Neighborly(13)

On this block where everything is so geometrically neat (every hedge, even the garbage cans along the curb are precisely horizontal), I was gripped with fear. They were throwing us a party, and we were sullying their perfect neighborhood. We stuck out, worse than a sore thumb. We were a dirty thumb. All the other houses dwarfed ours, and we had our own trash mountain, like it was Appalachia.

Plus, Doug hadn’t even set up the big trash pickup yet. He told me not to worry, he’d handle everything, but how could I not worry? Given his procrastination issues, when I add things to his to-do list, I never really let go of them. The item on my to-do list simply becomes, “Ask Doug if he’s done x or y.” That’s way worse than just doing x or y, because it turns me into a nag. I’m not a nag; I’m a doer.

June from next door had happened to mention that she hoped we were early risers because trash pickup was at the crack of dawn. So, by the time everyone woke up, our trash mountain could be gone.

The street was entirely still, with not even a drape twitching. Conditions were perfect. If the neighbors knew, they’d thank me. But I was sure they’d never know.

I put a jacket on to conceal my pajamas and stepped outside. With a surreptitious look around, I walked over to Fanny’s cans and lifted the lid. I felt a twinge, like it was a form of theft, that I was taking something that wasn’t mine. I should ask permission, no excuses. But who was awake except me? If I waited to ask, I’d miss this week’s pickup entirely.

I was just so tired, and I could hear the garbage trucks rumbling, blocks away. There wasn’t much time to make a decision. If I was going to do it, I had to do it right then. I thought of the block party in our honor and first impressions. I needed to be good enough, to appear good enough. Decision made.

With twelve bags of trash and untold amounts of recycled cardboard, I must have loaded up practically every can on the block. I remembered Tennyson and Vic had extra cans, which made sense given the size of their brood, and I tossed a bag or two in their auxiliaries. Raquel’s can, for sure, and Wyatt and Yolanda’s, and who else’s? Gina’s. Brandon and Stone’s, but they would never leave a note like that. June’s cans were too full, which made me wonder how two people could generate that much refuse in a week.

I stayed on our block. Nothing went in Andie’s can.

It had been too easy, and I’d felt light-headed with success. Or maybe that was just sleep deprivation and lack of food. I’d been forgetting to eat lately.

I even came up with a name for it: distributing. It was kind of like being part of the tiny house movement. Ridding the neighborhood of trash and doing as much recycling as I could—in that second, it seemed like I had discharged a civic duty.

“Distributing?” Doug repeated when I told him later. He broke out in a big grin. He clearly thought it was nuts, but in a cute quirky Zooey Deschanel way. It made him laugh to imagine the neighbors catching me on my clandestine trash run down the block. “New Mother Skulks through Neighborhood, Clutching Cardboard,” he said, his fingers splayed out, like it was a newspaper headline.

Wait. The realization dawns on me. I never used Gladys’s cans. Does that mean the note couldn’t have come from her?

It had to have. Everyone else on the block is so nice, so welcoming. None of them could be behind such a stunt, even if my stomach just dropped, trying to suggest otherwise.

Anxiety craves a certainty it’ll never get, Dr. Morrison once told me. But the majority of the time, the most obvious suspect is the right suspect. If a wife is murdered, chances are the husband did it. Or vice versa.





CHAPTER 4

DO YOU THINK THEY ACTUALLY LIKED YOU?

My eyes roam the street for someone who’s lying in wait, watching for the moment I’d find this next note on the windshield of my car.

There’s no one around. The street is as silent as it was at four a.m. on trash day.

They’ve used another square of cardboard from the box containing the dining room chairs. I try to remember which recycling can got that particular piece, without success. I didn’t commit that kind of detail to my already overloaded memory. Bandwidth is scarce these days, and it’s not like I thought it would turn out to be a clue.

I could understand the first note. It was a rebuke, telling me to keep my trash in my own cans. I assumed it was specific to an action I’d taken, one that I’d make sure never to repeat.

This note is different. More global and yet more personal, it strikes at the heart of my insecurities, where I’m the most vulnerable. It’s like this person knows me.

I’m trembling. It’s Monday morning. Sadie’s already buckled into her car seat in the Outback, and we were going to try out a Mommy and Me class before our trip to the supermarket. I’ve avoided a lot of activities with “Mommy” in the title since my experience with the moms group in my last town. But this is my fresh start.

I make a snap executive decision to skip the class this week. It’s better to go when I’m in the right frame of mind, so I can make the right impression. But there’s no avoiding the supermarket.

“Hey! Yoo-hoo! Kat!”

I blink in the sunlight, startled. Tennyson is running across the street toward me, all legs in a pair of white silk hot pants and a short-sleeve silk blouse with a tie at the neck, almost like a cravat. I don’t know how she can pull off that outfit or move that fast in three-inch heels.