Thy Neighbor (10 page)

10

The doorbell woke me at noon.

Way, way too early for Dave.

I was lying naked on the couch, entwined in a rope of blanket. Monica had slipped out without rousing me. She'd left a note on the arm of the couch that said, “Thank you.” Below that, in tiny letters, she'd written, “IOU one difficult disclosure.” Next to that she'd left the print of her lips, barely discernable, in ChapStick. Mint ChapStick.

My girl.

The doorbell went again. Just once. Politely.

Definitely not Dave.

I went over to the bay window and peeked around toward the front door.

Couldn't see the face. Just the body and dark brown hair. Long down the back. Neatly combed, thick and shining.

And then a pair of cutoff shorts, scrawny legs, and sneakers.

A kid.

Some Barbie, no doubt, selling candy for her synchronized swim team or collecting for UNICEF.

No thanks.

Ogre in residence. Move on.

She rang again. Once.

Bing
.

Damn it, girlie. Nobody's home. Skip off already.

I waved my hand in a shooing motion.

Come on, come on.

She retreated from the step, looked up at the second floor, then right toward the living room, then left, straight at me in the window. Caught me full on.

Jaybird.

I ducked.

Fuck.

It was Dorris's kid Miriam.

I covered myself with my hands and peeked up.

She waved.

I slid to the floor.

I just flashed you, you little perv, now run. Didn't Mommy warn you about this?

Bing
.

Jesus. Was I going to have to look her in the face?

Bing. Bing
.

Just great.

I grabbed my jeans and T-shirt off the floor and pulled them on roughly, staggering toward the door.

I yanked it open, still falling.

“Whaattt?”

Yep. Miriam. Unfazed.

“Hi, Nick?” she chirped.

“Miriam,” I gasped. “Couldn't you see that no one was home?”

She narrowed her mouth into a line.

“But you are home.”

“Technically, yes. But haven't you ever heard of not being at home even when you're home?”

She looked at me quizzically.

“No.”

“Haven't you seen any old movies?”

She paused to think.

“You mean like
The Matrix
?”

“Uh, no. I mean like
The Magnificent Ambersons
or
Miracle on 34th Street
. Black and white.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah,” she said, as if I'd tripped over the painfully obvious. “I saw
Amistad
in school.”

“No. No, I mean black-and-white film.
It's a Wonderful Life
. Surely, you've seen that?”

She sighed impatiently. “Only every December.”

“Okay. So you like it.”

“I hate it.”

“School again?”

“Yep.” She rolled her eyes. “Boring.”

“Do you ever read?”

“Nope.”

“Can you read?”

“Duhhhh.”

“Right.” I leaned toward her and narrowed the door. “Well, I guess I'm going to have to get one of those signs that says,
DO NOT DISTURB
.”

“Nah,” she said. “Isaac has one of those on his door. I don't even see it anymore.”

I was peeking through a three-inch crack.

“Does your brother beat you?”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

I started to close the door.

“Oh, you mean like at tennis. Yeah, but he still sucks anyway. I just suck more.”

“Nice.”

I opened the crack again to three inches.

“Look. Can you go away?” I said. “I'm tired.”

Her voice turned suddenly plaintive.

“But you said I could come by whenever I wanted.”

“I most certainly did not!”

“Did so.”

“Oh, yeah? When?”

“When you were over a few weeks ago with Dave and everybody was acting like they didn't know each other.”

That had the ring of truth to it. Give her that.

Play dumb, Nicky. Play dumb.

“So your mom and Dave know each other, huh?”

“He's over now. He stayed the night again and he won't leave. I hate him.”

“Hate? Really? That's strong. More or less than
It's a Wonderful Life
?”

“More. Much more.”

“That's bad, then, huh?” I smiled.

She didn't.

“Yeah. It's bad all right.”

“Why?”

She crossed her arms.

“'Cuz they're always loud and shouting and locked in Mommy's bedroom.”

“Bummer,” I said.

She moved closer to the cracked door.

“Can I please come in?”

She put on her best sad eyes.

“Please?”

I had to admit, she looked pretty genuinely upset, unless she was a better actress than her mother. But why would she want to wheedle her way into my house of all places, when most kids, like the Gruber boys, had grown up thinking it was haunted or cursed or both?

“I think he's hurting her,” she said, her voice catching in a sob. “Honest.”

Terrific. This was all I needed. A child in crisis on my doorstep. She knew what I knew. Clearly. Or as much of it as she'd overheard. Poor thing. Christ, a young kid privy to Dave the satyromaniac goating it up with Mommy.

No wonder the full sight of me hadn't flipped her. She was fleeing Caligula.

I had the visual on Dave and Dorris in the act, and it was bad enough, but what would it sound like coming through the walls? And to ten-year-old ears that don't have the first idea how to make sense of the noise? To kids, if they have the misfortune to overhear it, sexual pleasure always sounds like pain, doesn't it? It did to me. And the idea of my parents getting it on, whatever that was, was way too scary to contemplate.

“All right, all right.” I caved. “Come in.”

I swung the door wide. She walked under my arm and crossed into the foyer, wiping her eyes. She was crying in earnest now, snuffling and gasping as she went. I led her into the living room and sat her in Mom's old reading chair. She looked like a doll there, sunk in a suede manger, dwarfed by the high back and the wide, padded arms.

“Do you want a glass of juice?” I said. “I have apple, I think.”

She wiped her nose on her wrist and struggled into a more upright position.

“No, thanks.”

“What about milk? I have that.”

“I'm fine.”

She wiped her wrist on the side of her shorts. In an effort to recover her dignity, she adjusted the front of her shirt.

“Sure?” I asked.

“Yeah, I'm sure. Thanks.”

“Listen,” I said, sitting down on the footstool. I leaned toward her, resting my forearms on my thighs. “Your mom and Dave are just having fun. They're only playing. It's just playing the way adults play.”

Her eyes were on the floor.

“Well, it doesn't sound fun.”

“I know, I know. I thought that, too, when I was your age. But when you're older, you'll understand. Really. Don't worry.”

She looked up, skeptical.

“But she has bruises.”

Christ. Fucking Dave. Perfect. Just perfect.

He was in for a beating on this one. Later.

Definitely later.

But now.

What now?

Think fast. She's waiting. Tell her something. Anything.

“Don't you get bruises sometimes on the playground?” I asked.

Her eyes locked on my face pleadingly, wanting to believe, to believe whatever I would say if it would make the bad feeling go away. She tilted her head to the side, wondering.

“Sometimes, I guess,” she ventured.

“Okay. Well, it's like that. Just a scrape here and there that you get in the course of having fun. Nothing a little time and TLC won't fix.”

“But I don't want more time. I want him to go away.”

She began to cry again, her chest heaving and shuddering.

“Can you make him go away, Nick? Please?”

I knit my fingers and pressed them hard against my mouth so that she wouldn't see me sneer.

Bastard.

I looked away, out the window toward the street, and pressed harder until my teeth dug into my lower lip.

“Where is your brother?” I asked.

“It's his day with Daddy. They're having pizza and playing miniature golf.”

“And you don't go?”

“I go separate. On another day.”

I was desperate to change the subject.

“Separate-
ly
,” I corrected. “You go separate-
ly
.”

“That's what I said. Why are you repeating?”

Not that way, Nicky. Not that way. She's normal. Remember?

“Never mind,” I said.

Was she? Normal? Was this normal? Who knew? Just move. Move on. Move the conversation on. Distract her. Help her. But how? I don't know. I don't know. What the fuck do you say to little girls?

“What do you do on your day?” I said, lamely.

But she was having none of it.

“Stuff.”

“Like what stuff?”

She chewed the nail on her thumb. Looked at it, dissatisfied.

“Just stuff.”

She dropped the hand limply into her lap. I was losing her.

“Miriam, does your Daddy know about Dave?”

Her face darkened.

“No. He said never to tell.”

“Dave said?”

“Yeah. Dave said.”

“Tell what exactly?” I asked. “That he and your mother are seeing each other?”

She shifted uncomfortably in the chair.

“Nothing. Forget it. Sorry.”

I took her by her forearms, too roughly.

“Miriam, look at me. Don't be sorry for telling someone if you think something is wrong.”

She squirmed away from my grasp and fixed her eyes once more on the floor.

“I'm not telling someone.”

She looked at me reproachfully.

“I'm telling you.”

“Okay.” I sighed, sitting back on the footstool. I felt like some predatory shoe salesman. Don't touch.

“But why me?” I said, finally. “Why did you choose me?”

She started to answer, then stopped herself. Then started again.

“I don't know,” she mumbled at last.

She toyed with the cutoff fringe on her shorts, tugging at it where the loose threads were longest and winding it around her finger.

“I . . .”

She closed her eyes tightly and grimaced, as if that would make the mistake disappear.

“You what?”

She hesitated again, censoring.

“You said— You . . . Oh . . . it doesn't matter.”

“It does. What?”

“You chose me. You did,” she blurted. “Why don't you remember?”

She fell back heavily against the chair.

I felt my scalp prickle and go cold.

“What are you talking about, Miriam? What do you mean I chose you? How? When?”

She shook her head violently.

She would say no more.

I looked away again out the window just in time to see a very pissed-off Dorris making her way up the drive. She was wearing a loud silk flower-print bathrobe and leopard mules with black feather tufts on the toes. She was striding angrily, as fast as she could in that attire. She turned sharply onto the walk, cutting the corner of the lawn. She stumbled and swore.

I turned back to Miriam. She was still shaking her head, more slowly now.

The doorbell went.

Miriam started.

“Oh, God. It's him?”

“No, no.” I touched her hand. “It's your mother.”

She pulled away and curled into a ball, pressing herself desperately into the deepest cup of the chair.

“I'm not here. Okay? I'm not here,” she cried.

“Miriam, I can't lie to your mother about where you are. She'll worry.”

“She won't. She'll just be mad. She'll yell. You don't know.”

“It's the same. She'll be mad because she's worried. That's all. C'mon. I'll calm her down, okay?”

“She'll take me back there with
him
. Nick, I don't want to go. I want to stay here with you. Let me stay here with you. I'll be good.”

What the hell did that mean?
I'll be good
?

“You haven't been bad, sweetheart,” I said. “Don't worry. Everything's fine.”

The doorbell went again. Three quick times.

Bing-buh-bing-bing.

She's hopping mad, I thought. This is going to blow. Hard.

I turned to make my way toward the door.

“Please, Nick,” Miriam bawled from behind me.

“It's cool, kid,” I shot back over my shoulder. “I'll deal with it. Relax.”

I opened the door slowly, stern-faced but calm and vaguely condescending. That seemed the right tone for Dorris, who was dressed like a bayou whore but had the glare of a prison camp commandant.

“Is Miriam in there?” she barked.

No hello. No sorry. No beg your pardon.

The gall of the woman. Honestly.

“She's your kid,” I spat. “You tell me. Is she?”

“I'm betting on it,” she snapped.

She shifted her weight and adjusted the belt on her robe, cinching it tighter and pulling the flap closed over her cleavage.

“Oh, really? And why's that?” I said, genuinely surprised.

“Oh, I don't know, because she seems to be under the impression that you're God or something. Where do you think she got that idea?”

“What?” Had she really just said what I'd thought she'd said?

“I have no idea. What are you talking about?”

“Look, you freak, if she's in there, you've got exactly three seconds to turn her over before I yell rape.”

Without thinking, or thinking to stop myself, I said, “As if anyone would believe you.”