Good Neighbors Page 11

  “She’s sneaky mean.”

  “Lots of people are mean,” Arlo said.

  Julia was still crying. “God meant to get me, but he got her by accident. He was trying to punish me for being a bad friend.”

  “That makes no sense,” Gertie said.

  “It’s true.”

  “It’s not,” Arlo said. “It’s a story you’re telling yourself.”

  Julia looked at them all, and took it in. Understood that she’d spoken this fear with the hope of being contradicted. No, it wasn’t her fault Shelly had died. This was not God’s wrath. Still, she felt responsible.

  “She hurt her.”

  “Who?” Arlo asked.

  “Her mom. We weren’t really racing. We were running away. That’s why she fell. She was so scared her mom would murder her for cutting her hair that she wasn’t looking where she was going.”

  The memory of that last, drunken conversation Gertie’d had with Rhea turned over right then. It flipped like a rock, insects slithering beneath. “Don’t say that! It’s a very serious accusation!”

  “You take everybody’s side but mine,” Julia said. Her voice went flat. Too calm.

  “Don’t attack me! All I do is think about you,” Gertie said. “We moved here for you.”

  “You never have my back. That’s why I didn’t come to you. But it’s real. Shelly took pictures of what her mom did. Evidence. In her Pain Box.”

  “Rhea doesn’t seem like the type,” Arlo said.

  “She’s a college professor!” Gertie said.

  “So?” Julia asked.

  “So, Shelly was sensitive. Girls like that invent stories. It feels real but it’s not. The pain’s coming from someplace else. A problem within.”

  “I saw Mrs. Schroeder hit you. She hits.”

  Gertie touched her cut cheek, the humiliating memory of that slap fresh again. “But that’s extreme stress. God forbid if you were hurt, I’d go a little crazy, too.”

  “You make excuses for people here. It’s like you’re scared of them.”

  “You’re not making any sense to me, Julia. This is out of left field. I always—”

  “What was this fucking Pain Box?” Arlo interrupted, his voice raised.

  “It was real. I know because I saw. She showed me. I couldn’t hug her too tight. It hurt her. And if you think about it, that’s why she never let anybody hug her.”

  Gertie winced. Wiped the overfill of water from under her eyes. “You’re sure she didn’t do it to herself?” she asked.

  Julia looked down.

  “Then you can’t—”

  “Stop it!” Larry cried.

  “Honey, I’m just trying to understand,” Gertie said.

  “No!” Larry cried. “Stop calling her a liar.”

  “I’m not!” Gertie said. “You’re tag-teaming me!”

  “Julia!” Arlo shouted. Everybody got quiet. Julia sniffled. Shook. Hid her face to hide the tears. “Do you believe this shit you’re telling us to be true?” Arlo asked.

  Julia nodded, crying hard like you do when you’ve been yelled at, face hidden.

  Gertie looked out the window, to the empty crescent. She followed the eddies of oil to the hole with her eyes. They reflected the sun; a smeared rainbow humbled by gravity to the earth, made of blue and black and red.

  “And your instincts tell you this. You trust those instincts,” Arlo said, voice modulated now.

  Julia nodded. “Her mom hurt her when no one else was around. She hid it from me. She kept it a secret because she thought it was something to be embarrassed about. But she couldn’t take it anymore. Her mom got meaner. So she told.” Then she pressed her hands to the small of her back and worked upward between her shoulder blades. “She didn’t do it to herself. She couldn’t have reached.”

  Gertie kept her eyes on the hole. She felt them wet. Felt her whole self break apart. “Rhea did keep Shelly close, didn’t she? Never gave her an inch of herself. Cheerie used to keep me close.”

  Arlo’s voice was thick, his body tense. “Let’s not talk about Cheerie.”

  “No,” she said. “Nobody wants to hear about Cheerie… I think… I think it’s true. I think she tried to tell me once. Rhea. But I didn’t understand.”

  Julia burst into tears. “She was my friend. I loved her and now she’s dead.”

  “I know,” Gertie said.

  Julia came to Gertie. Gertie held her off. She’d never been a hugger, especially not in moments of panic. But Julia wouldn’t be denied. She pushed Gertie’s arms aside, rested against her breast. Gertie held her, heart beating fast, thoughts broken and flying.

  “If I’d known,” Arlo whispered. His tenseness had resolved into something softer and more honest.

  “We could have helped her,” Julia muttered.

  “Maybe. But an accident happened,” Arlo said. “She fell. Not even her mom did that.”

  “She loved you,” Gertie said. “And you loved her.”

  Julia’s expression balled tight, tears still falling. “There wasn’t anybody I liked talking to more, when she wasn’t being mean. We didn’t even have to talk. We just knew each other. But she was hiding something inside. She was hurting. And what if she wakes up down there, all alone? What if she thinks I abandoned her?”

  “It’s not your fault,” they all said, together, even Larry. “It’s not your fault,” they repeated.

  She slackened like a drugged calf, resting her head on Gertie’s breast. Larry petted her frizzy hair. With his skinny, monster-tattooed arms, Arlo leaned down and encircled his family, trying but not quite able to encompass the entirety of them.

  Very softly, Julia said, “One day I’ll save kids. All the kids.”

  Yes, they said, and they knew she meant it. They knew, when she grew up, that this would happen because of Shelly. Of course you will.

  In the end, Julia asked that her hair be cut short just like Shelly had done. They did this, and braided the eighteen wild, curly inches with elastic ponytail holders, then added this to the cigar box. Each hammered a nail into one of the box’s corners to close it. Then they showered and dressed in their summer best. Not black, but pretty florals for the girls, the Hawaiian shirt for Arlo (cleaned now of blood), and Larry’s typical green. They discussed the backyard, but knew where they’d eventually agree upon.

  They walked out of their house and into Sterling Park. They passed the orange cones and tape. The crew, having stopped coming on weekends, were all gone. A new, thicker slab covered the hole. They knelt at the edge. Arlo pried loose six rivets to lift a corner.

  Sweet fumes wafted up. Together, they dropped the box down. It fell for so long they didn’t hear the splash of its landing.

  Arlo hammered each rivet back into place. Tested, to make sure the slab was solid again. They walked back home feeling lighter. Julia picked some hydrangeas from a bush in Sterling Park and tied them with a leaf. Gertie pulled a pen from her purse and wrote a note on her Century 21 business card:

  Thinking of you.

  —The Wildes

  They deposited this on the Schroeders’ front porch. Then they walked to their house, ready to recover from so much.

  They slept deep and dreamless that night, the kids in bed with the grown-ups, and everyone tucked close. In the morning, there was coffee and sugar cereal and extra harmonicas. There was the optimism of a new day. But then their front bell rang. They opened the door to the police.

  Sunday, July 25

  Two detectives, a black-and-white cop car parked out front. Gertie assumed they were partners, but who knows how these things worked? They wore plain clothes and showed their badges. They actually handed them over, so Gertie and Arlo could read every word.

  The first was an older Black woman named Denise Hudson, the other a younger red-haired Asian man named Gennet. Both had sweat through their business-casual work shirts. They informed Arlo and Gertie they were wanted at the police station. Now.

  Neither detective offered
a smile, not even to the children.

  This was not Gertie’s first clue that something was wrong, but it was the most startling one.

  “Sure! We’ll go now!” Arlo said, nervous and high-pitched. After deliberation with Gertie and also with the detectives, they headed over to Fred and Bethany’s house. Though Bethany lay on the couch with pillows piled along her sides and behind her back (her eyes rimmed with what looked like smeared, dark blue eyeliner, but was in fact her actual complexion), the Atlases agreed to watch the kids.

  “Oh, you sweethearts,” Bethany cooed. “Fred? Do we have milk for them? Go get some milk!” She winced when she craned her neck to look at the children, pained from just that small movement. “Darlings? Why don’t you bring that deck of cards over here? I’ll teach you rummy.”

  Arlo gave Fred a sorry shrug. “I owe you big.”

  Fred, looking exhausted, squeezed Arlo’s shoulder. They’d missed the last two movie nights—life had gotten in the way. “It makes her happy,” Fred said. Then he raised his voice loud enough for the detectives outside to hear: “Call me if it gets serious. I know people at the DA.”

  Arlo and Gertie took the Passat. They followed the cop car to the Garden City police station.

  Inside, they walked past reception and through a deep atrium with open desks to the back, where they were ushered into a small, closed-off room, folding chairs surrounding a long table. Gertie and Arlo took one side, Detectives Hudson and Gennet took the other, deploying an old-fashioned tape recorder in the middle. The table was pale wood under polyurethane—school desk material. It was clean, save for pen smears. Hudson and Gennet had replaced their muted suit jackets, both of which were ill-fitting, and Gertie now understood why: the room was over-air-conditioned. Both Gertie and Arlo shivered.

  “Rhea Schroeder reported a crime last night,” Hudson explained.

  Gertie squeezed the table. Despite the chill, her palms left a sweaty trail.

  “Crime?” Arlo asked. His voice remained overly cheerful. His sales voice. In it, Gertie could hear fear, and worse than that, ignorance. The kind of ignorance that waits out its trial at Rikers, because free lawyers don’t mean shit.

  “She claims her daughter was raped on the morning of the fall.”

  Gertie froze. Her conscious mind refused to conceive of where this was going. But the deeper part, the part that had survived the pageant circuit and all those cutthroats, that part understood exactly.

  “Witnesses testified that she’d been bleeding,” Hudson continued. “She’d also cut her hair.”

  Gertie wanted to say something, but nothing came out.

  “Mrs. Schroeder believes she cut her hair due to post-traumatic stress. She was running away from you when she was pushed down the hole by your children, who were likewise traumatized, and trying to conceal their father’s crime.” Hudson looked them in the eye the entire time, betraying no emotion. Gennet scribbled notes.

  Gertie started. “Running away?”

  “Crime?” Arlo asked. His voice lost that personable quality and took on something like a growl.

  “She believes you raped Shelly Schroeder, and this action directly resulted in her death.”

  Arlo leaned forward, looked Gennet, then Hudson in the eyes. “I did not do that.”

  “That’s insane,” Gertie said. “It’s not even possible.”

  “Why isn’t it possible?” Hudson asked. She wore a mask of indifference, but emotion boiled underneath. She gripped the table with her hands, so tight it made her fingernails white.

  “Because he’s not a hunter. I’ve known hunters my whole life and he’s not. He’d never do that—”

  “I work in the city,” Arlo interrupted. “I didn’t get home that night until around four in the morning, when I crashed into bed. With Gertie.”

  “That’s right!” Gertie cried.

  Arlo stretched his arms in their direction. Their eyes roamed along his monster tattoos. “There’s probably still footage of me at Penn Station around two-thirty a.m. If not there, then the newsstand—I got a Coke and popcorn for the ride. So you can check that. You can check my getting off the train around three-fifteen.”

  Gennet scribbled. Hudson didn’t take her eyes away.

  “And what about the morning? Was Mrs. Wilde with you then?”

  “I was showing a house. In Glen Head. But he never gets up before ten if he can help it.”

  “Yeah, by the time I rolled out of bed, the kids were out playing. There might be footage there, too. The Cheons have a camera, I think. Dunno if it works since the sinkhole. Everything out on the block gets static.”

  Hudson’s voice got scary soft. “You’re certain that you were never alone with Shelly Schroeder within the twenty-four hours of her death?”

  “I swear.”

  “He wasn’t,” Gertie said. Relief flooded her system. Proof. You can’t argue with proof.

  “Were you ever alone with her?”

  “Probably.”

  “You can’t say for sure.”

  “I don’t remember, specifically.”

  “Do we need a lawyer?” Gertie asked.

  Gennet stayed looking at his notebook.

  “If we can clear this up, you won’t need a lawyer,” Hudson answered.

  “Oh,” Gertie said.

  “Now, were you ever alone with any of the other children in the neighborhood?” Hudson asked.

  “No offense, but this is pretty scary. I think we need a lawyer,” Arlo answered.

  “You’re not under arrest, sir,” Hudson said.

  “Can we leave?” Gertie asked.

  “Anytime,” Hudson answered. She moved back from the table, as if ready to walk out. “But we’d prefer you cleared this up.”

  “Let me make a phone call,” Arlo said.

  “You won’t need one if we clear this up.”

  “He’s gonna make a phone call,” Gertie said.

  Hudson nodded, as if she’d expected this answer all along. As if they’d have to be fools to do anything else.

  They excused themselves and went into the waiting room. Arlo called Fred Atlas, but the connection had too much static. They couldn’t hear each other. He searched his contacts, looking for anyone important. He found coworkers and some old Brooklyn friends, none of whom knew any lawyers. He broke into a cold sweat and scrolled to Danny Lasson’s number. Danny’d been drums for Fred Savage’s Revenge, was now writing jingles in LA. He might know someone. But it was entirely possible that Danny hated him, for having broken up the band. Not possible. Probable.

  “Do you know anyone important?” Arlo asked.

  Gertie let out a hollow laugh. “Rhea’s about it.”

  * * *

  Arlo and Gertie were gone by the time Maple Street woke to a new day, Shelly Schroeder’s memorial service behind them. The mercury in their thermometers climbed past any temperature they’d ever before seen. Their air conditioners were no use. By ten that morning, the senior Benchleys had to catch a bus several blocks away to the local cooling center. That candy apple scent from the sinkhole cooked like chemicals in an oven. It permeated the air and the dirt and their clothing.

  It appeared that the Wildes weren’t home. But they remembered that Gertie had made an offer weeks ago. The Slip ’N Slide was for everyone’s benefit. Carte blanche.

  The people of Maple Street had no qualm with Gertie or her children, they reasoned. Their problem was only with Arlo. The day was swelteringly hot. With the pool closed, they longingly gazed at the yellow Slip ’N Slide. Some of the kids begged.

  It was Cat Hestia who gave in, connecting the Walshes’ hose to the Wildes’ Slip ’N Slide, and unrolling it. Except for the Schroeder kids, who were in no mood for play, the Rat Pack got on their bathing suits. They slid across the Walshes’ lawn. They were somber at first, but pretty soon, they were howling with joy. They were joined by older siblings and even some adults. Like a rebirth in tar sands and dirt, even the adults went sliding.

  I
n the light of day, amid yellow plastic and happy, communal laughter, the accusation against Arlo seemed outrageous. They decided that they were glad to be using the Slip ’N Slide. It was a way of including the Wildes, even in their absence. It was a way of moving the line just slightly away from Rhea’s side of things, and all the ugliness that it had always been her nature to spread.

  When the Wildes returned from wherever they were at, the neighbors would speak to them. They would ask them directly about the accusations Shelly had reportedly lodged. They would allow Arlo the chance to defend himself.

  When a brown Chevy sedan pulled in to the crescent, they took note. A man in a clean, unwilted three-piece suit approached, knocking door to door. Those parents not already there returned to their houses to answer. Yes, they said, we saw Arlo Wilde in just boxers, chasing Shelly that morning. Yes, his own kids were running away from him, too… Yes, they said, our children heard Shelly tell them in no uncertain terms: Arlo raped her, possibly that very morning.

  At this, a detective named Bianchi asked to speak with their children, and so, one by one, they called them away from the Walsh lawn. Only, their children were filthy with tar. It covered their hands and cheeks and hair. They appeared anonymous and indistinguishable.

  Standing in thresholds, dripping Slip ’N Slide water and sand oil, these children corroborated: Lainee Hestia, Sam Singh, the Ottomanelli twins, and to his chagrin, Charlie Walsh: Yes, Charlie said. She said that stuff. But she lied a lot. Dave Harrison glared, not at the detective, but at his mother, without answering, until Jane Harrison announced that maybe Bianchi ought to come back, as clearly her son had a fever.

  After each interview, feeling strange and hypocritical (If it was true that Arlo had done wrong, why were they letting their children play on his Slip ’N Slide? And if it wasn’t true, why were they corroborating a false narrative?), they cleaned off and kept their children home. At last, the Slip ’N Slide was empty, water streaming along yellow plastic. Looking out their windows, they saw what they’d neglected: propelled by the force of its water, and lacking a handler, the yellow plastic had careened across the Walsh lawn and gotten stuck against the common privets that divided the Wildes from the Schroeders.