Neighborly(29)

He shakes his head, as if dazed. “I wanted to surprise you.” It’s like he can’t even fathom this reaction and yet, how could he not have? He knows me, and our finances.

“Let’s talk about it inside.”

Doug remains planted on the sidewalk. “How can you not be excited, Kat? They match the house. They match our life. It’s summer in the AV. Everyone goes out bike riding.”

“I haven’t ridden a bike since I was eight years old, Doug. We didn’t even discuss this.” I gesture back toward the house. “Sadie’s sleeping. Can we please talk about this inside?”

He ignores my request again. He wants to keep it outside. He probably thinks I’ll have to cave, if I’m in full view of the neighborhood. Anyone walking by would take his side and assume I’m some ungrateful bitch.

No, Doug’s not manipulative. He just can’t believe I don’t feel as he does. He’s sure he can convince me with the force of his vision.

He smiles at me in a way that normally makes me melt. “I told the guy at the store that you had limited experience riding a bike. He said this is a great starter bike. It’s called the urban cruiser. Try it. Just get on and go.”

“Sadie’s sleeping inside.”

“I’ll wait in the doorway. Get on. I want to see you take a spin.”

“If I ride around, then you can’t return them, can you?”

“I can’t return them anyway.”

I take a deep breath, trying not to lose it. “How much did you spend, Doug?”

“It’s an investment. In our happiness.”

He’d never even told me that he wanted bikes for us. If he had, I could have asked on GoodNeighbors about ones that were cheap or even free. That trailer could be a few hundred dollars, and someone a block over was just about to discard one, like it’s nothing.

Clearly, Doug didn’t want the neighbors’ hand-me-downs. He wanted bikes that were Crayola-bright and shiny and new. Statement bikes. Calling cards. Announcements that we’ve arrived, that we belong.

It scares me because prior to this, I’d assumed that we were in agreement. It was unspoken, but it seemed self-evident. Once we got into this neighborhood, we wouldn’t have the money to keep up with the Joneses—or the King Spuds, as the case may be—and we wouldn’t even try. We’d live within our means and be content with what we had.

He’s always been too optimistic, too sure everything will work out. I blame his parents. He’s been too pampered and protected from life’s realities, and now he’s going to have to learn, and I’m going to have to be the one to teach him. It’s not fair. But it’s better to blame them than to blame Doug himself.

Doug looked so excited and then so deflated, and now he’s stubbornly insistent. We’re locked in a stalemate. He’s urging me to go for a ride, and I’m urging him to just come inside so we can talk about it, so we can figure out some way to get around that no-return policy, or maybe we can just sell these on GoodNeighbors, since they are pretty much new. As I’m imploring, “Put them somewhere, please, and come inside,” a Porsche Cayenne pulls into the driveway of the Victorian across the street and a tall, thin man who looks remarkably like the director John Waters steps out and approaches us.

Oliver.

“Oliver,” he says, his hand extended. He looks north of fifty, with that same skeletal quality as Waters and the same slightly creepy pencil-thin mustache. His hair is salt-and-pepper.

Doug shakes Oliver’s hand. “I’m Doug, and this is Kat. Sadie’s inside, taking a nap.”

“Great bicycles! I have that one, but in black.” That’s when I know: Doug went top-of-the-line. I don’t even want to know how much he spent, except that I really, really do.

My blood is boiling, but I can’t let it show because Oliver is turning to me now. “Gina is really enjoying getting to know you, Kat. And that girl of yours—Gina keeps talking about wanting another one now. Like that’s going to happen. We’ve got the two boys ourselves.” He glances back toward his house. “You want to come over for a drink?”

Doug is nodding as I start to say, “We really can’t, Sadie’s still—” and then, as if she’s in collusion with Doug, the truest Daddy’s girl, she begins to cry so loudly that Oliver can hear it from the sidewalk. We must have woken her, Doug and me, with our argument. I’d thought we were keeping our voices low, but there was undoubtedly some heat in them, and Sadie’s room is closest to the street.

Who else on the block heard us?

“So it’s settled, then,” Doug says. “We’re coming over for a drink.”

I don’t know if he’s just trying to force us over this speed bump and back to our best behavior, our normal behavior. He could want to escape this conversation and he’s buying time to amass more arguments about the bikes. Or he’s just an extrovert and this is what he does: someone extends an invitation, and he accepts. But he has to know the last thing I feel like doing right at this moment is going to the neighbors’ house and leaving something this big, this expensive, unsettled.

Once Oliver’s out of earshot, it dawns on me. “Where are you even going to put those?” I say, just above a whisper.

“In the backyard,” Doug answers. “It’s more than big enough.”