The Neighbor's Secret(26)

Every time she thought of telling Melanie what had almost transpired, Lena would imagine the silence on the other end of the phone.

Gary Neary and you? It defied belief.

And what was there to even divulge?

It had been nothing: a few weeks flirtation, and then one night of distraction, which had caused Lena to take her eyes off the ball completely.

It had been everything.

There was a parallel universe where Lena and Gary had a condo on a West Coast beach, and went for long sunset walks and hosted slightly awkward blended-family dinners. Sometimes, in the moments before sleep, Lena allowed herself to visit.

In the real world, Gary Neary was gone. And even if some magician were to bend the rules of time and space and deliver him to her, Lena was certain that Gary would take one look at Lena and run as fast as he could in the opposite direction.





CHAPTER TEN



“Please don’t make me go in,” Abe said.

He slouched in the passenger seat of Jen’s car and flicked his finger to close the air vents before flicking them open again.

In front of them was the Kingdom School, a double-wide trailer with peeling white paint, located one mile down an unpaved road. The bright sunlight exposed the scragginess of the lot—the half-bare trees, the patchy brown grass. Across the street were a rusted tractor and a fenced-in trio of malnourished horses swooshing their tails.

Even with their car windows rolled up, Jen could smell manure.

“Think of all the points you’ll earn if you try it for the day,” Jen said. She watched conflict play across Abe’s face. Dr. Shapiro’s bribe offensive had been almost too easy to implement.

Abe had created a shared spreadsheet and in the past week had enthusiastically taken out the recycling and the trash and neatened his room. The monitor would be his by summer, he’d promised.

“Ugh,” Abe said. He flicked closed the vents. Flicked open the vents. “Why can’t I just homeschool?”

“Ms. Smalls, the principal, is supposed to be wonderful.”

Although when Jen had talked to her, she had sounded vacant, maybe not all there.

Prior to the call, Jen and Paul had discussed how best to explain Abe’s conduct disorder diagnosis to Nan Smalls in a way that didn’t scare Nan, but provided sufficient notice of what she was getting into.

But Jen had never gotten the chance. During their phone call, Nan Smalls only wanted to talk about Faith—her Faith in the children and the children’s Faith in the teachers and the teachers’ Faith in Nan. The Kingdom School, Nan seemed to want Jen to know, was one giant inescapable circle of Faith.

Whenever Jen tried to interject, there had been painful pauses, into which both of them would speak at once, and then Nan would say, “After you,” and Jen would say, “No, please, after you.”

“Well,” Nan had said finally, “he’s free to spend the day and we’ll take it from there.”

“You’re dropping me into a horror movie,” Abe said. He flicked the vents quicker: open, close, open, close.

Jen saw his point. On the lawn was a hand-painted off-kilter sign, THE KINGDOM SCHOOL: TAKING TRUTH FROM SCRIPTURE. It was begging for a chilling breeze in which to creak ominously.

But back in the Bay Area, they had looked at gorgeous schools with landscaped campuses and endowments and state-of-the-art libraries and mission statements that separated church and state.

Abe hadn’t been a fit there. Or anywhere else.

This was their reality: sitting in the car outside the Kingdom School with whispered prayers of Faith.

A beaten-up blue sedan pulled into the spot next to them. The banjo strains of bluegrass streamed out the open windows. Jen bobbed her head along to it, but Abe didn’t even crack a smile.

A young man with a chin-length bob and a bandana headband hopped out of the car and, whistling, went around to the trunk.

“Does he go here?” Abe said.

“Maybe?”

They watched him hoist a guitar case from the trunk, loop it over his shoulder.

“Is he wearing eye makeup?” Abe said in a low voice. He slunk down even further in his seat. “He saw us. He saw us.”

Indeed, the young man, who did seem to be wearing eyeliner, was waving at them through the windshield. Jen zipped down her window.

“Morning,” he said. “I’m Colin.”

“Hi,” Jen said in a bright phony voice. “This is Abe. He’s visiting today.”

“Awesome,” Colin said.

Abe scowled. Flicked the vent.

Colin pointed to the graphic novel on Abe’s lap. “What’s that?”

“Gothracula.”

“Never heard of it.”

Abe looked skeptical. “Seriously?”

“Cross my heart. What is it?”

“The best vampire fantasy battle series in the world. There are, like, seven books. You’ve really never heard of them?”

“Nope.”

“I’m going to turn the books into a ten-level video game,” Abe said. “Like Foxhole. You know Foxhole?”

“No,” Colin said. “But maybe you can show me sometime?”

“Are you a student?” Abe asked suspiciously.

“In graduate school. I’m a new assistant teacher here. I like it.”