The Neighbor's Secret(11)

If Janine were Abe’s parent, she might brag about him, but she also would have been a solid, irrefutable daily presence, there in his corner from preschool on. Janine would have volunteered to be room parent and signed Abe up for Scouts, organized a troop if there weren’t one in existence. She would have served punch at the class parties and dances (assuming that was an actual job and not just something Jen had seen on TV). She would have thrown him into social situations, and maybe he’d have developed better skills.

Paul said that Jen couldn’t help but compare herself to other parents because she was a fundamentally competitive person. All parents compared themselves to other parents, though. People operated in relation to each other, just like wolves did, or prairie dogs or meerkats.

Or birds.

Lately, Jen’s research had been heavy on the birds—there was a lot of recent work in the avian-navigation field—and reading about a flock’s inexplicable telepathy, how it majestically ascended to the skies in one coordinated rush, Jen could not help but picture her neighbors, similarly in thrall to the mandates of a group soul.

At book club, differences were not celebrated, they were barely acknowledged. Last year, Jen had initially been pleasantly surprised to note that she was not the only book club member with a multicultural background. There was Priya and also Athena, who was half Liberian, half French.

Not that race or heritage was ever truly discussed. Everyone worked to gently herd the conversation toward safe common ground: opinions about the book, families, work stress. Teasing was always delivered with a smile, to emphasize that it was all in harmless fun.

Even amid tonight’s rowdy Lolita debate, you could see the women striving to agree, their nods of reassurance toward whoever was speaking little pigeon neck-bobs of support.

The real currency at the Cottonwood Book Club wasn’t literature, it was sameness. And Jen craved this feeling of belonging even as she hated what it confirmed: there was safety in numbers.

And danger in being an outlier.

The book club was really getting into Lolita. Annie kept clapping her hands together like a teacher trying to get control of a recalcitrant class and inadvertently elbowing Jen in the ribs.

“People,” she shouted. “He’s a pedophile. Sorry, Jen.”

“You don’t have to be friends with the characters, Annie,” Deb said.

“Well, what a relief that is.”

“Lolita is a classic novel,” Harriet Nessel repeated stubbornly.

“Good grief. Who in the heck cares that it’s a classic? Or that he’s funny? We’ve spent hundreds of pages listening to the point of view of a murdering pedophile. Whoops, sorry, bumped you again, Jen, but if you all just think about that girl trying to put back her life together after this monster broke it into pieces, and then tell me: Do we need his perspective on anything?”

After a swell of dissent, the conversation grew even livelier.

Jen sipped her Lolita Lemondrop and rubbed her ribs where Annie kept jabbing her. She let the discussion wash over her until it died down and the women broke into small groups. Next to Jen, Annie Perley heatedly told Janine that if she liked Humbert Humbert so much, why didn’t she hire him as a babysitter.

“Oh honestly,” Janine said. “I’m changing the subject to our savior.”

Religion was usually Jen’s cue to politely excuse herself, but Janine was watching her with an unnerving soupy smile.

“Me?” Jen said.

“Yes! For volunteering to host November’s meeting in my place.”

Crap. Crap. Crappity Crap.

Jen had volunteered. She recalled the email plea—S.O.S. LADIES! We are DESPERATE for a host—from a million years before in the summer, when Jen had been full of optimism about her research grant and seventh grade.

“Oh, right,” Annie said to Janine. “Your floors.”

“I’m redoing my floors,” Janine explained with a sigh, “so I can’t host, and I know it’s probably stupid, because our dogs are old and we’ll wind up with a new puppy at some point soon and that puppy will of course ruin the floors, but then tell me, Jen, will there ever be a good time? We’re probably perpetually three years away from a new puppy! You get the impossibility, of course you do!”

“It’s amazing you can even function.” Jen’s tone was tart enough that Annie meowed and formed her hand into a claw. Janine’s giggle made clear that she couldn’t be less offended.

“Right?” Janine said with great enthusiasm.

Jen imagined gesturing to a waiter—I’ll have a bucket of whatever she’s having, please.

“The group will be much smaller next month, cross my heart,” Janine said. “All the book club lookie-loos will be gone.”

“Jen lives in the Stollers’ old house, right?” Annie said.

“Which has that amazing great room,” Janine said.

“With the wood beams and vaulted ceilings,” Annie said, with a dreamy look on her face.

“Thank you?” Jen said, although the compliments did not seem directed at her.

“We’ll do everything,” Janine promised. “It will be barely any work.”

“When are we going to talk about the vandal?” Deb Gallegos said. She and Priya Jensen had appeared behind Janine, and everyone shifted to let them into the circle.