Neighborly(18)



But something stops me before I reach the first step. It’s an old friend. Shame. I’m ashamed that I brought the notes on myself and ashamed that I’m getting myself so worked up. Doug has always thought I’m a little bit fragile because of my childhood, and he doesn’t know the half of it. Doesn’t know an eighth of it.

Dr. Morrison heartily disagreed, but a part of me still feels like I brought things on myself with Layton, too. In sessions, she encouraged me to call him Layton. Not Mr. Layton, like I was used to calling him in class. Or Steve, like I called him outside of it. Just Layton, my abuser. “A pedophile,” she said. I didn’t want to disappoint her, but I couldn’t attach that word to him. I still can’t.

I do what I always do when thoughts of Layton rise to the surface: I make myself busy.

Settling back on the love seat, I check my e-mail. The top one is from something called GoodNeighbors.net:

Andie Praeger invited you to join!

Andie’s up at this hour, too? I would never have guessed, based on her visage at the block party. She looks like a woman who gets her beauty sleep.

I click “Yes” on the invitation. Instantly, another e-mail appears:

Register now to find out what your neighbors are up to!

We’re going to Andie’s house tonight, so I feel obligated to start the sign-up process. I don’t want to reject her this early in our relationship.

I click around GoodNeighbors, getting a flavor for it. People are talking to strangers—correction: neighbors—about sheds they need built, the best piano teacher for a three-year-old, a free bicycle that just needs a new front tire, how to plant tulips, and where they can find a nontoxic dry cleaner. It’s all stuff I would have turned to Google, Yelp, or Craigslist for, but this is about going local and building a community. There are potlucks and more block parties coming up. Girl Scout cookies are being sold on the corner of Vine and Bowdoin. “We’re new to town and have a five-year-old. Anyone going to the park today?” is a typical message. People are hungry for connection, in a wholesome, 1950s way. It’s not quite city because of how trusting everyone seems and not quite suburbia because people actually walk and know their neighbors, and because Main Street has only local businesses, no chains allowed. It’s trans-urban, like Gina said, a high-tech Mayberry.

I haven’t even uploaded any kind of profile, and the messages are already pouring in:

Ty and Linda welcome you to the neighborhood!

Brandon and Stone welcome you to the neighborhood!

Which one’s up, Brandon or Stone?

June welcomes you to the neighborhood!

June next door? We’re a block full of insomniacs. Is there something in the water?

Garrett and Maya welcome you to the neighborhood!

And of course:

Andie and Nolan welcome you to the neighborhood!

GoodNeighbors wants me to introduce myself. I should say where I’m from, why I moved here, what my interests are. I’m exhorted to upload a pic.

Since Sadie came along, my photos are of the two of us, and I’m not especially pleased with how I look in any of them. I don’t have any recent pictures of Doug and me (who would take them, Sadie?). And I’m not the selfie type.

I think about uploading a picture of Sadie alone, but would that make it seem like I’m uncomfortable with my appearance or obsessed with my daughter or both? It could say that I have no identity outside of her. Besides, it could give potential predators ideas—predators who’d know, vaguely, where we live.

I skip that step and fill in the text bubble. Since Andie’s the one who recruited me, I don’t want to reflect poorly on her, if anyone can see our linkage.

Hi, neighbors! My husband, Doug, and I just moved here with our new baby. Can’t wait to meet everyone!

It couldn’t be more bland and really, two exclamation points in three sentences? But at least it won’t give too much away or offend anyone. It’s the Hippocratic Oath of the new neighbor: first do no harm.

Immediately, my mind goes to the one person who’s not afraid to tell me that I’ve done harm.

But that’s one person, and I’ve got a whole neighborhood welcoming me with open arms. My generic profile message has already garnered twelve likes. I have girls’ night out on Thursday. Andie stopped by the block party just to invite us to dinner.

I wish that last bit soothed me, but I feel the opposite. Andie’s overtures make me nervous. She seems like the kind of person who’d already have a life (over)populated with friends. So why is she pursuing me?





CHAPTER 6

I can’t believe I’m about to knock on the recessed door of this massive stone Tudor. In grays and browns, with tall, narrow, multipaned windows, it actually has side gables. You could fit five of our house inside, comfortably. But it’s not just about the fact that Andie and Nolan have so much more money than we do. It’s that they’re in a different developmental stage altogether. This is a house where adults live.

We, on the other hand, live in Crayola.

Doug thinks of our new home as a member of the family, and he insisted it should have a name. He likes naming things, in general. So I told him to go for it, and he did, and now . . . Crayola was the obvious choice, given our primary color scheme.

I want to tell him not to call it that in front of Nolan and Andie, but I can just imagine the hurt that would shoot across his face. Besides, there’s something incredibly sweet about the pride he takes in saying each morning before he leaves for work, “See you back at Crayola?”

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