Good Neighbors Page 7

  She pictured her dad down there, too. Playing sad songs and walking slow and sad like every day he woke up as Julia and Larry’s father instead of as a rock star was a disappointment.

  “Let’s throw ’em down. Then we’ll take over. We’ll run the world.”

  “I like my parents!” Charlie cried.

  “I like mine, too,” Julia answered. “But they still suck.”

  That was when the only tranquility they’d forged that summer broke.

  Shelly and the rest of the Rat Pack came howling back.

  116 Maple Street

  Arlo Wilde’s phone chimed a wake-up. The tune was Bernard Herrmann’s shower scene music from Psycho, and it seeped into his dream, in which Gertie gave birth to a kitten. The kitten had these huge, cute eyes, so Gertie and the kids were ecstatic. He’d known something was wrong, but he hadn’t wanted to upset them.

  Then the Psycho music, and he was like: Seriously, guys, that baby is a cat.

  He slapped off his phone and got up. The room was dark, all shades drawn. The sluggish window air conditioner whined loud and sad. It was no competition for this heat wave: his skin was wet with sweat. He stepped over and also on the humidity-damp towels and assorted feminine garbage like lipstick and Spanx that Gertie had tossed on their floor. She had many good qualities, but cleanliness was not one of them.

  “Julia? Larry?” he called a couple of times after splashing some of the swell from his booze-puffed face.

  Wearing just tiger-striped boxer briefs Gertie had gotten for him as a joke, he checked the kids’ rooms first. Julia’s: like mother, like daughter, it was a clothing bomb, peppered with plates whose unrecognizable crumbs had congealed. Larry’s room: perfectly organized, and without a personal item on display, save a Robot Boy doll, which he was still trying to convince them was not actually a doll, but a tool. Like superheroes have utility belts and Iron Man has a vibranium heart, Larry had his Robot Boy. What Larry didn’t know was that they all preferred he had a doll; it made him more like a normal kid.

  “Anybody home?” Arlo called once he got into the hall again.

  Crickets.

  On the ground floor, he found the note taped to the refrigerator.

  AW-at 8br Open House in Fancy-Schmancy-ville. Say a prayer somebody shows up to buy the monster. Sent the kids outside so you can sleep your drunk off. PS: You smell like a brewery, and you fart like one, too. Maybe brush a tooth next time.

  -Gert (your saint wife)

  “Oh, she’s funny now!” he mumbled, then poured himself a glass of watered-down Trader Joe’s brand orange juice concentrate. It eddied the corners of his mouth as he glugged. He carried the glass to the window and spotted his kids. They were sitting around a trampoline with some of the Rat Pack. The weird Ottomanelli twins (Mack? Mason? Mooson?) poured what looked like a gallon container of Clorox bleach over the top.

  “Okay. You’re fine,” he muttered.

  He went back up, found his phone, and got a patchy connection. Left a voicemail for Fred Atlas, the guy who lived in Maple Street 130. “Fred! Let’s do a movie night. Malverne’s showing The Conversation. Gert says she’ll bring the kids to your place and keep Bee company… I know you got shit going on, but it’s good to get out. You can’t say no to Hackman.”

  After that, he popped on his analog radio. Reception was terrible since the hole, so streaming didn’t work. All he got was live local access, in which two talking heads argued about the looming stock market crash.

  He picked up all the clothes. Wiped down the bathroom sink. Got a new load of laundry going, and folded what was in the dryer. Left the piles in front of the kids’ bedrooms. He’d grown up keeping house for both his divorced parents. It came second nature.

  In the kitchen, he collected the cereal-crusted dishes. Slugged some more juice, then decided on something better, and stuck his entire head inside the freezer door. Ice made white steam as he reached his shoulders in, too.

  He wasn’t usually so hung over. Most bartenders at Arlo’s regular downtown joints knew his special drink—the Mermaid Avenue: ginger ale, rocks, and club soda with a twist, made to look like a vodka tonic. Most bartenders. But not all of them. Last night Oscar Heep, head office manager for Bankers Collective, had insisted on a hole-in-the-wall Irish pub on Pearl Street called The Full Shilling. Arlo wound up matching the red-nosed alkie beer for beer. Five rounds passed as slow and excruciating as an ether-less tonsillectomy on the Western Front.

  “Sing a few bars of ‘Kennedys in the River’ for me!” the sot cried as soon as he found out who Arlo used to be.

  So Arlo sang. More than a few bars. But not that song. The other song. His favorite. “Wasted.” The whole three-minute-and-forty-second shebang.

  The Full Shilling patrons had watched. Once they’d realized that they were in the presence of Wild Arlo Wilde, chart-topping, Rolling Stone–sanctified lead singer of Fred Savage’s Revenge, they’d swayed.

  I can still see it.

  Bet you can’t.

  On your coffee table

  next to the lamp.

  Saturday morning,

  watching Super Friends.

  Ming zaps Batman, Robin runs.

  Blackened spoons on the floor.

  I use them to eat stolen Apple Jacks.

  Irene knocks. You nod.

  It doesn’t mean “come in.”

  I can still see it.

  Bet you can’t.

  The brown couch

  and shut windows.

  The girl you told me to call Mom.

  The places I looked out

  through a broken window

  and didn’t know were better.

  Sad and drunk, he’d been thinking about his pop, and everything else that had gone wrong in his life, when he finished that first refrain. So he’d pulled out his Hohner 64, and punched it home:

  Firestar blasts Iceman

  the first time I get high.

  And I’m nine years old.

  Nostalgic for something

  that never happened.

  The twentysomething yuppie bankers in thousand-dollar suits, and the Irish bartenders with put-on brogues, and even Oscar had clapped. Arlo’d been tight by then, lights spinning, sound reverberating in all the wrong ways, like the walls were acute angles, closing in. “I keep my soul in there, you fucks,” he’d mumbled, not that anyone had heard. Not, frankly, that it had meant anything, other than that he’d been feeling sorry for himself.

  “Sing ‘Kennedys in the River’!” they’d shouted, at first in noisy bursts and then all together at a quarter-beat, “Ri-ver! Ri-ver! Ri-ver!”

  Arlo closed his eyes through the chanting and he pretended he was back at that old dive on Orchard Street, right before the band got signed. When the whole world had seemed like something small and easy to conquer, and the guitar in his hand had been his ticket out.

  Then he gave them what they wanted, and sang “Kennedys in the River.”

  The night ended when Oscar refused to sign on the dotted line for a new fleet of printing suites, even at the deep discount Arlo offered. “We tightened our belts this year, so I can’t. But I think you’re sexy. You’ve got that rugged thing going for you. Maybe we could get together sometime, when it’s not about work?”

  Arlo handed the prick his business card, shook his clammy hand, and said, “You told me you needed new printers. I’m a salesman. I sell printers. That’s what I do to put food on the table for my family. My wife’s knocked up and I’m late on my mortgage. When you want to buy some fucking printers, you let me know.”

  He waited an hour at Penn Station with the rest of the late-night punks and sad-sack businessmen for the 3:06 a.m. train to Garden City, then walked the mile home from his stop, listening to the echo of his footsteps on eerily empty suburban streets.

  Less than five hours later, Arlo jammed his shoulder inside the open door of his freezer, rubbed his face against a cheap Western Beef frozen steak, and thought about how nice it would
be to have a win. He didn’t want to go back in time. He wasn’t that same guy, and he didn’t think it would be all that fun anymore, staying out with the band, shooting white gold up his arms in Horseshoe Bar’s grimy toilet room, eating runny eggs, staggering along Avenue D.

  No, he didn’t want to run away. He just wanted a decent commission, or a pat on the back from his regional sales director, who didn’t seem to notice that he’d never called in sick or missed a meeting. He wanted his music agent at Gersh to get back to him about the new demo he’d sent. Mostly, he wanted somebody to notice how hard all this had been, and that he’d done it, nonetheless.

  None of these things would happen for Arlo Wilde. Not today, at least. Today, the children of Maple Street were skittering over the surface of something dangerous. One of them was about to fall in.

  Sterling Park

  A rational person would have stayed home. Hidden in her room until Monday, when her mom drove her to coding camp or Girl Empowerment Engineering Club or whatever. A rational kid would have waited until the period thing blew over.

  It became clear to Julia Wilde right then, that her former best friend forever Shelly Schroeder wasn’t rational.

  Even from an acre out, Julia could see that Shelly’s intense line of vision was fixed on just one target. She ran at top speed, dirt and sand oil kicking up all around. She tripped once, but even then, her eyes stayed on Julia.

  “We should run,” Charlie said.

  They didn’t run. Shelly halved the distance. Quartered it. She looked wrong.

  “What happened to her?” Dave asked.

  Shelly was really close now, and they could see what she’d done. Her hair was gone. It looked like she’d hacked off each braid near the scalp, because the black that remained had unwound in thick, uneven tufts.

  “Whoa,” Julia said.

  Without slowing down, Shelly burst between Julia and Larry, who were holding hands. Then she was standing on the giant wood slab. Right in the center, her feet over the knothole.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?” Dave Harrison shouted.

  She didn’t look at him, only at Julia. Her face was a mask of scrunched fury. It was scary, like the real Shelly, the Shelly who’d been her friend, didn’t live inside her anymore. “Bck! Bck! Bck!” she hollered, wrists tucked under her armpits so that her elbows appeared like the tips of hollow wings. “You came all the way out and you didn’t even walk the plank. You’re all chicken—I knew it!”

  “Get off,” Charlie said. “It’ll fall.”

  Still glaring at Julia, Shelly grinned through clenched teeth. Talked through those clenched teeth, too. “I’m the bravest.”

  “Fuck this,” Dave Harrison said. He leaped for the compact excavator’s hook and caught it with both hands. He swung, ramming Shelly right in the boobs with the soles of his flip-flops, then dropping almost clear to the other side. But he still landed on wood, and that wood made a disquieting groan.

  “Go home, Shelly,” he announced as he walked to safety.

  Shelly stayed on the board, legs akimbo. She’d changed into a clean, pink skort so there wasn’t any blood to see. Looking only at Julia, like everyone else was furniture, she announced, “You and me. We fight right here. To the death.”

  “You’re crazy,” Julia said.

  “Bck-bck-bck!” Shelly rage-shrieked.

  “What is this, first grade?” Julia asked.

  Julia pressed her toes up against the edge. Warm wood vibrated through the soles of her flip-flops, like a dryer set to low. It really did feel like something was down there. Something alive.

  “This is my Rat Pack. Take the aspy and go back to Brooklyn. Lock him in a loony bin where he belongs.”

  Julia didn’t look to see Larry’s reaction. She knew he’d be grabbing for himself, maybe walking in a circle. He didn’t cry when people teased him. It happened too often. At school, on the bus, at the grocery store—there weren’t enough tears. Instead, he retreated. His eyes went dim and faraway, and they stayed faraway even after the teasing was done. Every time that happened, she felt like she’d lost a piece of him that she’d never get back. She’d once explained this to Shelly, that it was her job to keep him whole and alive, only she didn’t know how. She was so afraid of failing. The one thing that made her special in her family was protecting him.

  “I heard for a fact that the school shrink diagnosed him mentally retarded,” Shelly said. “Imbecile level, which is better than idiot but worse than moron.”

  Julia charged the slab. Crrrrck! The wood creaked under their combined weight and she didn’t care right then if she fell. All she wanted to do was slap that dirty, toothy grin off Shelly’s mouth. “Don’t you dare talk shit about my brother. I’ll fight you anytime.”

  “You dumbasses need to get off. It’s gonna break,” Dave called from the edge.

  Hearing that, Shelly bent low, then sprang, tucking her legs like the slab was a trampoline. As soon as she landed, the knothole split an inch on either side:

  Crrrck!

  “Stop!” Dave shouted, angry as spit. “Seriously, Shelly. You wanna die, go ahead. Don’t take Julia with you.”

  By now Ella, Sam, the Markles, and Lainee had arrived. They’d surrounded the sinkhole on every side.

  “You shouldn’t do that, Shelly!” Ella called. “Mom says—”

  Shelly started laughing, only no sound came out. Her whole body convulsed. Without all that hair, there wasn’t anything to soften her features. Her big eyes looked like they’d receded into their sockets; her cheekbones and jaw jutted, sharp and too defined. She was the thirty-year-old version of herself that had lived a hard, bitter life. She jumped again, high and hard.

  Crrrraaakk!

  The slab bowed, tearing even more. Julia crouched down. She’d forgotten about her anger. All she wanted was off this damn slab. Please, God. Please, please, please don’t let me fall in. Don’t let the hole get me…

  The slab got still. The Rat Pack got quiet. Everything slowed, so the only sound was the angry cicada heat-song.

  “Stop,” Julia said, low and loud, even though her throat still hurt. She was in the center, afraid to stand. Worried any movement at all would send them both tumbling down.

  “Ask nice,” Shelly answered.

  “Crawl off, Julia. Leave her!” Charlie called.

  “Stick your hands through!” the Markles heckled like brainless stereo speakers.

  “Please, Shelly. I’m asking nice. Stop jumping,” Julia said.

  Shelly walked off the slab. It cricked and moaned with every step. “Julia’s a chicken and a loser, but we all knew that when we voted not to hang out with her.”

  Still crouched, Julia gathered her courage, trying to decide whether to stand and walk off, or to be smart and crawl.

  “My mom’s throwing another barbeque once the hole is closed. To celebrate. Everybody except Julia can come,” Shelly said. “Julia has to admit she’s a lying hypocrite. Then we can all be friends again, and I’ll stop holding it against her, that her family is a buncha sluts and criminals and crazies. So are you gonna say you’re sorry, Julia?”

  “I don’t even like barbeques,” Dave said.

  “Stick your hand inside!” Michael cried.

  “Stick it! Stick it!” Mark added in exactly the same voice.

  Julia knew the smart thing to do, what her parents and brother would want her to do: crawl off this stupid slab before it broke open, apologize, and move on with this hot, shitty day.

  But it was one thing to avoid her friend-turned-enemy; it was another to buckle under her. She didn’t want Larry to see that. He’d think it made Shelly right, that he didn’t deserve decent treatment. If she apologized, Dave Harrison and Charlie Walsh might still act nice, but they’d think less of her. She wouldn’t be an equal anymore. The rest of these kids weren’t strong personalities. They’d internalize the pecking order, that she could be treated badly without repercussion, that she and Larry were the lowest people o
n the block.

  She’d been on good behavior for a long time. Trying to fit in like her parents wanted even though she had crazy curly hair and her accent was Brooklyn, but not the gentrified kind. Even though her clothes weren’t as nice and she didn’t care as much about school. Even though everybody here had met practically at birth, she’d tried to find a place for herself and for Larry. When that stopped working, she hadn’t gone on the offensive. She’d just taken Larry and hidden out in her house. She’d been cool about it. But this was past her limit. No way she was going to say she was sorry. Not after everything Shelly had said and done. Julia did the only thing she could think to do. The bravest and craziest possible thing. She plunged her fist through the knothole.

  “Gee, Shelly. That’s funny. Were you scared? Because it feels just fine to me,” she called as she wiggled her fingers down there, inside the hole.

  The Markles hooted. Charlie held Larry by the shoulders so he didn’t follow Julia, which it looked like he was trying to do. Julia reached deeper. Maybe because of her weight on the slab, vibrations rattled the metal rivets, making a high-pitched ringing.

  Sound-sensitive Larry covered his ears.

  Everybody was watching. Julia plunged her arm in all the way up to her shoulder, her ear against the warm, oil-greasy wood.

  “You’re so stupid. I was kidding,” Shelly said. Except her voice was 100 percent awe.

  “Real, live, human flesh! Come and get it!” Julia said. Her arm itched with a chemical kind of heat, and she felt the displaced air of something else’s movement. Her fingertips trilled with the sensation of something living and breathing that was very close. Her hand wasn’t alone. She should have been worried, but she wasn’t, because everybody looked terrified, and impressed, and spellbound. For once, these Maple Street All-Americans were in awe of ghetto Julia Wilde.

  “Oh no!” She rolled her eyes and drummed her legs against the wobbly slab. “Help! It’s got me!” she cried.

  “Get off!” everybody was shouting, but she didn’t care. This was fun. This was real. Now that she’d done this, nobody had the right to tease her or Larry. Not ever again.