The Neighbor's Secret(68)

It was a total farce.

They wouldn’t really be accepting once they found out Abe was the vandal.

If.

If Abe were the vandal.

Maybe they would be accepting. Not every parent was like Jen, a Canada goose, ready to attack.

Although she was certainly passive enough when it came to challenging Abe. This morning, on the drive to school, she’d kept the questions raging in her head, hidden behind her regular cheery Have a good day.

She had just set down the platter on the counter when her phone rang with a call from an unfamiliar number.

Jen answered it with a curt “Yep.”

“Jen, it’s Nan Smalls. I want to schedule a chat. About Abe.”

Jen saw right through her gentle tone: this was how it started, how it always all started, with Dutton and the entire parade of others before him.

“Now?”

“I’m in Eagle County for a faith-based educators’ conference this weekend, but I’m back tonight. Maybe first thing tomorrow?”

“Paul’s out of town until tomorrow afternoon.”

Pause.

“That’s unfortunate, but this won’t wait. The cleaners are doing their year-end sweep at the school, and I’d like us to not be interrupted by vacuuming. Would you consider meeting at the Village Bean on Main Street? Around nine?”

There was probably an underground network on which the principals could warn each other: When you expel Abe Pagano, do it in a public place. The mother is batshit.

“Of course.”

“See you then,” Nan said, and hung up.

Where was her psalm? Was Jen so beyond hope she didn’t even get a psalm?

How many of these school principals pretended to love kids but in truth, only had time for the ones who were cookie-cutter perfect, a neat fit into whatever box—

Stop it, Jen.

Who understood the painful impossibility of protecting your child more than Nan? If Nan couldn’t handle Abe—

Jen lifted the platter above her head and let it go. A million sharp slivers all over the kitchen floor.

For a second things felt better, but soon after came the exhausted realization that no one else was going to clean it up.



* * *



The late-spring night was so lovely that Annie decided to wait for the window guy outside on the front steps. To the west, the setting sun streaked an electric orange-pink across the sky, and while it was a beautiful sunset, Annie’s mind was on that video call with Rachel Meeker.

Next to her, Yellow barked and ran to meet Laurel, who was skipping down the hill. Skipping! No more hunched shoulders—she was back to her old self. It had all been a phase, something to get through, like when three-year-old Hank had refused to wear pants.

Annie decided that Rachel Meeker was probably doing just fine now. She might have caught Rachel at a bad time, or maybe she was rough around the edges. Either way, the woman on the phone didn’t seem too far a stretch from the awkward girl behind the bar fifteen years before.

People were who they were, after all.

But that vision board! That silly Proustian vision board had transported Annie back to her early twenties.

Years ago, Annie would have made one just like it. Not the sports part: what resonated with her was the naked dissatisfaction. Happy people didn’t make things like that.

Given a stack of magazines and some glue, what would Laurel create?

Deb and Priya spoke about their youth as a golden time of selfishness and possibility. If Annie tried to commiserate, they’d wag their heads. Talk to us after you turn forty.

But looking at Rachel’s dang vision board had confirmed what Annie had momentarily forgotten: youth sucked.

You were powerless. And maybe, yes, you had options ahead of you, especially if you grew up in a place like Cottonwood, but they overwhelmed. So many possible futures, and no idea how to use your brain or body to get there. Fuckups were unavoidable.

Annie should have recognized what everyone had been trying to tell her: Laurel’s behavior at Fall Fest had not been about alcoholism or DNA time bombs, but about youth and all of its frustrated want.

It had been an epic parenting fail, how Annie had rushed in all scorched-earth, assumed it was about her and her own demons. Luckily, Laurel seemed to have largely worked things out for herself in the simplest of ways: a new friend, a new hobby.

“I’m coming from up there because Haley’s mom dropped me at Sierra’s,” Laurel said quickly as she plopped down on the step next to Annie. “And before graduation, I’m going for a long run. I’ve been slacking on my training.”

Annie chose not to point out that Laurel’s training schedule was entirely self-imposed. “Did you hear it’s supposed to snow?”

“Yes, and fear not, Mrs. Meeker is prepared. They’re putting a giant tent in her yard.” Laurel tugged at her shoelace. “Thank you for keeping it just us tomorrow.”

“There’ll be a couple of hundred people at Lena’s.”

“I meant the graduation lunch. I really didn’t want any big soppy Perley family thing.”

“I get it.”

Haley was excellent with hairstyling, so it must have been she who created the elaborate braid in Laurel’s hair, heads of dandelions woven through. Absentmindedly, Annie reached out and patted it. That Laurel didn’t even flinch felt like a gift.