The New Neighbor: A Novel

by Leah Stewart

  I saw in her face that I had changed things, and I was sorry, immediately. “Oh,” I said, “I didn’t . . .” But we had no language to discuss these matters. So I couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “It’s all right,” she said. But she didn’t look at me. “I’m going to turn in.”

  She moved slowly, painfully, over to her bedroll. I wanted to offer commiseration but my tongue throbbed in my mouth, bee-stung. I couldn’t speak. In the midst of horror I’d had one person. Now I couldn’t speak.

  Once upon a time there were two girls. And then I ruined everything.

  Jennifer, you told me I should be glad. I should be glad I’ve lived so much of my life alone, in the tidy confines of solitude. Maybe you were right. Maybe I should be glad.

  Girls’ Night

  Surrounded by people—Megan and six of her numerous friends—Jennifer is doing her best to pretend she belongs there. There, and not at Margaret’s house, helplessly listening. It’s begun to seem to Jennifer that when she goes to that house she enters a fairy tale; Margaret’s story is a spell she’s casting, and at the end, when they reach its awful heart, Jennifer’s transformation will be complete. And what will she be then? She’s thought about quitting but can’t. She needs the money. Behind this need, there’s another, despite her efforts to wish it away: she wants to know. What happened to Margaret. What Margaret knows. But there will be a price for understanding. Bodies upon bodies upon bodies.

  After their session today, Jennifer went home and took a drained accidental nap on the couch. A hand touched her side as she lay there. She could distinguish each component part of the hand, the heel against her back, the palm cupped over the curve of her side, and against her front the pressure of each insistent fingertip—a pressure somewhere between a threat and a caress. She was close enough to the surface of consciousness to be aware of herself curled up on the couch. If she knew where she was, then the hand must be real. She woke, with a jolt of terror, to find herself alone.

  Even now the feeling of the hand on her side remains uncomfortably vivid. The lively talk among the other women is a welcome distraction. They’re at a fancy restaurant at one end of Sewanee, occupying a table in the back. The place is BYOB, and each person, even Jennifer, brought wine, with the result that they have a great many bottles. The waiter opened half, to start, and they all filled their glasses quite full. Even Jennifer, as that seemed simpler than explaining that she doesn’t want any at all.

  It’s their monthly girls’ night. Some of the women say girls’ night with a touch of irony. Some of them say it in a toast-making voice, a pep-rally voice. We’re gonna whoop it up. Tommy used to talk about “the boys.” Going out with the boys. Jennifer remembers riding in the back of a pickup truck, the driver Tommy’s most sober friend. She’s pressed against Tommy. His hand is on her knee. She’s warm where he touches her, cool otherwise. She feels the stereo’s bass in her throat. The wind makes a flag of her hair. We call ourselves girls and boys when we want to go back in time.

  Jennifer is, at Megan’s request, one of two designated drivers; the other—Amanda—is making a great show of taking only the tiniest sips of her wine. “The only good thing about being the designated driver,” she says, “is that next month I don’t have to do it.”

  “Oh, poor Amanda,” Terry says. She leans over and gives Amanda a squeeze. “Don’t you know you don’t need booze to have fun?”

  Megan turns to Jennifer and says, “Thanks again for driving tonight.”

  “Oh, you know,” Jennifer says. “It’s not much of a hardship for me.”

  “Last month it was my turn,” Megan says. “I hate my turn.”

  Erica, who sits on Jennifer’s other side, leans in. “Sebastian’s the one who made the rule.”

  “Yup,” Megan says. “We used to just see who was sober at the end of the night, but he didn’t think that was sufficient.”

  “Ah,” Jennifer says.

  “That’s how he talks when he’s mad at me.” She deepens her voice and says, “That’s insufficient, Megan. That’s insufficient.” Another conversation catches Erica’s attention, and Megan lowers her voice so only Jennifer can hear. “He hates to lose control. Hates big displays in anybody—especially himself. When Ben has a tantrum, he practically turns into an English schoolmaster. A Victorian English schoolmaster.”

  “His upbringing, maybe,” Jennifer offers.

  “Maybe,” Megan says. “His mother’s very sweet, but prone to melancholy, and his father has a temper. So maybe. I sometimes think that he might be more emotional if I were less. You know how that is in a marriage. You have to balance the seesaw.”

  Jennifer nods.

  “But it’s a good rule,” Megan says. “A good rule.” She turns back to the rest of the table and raises both her voice and her glass. “To our drivers, for making this all possible!”

  All the women cry, “To Amanda! To Jennifer!”

  It’s a nice feeling, to be cheered. A smile overtakes Jennifer’s face as she looks at all their happy ones. Smiling, smiling.

  But then in her head she hears Maybe you should be glad. It’s her own voice speaking, or Margaret’s. And then she thinks, I’ll ruin it.

  Megan notices that she’s not talking much, from time to time offering a fact about her to the table or asking a question that’s meant to draw her out. They have a young and handsome waiter who clearly recognizes them and grins with genuine pleasure when he sees them, and as they flirt and banter no one seems to care whether his pleasure is based on their company or their large order and forthcoming generous tip. Why should they care? Why should Jennifer?

  When the meal is over, they tell the waiter they might have dessert, but first they have to polish off some more of this wine. “Good luck,” he says, promising to return shortly. “Godspeed.” They fill their glasses again. When Erica holds the bottle over Jennifer’s original glass, still nearly full, Jennifer covers the top with her hand.

  Megan is drunk. Megan is so drunk that at times she half-leans on Jennifer, and Jennifer assumes that the rest of the time she’s leaning on Amanda, who sits on her other side. Her features have loosened. There’s a dreamy dullness in her eyes. When the waiter brings the dessert menus, Megan puts hers down with a laugh. “I know all your desserts, but I’m too drunk to remember,” she announces cheerfully. “I’m also too drunk to read.” She smiles up at the waiter. “You tell me what to have.”

  “You like chocolate, right?” says the waiter.

  Megan shakes her head slowly from side to side, but means this shake as agreement. “Who doesn’t?” she asks.

  “Okay,” the waiter says. He gives her a knowing nod. “I’ll bring you something good.”

  “I want something amazing,” Megan says.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” the waiter says. “It’s the torte. I’m pretty sure I’ve brought it to you before, and I’m pretty sure you loved it.”

  “Did I?” Megan says, her eyes lingering on him. He moves around the table, taking more orders, and Megan leans into Jennifer and says, “I love him.” She doesn’t say it particularly softly. He’s right there.

  Jennifer shushes her gently, feeling the embarrassment that Megan is spared by the grace of alcohol. “Megan, you cradle robber,” Amanda says as the waiter moves away, and Jennifer laughs along with everyone else. It’s easier if she can just find this funny. “Is that your phone?” she asks, because somewhere in the vicinity something is quacking like a duck.

  “Oh!” Megan laughs, swaying, as she rummages in her bag. “Isn’t that funny? That means it’s Sebastian.” She locates the phone and lifts it so she can see the screen. “Quack, quack,” she says, before she presses answer.

  Jennifer scoots away as much as she can, trying not to eavesdrop. On her other side Erica and Juliana are engaged in a passionate discussion about a TV show that Jennifer doesn’t watch. She tries to look interested anyway.

  Suddenly Megan takes the phone from her ear and thrusts it out int
o the group. She presses the button that puts Sebastian on speakerphone, and they all hear him saying, “Come home now or the next time you want to go out with the girls you can forget it.” They fall silent, staring at the phone.

  “Okay!” Megan shouts, and then she presses end and drops the phone on the table.

  Jennifer is astonished—an open display of hostility from Megan! Already she’s apologizing. “I shouldn’t have done that,” she says.

  “We won’t tell him,” Terry says. “Don’t worry.”

  “No, no, I know,” Megan says. “But he’d hate that I did that.”

  “Oh, who cares,” says Amanda, hitting each word hard as a drum.

  “I don’t want to ruin your good time,” Megan says. “This is not the moment for marital drama. That’s not why we go out.”

  “You’re ruining nothing, Megan,” Juliana says. “There’s no censorship here.”

  The others chime in with encouragement and support. Everything Jennifer never got when she brought up Tommy to her old friends. Her complaints always led to an awkward silence. Maybe because she wasn’t as sweet as Megan. Wasn’t, isn’t, never has been. Maybe she was disconcertingly angry. Maybe she was uncomfortably raw. Maybe she was plain unlikable. Or maybe everybody just really loved Tommy. It comes over her that of course the right analogy isn’t Jennifer to Megan but Jennifer to Sebastian. She keeps thinking about Sebastian’s voice when he said with the girls. The way it sharpened on those words. That was how she used to sound. Tommy on the phone, the happy rumble in the background, her bitter edge as she said, “Out with the boys?” As she made the same fruitless demand: Come home now. She knows exactly how much Sebastian hates with the girls, that cheerful euphemism. Jennifer to Sebastian. Bad guy to bad guy. The one who wants to leave the party is never the favored one.

  “Maybe I should call him back,” Megan says.

  “I can take you home if you want,” Jennifer says. “And then come back for everyone else.”

  “No,” several of the others say. Erica, drunk and forceful, slaps the palm of her hand on the table. “Fuck him,” she says.

  “Y’all, don’t hold this against him,” Megan says. “He’s just looking out for me.”

  “Megan, you’re a saint,” Terry says. “I wouldn’t be that nice about it.”

  Erica, clearly relishing the freedom of alcoholic truth-telling, says, “He’s a dick.”

  Megan bows her head, torn between accepting the compliments and resisting this characterization of the man she’s married to. Jennifer sits in silent struggle against her own dark thoughts, but the rest of them continue to vilify Sebastian and sanctify Megan and in the end Megan gives in to the warm bath of affirmation and announces that she’ll stay. This is greeted by cheering and more pouring of wine. Erica says, “To one more round!” and Amanda adds, “To freedom!” and they laugh and clink glasses and in their triumph it never occurs to them that what they’re toasting is selfish hedonism and the willful disregard of its consequences.

  It occurs to Jennifer, of course. But she is toasting, too. Because she doesn’t want to be the person Tommy made, the person Margaret’s spell will make her, wants to will into existence the possibility that she can be different. What the other women do she will do, so that no one looking at the group could tell her apart from the rest of them. So when Erica rounds on her suddenly, points at her vigorously, and says, “Oh my God! I keep forgetting you’re a massage therapist! I should make an appointment with you!” Jennifer points back, matches her tone of drunken epiphany, and says, “You should!” Though of course she isn’t drunk. But where’s the harm in pretending?

  “Get out your calendar,” Erica says, with a grand gesture of command. She produces her own phone. “We’ll make an appointment right now.”

  “Appointment for what?” Samantha asks.

  “For massage!” Erica says. “Remember?”

  “That’s right!” Samantha says. “I want an appointment, too!”

  Suddenly they all want appointments. Each of them, phone in hand, saying, What about this day, what about that, oh—you took the time I wanted! No, no, that’s okay, I’ll just hold it against you, don’t worry at all. Jennifer schedules them all, with a reckless disregard for times she usually devotes to Margaret. She’ll worry about that later. Or she won’t worry at all. At the thought of slowing the pace of Margaret’s revelations, she feels a lightening of spirit. Maybe she won’t worry at all.

  The only person who doesn’t make an appointment is Megan. Megan sits quietly polishing off her wine during the general hilarity. Jennifer feels a sharp awareness of her silence, even as she schedules the others and laughs at their jokes. Why doesn’t Megan want a massage?

  “All right,” Amanda says as they all holster their phones. “That was a job of work.”

  “A job of work?” Terry repeats. “A job of work?”

  “It’s an expression,” Amanda says. “It means that was hard work.”

  “I know what it means. I’ve just never heard it outside of an old Southern novel.”

  “Is that a Southern expression?” Juliana asks.

  “It sounds like it should be,” Amanda says. “But you know, some of the terms we think of as so Southern, like really antiquated-sounding ones that have hung on in Appalachia, are really holdouts from British English. Like reckon, for instance, that was—”

  “Jennifer can tell what you’re feeling,” Megan interrupts. “Just from touching you.”

  All heads swivel toward Jennifer. “Really?” Juliana says.

  “Well, no, not exactly,” Jennifer says. “Not like a psychic.”

  “How then?” Samantha asks.

  “Explain it to them,” Megan says, waving her hand. Her eyes have an unfocused look that Jennifer doesn’t want to see. That she wants to pretend isn’t there. She repeats what she told Megan: that emotion lives in the body, and so does memory. A betrayal in the right shoulder, guilt in the ball of the foot.

  “So when you give us massages,” Amanda says, “you’ll be able to tell us about our emotional state?”

  “Probably,” Jennifer says. “If you want me to. Yes.”

  “Oh, that’s intriguing,” Amanda says. “You might tell me things I don’t know.”

  “Yes,” Jennifer says, “but usually once I say it people recognize it.”

  “Oh!” Erica says. “This is going to be like a treasure hunt.” She turns her shoulder toward Jennifer and points. “This knot right here. What does it mean?”

  Jennifer’s getting nervous. She doesn’t want to be called upon to perform parlor tricks. She doesn’t want to expose anyone’s pain. “Now, now,” she says, in a mock-scold, “no freebies.” Then, to show her goodwill, she puts her hand on Erica’s shoulder and works the knot a little.

  “Ohhhhh,” Erica says, a noise of painful pleasure.

  “Don’t worry,” Jennifer says, patting Erica before removing her hand. “We’ll get that out.”

  “Can my appointment be right now?” Erica asks, and then someone else jokes about laying Erica out on the table and what the management would say, and how much they’d have to tip, and where the cute waiter is with the promised incredible desserts. To Jennifer’s relief the conversation spirals away from her.

  Later, after the passengers of Jennifer’s car have said goodbye to the passengers of Amanda’s, Megan leans against Jennifer and says, “What do you sense about me?”

  And because Jennifer is determined not to ruin it, she puts her arm around Megan, squeezes her, and says, “That you’re wonderful,” and not That you’re very sad.

  I Think I’ll Go

  She tried for a while to pretend I hadn’t kissed her. Kay, I mean. We both tried to pretend. But there had been a perfect intimacy between us, and now it was gone. She was no longer completely herself with me, nor I with her. Now our friendship was a role to play, the part of Kay, the part of Maggie Jean. Being in her company was like mourning a dead person while sitting down to dinner with her gh
ost.

  There were exceptions. Of course there were. Nothing is ever one thing all the time. Nothing is consistent, least of all what a person feels. That morning in Zietz, in Germany, Kay in the blooming garden. That was an exception. She tucked a flower into my hair, touching me like she wasn’t afraid, and I wanted to weep, I wanted to catch her hands and press them to my mouth, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t, and still I was so glad. By the time we’d crossed the border from France I’d been weary to the bone, and sick to death of my weariness, discouraged by my own discouragement. I remember rattling along in the back of a truck, past white flags flying in some smashed-flat town, and thinking with some disgust that I, too, had surrendered. Here was the end of something. Dead cattle and smashed-up towns. Here were the dragon teeth and pillboxes of the Siegfried Line, long tank traps, fields just dotted with foxholes. Here were the white flags flying, and in one little village a town crier calling the people together with a bell.

  Once we passed two little girls playing in a front yard, and they were so absorbed in what they were doing they didn’t notice us until we were almost upon them, and when they did they froze. Just froze, and stood there, like people in a painting. A woman—their mother—hurried out of the house. She didn’t look at us, as though if she didn’t look we wouldn’t be there. She grabbed each girl by an arm and tugged them backward toward the house. We were rolling past as this happened. I leaned so far out of the truck to watch them, Kay caught hold of my sleeve. I saw a child’s hand, still extended, and then it disappeared, and the door shut, and they were gone, and so were we. The whole thing seemed to happen without a sound, like a scene from a silent movie. “Be careful,” Kay said. “Don’t want to lose you.”

  I don’t know if she really said that. I like to remember that’s what she said.

  Despite everything, Germany was beautiful.

  The things I remember. The blooming garden. I thought maybe after that things would go back to normal with Kay. But they did and they didn’t. One night at two or three in the morning we were alone on a ward when the klaxon sounded. We’d been told if this happened we were to make for the basement, but we were on a ward where none of the patients could be moved. We ran down the ward putting steel pots and helmets on the patients, whatever we could find, and then we just crouched in a corner, put our helmets on, and pretended our whole bodies fit inside them instead of just our heads. What a store of faith we put in those helmets. We didn’t have anything else.