by Leah Konen
And then Davis, a relief from all that. Davis, who stopped the endless loop of profiles and photos, like a stack of résumés for the job of Boyfriend.
I looked at the clock. Not even another minute had passed.
Have a drink wasn’t on the to-do list, but it should be.
Go to dinner with potentially cool new neighbors wasn’t, either.
I headed to the kitchen, poured a finger or so of whiskey, and eyed Dusty, daring him to judge. Then I retrieved the pizza from the fridge and stared at it. Whatever Vera was cooking seemed infinitely more appetizing. Dusty eyed me—not judging, just begging.
Screw it, I thought. I grabbed a piece of crust and tossed it to him. He didn’t usually get people food, but it was okay. Tonight we were both breaking the rules.
FOUR
Watch out for them.
Maggie’s words echoed in my head as I stepped onto Vera’s porch, the planks creaking beneath my weight. The porch lights were muted, one of the bulbs was cracked, and mouse droppings surrounded the front door. I knocked, but nothing happened; after a minute or so, I knocked again. Silence. I peered inside, but it was mostly dark, like no one was home. Squinting, I spotted a chair turned on its side.
What the hell?
I knocked for the third time, waiting, and was about to turn around when the door flew open.
“Hope you weren’t waiting too long,” Vera said, looping a bony arm around my shoulders and leading me into a barely lit foyer. “I stepped out back to sneak a cigarette. Nasty habit, I know. Then I looked at my phone and realized the time. I’m so sorry. I’m an awful host, aren’t I?”
Without waiting for an answer, she flipped on the lights and released me from her grasp. “The electric bills are stupid in an old house, so we try to keep the lights off when we’re not in the room. I like to pretend we’re being old-fashioned and not just cheap.” She said nothing about the turned-over chair, only knelt down and set it right side up. Then she took my bag and hooked it over a rung, shutting the door behind her without bothering to lock it, a decision that made my insides twist. “Anyway, you’re just in time. The lasagna is about to come out of the oven. I hope you’re hungry!”
In the light, I took in the house, large and spacious in all the ways that my cottage was not. A beautiful staircase dominated the foyer, with a living room on one side and a dining room on the other. The smell was strong. Basil and warmth. My mom always made a casserole when it was cold out or I was sick—turkey tetrazzini, my favorite—like her mother had before her and her mother before hers. A whole line of women taking care of each other. A line that had been cut short, the umbilical cord slashed, in an instant—just like that.
I took in Vera, too. She wore a black leotard and a silky charcoal skirt that came down almost to her ankles, an evening take on the athleisure I’d seen earlier. Her feet were sandaled, toenails painted navy blue and slightly chipped. Her ponytail snaked down her back.
I glanced into the living room, where a tufted leather ottoman sat in front of an overstuffed sofa, surrounded by antique furniture, the kind you picked up at estate sales. Dark brown wooden beams stood out from the ceiling, and below me, the hardwood floors were banged up but beautiful. Her home had plenty to be jealous of but little to hate. It was imperfect, far from museumlike, with dust on the baseboards and clutter on every surface: junk mail, water glasses marked with lipstick, shoes tossed into the corner.
And books, books everywhere. Stacked in the hallway, lining the inset shelves in the living room. Art and philosophy (Warhol, Kant); high and low (White Teeth, Twilight); Ta-Nehisi Coates on top of Daphne du Maurier. Books always made me feel safe. Suddenly, I wished I’d taken more from my childhood, could read myself the ones my mother had once read to me.
“John,” Vera yelled up the stairs. “Lucy is here!” Not “Lucy, the neighbor.” Or “Lucy, the woman I told you about.” Just Lucy. She didn’t wait for anyone to bound down the stairs, but led me through the living room, where I detected the faint scent of weed, and into the kitchen in back. Unlike the rest of the house, it was small and cramped, as if whoever had designed the formal rooms in front had forgotten that people actually had to, you know, cook and tacked it on haphazardly. White tiles were everywhere—on the floor, on the backsplash—caked with grout and pasta sauce, one of them cracked all the way across, and a small kitchen island was piled on one side with even more junk mail and on the other with containers of spices and an empty tub of ricotta.
“I brought this over,” I said, retrieving Davis’s good whiskey from my oversize purse and handing it to her. “It’s already opened, which I know is a little gauche, but it’s good—promise.”
Vera’s eyes lit up. “Oh, screw gauche,” she said. “I love gauche, in fact. This is wonderful. Now I’m going to be gauche myself and insist we drink it right now.” Without waiting for my reaction, she pushed the junk mail aside and set the bottle on the island, pulled three glasses out of a weathered cabinet, and grabbed ice from the freezer with her bare hands. When she shut the fridge, I saw a whiteboard on the front, with a to-do list so different from mine, it was nuts. Only one item: Rachel.
Vera pushed a glass at me, poured tall, and I took it gratefully; I tried not to sip too fast.
“John!” she called again. Footsteps thudded from down the hall.
He walked in, and I coughed, choking as a bit of whiskey slipped down the wrong pipe.
Brown hair. Gray-flecked beard. A strong, chiseled jaw. Red plaid short-sleeved shirt, phone tucked inside the chest pocket. And that feeling, the one I’d had when I saw the displaced floorboard. That weight in my gut, telling me things aren’t what they seem. Whether nefarious or benign, I’d become a pro at knowing when there was more to the story. Not from journalism but from Davis.
I was staring at the man from the photos, without question.
“Hi there,” he said, wrapping me in a hug. It caught me so off guard, I spilled whiskey down the back of his shirt.
“Christ.” I pulled away and wiped the edge of the glass with my sleeve. “I didn’t mean to.”
Vera grabbed a linen dish towel and blotted John’s shirt, almost as if on cue. “John’s a hugger,” she said. “I should have warned you.” She leaned in to kiss her husband, but she just barely missed, her lips landing on his cheek instead.
“Guilty as charged,” John said with a laugh. The sound was big and guttural, taking up the scarce space in the tiny room, and it vaguely reminded me of my dad’s. “Is a handshake any better?”
I nodded as I took his hand, which was warm, rough, and flecked with what looked like paint. “I’m usually a hugger, too, it’s just that you caught me by surprise.”
It’s just that five photos of you are tucked away in my underwear drawer.
I gestured to the whiskey. “Please have some before I go any deeper into my hugging history.”
They both laughed. A sugary feeling, one I hadn’t had in a long time, of being appreciated by someone new.
Vera pushed the third glass into John’s hand. “To neighbors!” she cried.
“And new friends,” John said, raising an eyebrow. “Especially ones who bring us good whiskey.”
I lifted the glass to my mouth, and we all drank at once.
* * *
• • •
The lasagna was delicious, with layers of meat and ricotta and sauce and noodles, like my mom used to make. They didn’t even serve a salad, didn’t pretend to be doing anything but eating pasta.
Vera shoved a huge forkful into her mouth as we told her how wonderful the meal was, sauce spreading over her lips. Maybe that was the chink in her perfect-girl armor: She’d never been taught how to eat properly.
Unlike Vera, John was eating his carefully, slicing each noodle into neat little squares. “So Vera said you were from the city?” he said, setting his fork down momentarily. “Let me g
uess—Brooklyn?”
“Yeah,” I said. “How could you tell?”
“Your hair,” Vera interrupted. “All chic but unmanageable. A total Brooklyn do.” She scooped another forkful of lasagna into her mouth and chewed it fiercely, swallowing fast.
John leaned back in his chair, turning to Vera. “So let me get this straight: There’s a difference between Manhattan hair and Brooklyn hair?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, you wouldn’t know.”
I smiled to myself. “Let’s just say one normally involves a flat iron.”
“Isn’t that the truth?” Vera asked, laughing. “And you can pry mine from my cold, dead hands. We’re from the city, too, actually. Only we were never cool enough to live in Brooklyn. We were old fuddies, in the East Village.” She beamed. “So why did you move? Do you have family up here?”
I shook my head, eyes on my plate.
“Where are you from originally?” she asked.
I took a sip of the wine John had opened as soon as we’d sat down. Despite my fears, there was no real reason to lie. “The Pacific Northwest, but I don’t get back there much.”
“That’s where your family is?” Vera pressed.
I swallowed, my throat tightening ever so slightly.
John laid his hand over Vera’s, as if to stop her.
“What?” she asked.
“Don’t be so pushy, V,” he said, giving her hand a squeeze. His voice was kind, unlike Davis’s when he used to correct me. His eyes flitted to mine, crinkling at the corners; somehow, he got it.
Vera wriggled her hand out from beneath his. “I’m not being pushy,” she said. Her fork clanged against the plate. “Wait. Am I?”
“No, no, of course not,” I said instinctively. I trailed my finger along the edge of my plate, then took a deep breath, like I had so many times before. Better to spit it out, one fell swoop. “There was a bad accident my junior year of college,” I said. “I lost both my parents. I’m an only child, so . . .”
Her hand landed on mine, warm and baby-soft, but I flinched at her touch, and she pulled away. “Oh god, how awful,” she said. “I didn’t mean to make you upset.”
For a second, the hole inside me where my parents should have been grew so much, it was like I was made of nothing, as empty as a tossed-aside bottle of wine: hard on the outside, tough to crack, but filled with little more than air, dirty dregs. I dabbed my eyes with my napkin, careful not to disturb the Dermablend, then forced a laugh. “Sorry. I don’t even know why I’m crying.”
I expected to hear the usual half-hearted response—oh, so sorry for bringing it up, I didn’t mean to pry—but to my surprise, John’s eyes clouded. His face sagged, looked suddenly older. Vera bit her lip.
“It doesn’t get any easier, does it?” he asked, once more taking Vera’s hand.
I widened my eyes, willing him to go on.
He cleared his throat. “My parents died a year apart. Lung cancer,” he said. “Mom when I was twenty-six. Dad when I was twenty-seven.”
I shook my head, but didn’t say anything, because I knew there wasn’t a single word in the English language that would suffice. Words were made to describe, to explain, not to console.
“I’m not an only child, but my brother was only nineteen.” John’s eyes penetrated deep. “He’s got schizophrenia, been in a home for years.”
“Christ,” I said for the second time that night.
Vera forced a laugh. “Welcome to the neighborhood! We sure do know how to keep things light.”
John’s head swiveled toward her. “Seriously, though, if I hadn’t met Vera, I don’t know what I would have done.” He turned his hand over, lacing his fingers through hers.
My insides ached; I’d thought the same thing, not so long ago. From the beginning, Davis had felt almost like a healer, my very own emotional balm. He was the family I’d lost, the unconditional love I craved.
Or I’d thought he was, at least.
Vera unlaced her fingers and fiddled with her napkin. “We’re so glad you moved in,” she said, changing the subject. “The woman who lived in your place before, well, she and I were quite close—I guess we all were.” Her eyes briefly caught John’s. “She moved to a place right in town, but even before then . . .” Vera folded her napkin into a tight little square, then shook it, undoing her work. “Anyway, I was afraid the new tenant wouldn’t be cool, but look.” She smiled. “Here you are.” I felt myself blush.
“Should we go out to the gazebo in back?” John asked, clearing his throat and pushing his plate forward. “We’ve still got half a bottle of wine to at least attempt to drink away all our sorrows, and it’s not too hot out.”
“Let’s do,” Vera said, voice light. “And I promise not to ask any more serious questions.”
“I’m going to hold you to that, V,” John said.
When I didn’t object, John scooted his chair back and stood, tossing his napkin onto his plate.
“So were you friends with the previous tenant, too?” I asked him as we squeezed through the doorway to the living room.
“Rachel?” he asked, the name on the whiteboard clinking into place like ice in whiskey. “Of course we were friends,” he said. “She was my neighbor, just like you.”
FIVE
The two of them came to life beneath the string lights of the gazebo.
John looked almost painfully striking, his jaw strong, eyes bright. Nestled beside him, Vera was a siren. A goddess-witch, her hair now free, cascading past her shoulders.
It wasn’t just that they were beautiful. They were the kind of people who made you feel like you were in high school all over again, who took everything you’d been forcing down your throat about body positivity and loving yourself since you were sixteen years old and shot it straight to hell. You could be as beautiful as you told yourself you were, but you would never be them. Cheerful, easy, in love. The kind of people who made you want, desperately, to be liked.
Vera and John can be very charming. But they only really care about themselves.
Vera patted the space beside her, and I sat down as directed, clinging to my glass.
“So what brought you guys up here?” I asked.
Vera smiled, and the two shared a brief conspiratorial look, as if they delighted in telling their story, one chapter in the history of them. “We wanted to open an art gallery forever,” Vera said. “But we could never afford the space in the city, so one day, we decided, let’s do it! I run the day-to-day—I was trained in arts management at Pratt—and John paints in his cabin-slash-studio in the woods. I show his pieces, as well as others’.”
“Wow,” I said. “That sounds so idyllic. It’s one of those things people always talk about doing but never do.”
Vera’s smile faltered, just the tiniest bit, and I wondered if I’d misstepped.
“I’m sure it’s hard leaving the city, though,” I added. “Starting fresh and everything.”
They exchanged a glance, and John took a rather large sip of his wine.
Vera sighed. “It is, yeah. It can be hard to meet people. You’ve got weekenders who do the city and the country, and you’ve got people who were born and raised here. The in-betweeners, like us, we don’t always quite fit in. It’s a little easier if you’re right in the heart of downtown Woodstock, but even a few miles out, it’s different. When we moved here, we were the only people who didn’t grow up on this block. The neighbors didn’t really warm up to us,” she said.
Maggie flashed to mind. It wasn’t that far-fetched to imagine a local woman set in her ways finding a pair of Manhattanites self-centered. Perhaps that’s all there was to it.
I took a sip of wine, desperate to get us back on comfortable ground. “Are there any spots I should know about? Good restaurants? Bars?”
“Bars!” Vera said, laughing. “I hate to br
eak it to you, but the bar scene around here is severely lacking. Nothing like you’d get in the city. Hardly anything’s even open late in Woodstock.”
“There’s Platform,” John offered.
“Platform?”
He nodded. “It’s pretty interesting, actually. Quaint. In an old converted train station, right downtown. Open till two and everything, unlike the other spots, which are pretty much just extensions of restaurants, so it’s kind of the catchall for people in this area.”
I made a mental note. “Do you guys go there a lot?”
Vera laughed, but for a second, it sounded almost bitter, and her eyes caught John’s.
“We used to,” he said cautiously. “But, you know, we’re getting older. Not as tapped into the scene.”
I laughed. “You guys aren’t old.”
Vera bit her lip. “I’m thirty-nine.”
“And I just turned forty,” John added.
“Oh, come on, that’s not old,” I said.
Vera nudged her husband. “Says the girl in her mid-twenties!”
“I’m twenty-eight,” I said, feeling myself blush. Perhaps Vera saw it in the haze of the lights.
“No, no,” she said. “Don’t misunderstand me. You don’t seem overly young or naive or anything, just, I don’t know . . . lovely.” She shrugged. “I know we’re not that old, but it can feel that way sometimes. Anyway, the main reason we don’t go out so much anymore is because we’re trying to watch our finances. John hasn’t Van Gogh’d yet, so his paintings only bring us so much. And we recently had to lay off our gallery assistant and cut our hours.”
“‘Van Gogh’d’?”
John grinned rakishly, turning to Vera. “I thought we agreed to stop sharing our plans for my impending demise with our dinner guests. My god, she’s only just met us.” He arched an eyebrow. “So here’s the thing: After my inclusion in the Whitney Biennial didn’t pan out exactly as I’d hoped, we started joking about how I could disappear, you know, wander off somewhere and get on the map.”
