The Good Neighbor

by Amy Sue Nathan

  My readers didn’t feel like strangers. They were people who helped me forget about Bruce and divorce and moving back home. They were the ones who cheered me on when I wrote about blurting out “Mac” at the soccer field. Of course, I’d left out the part about making him up. I’d intended to be honest, but the truth slipped out of my fingers like Noah’s green slime. And it was just as messy.

  Rachel stepped closer to me. It wasn’t my intention to hurt her feelings. My intention was to safeguard my own.

  She twirled her fingers in her short brown curls. Rachel twirled her body when she was happy, her hair when she was not.

  “Well, no matter what his real name is, we don’t have to worry so much now that you have someone to talk to at night, someone to spend time with when Noah’s with Bruce. Someone who knows how great you are. Besides us, I mean. Right?” Rachel looked at Jade.

  “Absolutely.”

  I could’ve tried again, tried harder, but at that moment, I just didn’t want to. Perhaps they didn’t really want to know that I’d conjured up Mac because seeing Bruce with Amber had brought me to my emotional knees. I was sure they didn’t want to know I sometimes slept in Noah’s bed when he was with Bruce, or on the sofa when Noah was home, because a queen-size bed, with its space for two, was overwhelming.

  Jade and Rachel loved me, but they hadn’t let me explain. Worse, they had rearranged my words to meet their needs. I got it. The lie was much prettier than the truth.

  But enough was enough.

  Maybe it was time to exert damage control by pressing the little button on the dashboard that said DELETE FOREVER. Then my words would evaporate, Times Roman letters scattering chaotically. “The blog was really just an experiment. For fun. I’m deleting it. I don’t need a bunch of strangers knowing my business. You’re right.”

  “Don’t you dare! Don’t abandon your readers when they’ve started to trust you. It took me months for Pop Philly to get that many hits per day.” It had tens of thousands now.

  Jade’s phone buzzed. She tapped the screen with her forefinger and scrolled. “Damn. I’ve got to go. I’m a little crazed lately.”

  And I’m a liar dating a make-believe man named after my laptop.

  “You didn’t eat!”

  Jade grabbed a handful of Goldfish crackers out of a bowl. “Seafood.”

  Rachel headed for the Goldfish, too.

  “Rache, stay!”

  “No, you’ll have the whole night to yourself. Seth doesn’t like putting the kids to bed anyway.”

  I had the whole night to myself every Wednesday. Every other weekend I was on my own. I didn’t need, or want, any more alone time. That was another reason I dove online every night after Noah went to sleep—companionship on a whim and a click. Another reason for Mac.

  “What is so important that you have to leave right now?” I shifted my effort to Jade, but she guffawed.

  “You’re not the only one with secrets.”

  Chapter 2

  Pick-Up Sticks

  I WRAPPED MY HANDS around the mug of chamomile tea and lowered my face to the brim. Mrs. Feldman appeared to be waiting for an answer to a question she hadn’t asked. I felt ten again. Maybe twelve.

  I’d sat in this kitchen when I was a young girl, when the appliances were harvest gold and the beverage was orange Kool-Aid, which had left triangle-shaped stains on the sides of my mouth that I liked to pretend were fangs. When Mrs. Feldman served hot chocolate, I had always burnt my tongue reaching for a clump of cocoa at the bottom. I’d eaten pounds of butter cookies from a tin, my favorite being the ones with the cherry in the middle. I’d done homework in this kitchen on many afternoons when my brothers were working alongside our parents at the hardware store.

  Now, almost thirty years later, I was in Mrs. Feldman’s house again, and for the same reason. No one was at home waiting for me.

  “So, that didn’t turn out the way you planned, did it?” Mrs. Feldman’s hands quivered as she refolded an embroidered cloth napkin.

  I imagined she was making a tulip or a swan, but it ended up more like a pocket. She slid her spoon into the opening.

  “I don’t care what Jade said. I’m going to delete the blog when I get home.” I stood up from the table and added three servings of lasagna to Mrs. Feldman’s freezer. I placed another on the top shelf of the fridge. I would check in a few days to see if she’d eaten any of them.

  “You’ll feel better once you straighten this out. You should go home and call them. But no texting. It’s too impersonal.”

  “I’ll talk to Jade later. And I’ll call Rachel tomorrow.”

  “You can go home now and do it.”

  “No, Jade’s working and Rachel goes to bed right after her kids. Anyway, I like being here with you.” I liked that one person knew everything.

  “And I have a freezer full of lasagna to prove it!” Geraldine Feldman may have been eighty-five, but she rolled her eyes like a teenager.

  I folded my napkin, but only came up with what looked like—a folded napkin.

  “You should have seen the looks on their faces. Rachel was bursting at the seams thinking I’d been on a lot of dates and had a boyfriend; it didn’t even seem to register when I said he wasn’t real. Like she didn’t even hear me. Jade was preoccupied with work, as usual, relieved I wasn’t getting back together with Bruce. Oh, and that apparently I wasn’t the shut-in she thought I was.”

  “If they only knew most of your date nights were with me!”

  I threw my napkin across the table. Mrs. Feldman laughed and handed it back to me with a little finger twirl that meant “keep folding.”

  “That whole Mac thing. What was I thinking?”

  “You were thinking it was easier to be alone if no one thought you were alone.”

  “Do you want more tea? Dessert? I brought Jell-O in those little plastic cups.”

  “Don’t change the subject, Elizabeth.” Mrs. Feldman did not believe in nicknames. “What’s done is done. Tell those friends of yours once and for all that you invented a man because it hurt too much to see Bruce with another woman. And that this helped a little.”

  “That’s not true.” It didn’t help at all. “I just got a little carried away.”

  “Getting a little carried away can get you into a lot of trouble.”

  I didn’t want a lecture. I wanted dessert. I stood and cleared the table, washed the dishes with hot, soapy water, then placed them into the dishwasher to be sanitized. If I didn’t do it right, Mrs. Feldman would unload, wash, and reload after I’d left.

  The whole point of my being here was so she didn’t do all that work. (Well, in the beginning that was the whole point.) I’d promised my parents and Mrs. Feldman’s son, Ray, that I would look in on her. It wasn’t hard. Mrs. Feldman and I galloped right back into our pattern of codependence, as if I were six. I knew she needed me now, but looking back on it, she must have needed me then, too. Why else would she have spent hours with me when she could have filled her own empty nest with canasta and committee meetings?

  I refilled Mrs. Feldman’s mug with hot water and sat down at the table with my lukewarm tea. She stared out the kitchen window and sighed. I sighed in reply.

  “It’s not the same as it used to be, but it’s home.”

  As quick as a hiccup, it was no longer about me. Perhaps it never was. I nodded to the rhythm of Mrs. Feldman’s silence. It was dark outside, but the streetlights meant it was never too dark to see Good Street with its parallel-parked cars jammed onto both sides of the narrow road. I was lucky my old neighborhood hadn’t fallen into complete disrepair when I’d arrived, divorced and slightly mortified, on my parents’ doorstep in July. I hadn’t planned for my childhood home to become Noah’s. I hadn’t planned for a lot of things. The house had been languishing on the market for two years, thanks to the economic downturn. So when I moved in, my parents were able to take their IRAs and Social Security to Margate, just three blocks from their favorite South Jersey beach, a
nd right next door to their dreams. They got their new home and I got their—my?—old one. I adopted their second mortgage payments, Dad’s chair, and Mom’s houseplants, which had since gone to ficus and dieffenbachia heaven.

  I had mastered the nuances of redbrick row-house living by the time I was six. So would Noah. I spent my childhood running up and jumping down these cement steps, playing Barbies and jacks on crowded patios. I’d played wallball on every wall and stepball on every step. I’d memorized the insides of my neighbors’ homes and lives. It was more like an urban commune than one block in the center of a middle-class Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood. I didn’t know if all streets had been like my street. My street. Two words that had filled up my childhood heart.

  I laid my hand atop Mrs. Feldman’s, her knuckles jutting against skin that was smooth as hand-washed silk.

  She returned to the kitchen from wherever she had been beyond her gaze. She looked at me and smiled. “It’ll be okay, Elizabeth.”

  I didn’t know if she meant for her or for me. Or for us both.

  In the living room we settled onto the sofa, cups in hand. Mrs. Feldman had eliminated the clear plastic slipcovers in the nineties, and updated the style then, too, but not since. The décor was dated and lush, mixed with IKEA particleboard in varying shades of neutral. Some things old and some things new. It all suited her—and it suited me when I was here. I dusted the bookshelves and tchotchkes. She nagged me to stop as she pointed around the room at spots that I’d missed: on top of the magazines, beneath the lampshade, under a wooden box that looked like a kitschy souvenir pirate’s treasure chest and was locked, perhaps sealed, a ruse against tourists.

  I feigned the need for the bathroom and gave it a one-minute scrubbing—a squirt of toilet cleaner that had been left on the floor, a swish of a paper towel (a brand-new roll) damp with disinfectant under the seat and on all the knobs and handles. A cleaning service came every week, but Mrs. Feldman’s had always been spit-spot and ready for company. If I didn’t do this, she would.

  After my surreptitious clean, which Mrs. Feldman was well aware of, I’d watch TV with her until nine, as I had almost every Wednesday night since July.

  “Hand me the clicker,” she said. “Do you know I remember the first time you brought Bruce home to meet your parents?”

  This was a walk down memory lane I did not want to take. “And you were knocking on our door within two minutes.” I waggled my finger. “You pretended you didn’t know we were there.” Why did she always have to bring up Bruce?

  “He was very handsome. And tall. Tall Jewish men are not a dime a dozen, you know. Even your brothers aren’t that tall.”

  “I know.”

  “You had such a beautiful wedding.”

  “Yep.” The one my parents had taken out a second mortgage to pay for. The one I was paying off. Paying back. Paying for, in more ways than one.

  “We all thought you two were perfect together.”

  “We were wrong.”

  My cell phone rang. I let it go to voice mail. Then it rang again. I let it go to voice mail. It started buzzing again right away.

  “Hello?”

  “Where are you?”

  I mouthed, Bruce, to Mrs. Feldman, and she ambled to the kitchen to give me privacy I didn’t need. “What’s wrong?”

  “Are you home?”

  “No.”

  “Your car is here.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Double-parked.”

  “Where?”

  “Outside your house.”

  I walked to the window, and there he was. Idle. Expectant. “What’s wrong?”

  “Are you alone?”

  Bruce stepped out of the car, dipped into the backseat, and, as if by magic, appeared carrying Noah.

  “No, Bruce, I’m not alone. Is Noah okay?”

  “He’s fine. Does Mrs. Feldman have a key so we can get in?”

  I clicked off my phone as the doorbell rang. Mrs. Feldman answered it before I could stop her. The peril of living in a narrow row house was that it didn’t take long to get from point A or point B to the front door. I glanced at the mirror behind the sofa. I jostled my fingers under and through my hair, smoothed my sweater over my long, still-narrow torso. In walked Bruce. In bounced Noah, more like Tigger than Spider-Man. He and Bruce were catawampus and disheveled.

  “Daddy has a meeting so I need to come hooome!” Noah wiggled, and Bruce set him on the floor in his pajamas. And socks. In January.

  “Say hello to Mrs. Feldman, Noah.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Feldman.” Bruce kissed her on the cheek. I knew that when he wasn’t looking, she’d wipe it off with one of her napkins.

  “Noah, come to the kitchen for a little nosh.” Bruce followed. “No nosh for you.” She pointed to the chair and Bruce sat. The power of the eighty-five-year-old index finger.

  Noah ran over and hugged his surrogate grandmother. She kissed him on the head.

  “Daddy has a meeting in the morning,” Noah repeated, to make sure Mommy heard. He skipped to the kitchen, Mrs. Feldman following.

  “You said you’re not home and this is where you are?” Bruce looked around the living room and toward the kitchen and dining room.

  “I’m not home, Bruce. This”—I opened my arms to the side—“is not where I live.”

  “You said you weren’t alone.”

  “I wasn’t alone. I was watching TV with Mrs. Feldman.” Now he knew I hadn’t had a man over for dinner, or if I had, that it had been a bust. “And earlier, Jade and Rachel came for dinner.” Why did I give him information he didn’t ask for? Bad habits were hard to break.

  “And here I thought I was going to meet your mysterious guy. What’s his name? Oh, right. Mac.”

  “Who’s Mac?”

  I whipped around, startled. Noah stood at the entrance to the living room, Mrs. Feldman’s arm around him. Noah’s mouth was full of cookie. Or Jell-O. Or both, by the look of his chipmunk cheeks.

  Mrs. Feldman patted Noah’s shoulder. “Sweetie, don’t talk with your mouth full.”

  * * *

  Back in my house, Bruce stood in the foyer with his feet apart, digging them in, as if he were trying to create indelible footprints in the new Berber carpet. He bounced a bit. “Great padding.”

  “You didn’t bring Noah home to assess the carpet in my living room. What’s going on?”

  “I got called into a meeting at nine in New York. I need to be on the seven a.m. train, which means I’ll leave at six if I’m going to have time to stop for coffee.”

  His words entered a section of my brain I’d reserved for Bruce blather. I couldn’t care less about the logistics of his workday—not anymore. Yet he told me these things often, maybe as filler, maybe to hear his own voice, maybe because it didn’t occur to him that there was anyone who didn’t care what he did or said. But I did care that he was bailing on Noah and rearranging our arrangement.

  “Fine, whatever. But next time you are summoned on a Noah day, remind them that you are a divorced father with moral and legal obligations.”

  Bruce scrunched his eyebrows together and looked as if he were trying to remember if he’d turned off the stove or left on the iron. Was I talking gibberish or had he simply tuned me out?

  “What if I had gone away overnight?” But we both knew the answer.

  I’d have come home.

  Chapter 3

  Red Light, Green Light

  GOOD PARKING KARMA MEANT good karma in general, so when I pulled into an open parking spot on 12th Street—before eight o’clock on a Saturday evening, yet—I knew I’d made the right decision begging Jade to meet me for dinner and drinks. I’d convince her Mac was imaginary, spend the night at her house, we’d do Sunday brunch at Sabrina’s Café, and I’d spend the day with Jade being a single woman in the city. Not a single mom. Not an ex-wife. Not a guidance counselor, a daughter, or a sister. And not a blogger, though technically, I still was one. Bruce’s change of plans an
d my overbooked days at Liberty High School interfered with my plan to disband the blog. I had allowed my Bizzy Blog to stagnate over the past week and a half and it was still getting traffic, even with no new content, even though I wished the whole thing away. Maybe while the blog was on hold, I’d move forward and forget about it and my imaginary boyfriend.

  I was very ready for this night with a real friend. I pushed aside the thoughts of cyber everything, ex-husband anything, and decided I’d pay for a round of something pink with a high alcohol content. Maybe tonight I’d even meet someone real or Jade would fix me up and I’d never have to sign up for an online dating site again. I knew that would be too easy, but it was fun to think about something being easy for once.

  My phone buzzed. Bruce Silverstein was a pain in the neck. This was BS, indeed.

  “It took you long enough.” I’d left Bruce a message the day before.

  “Mommy?”

  “Oh, hi, honey.” I raised my voice an octave and added always answer the phone sweetly to my mental to-do list. “Getting ready for bed?”

  “Amber is making me a smoothie, but Daddy wants to talk to you.”

  Of course he does. I left a message at a reasonable time, on a reasonable day. He calls back the one weekend night I decide to go into Center City.

  “Okeydoke. I’ll see you tomorrow night. Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  I heard scuffling and then I heard Bruce clear his throat.

  “Did you straighten out the credit-card mix-up?” I asked. “Was it really necessary for the day-care director to tell me my ex-husband’s card on file was declined? She said she left you messages.”

  “I know.”

  “Tell me you straightened this out.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What do you mean not exactly?” I was leaning against the car now, like I did on Good Street in the summers when I watched the big kids play stickball in the middle of the street. Now I watched couples navigating mounds of grime-speckled snow left over from the last storm.