The Woman Next Door (8 page)

Gretchen gave the dish a cautious look. In a voice that was quiet and as wary as everything else about her, she said, “That’s nice.”
Why now, why you, why at all?
she might have said.

Feeling fraudulent, Karen shrugged. “I had to make batches for the bake sale at school and I overbought ingredients, so I made extras for Russ’s kids, and extras for
my
kids, and then there was still chocolate left over, and it seemed silly to save it, so I just kept going.”

“Ah,” Gretchen said, though she sounded far from convinced.

Karen gave the dish a little nudge. “You’d be doing me a favor by taking them. I have more than I know what to do with. If they stay in my house, I’ll eat as many as the kids, and they’ll go straight to my hips. You aren’t on a diet or anything, are you? You’re so slim.” It was the perfect excuse to glance at the widow’s middle, which Karen promptly did, but the shirt gave nothing away.

Gretchen took the plate. “I’ve never had to diet. I’m lucky, I guess.”

“I’m envious. You name it, I’ve done it—Atkins, Pritikin, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig. It’s not that I’ve ever been
fat,
just that I’d always look better if I could just lose ten pounds, if you know what I mean. Do you work out?”

Gretchen shook her head.

“I suppose you don’t have to. You’re naturally athletic. You kept Ben going. I really do miss Ben.”

The phone rang. Gretchen said a quiet, “Excuse me,” and went to answer it.

Karen kept an eye on her stomach, but if anything was there, the shirt hid it.

Gretchen said hello, paused, said it again, then hung up the phone.

“Solicitation?” Karen asked. “Boy, this is the hour. Sit down to dinner and
rrrrring,
there they are. If it weren’t for the fact that Jordie’s always getting calls, I’d put on a recording warning solicitors off. You could do that.”

“It wasn’t a solicitor,” Gretchen said. “No one spoke.”

“That can be just as bad. Does it happen often?”

Gretchen thought a minute, shook her head, and turned to put the cookies on the counter. Only then did the shirt brush close enough to her body to tell tales.

“Oh my,” Karen murmured, raising her eyes a second too late.

To her credit, Gretchen didn’t deny it. Rather, she put a hand on her belly. If there had been any doubt left, it was gone then. The bulge was unmistakable.

Still, Karen said, “Are you . . . ?”

Gretchen nodded.

“How far along?”

“Seven months.”

“Seven.”
Karen scrambled to do the figuring. If this was May, seven months would put conception in November. No, October. “You don’t look seven months pregnant.” October would mean that the culprit could as easily be Graham as Lee. Graham had redone the landscaping for Gretchen last fall, and had spent a fair share of time inside with her reviewing the plans. October would also mean that Russ had to be a suspect. By October, his wife would have been at work, the kids back at school, and no one other than Karen around to see what he did. But for Karen, October had been a hellish month, crammed with new-school-season events that kept her away from home much of the day.

“Is not looking it good or bad?” Gretchen asked.

“Good. Definitely good. It means less worry afterward. Not that you’d have any worry at all. Pregnant. Wow.” She paused, giving Gretchen time to remark about the father. When she said nothing, Karen gestured at the paint-spattered shirt. “You’re decorating a nursery.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Navy and yellow?”

Gretchen nodded.

“That’s nice. You can do it the first time around, with no other little ones tugging at you. I loved being pregnant with my first. It was harder after that, especially the last time. Lee wasn’t good about taking the three boys off to do things, so I had to juggle their
schedules around a huge belly. You get bigger with each child. The muscles lose their tone. But I do love having my girl. I don’t care what they say there’s a difference. Genetically. Uh, do you know what it is? Boy or girl?”

Gretchen shook her head.

“I guess you wouldn’t,” Karen reasoned. “They don’t start talking about amniocentesis until a woman is thirty-five. You’re still young. They wouldn’t do an amnio unless there’s cause for worry like the possibility of passing on a congenital disease that runs in your family or in the family of the baby’s father.” Again, she paused. Gretchen remained quiet. “Was this . . .”—she searched for the word with studied nonchalance—“uh ... planned?”

“No. Definitely not.”

Well, that was something, Karen reflected, though it didn’t tell her what she needed to know. “But you want the baby.”

“Oh, yes.”

Karen smiled. “So, what do you think Ben would say?”

“He’d be pleased. He knew I wanted a child.”

“And the baby’s father?” There it was. Finally out. Totally natural. Totally appropriate.

Gretchen let the question hang, arching her brows as if to ask,

What about the baby’s father?

“Is he pleased?” Karen prompted. “He doesn’t know.” Oh Lord. “Will you tell him?” “I’m not sure.”

“Don’t you think he ought to know?” “No. He has other obligations.”

Karen didn’t like the sound of that. It fell too close to home. “And here we all thought you were sleeping alone,” she teased.

Gretchen didn’t crack a smile. “I am,” she said with quiet finality.

Not knowing what to say to that, Karen simply added, “Well, enjoy the cookies.” With a backhanded wave, she left.

But she didn’t head home. She strode straight through her own yard to Russ’s, thinking as she did that Gretchen was the most unfriendly neighbor she’d ever had, that neighbors didn’t answer kind gestures with monosyllabic answers, that the woman had to be guilty of something.

Concerned that the something had to do with her own husband, Karen walked right into the Langes’ kitchen and started in on Russ, who fortunately was alone there.

“She’s seven months pregnant. She just told me so.”

“Seven?” he asked, turning from the sink where he was washing dishes. “Whew. We’ve been kept in the dark.”

“We still are. She wouldn’t say who the father is. Wouldn’t give a hint. You had to have seen something, Russ. You’re here more than any of the rest of us. You have to know something.”

Russ raised soapy hands in denial, distancing himself from the fray. “Not me.”

“Not you being the father?”

“Not me knowing anything.” He pushed up his glasses with the back of his wrist, returned his hands to the water, and scrubbed a pan. “I don’t watch. I don’t see cars out there. Really I don’t, Karen. I have better things to do with my time. Besides, it didn’t have to happen here. She goes out.”

“Not for long.”

“It doesn’t take long.”

Karen wasn’t buying it. “Graham was working with her all fall. He was in her house a lot.”

“Graham loves Amanda. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“But they’re having trouble. You know, the infertility stuff. Things are tense.”

“Not that tense.”

“Then Lee,” Karen said with her heart in her throat. When Russ shot her a fast look, she lowered her voice. “You know about that little dental hygienist he was playing with last year, and you know that I know about her. His latest playmate could be Gretchen.”

“I don’t think so.”

“But you don’t know for sure.”

“I haven’t asked him, if that’s what you mean.” He unstoppered the sink. Soapy water swirled away. “Last I heard, the hygienist was ancient history. He swore he was a reformed man.” He ran water to rinse. “Besides, he wouldn’t fool around with the woman next door, not right under our eyes.”

“Why not? His hygienist worked on my teeth, too.”

“You know what I mean, Karen.”

“Then if it isn’t one of you three guys, who is it?”

“Beats me.”

“You have to have some idea,” Karen pleaded. She wanted to know that it wasn’t Lee. She didn’t really care who it was, as long as it wasn’t her husband.

Russ looked at her then. “Did you ask her directly?”

“I couldn’t. She wasn’t very friendly. I brought her cookies. She didn’t even thank me.”

“She was probably shocked that you’d visit at all. You ladies haven’t been very friendly toward her.”

“We’ve been fine.”

“Fine isn’t friendly.”

“Gretchen isn’t June.”

“So you all keep reminding her.”

“We’ve never said that.”

“Not in words.”

Karen pinched the bridge of her nose. It wasn’t just that
Gretchen wasn’t June. It was that she was thirty-two to Karen’s forty-three, and beautiful to Karen’s mousy. Gretchen was the kind of woman that men went for, especially men in their upper forties who didn’t want to
be
in their upper forties. Lee was forty-seven. And he had a history of fooling around.

Suddenly weary, she let her hand drop. “Well. No use standing here. You won’t tell.”

“I don’t
know”
Russ insisted.

Karen didn’t believe him for a minute, but she knew better than to try to milk a stone. She had dinner in the oven. It would be done soon, and the kids would be hungry. Lee might even be home in time to join them.

Walking back to her own house, she half hoped that he would phone with another of the lame excuses he used—that he was waiting for a call, or was needed in a meeting, or obligated to take his A-team of programmers to dinner because they had just met deadline on a job. Let him give her a line. She welcomed an opportunity to confront him.

Lee was a computer genius. At least, Karen assumed he was a genius, since his company was doing well, but whether the success was due to his own brains or the brains of the people he hired, she didn’t know. She wasn’t into computers, and he discouraged her from using them. He said that if she got involved, they would become a boring couple. He said that he lived and breathed computers at work and didn’t want to talk business at home.

In her most suspicious moments, she wondered if he was hiding something, wondered what she would find if she could turn on the computer in his den and read his e-mail. In her most guilty moments, though, she hated herself for thinking that way. He was her husband. They had been married for seventeen years. When she
had confronted him about the hygienist and threatened to leave, he had broken down in tears and sworn that it was over, that he loved her, Karen, and that he would be faithful.

But the hygienist wasn’t the first. He had sworn that before and broken his word. Karen didn’t know what to believe anymore.

Letting herself in the back door, she found her kitchen empty of all but a neatly set table and the smell of a meaty lasagna. By the time she had fixed a salad, her daughter, Julie—six years old and her little helper—was at her elbow. Karen sliced bread; Julie put the slices in a basket, then, standing on tiptoe, put the basket in the microwave oven.

The twins, Jared and Jon, appeared moments later. They were eight and had identically tousled hair and allergy-stuffed noses that gave their voices a nasal quality. That said, she might not have caught what they said even if their voices had been clear. They had a way of talking to each other that was unintelligible to others. It wasn’t a different language, exactly, just a kind of run-on murmur. They had been communicating with each other that way since they were old enough to talk. A tight twosome everywhere they went, they were as self-reliant as eight-year-olds could be. Though Karen drove them places, cooked their food, cleaned their rooms, and bought their clothes, they made her feel superfluous. That was one of the reasons she cherished Julie. Julie needed her. Julie adored her.

The three younger children were barely seated when Jordie came in. Again—still—Karen was startled when she looked at him. At fifteen, he was finally shooting up, seeming suddenly to be making up for lost time. He was now taller than she was. Between that and the change that puberty had made in his features, he was starting to look so much like a man—like Lee, actually—that Karen never
failed to be jarred. Then again, the jarring was likely because he was in his usual rush, reaching for bread and digging into his lasagna as though he was late. No doubt he had evening plans.

She was losing him. It was so clear to her that he wanted to be anywhere but here, doing things that she couldn’t see, and it made her nervous.

But she couldn’t make him stay home. Boys his age needed to be with their peers. That didn’t mean she was comfortable with how much he was gone from the house, however.

She asked about his day. He mumbled an answer between mouthfuls. She teased him about sounding like the twins, who protested in a way that was perfectly articulate because they chose it to be. When they lapsed into murmurs, she returned to Jordie, but she had barely gotten out a question about baseball practice when Julie howled. She had touched the hot lasagna pan and burned her finger. Karen rushed her to the sink, held the finger under cold water, gave her an ice cube to hold, and guided her back to her chair. By then, Jordie was wolfing down seconds.

She told him to slow down. He said that the guys were already at Sean’s house. She asked what they were up to. He said they were listening to a new CD. She asked if he had finished his homework, and he said he would finish it there. She said she wanted him home by ten, and, with a look of dismay, he asked her why. When she said it was a school night, he said he never went to bed before midnight, so why did he have to be home so early. He insisted that Sean’s parents would be there, that no one was leaving to go anywhere else, and that he
hated
that she didn’t trust him.

Then Lee walked in, all sandy-haired and handsome, long-legged and oh so smooth, and with a genial smile asked what the argument was about.

Annoyed at her husband for being late without a call, for giving
her cause to wonder where he was all the time and then showing up with that innocent smile, she cut a slice of lasagna, shoved it onto a plate, and pushed back from the table to heat it in the microwave. The conversation behind her was increasingly lively, which annoyed her all the more. She was the one who spent her days doing things for and with the children. It was unfair that they were so obviously pleased to see Lee.