to make yet another first impression, and he wanted the work he did for the Wards to be as flawless as they were.

Then there were Harlow’s roses. Red started to explain these, but Harlow overheard and stole Andrew away. She escorted him to her prize rosebush, taking a branch delicately between her gloved fingers.

“You have to be gentle,” she told him, standing a little too close. Explaining the delicacies of cutting the branch at just the
right angle, she showed him how to do it for more than forty-five minutes, pruning an entire bush on her own to make sure Andrew understood the technique—showing him just how skilled she was with her hands; yet another observation that made him uncomfortable in his own skin.

He pushed the mower up and down the square lawn, row by row, while Red listened to Led Zeppelin and relaxed in the hammock, keeping an eye on his grass between newspaper articles. It was weird—Red didn’t strike him as a classic rock kind of guy. It made him think that there was more edge to Red than met the eye; secrets, like maybe he used to drop acid and went to Woodstock. When he’d first heard those riffs drift from inside the Wards’ house, his heart clenched into a fist.

Drew’s own father had been a Zeppelin fan. Andrew had grown up listening to “Kashmir” and “Stairway to Heaven.” His mom had spun Rick’s old records for nearly a year after he left. Anytime Led Zeppelin came on the radio, Drew would switch the station. He didn’t like reminiscing on the fact that his father had cared so little about him that he up and disappeared; not even a single visit afterward, not a single phone call or Christmas card.

Hearing that music slither out the window and coil around him within the safe haven of the Wards’ picket fence made him grit his teeth. It felt like a phantom assault, like his dad was rising from the ether to assure him there was no escaping his past—Andrew would forever be a product of his environment: a broken, angry, fucked-up kid, because both Rick and Julie made it so.

Drew pushed the mower onward, the white rubber of his sneakers turning a brighter shade of green with each step. He considered asking Red to switch the music to something else, but eventually came to a conclusion: if there was ever a chance to turn a bad association into a good one, this was it.

After he finished with the first half of the lawn, Drew raked the clippings the way he’d been shown, trying to get as many of
them into a black garbage bag as he could before moving to the opposite side of the walk.

“Good job, Andy,” Red said from the porch.

Up and down, row by row. Drew laughed to himself as he wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
Wax on, wax off, Daniel-san
. Red wasn’t much of a likeness for Pat Morita, but Drew was sure he could pull it off; this was an invaluable lesson in lawn care, an exercise that would protect him from the goons of Cobra Kai.

As soon as he moved to the roses, he felt Harlow’s eyes on his back. Shooting a look toward the house as casually as he could, he noticed her standing in the open window. He lifted a hand in a wave, confirming that everything was OK.

Despite the small size of the Wards’ front yard, it took him nearly four hours to complete his given tasks, taking extra time to make sure his work was up to spec. By the time he was finished, the blazing heat, combined with his concentrated effort, had him ready to collapse. Having expected to work inside, he hadn’t thought to slap on any sunblock; now his skin felt like it was on fire, hot to the touch, sizzling with sting. And yet, despite his sunburn and the throbbing in his lower back, he felt a sense of satisfaction as he settled into a chair at Harlow’s breakfast table, gulping down a tall glass of sweet tea, the condensation cold against the palm of his hand. He lifted his damp palm to his forehead, cooling the redness that was surely there.

“I really can’t believe you did that,” Harlow told him with a shake of her head, but her momentary look of disapproval melted into amusement as she sat across from him. “You look like a lobster,” she teased.

Drew cracked a smile and gave her a helpless shrug.

“You did a great job,” she said, leaning forward to place her hand on top of his.

Her touch was innocent enough, but it renewed Andrew’s anxiety. It was the way she drew her thumb across the top of his
hand—back and forth, like Emily used to do. It rekindled his sense of loneliness, reminded him of how much he missed that kind of contact.

After Em had left, Drew had had a few opportunities to get together with other girls. He had jumped at a couple of those chances, but his heart hadn’t been in it, and after a few romps in their beds, he called it a day. None of them had compared to Emily. None of them had captured his imagination the way she had.

He fixed his attention on the varnished tabletop, not wanting to look at Harlow while simultaneously not wanting to pull away from her touch. But something had to give, and he eventually slid his hand out from beneath her own, scratching at the side of his neck. He hoped that Harlow wouldn’t notice his retreat, hoped that he’d done enough to make it look natural rather than awkward. But Drew was starting to realize that nothing was easy with Harlow. She had a sixth sense about things, picking up on every facial expression, every shift of weight, every itch that didn’t need scratching.

“Are you OK?” she asked, a ghost of a frown pulling her mouth down at the corners.

Drew let his gaze meet hers. Fortunately, she didn’t look upset, just concerned.

He nodded, forcing a smile. Seeing her as anything but the charming woman next door made him feel dirty, like he didn’t belong in the holy place that was the Wards’ home. It made him feel like a sinner, as if he were lying somehow, as though he should step back from the sanctuary of their home before he destroyed it with unclean thoughts, with unwarranted desires.

“I’m fine,” Drew told her. “Just tired.”

“Do you feel sick?” she asked, her look of concern ever-present. “I hope you haven’t given yourself sunstroke.”

Andrew shook his head, giving her another tight-lipped smile.

“Well, I sincerely hope not,” she said, “because I’ve planned dinner for the three of us tonight.”

“Dinner?” He was exhausted from the day, and from trying to corral his indecent thoughts, and the thought of collapsing onto his bed was so appealing, but hunger would most certainly rouse him from whatever coma he slipped into, and the idea of having Taco Bell for the umpteenth time turned his stomach.

“I won’t take no for an answer,” she told him. “I’ve already bought enough for three.” Harlow rose from the table, pressing a cool palm against his cheek. “Go home, take a shower, have a nap. And then come back at seven.”