Neighborly(5)

“Why don’t you just spray-paint it? That’s what they do at some of the condo developments,” Brandon says. He and Tennyson laugh with a clear note of superiority. I realize that Stone has slipped away, and a few minutes later, Brandon does, too.

But their absence is quickly replaced by another woman who joins us, and another, and another, and another. Throughout the conversation, they take turns fawning over Sadie, and she’s in heaven, surrounded by all those admiring eyes. It’s like she already relishes the impact her beauty has on people. Cause and effect indeed.

I instantly forget everyone’s names. In response to their questions, I tell them that I’m an assistant provost at a state college, on an extended maternity leave. They’re all stay-at-home moms, except for one who works part-time as some sort of consultant, and Tennyson, who owns a boutique on the AV’s main drag. I do a lot of smiling and nodding. Until a topic comes up that legitimately piques my interest.

“Nils and Ilsa weren’t really here that long,” Raquel drops. She gestures toward my house. “I was so surprised when they decided to leave. Their son was only seven. I don’t even think they left the Bay Area, did they?” She seems genuinely confused that they’d want to raise their son anywhere else.

“I think they just wanted to cash in,” Tennyson says quickly, as if eager to end the speculation. “They bought, what, three years ago? And they probably turned a massive profit.”

I’m surprised that they’re so casually discussing Nils and Ilsa’s finances and, by extension, mine. I feel my face reddening.

“But if they really wanted to cash in, why didn’t they take the highest offer?” A woman with hair shaped like a mushroom cap—Regina, I think?—turns to me like I should have the answers. They must have known Nils and Ilsa better than I did. As far as I was concerned, the former owners were just names on the paperwork, the people to whom my realtor submitted our offer along with a beseeching letter. The unknown masters of our fate and now, the purveyors of our good fortune.

“You weren’t the highest offer?” Tennyson gives me an admiring look.

“No,” I say, a little bit proud, and then a little bit embarrassed at my pride.

The whole conversation feels askew somehow, but I think that’s just because we’re culturally conditioned not to talk about money. In some company, it seems more taboo than sex, more intimate.

As I tip my head back to underscore my confidence in spite of my mild discomfort, my eye catches on a man who is standing apart from everyone, motionless, his face and body tense. He’s sinewy, with a receding hairline and ruddy skin. He’s staring at our group, his eyes slightly narrowed. I feel my own body tense, a response as involuntary as a bouncing knee reflex from a rubber mallet.

“That’s my husband, Bart,” Raquel says, like his behavior is nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe he’s just an intense guy. Or maybe he is entirely normal, and my subconscious is just sending up flares. She jiggles Meadow in her arms. “You’ll meet him at some point.”

I’m kind of hoping not.

“So how did you beat out higher offers?” Tennyson brings my attention back with her surprise, as if I’ve climbed Everest or cracked the double helix.

I force my eyes away from Raquel’s husband, though he seems like someone I don’t want to turn my back on.

“I wrote a letter to Nils and Ilsa,” I say, “and I included a picture of Sadie with a homemade onesie that said ‘AV or bust.’” I regret it the second it leaves my mouth. Using Sadie like that just seems so . . . cheap.

Yet the smiling faces before me register complete comprehension. You do what you have to do to get into the AV. We’re on our own little island, jutting out into the Bay, just minutes from Oakland and San Francisco. Low crime, every school a ten, and you can smell the brine in the air. What wouldn’t you give to raise your kids here?

Regina wrinkles her nose slightly. “Was it really just a letter and a picture? Ilsa and Nils weren’t exactly sentimental people.”

“They were a little cold,” Raquel allows, with the air of someone who doesn’t like to speak ill of others.

No, it wasn’t just a letter and a picture. It was also an offer $450,000 over asking. The kind of offer we could never have made without Doug’s parents; a debt we’ll be paying off for the rest of our lives in more ways than one.

“Well, on that note, I guess we have to do it.” Tennyson releases a dramatic sigh. “It’s the inevitable conversation.”

“Real estate.” Regina fills in the blank. “The way this place has exploded. New money and old money. The people who’ve been here forever, the newcomers, the ones who inherited like Wyatt and Yolanda, and everyone in between.”

“It’s pretty strange,” Raquel says, “to suddenly be sitting on a gold mine. It used to just be a house.”

“A house on the best block of the best neighborhood,” Regina says passionately. “I mean, there’s no other place like it. Some people have more money, some people have less, but there’s no tension. No conflict. No artifice. No airs. Only community. Where else can you find that?” She pauses to position her soapbox. “The AV isn’t quite city, and it’s not quite suburban. You can walk to great stores and restaurants and to the beach. You can bike along miles of trails. Yet you can always find parking on your street. It’s the best of everything. It’s trans-urban.” She says it like the term just occurred to her, but then a man passing by (her husband, presumably) outs her: