Back in the Burbs

by Flynn, Avery

  Shell-shocked, hurting, and lost, I walk out the door, trying to process what in the hell just happened.

  He shuts it behind me without another word.

  I make it halfway across the street, going back to my house, fired up on indignation and pissed-off-ness, muttering “how dare he say that” and “what in the hell was he thinking” and “oh my God could he be more wrong?” before I shove my hands in my pockets and discover the ring again. And realize that he’s right.

  I stop dead in the middle of the street and suck in a deep breath.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  Really, is there anything worse than being the wrong one in an argument where you let your ass hang out there in the wind like a chump? In reality terms, yes, there is, I know that. I don’t have to have a Kim-there’s-people-that-are-dying moment, but in the circle of my little world, it’s pretty cataclysmic.

  Hands fisted at my sides, I throw my head back and let out the mother of all angry groans at the perfect, cloudless sky. The anger in my gut fizzles like Pop Rocks until there’s nothing left but sticky-sweet regret. It isn’t fair of me to demand he do exactly what I want in terms of having a relationship. Have I learned nothing from being with Karl? I have to be able to unbend the stick up my own ass enough to be able to bend with the wind at least a little. Otherwise Nick will never be anything more than my neighbor across the street who makes my heart speed up, my toes curl, and actually gets me to watch (someday anyway) three really long movies about short guys with huge, hairy feet and some possessed jewelry.

  I know what I have to do.

  I have to turn around, go back to Nick’s house, and make a real apology—not the half-hearted, self-protective one I offered up before.

  I’ve lived through trying to mow my jungle of a lawn with the beast. I can do this.

  Turning, I set my shoulders and march back across the street, right up the sidewalk to Nick’s porch, up the stairs, and—finally—with a please-God-don’t-let-me-fuck-it-up-again sent heavenward, I knock on his front door.

  Nick whips open the door. Jaw set, he’s listening to someone on the other end of his phone talk really loudly. His entire body is tense and stress wafts off him in waves as he paces from one end of his living room to the other. Despite the truly epic volume of the person on the other end of the call, I can only catch a few words.

  Trouble.

  Jail time.

  Had enough.

  Need an ambulance.

  He hangs up without a goodbye and stands there in the middle of the room, staring at his phone and looking more alone than I’ve ever seen another human being. Witnessing him like that turns my insides out.

  “It’s my mom.” He rushes out of the house, heading toward his car in the driveway. “I gotta go.”

  I follow at his heels.

  “Not by yourself.” Whatever is waiting for him at the end of this drive, he’s going to need a friend—and whether he likes it or not, that’s going to be me.

  I’m his friend no matter what. That connection between us is stronger than my bullshit—stronger even than the friendship, I am willing to admit to myself, but that’s for figuring out another day. Right now is about being there for Nick the way he’s always been there for me.

  My apology—and it’s going to be a big fucking one—will have to wait. He needs me more than I need to clear my conscience.

  I’ve barely gotten my seat belt clicked when Nick throws the car into reverse and the Mercedes’s tires squeal as he peels out of his driveway. I have no idea where we’re going, but even as he drives like a Texas cheerleader’s mom on the way to take out her daughter’s rival, I know I’m with Nick and I trust him completely.

  His driving? A little less. That has me sending up a few Hail Marys as we merge onto the parkway at light speed and head for his parents’ house and God knows what disaster is waiting for us there.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Nick’s car needs an oh-shit handle. As it is, I’m using all three of my butt muscles to hold on to the supple leather passenger seat, wondering if I missed my opportunity to tell him, to apologize, because it seems like there’s a damn good chance he’s about to launch us into space. He makes a sharp right into a neighborhood so fancy, it has an actual security guard sitting in a little building by the functioning gates instead. Mercifully, Nick slows down as he approaches.

  A woman with the bearing of someone who has spent time in the military and raised at least six boys who caused all kinds of good trouble comes out of the guardhouse.

  Nick unrolls his window. “Hey, Ms. Geraldine.”

  “Mr. Holloway, you going to see your parents?”

  “Yeah,” Nick says with a grimace. “Mom’s about to start World War III.”

  “Knowing your mama, she’s gonna end it, too.” Geraldine chuckles as she writes a note in her clipboard marked Visitors. “Don’t take that turn by Mrs. Lauder’s house too fast; you know she’ll complain.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Nick says.

  Geraldine hits the button that raises the gate and Nick drives through at a slower speed—only making me use two of my butt muscles so I don’t go flying. All I can see are trees with lone driveways disappearing between thick coverage, with names like Springsteen and Bongiovi on the mailboxes, but not a single house in sight.

  Then Nick hooks a left down another densely tree-lined street and hits the brakes so hard, the seat belt is gonna become practically a new layer of skin between my boobs for the foreseeable future.

  He jerks his chin to the right. “The Lauder place.”

  Well, that’s one word for it. I would have called it the Lauder freakin’ estate. It looks like someone took a castle out of Disney Paris and plopped it down in Jersey. It’s huge and stone, and I get to stare at it with my mouth hanging open for about six seconds before the Mercedes rounds the corner and Nick guns it.

  There are more visible homes on this stretch, and all of them have three things in common. One, they are massive places where a person can say “her room’s in the south wing” and it wouldn’t be ironic. Two, the yards are pristine and landscaped to look like formal French gardens. Three, there isn’t a single solitary sign of life in any of them. No kids playing outside. No homeowners puttering in their flower boxes. No cars sitting in the circular driveways.

  Except for one place and, of course, that’s the one that Nick whips the Mercedes into, pulling to a stop right beside a bright canary-yellow old-school Camaro. It has white racing stripes going down the hood, which has a cowl scoop that sticks out from the hood like a nose—or a giant yellow middle finger.

  On the other side of the car stands a short woman who is maybe five-two on a tall day, in her early sixties with mahogany hair cut in a bob that hits her right in the sweet spot of her jawline. She’s surrounded by a handful of people towering over her in full diamonds at ten in the morning, who look about to pop while she has the look of utter boredom and distance I know I’ve seen before. Pivoting in my seat, I look at the man who used the exact same look to great effect on me earlier today.

  “That’s your mom?”

  He lets out a long sigh and turns off the engine. “The one and only Victoria Holloway.”

  “Is that her car?” It’s a monster. A badass, classic muscle-car monster in a loud enough color, the astronauts can probably see it from the space station.

  Nick opens his car door as he says, “I have my suspicions.”

  We get out of the Mercedes and make our way over to the scrum.

  “You know the rules, Vickie. We expect things to be held to a certain level in Woodhill Estates, and you have been keeping this”—the woman points a manicured nail at the Camaro—“thing parked in your driveway for four days. The community rules clearly state all vehicles have to be stored in the garage.”

  “Maude, do
n’t you ever call Limoncello a thing again. She is a fully restored 1967 Chevrolet Camaro with a 6.2 liter LS3 engine with a six-speed transmission, a cold-air intake, speed injectors, and a Brian Tooley stage-three camshaft. And when Limoncello hits the street, she’s going to blow the shingles right off your roof, so treat her with some respect because she deserves it.”

  Maude’s high-boned cheeks turn red with anger. “I don’t care what this thing is, if it’s out here one more hour, I’m going to have it towed.”

  Victoria—I can’t even imagine ever calling this woman Vickie unless I felt like getting my ass kicked—doesn’t make a move toward the other woman. She doesn’t have to. One lift of a single dark eyebrow does the job. Maude takes two big steps back. Who’da thought Maude was smart enough for that?

  “I’d love to see you try, Maude, darling,” Victoria says.

  Wow. Go Victoria.

  Nick clears his throat and each of the four people surrounding his mom turn to look at him. Only Victoria smiles.

  “Now, now, Mrs. Crews,” he says in an aw-shucks tone as he holds up his hands in supplication. “We both know that you have no such authority to step on private property, HOA violation or not. The neighborhood guidelines allow you to file a complaint. I’ll help you with the paperwork.”

  Yeah. That’s the softy hidden underneath all the prickly layers.

  The realization hits me so hard, I nearly stumble back. I’ve never been more wrong about anything—and I’ve been wrong about sooooo much stuff—as I’ve been to think that Nick would ever secretly be hiding a side of himself that’s even on the same stratosphere of douche canoe as my ex. He couldn’t. Not even a little. Nick’s kind and generous and always helping people, even when they probably don’t deserve it—like me. And Maude.

  And I fucked it all up.

  “Now, listen here, young man, don’t talk down to me,” Maude says, planting her hands on her St.-John-pantsuit-encased hips. “I knew you when you were still in diapers.”

  Nick’s mom draws to her full height and shuts Maude down immediately. “Yes, and that’s when we lived in that much smaller home to the east of the golf course. If you like, we could move closer to you again. I understand the Moores to your left are selling soon. Maybe we’ll just get it as an extra place for parties.”

  Maude physically blanches. The other folks start peeling away from the woman who has been the ringleader as well. I’m just a bystander who knows no one, and my stomach is all nervous swirls.

  Nick lets out a deep sigh. “Mo-om, let’s not escalate the situation.” He turns back to Maude and the rest of her now-wary toadies. “I’d like to remind everyone here that I am no longer in diapers and have a law degree now, which is why I feel confident reminding everyone you are standing on private property.”

  “And if you don’t leave,” Victoria says, her tone imperious as she manages to look down her nose at Maude even though the other woman has four inches on her, “I’ll call the cops and we can really create a scene.”

  I step forward, already digging through my purse. “Did you want to borrow my phone?”

  Nick’s mom looks me over, cataloging me from my slightly frizzy topknot to non-matching Rothy’s that I’d thrown on in my hurry to get to Nick and apologize. Whatever she sees, it must check all the right boxes, because she flashes me a smile that is 60 percent approval and 40 percent let’s-go-start-some-shit.

  “You have it handy?” she asks.

  “I’m always here to give the middle finger to HOA rules.” I should show her—or her gardener, really—how to mow a giant SOS in her front yard. With the size of the Holloway acreage, they might be able to see it and her car from space.

  “Ohhhhhhh, I like you.” She holds out her hand. “Let’s do this.”

  “Not quite yet,” Nick interjects, stepping between his mom and me. “I’m sure Maude was getting ready to go without having to involve law enforcement.”

  There’s grumbling, but Maude and the rest disperse. Slowly. Looking back every few steps to shoot Victoria a dirty look.

  Once they are mostly down the driveway and out of earshot, Nick turns to his mom and lowers his voice to a demanding whisper. “You can still visit Limoncello in the garage, Mom.”

  She glances over at the car and looks at it like she’s a kid on Christmas morning who got the pony she was asking Santa for. “But she looks so good out in the sun.”

  “Mom,” Nick says. “Rules are rules, and if you didn’t want to live by them, you should have bought a house in the goddamn country and not the suburbs.”

  Victoria and I make eye contact. I know in that instant that this woman is never going to visit her beloved muscle car in a garage, no matter how high-end it is. She’s going to bring it out in the sunshine and drive it around the neighborhood fast enough that it really hugs the curves, and she’ll flip off Maude every time she drives by the other woman’s house. I kinda love her on sight.

  “Yes, darling boy, whatever you say.” She turns her attention to the retreating bunch of metaphorical pitchfork-bearing villagers. “But it does them good to have a little rebellion once in a while. My dear Maude will likely live longer from the exercise of her outrage. It’s a public service, really, when you think about it.”

  She looks over and winks at me. It’s like getting noticed by a rock star. I’m fucking giddy.

  Grasping Nick’s forearm, I lean in closer to him. “I want to be your mom when I grow up.”

  He rolls his eyes. “God help me, of course you do.”

  “Let’s go inside,” Victoria says as she turns and heads toward the massive double oak doors of the French chateau-style house that could double as a boutique hotel. “Your father no doubt has been watching the whole thing, pretending to not pay the least bit of attention to my antics.”

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  We follow Victoria into the two-story foyer with the double staircase and the no-lie huge chandelier in it, turn right at a butler’s closet, then into a study with dark-stained wood bookshelves that go all the way up past a mezzanine level accessible by an iron circular staircase to the ceiling.

  A man reading a hardback copy of Karpov on Karpov looks up when we walk in. He has bone-white hair, blue eyes that look like they’ve been dipped in the Caribbean, and what seems like a perpetually amused smile that reminds me a lot of Nick’s.

  “Are you done terrorizing the neighbors, dear?” he asks as he closes his book and stands up.

  “Maybe,” Victoria says, lifting her cheek for him to kiss, which he does. “I’ll at least consider it for the moment.”

  He walks over to us. “Hello, son.” Then he holds his hand out to me. “John Holloway, my dear. And how do you know Nick?”

  Nick puts his hand on the small of my back. He doesn’t try to push me forward, not even with the most subtle pressure. “This is Mallory.”

  I shake his dad’s hand, and we all walk over to the love seats positioned facing each other in front of a fireplace big enough to do yoga in.

  We sit down. Me next to Nick on one love seat that definitely looked bigger than it feels now with us hip to hip on it. It’s impossible not to be acutely aware of being this near to him. Do I shift a little so that our thighs line up? Yes. I am weak and I gave in. I’m halfway to forcing myself to readjust when he lifts his arm and lays it across the back of the love seat, his fingertips landing on my shoulder.

  “I’m sure Maude isn’t describing you in a kind way right about now,” John says to his wife. “Are you going to put the car in the garage?”

  Victoria fiddles with the full-service tea set laid out on the table between the love seats.

  “She,” Victoria says, “has a name.”

  “Fine.” John gives his wife an indulgent smile as he toys with the flipped-up end of her bob. “Are you going to put Limoncello into the garage now?”

  She
pours a cup of tea from the pot. “I suppose.” She hands it to Nick. “But I’m waiting until after dark. Maude can sit and stew for a few hours.” She turns to me. “Would you like a cup of tea until it’s time for dinner?”

  I gulp, suddenly aware that I am about to experience something akin to the Spanish Inquisition. “Yes, thank you.”

  She pours a cup and hands it to me, then repeats the process for herself and John while I sit there trying to figure out what in the hell I’m doing. Here I am, meeting Nick’s parents as if we’re serious, when I all but shoved him two-handed out of my life—and he went—drinking tea and basking in the joy of being near him again.

  Victoria adds a splash of cream to her tea and stirs it with what has to be a literal silver spoon. “So, John, I’m thinking that we could add a small track, nothing obnoxious, for Limoncello.”

  Nick and his dad let out matching stifled laughs at the same time. An identical sound coming from two men is kind of adorable. And I can’t help but look between them to spot all the similarities. The easy laugh. The tolerant amusement at Victoria’s troublemaking.

  “An interesting idea,” John says, calm as a cucumber slice on a socialite’s closed eyes. “I’d recommend, though, that you gift Maude a trip to Vail first.”

  “And a fistful of Valium,” Nick adds.

  Victoria sets her spoon down and sighs. “You’re no fun.”

  “And you’re completely outrageous,” he says as if he’s uttered those words sixty-three times a day their entire marriage and gotten a kick out of it each time.

  It reminds me of how Nick looked at me when I was lying in the grass in front of my house after having my ass kicked by the lawn mower. Amused. Interested. Happy. The realization makes my insides go all soft and gooey.