Good Neighbors(19)

Feeling not lonely for the first time in weeks, Julia was so bursting with cheer that she kissed Larry’s cheek. He stayed still, eyes open and looking straight ahead, which was how she knew he liked it. Or, at least, he didn’t mind it.

“What’s fuck a face?” he asked one last time, which made everybody laugh even more.

“Don’t worry. You’ll never be that guy,” Dave said. “You might want to be that guy, but it’ll never happen.” Then he flopped, pressing his legs straight up against the edge of the slab and sitting square into the bitumen muck. Charlie did the same. Julia tugged on Larry’s crazy green shorts and had him sit, too. The oil was more solid than she’d have guessed, and not as sticky. The closer you got to it, the less smeary the colors, and the more it looked like your own, skewed reflection in blue and black and red.

All four lined up in a row, their feet kicking the side of the slab, digging at the sludge underneath. They felt brave, like explorers, doing what they weren’t supposed to do, proving they were stronger and smarter than the grown-ups thought.

One day they’d run the world. They’d do a better job.

“Rule number two for sinkhole survival,” Julia started.

“Clown!” Dave cried out in a fake sneeze.

“Forget rule number two. Dave ate number two. Like, literally, he ate poop. Rule number three,” Julia interrupted. “As you can see from the freaky-ass sludge, there’s our dead ancestors down there. This is their puke. Don’t believe the hype; the birds didn’t fly away and your pets aren’t hiding, they got eaten by great-grandma Loretta.”

“It’s primordial stew, like from Star Trek,” Charlie answered, blushing. It surprised her that he was playing along. She’d thought he was too literal for that.

“Star Trek’s for suckers!” Dave cried.

“You guys!” Julia said. “Doesn’t a little part of you wanna rip off this wood and ride down the hole on the crane?”

“So, go ahead,” Dave said.

“You go!”

Dave slapped her with some snot from a vein of bitumen running out from the hole. Charlie slapped Dave. Julia slapped them both. Larry joined in. Then they were all slapping each other.

The playing felt good, and she reminded herself to enjoy the moment. Soon, Charlie and Dave would go inside to air-conditioning or coding lessons or tutoring. The day would get even hotter. She and Larry would wait for their dad to wake up. But he’d be tired. They wouldn’t go anyplace or do anything. They’d just sit by the fan, chewing ice.

The kids on this block always had places to be and vacations to take. They never worried that their clothes were someone else’s hand-me-downs, bought from the thrift store on Hempstead Turnpike. Most of them were proud of their houses. They had their own rooms, and those rooms were decorated with real furniture. When you asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up, they knew the answer.

What was it like to be pretty? To have nice things?

“My dad’s got this friend from his old band who lives in California. Writes music for TV. I wish I lived there,” Julia said.

“We’d miss you,” Charlie said.

“Yeah, but in California, nobody’d be mad at me,” Julia answered. Her eyes teared up. She let them dry in the air instead of wiping them. “People wouldn’t turn on me.”

“Is Shelly crazy?” Charlie asked. His chin and cheeks and clothes were marked with sand oil, like the rest of them. Only Larry had stayed clean. “Bleeding… Saying that stuff about your dad.”

“I don’t know,” Julia answered. “But it’s not true about my dad. She made it up.”

“She’s messed up,” Dave said. “Your dad’s famous. He’s probably the only dad around here who could get pussy wherever. He doesn’t need to get it on Maple Street.”

“Gross?”

“Shelly hit you,” Larry said. “It’s not okay.”

Julia squeezed Larry’s hand to let him know she was okay. He squeezed back, to let her know something, too.

“Why would she say those things?” Charlie asked.

“Do you think it’s true?” Julia asked. “Because it’s not.”

“No,” Charlie answered. “It’s just, I’ve known her since kindergarten. She’s been mean, but it’s usually for a reason. Have you ever been to her house? Everything’s so perfect. It’s like you can’t move inside of the perfection. Like the air’s glass, and just trying to walk around gets you cut into pieces.”

Julia let that sink in. She’d felt uneasy in 118, but had never thought to articulate it. If you moved something, you had to put it back exactly. Junk food wasn’t allowed because you might get fat. There was this bowl of ribbon candy that matched the green couch, but you couldn’t ever eat the candy, and you couldn’t sit on the couch, just like you couldn’t use the hand towels in the bathroom. It was all too pretty to use. “What’s wrong with perfect?”

“It’s a lie. There is no perfect,” Charlie said.

“How is it a lie?” Julia asked.

Dave blew a long raspberry. “Eeeeemo. Shit’s tough all around. My parents divided our house with a Sharpie because they’re too cheap to pay for a divorce. That’s way worse than pseudo-perfect. You see me going psycho killer?”