Good Neighbors(9)

They built so much trust between them that one night, amidst the distant catcalls of children gone savage, Rhea took a sloppy risk, and told her own truth: Fritz boom-booms me. It hurts and I’ve never once liked it… Do you like it? I never expected this to be my life. Did you expect this, Gertie? Do you like it? I can tell that you don’t. I wanted to be your friend from the second I saw you. I’m not beautiful like you, but I’m special on the inside. I know about black holes. I can tell you want to run away. I do, too. We can give each other courage… Shelly can’t keep her hair neat. It goads me. I’d like to talk about it with you, because I know you like Shelly. I know you like me. I know you won’t judge. Sometimes I imagine I’m a giant. I squeeze my whole family into pulp. I wish them dead just so I can be free. I can’t leave them. I’m their mother. I’m not allowed to leave them. So I hate them. Isn’t that awful? God, aren’t I a monster?

She stopped talking once she’d noticed Gertie’s teary-eyed horror. “Don’t talk like that. You’ll break your own house.”

There’d been more words after that. Pleasantries and a changed subject. Rhea didn’t remember. The event compressed into murk and sank down inside her, a smeared oblivion of rage.

Soon after that night, Gertie announced her pregnancy. The doctor told her she had to stop drinking front-porch Malbec, so they hung out a lot less. She got busier with work and the kids and she’d played it off like coincidence, but Rhea had known the truth: she’d shown her true self, and Gertie wanted no part of it.

Retaliation was necessary. Rhea stopped waving at Gertie when she saw her, stopped returning her texts. When that didn’t make her feel any better, when oblivious Gertie didn’t even notice her coldness at the Memorial Day barbeque, she bit harder. She told people about Arlo’s heroin problem. How that was the reason for the tattoos covering both his arms. He was trying to hide the scars. She told about Gertie and all those men. Practically a hooker. She told everything, to anybody who’d listen.

The more she told those stories, the more the past kaleidoscoped. She reevaluated every interaction she’d ever had with Gertie and her family, every judgment she’d ever cast.

For instance, Arlo yelled. His voice boomed. You could see Larry, who was sound-sensitive, shrink inside himself when that happened. But Arlo never checked himself. He just kept shouting, like he didn’t care that he was hurting his own kid. What was even more alarming, Gertie had all kinds of rules. Unless it was baking hot, Julia couldn’t wear short sleeves and shorts together because they revealed too much skin. No bikinis, ever. If she changed clothes on playdates, she had to do it in the bathroom. She couldn’t walk to the bus stop by herself, or even with Shelly. A grown-up had to accompany. Why was she so nervous? What did she know about sexual threats on Maple Street that no one else knew?

In other words, why was Larry always jerking himself?

Here’s a story: One time, Rhea, Fritz, and the kids were at the Wildes’ for dinner. It was its usual mess. Greasy dishes and thumbprints on the wineglasses. So Rhea’d washed while Arlo had cut vegetables, and Gertie had poached eggs. Even Fritz had helped out; for maybe the first time ever, he’d set the table. Until then, she’d never have guessed he knew how!

They’d all had so much fun and felt so close. On their way out the door, saying their good-byes, Arlo had leaned into Rhea, hugging her a beat too long. “Thanks for being so good to Gertie,” he’d said, and then he’d kissed her cheek but gotten the corner of her lips, too. Dazed, she’d looked to Gertie to see if her friend was jealous, only Gertie’d acted like it was nothing.

At the time, Rhea’d felt flattered. But later she’d wondered: Had Arlo been hitting on her? And if a wife can ignore something like that, what else can she ignore?

She’d related her observations to Linda Ottomanelli, who, most likely, had spread it around to the rest of the neighbors. And then, last week, she’d been planning the barbeque, and she’d known that if Gertie and her family showed up, that the neighbors might ask questions, compare stories. If Gertie found out about the rumors Rhea had spread, she might get mad enough to retaliate. Spill beans she had no business spilling. So she’d eliminated the problem, and excluded the Wildes.

The exclusion didn’t feel cruel. It felt like self-preservation. And if the murk had unfurled again, more rage-filled than ever, at least she’d found the proper target against whom to direct it.



* * *




F, Rhea wrote along the top of the final paper. It argued that heroin should be legal, since it would garner more tax revenue to fight the immigrant crisis.

“Mom?” a voice asked. Thirteen-year-old Shelly stood in the kitchen, just at the edge of Rhea’s alcove office, calling in. No one but Rhea was allowed in here. It was her solitary place.

“Yeah?” Rhea asked.

“Can I go outside with the Rat Pack?” Shelly was wearing her hair in a long braid down her back that ended at her hips. The edges were snarled. Even with a bottle of conditioner, tonight’s brushing session would be a long one. “They’ve got this yellow thing. They’re sliding on it.”

“It’s a Slip ’N Slide. They’re from my day. I think they stopped making them ’cause kids crash and get paralyzed,” Rhea answered.

“Oh. Can I go? I won’t get paralyzed.”