The Neighbors (5 page)

She walked along the edge of the house toward the backyard, the sad excuse of a lawn crunching beneath her feet. She nearly stumbled when one of her heels sank deep into the ground, grumbling beneath her breath when she had to lean against the dirty siding of the house to retrieve her shoe. Stopping in front of a window covered by a bedsheet, she pounded on the glass. She wanted to yell, wanted to scream at the top of her lungs, but she stood tight-lipped on the lawn instead, her teeth clenched behind her cherry-stained mouth. The bedsheet rustled. There was a crash—something falling to the floor—a flurry of clumsy footfalls, and finally a violent pull on that makeshift curtain by the occupant of the dark room inside. Wild-eyed, Mickey Fitch glared out the window; temporarily blinded by the sunlight, he looked ready to pulverize the joker who had decided to wake him, probably only a few hours after he’d hit the sack. He blanched when he saw who it was, and with hesitation he raised his hand to the window—a silent plea for a few seconds to react—before letting the curtain fall back into place.

Harlow snorted and did an about-face, mashing parched blades of grass beneath the soles of her shoes. She marched back to the front of the house and waited by the door.

Mickey pulled the door open and stared at the woman standing on his front doorstep. Despite being roused from his sleep only
seconds before, he was fully alert, wide-eyed as his visitor pulled the screen door open and, uninvited, pushed her way inside.

It was hard to believe Harlow Ward existed in the present. Everything about her reminded him of that
Mad Men
show—her hair, her clothes; they were profoundly retro. For the decade he’d lived next door, he’d never seen her in anything casual. It was always high heels and makeup.

She clicked her way through the foyer, placed the plate of cookies on the coffee table, and marched herself back to where Mickey stood.

He opened his mouth to talk, and she slapped him hard across the face.

Mickey took an unsteady backward step, his hand pressed to his assaulted cheek. When he pulled his hand away, he saw blood.

Harlow casually adjusted her diamond ring, rotating it so that the stone pointed outward rather than toward the inside of her palm. His stomach twisted when she noticed him staring at her, offering up a hard smile.

“Those are for the new boy,” she said, regarding the plate of cookies with an upward tilt of the chin. “Don’t touch them. You’re getting fat.”

Mickey lowered his gaze. He hated when Harlow came over. The heat of his palm made the wound she’d just given him sting. Harlow turned away from him and stalked down the hall. He watched her pause in Andrew’s doorway for a long while, assessing the unlabeled and unpacked cardboard boxes that were neatly lined up along the walls. He tensed when she started to head back into the living room, but stopped halfway down the hall. Her nostrils flared at the sharp scent that lingered just outside the bathroom. Pushing the bathroom door open, she stood there for a moment, then moved back into the living room. Mickey pressed a wet paper towel to his face from among the kitchen’s disarray.

“Did he do that?” she asked.

“Yes,” Mickey replied.

One-word answers were his way of complying, but Harlow wasn’t satisfied. She strutted across the dirty carpet, her heels clacking against the kitchen’s cheap linoleum, and caught him by his chin.

“When he gets back, you’re going to be on your best behavior. Best friends. Like a dream.”

Mickey nodded faintly before Harlow released her grip. She stepped back into the living room and circled the couch, assessing her plate of cookies.

“I should have used a bow,” she mused, leaning down to adjust the gift tag on top of cellophane.

Welcome to the neighborhood! Most sincerely, Red and Harlow Ward.

Full of strawberry milk shake, Drew was regretting getting the large as he rambled back toward Magnolia. The shake sat sweet and heavy in the pit of his stomach, twisting his guts into a slow-growing ball of nausea that, as soon as he got to unloading the bed of the truck, would more than likely turn ugly. When he finally pulled up to that now familiar curb, he sat there for a while, his hands on his stomach, taking deep and steady breaths, as if patterned breathing would somehow make all that milk and ice cream disappear. With the AC on high, he squinted against the artificial wind. Movement from the corner of his eye caught his attention, and when he turned, he saw a figure standing on the perfectly preened lawn of the fairy-tale house next door.

The man was staring at him. When he met Drew’s eye, the guy turned away and went back to pushing a bright red mower, but it was Andrew’s turn to stare. Rather than wearing ratty shorts and a pair of old flip-flops, this guy looked just about
ready to conduct an outdoor business meeting. Drew couldn’t imagine how hot he must be in a pair of long slacks and dressy loafers that glinted in the sun.

The neighbor looked back over, and Drew instinctively ducked down.

His stomach flipped and soured. A second later he was shoving the driver’s door open and bolting for the house.

After puking up a stream of still-cold pink, he unsteadily made his way back to the front yard. Sick or not, there was furniture to unload and boxes to unpack. He didn’t feel like spending another night on a pile of his own clothes. Stepping back into the heat, he froze where he stood. Half of his furniture was on the sidewalk, as if on some sort of weird display. Mickey wrestled with the headboard.

“Hey,” he said, spotting his housemate on the lawn, “figured you needed a hand.”

Drew’s first instinct was to smile, but that nagging kernel of wariness immediately followed. Andrew believed in first impressions, considered those first few moments as a window to who a person really was. Mick’s most recent first impression hadn’t been a great one; tired, sloppy, unaccommodating, he seemed like the last person to jump off the couch and lend a hand. But there he was, unloading Drew’s stuff like he’d been paid to do it when he hadn’t even been asked to help. Peering against the glare of the sun, Drew watched Mick work for a moment longer before dragging his feet across the lawn.

There was something about Mickey that felt off—a weird vibe he couldn’t shake. Drew used to know a kid back in high school—Jeff Belkin. Jeff had been a real asshole, the kind of guy who could turn a simple conversation into the most unpleasant event of the day. Jeff had a coke problem. Nobody knew it at first, but after a while, it was obvious. Every time Jeff took a bump in the bathroom between class he’d turn into a fly at a picnic, constantly buzzing around people, wanting to talk, wanting to help:
what can I do, what can I do?
Maybe Mickey had a drug problem, coke or speed or something. Maybe that was where the vibe was coming from—chemicals that were slowly frying Mick’s brain.

Pausing beside the back tire, he raised an eyebrow at Mick.

“What happened?” he asked.

“What?” Mickey froze. He was a bundle of stops and starts, just like that Jeff guy.

Andrew motioned to Mick’s cheek, a diagonal slash cross-sectioning his face.

“Oh.” Mickey blinked, then furrowed his eyebrows. “Nothing,” he said. “Just an accident.”

“Some accident,” Drew replied. “Looks like Norman Bates went after you in the shower.”

“What?” Mickey shook his head. “Bates?”

“Norman Bates, man. From
Psycho
.”

Mickey stared at the house for a long while, then forced a smile.

“Oh yeah,” he said. “Nah, it was just an accident. I haven’t even seen
Psycho
, dude. I don’t watch that old stuff.”

“Are you serious?”

Mickey lifted his shoulders in a dismissive shrug. Drew wasn’t sure why he was surprised. It was hard to watch the classics while picking off zombies in a first-person shooter.

“Come on,” Mick urged. “It’s hot. It’ll go faster with two.”

Back and forth they went, from the truck to Andrew’s room. Mickey even helped move some of the cardboard boxes so they could squeeze the bookcase inside. On their last pass for the mattress, Drew noticed that their slacks-wearing neighbor had been joined by a woman who looked just as proper as he did. She stood in front of a rosebush, trimming stems with a fancy-looking pair of shears, wearing bright red heels in the grass. He couldn’t make out her face beneath the floppy brim of her gardening hat.

It was disorienting to see them gardening in such proper attire. But Andrew was struck with a desire, a
need
to walk up
to that picket fence and introduce himself. The woman noticed him looking. She lifted a gloved hand in silent greeting, a wide smile pulled across her lacquered lips. Drew looked down to his feet, struck by a familiar sense of awkwardness; it was the same unease he’d felt when he realized his truck didn’t belong on Magnolia Lane, that
he
didn’t belong in Oz.

“Those are the Wards,” Mickey told him, hesitated, then continued. “They’re all right.”

They were more than all right. Because what kind of people gardened in business casual?
Perfect people
, he thought; people who wouldn’t be caught dead on Cedar Street.

He and Mick just about killed themselves dragging that mattress down the hallway. Mickey went backward, slowing down when Drew yelped that he was about to trip over his own feet. He hovered while Drew organized his things, as if waiting to be told what to do. Finally unnerved by his roommate’s sudden bout of assistance, Drew shook his head at him and shot Mick a look.

“I’ll be all right,” he assured him. “Really.”

“You sure?” Mick asked, but relented when Andrew’s eyebrow arched dubiously over one eye.

By the time Drew stepped out of his room, Mick was back on the couch, mashing buttons. Drew scratched the back of his neck, watching the game for half a minute before speaking up.

“Hey, do you have a screwdriver anywhere? I need to put the bed frame together.”

Mickey paused his game, eyed his new roommate for a second, and tossed his game controller onto the couch cushion.

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “Wait here.”

Drew furrowed his eyebrows as Mickey wandered into the kitchen, disappearing through a door that led into a garage. He
waited for a minute, rolled his eyes at how long it was taking, and sank onto the couch. Grabbing the controller, he was about to unpause Mick’s game when the plate of cookies caught his attention. He leaned forward, plucked the little card from atop the cellophane. The flowing script declared the treat was from the Wards—those perfect next-door neighbors. It was flawless, the prettiest handwriting he’d ever seen, matching the woman who had written it to a T. His heart flipped when he put it together: she had been the shadow in the window the evening he pulled up, the night he thought their house was Mick’s. She had seen him fiddle with their gate latch, had watched him realize his mistake and wander next door to the house that, no doubt, she hated. And instead of turning her nose up at the new neighbor who’d just moved into the crappiest house on the block, she stepped into her gleaming kitchen, grabbed a mixing bowl and a wooden spoon, and made cookies. For
him
.

Carefully pulling the cellophane away from the edge of the plate—a real plate, not a disposable one—Drew lifted a cookie to his nose, inhaling its sweetness before taking a bite. He fell back against the couch, his eyes shut, a chunk of chocolate melting on his tongue. They were amazing, as though she’d sprinkled magic into the mix.