Good Neighbors(69)

Allen’s eyes watered as if she’d struck him. “That’s out of line.”

His voice expressed true pain. She could hear it, and it brought her back to a saner place. “Oh, God, Allen—” she started. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

“You don’t belong here,” he interrupted. “You hate it. You act like you’re smarter than the rest of us. You probably are. It’s not a fit.”

“I’m upset. You have to know that. Please don’t fire me. There’s no place else.”

“This conversation is at a close.”

Rhea started crying for real. Genuine tears, not fake ones to rile up the neighbors. She wiped her eyes and her hands came back small, like Shelly’s hands. With wide nail beds, like Shelly’s nails, and the reminder made her so sad she could have cut them right off.

“Don’t do this,” Rhea said. “I need this place.”

“Rhea… I feel for you. My heart goes out to you. You and your family have been in all of our thoughts and prayers. But even outside these circumstances, you’re teaching semiotics to remedial teenagers when they haven’t nailed down subject is thesis.”

“I’ll do better. I’ll be better,” she said, and now she pressed her hands together, begging him. “This is the only thing I have left. I can’t stay on Maple Street. It’s a tomb. She haunts me. She’s everywhere.”

“You need to leave,” he said.

Allen remained and she understood that he meant leave right now. She packed up her tiny cubicle-sized office. Eyes red, she started out. By rights, she ought to be this man’s boss. The whole school ought to be bowing. Begging her for nuggets of brilliant wisdom. She turned back. Limped to the desk on that useless, betraying knee. She spit. It landed on the top red paper. Speedy’s.

“Rhea!” Allen cried out, prissy and shocked.

The spit spread and turned red. Such a crazy thing to do. Obscene and uncivilized. She meant to say: Sorry. Forgive me. We’ll talk in the fall and I’ll be ready, Allen. But that wasn’t what came out. “Look what you made me do,” she said.

The rest was a blank. She skidded out of the parking lot, flooring it, to the only place left. To Maple Street.





118 Maple Street


Saturday, July 31

Amidst the chaos of 118 Maple Street was the oasis of Rhea and Fritz’s strangely perfect bedroom that smelled of cheap perfume. Everything in order. Not a coffee ring on a nightstand; not a bra hanging from a doorknob. It felt like looking into the clean and wealthy adult life she was supposed to be living. Or the imagined Martha Stewart pretense of what adult life looked like.

No sign of Shelly’s evidence.

The door creaked open. An overhead light turned on. Gertie had no place to hide. She was caught.

“Ella?” she asked. The girl walked slowly into the room. She had to be nine years old by now. Not so little. That wonder age, where stuffed animals and sexy hip-hop strutting coexist. Where Santa is real but the tooth fairy isn’t. She looked nothing like her big sister. She was round and broad-chested. Small brown eyes and mousy brown hair. She wore a pretty green dress with cut-out shoulders that cinched at the waist.

“Could you help me?” Ella asked.

Gertie held her belly. “How?”

Ella walked out. Gertie waited in the bright light, then followed. She stayed on tiptoe as they passed naked FJ’s room, then crept back down the stairs. Gertie in bare feet, the child in cute water sandals. Gertie followed her into the open kitchen, and then to the tiny room off that kitchen. It had a door, and was not much bigger than a closet.

Ella waited outside. Gertie looked in. It was a wreck. Shredded papers were stacked by inches on the floor. The walls were painted with red Sharpie. Fuck You! someone had carved (With a letter opener? A knife?) into the small wooden desk. There were no windows here.

Rhea’s office.

“What are we doing?” Gertie asked.

Ella just stood there. She had a plain face, phlegmatic. And Gertie understood that this expression concealed a very real rage. This house was like that. It concealed. And then in corners, things burst out.

“Are you going to tell your mother you saw me?”

Ella picked a key from her dress pocket and held it out. “There’s a box in the bottom drawer. It’s Shelly’s. I want you to show me what’s inside. I’m the only one with the key. I took it to make Shelly mad. I used to take things from her.”

Gertie walked over. Her belly was too big to sit at the desk to check, so she pushed the chair aside. Opened the bottom drawer. A lockbox. On it was written: Pain Box.

Gertie felt a rush of relief.

She pulled it out, noticed the papers underneath. Printed-up newspaper articles. The one on top read, “In Aftermath of Hungarian Pastry Shop Accident, Little Jessica Suffers Aneurysm.” The picture was of a girl who looked just like Shelly. Long, black hair. Fair skin and eyes. High cheekbones. About the same age, too. But the paper was dated 2005.

Gertie pointed. “Do you know who this is?”

Ella shook her head. “Shelly?”

Gertie shut the drawer. “Looks like her, doesn’t it?”

Ella placed the key on the desk. “Will you show me what’s inside?”

“You’re sure?” Gertie asked.