Good Neighbors(10)

“You’ll get cancer, which is worse. You know why that sinkhole happened? Because people like the Wildes don’t pay taxes.”

Shelly mumbled something under her breath. Presumably it was contrary. The girl was a disturbing cocktail of meekness and fury, uneven since birth, in ways that kept Rhea awake nights with worry.

“Your trouble is that you sympathize with everybody. But not everybody deserves it. Now help me out and set the table,” Rhea said as she made a pile of her papers and set them aside.

Shelly’s eyes got full. “She was my best friend.”

“We’ve been through this. It’s not Julia. It’s her parents.”

“You should trust me, Mom.”

“I do trust you. I don’t trust them. I’ve told you this. I don’t like repeating it. I don’t ever want you in that house, especially not sleeping over. Gertie and Arlo are strange. I don’t like the way he looks at me. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yeah. I know. You said. But he looks at me normal.”

“He doesn’t,” Rhea said, which did not feel like a lie. More like a perceptive extrapolation. “He’s got his eye on you. You’re just too young to understand it. Do you promise you’ll keep away?”

Shelly nodded, blushing softly.

Rhea set her papers aside and retrieved the Crock-Pot dinner she’d made. Shelly set the table: plates, utensils, and glasses. When both were finished, Rhea leaned down and held her daughter’s slender shoulders, kissed her graceful neck.

Of all her children, Shelly was Rhea’s greatest burden and her greatest gift. The child could be impossibly sweet, volunteering for the first flu shot of the season so her little sister could see that they didn’t hurt. She cried at the sight of homeless people. She could also be terrible, hitting Ella hard enough to bruise, mouthing off to teachers, screaming loud enough to hurt Rhea’s ears. She tended to fixate on Rhea’s moods, twinning her own to them in ways that were both flattering and alarming. Though she was the brightest Schroeder child by far, Rhea had recently concluded that she would go to community college, and then live at home after graduating, too. People with her kind of fragility needed a strong foundation from which to grow. It would be Rhea’s privilege to scaffold this child. To keep her close until she was strong enough to stand on her own.

“Forget the Slip ’N Slide. I’ll take you and Ella to Adventureland tomorrow. All day if you want.”

“Please let go of me,” Shelly said.

So Rhea did. She walked into the hall and called up the stairs. “FJ! Ella! Dinner’s ready!”

FJ came down first. He’d be starting at Hofstra University as a freshman in the fall. He was lean and muscular and so quiet that the family often forgot he was present. He’d been a submarine man all summer, surfacing at the house in the early hours, sleeping until noon. He was popular in school. Every night was another graduation party. But he managed to keep up his preseason lacrosse practice, so she figured: Why cramp his style?

Outside, the Rat Pack still skidded across the yellow plastic Slip ’N Slide. Everybody was eating ice pops, laughing hard, covered in tarry muck. It did look fun, she admitted. Rhea drew the curtains, so her own kids wouldn’t feel excluded.

Nine-year-old Ella came down last. Like Rhea, she had hazel eyes, close-together features, and a habit of frowning when surprised or happy. “Sorry. I was reading!” Ella said. “Nicholas and Smike just ran away and I had to know what happens to Fanny. She’s my favorite.”

“Brilliant!” Rhea pronounced. “Harvard. I’m sure of it.”

“I read that book,” Shelly said. “Smike is an outcast. O-U-T-C-A-S-T. It’s very sad. What did he have, Mom? Cerebral palsy?”

“Don’t spoil it for your sister,” Rhea answered. “And don’t phony. You Netflixed the miniseries. The day you read a chapter book to the end is the day I have a stroke.”

“Shelly watches Buffy. It’s all she does is watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer on her screen in bed at night,” Ella volunteered as she scooped half the stewed beef from the tureen. “She loves Angel the vampire like he’s Dave Harrison and she makes me play Dawn and it’s so lame!”

Shelly looked down at her plate. “I do not love Dave Harrison, and I did read Nicholas Nickleby.”

If the family heard Shelly, none responded. The sounds were forks and spoons, rattling plates, water glasses lifted and replaced. Pretty soon, dinner was done. Rhea drained another glass of wine, her second, which was her limit on weekdays. FJ got up without asking. He seemed preoccupied by something. Probably a girlfriend. He was always having high drama with some girlfriend.

“Magic words,” Rhea said.

“Can I go?”

“You may be excused.”

“Can I go, too?” Ella asked.

Rhea nodded. “PJs, brushed teeth, and two more chapters.”

“I’ll do a book report. You’ll love it so much! Because I’m a genius!” Ella cried, all enthusiastic sincerity, then bounced toward the stairs.

Last, it was just Shelly and Rhea. Rhea eyed her empty glass. With the heat this high, even the central air-conditioning couldn’t combat it, and she’d lost her appetite. She poured just a little more, letting the sweetness sizzle on her tongue, then fade as a means of making it last. Shelly watched. Noticed, in ways the others never did.