The Good Neighbor

by Amy Sue Nathan

  Welcome to Philly over Forty, your one-stop shop for all things dating-over-forty. I’m your host—the one in the cap, the one you can’t really see. That’s because I work with kids, have a kid of my own, and an ex-husband of my own to boot. You don’t have to be a single parent to get what that means. It means there’s a line that I won’t cross. But that doesn’t mean I won’t share. I will. I’ll share my dating experiences. (Like the guy who asked me to pay for my croissant because “the date was for coffee.”) I’ll share my notes on the best places to go. (Good Dog Bar’s happy-hour vibe is reassuring for the nervous dater.) And the worst. (I’ve never been to Wedge + Fig when at least one couple wasn’t celebrating an anniversary.) Mostly, though, I’ll share the madness, the angst, and that euphoria that accompanies dating over forty in our city and beyond.

  Dating is hard. But you don’t have to go it alone.

  I blinked. I blinked again. This might actually work. I might actually be able to pull this off. But that was just the intro. How was I going to write about a weekend date I didn’t go on with a boyfriend I didn’t have? Had I misjudged my capacity to lie? And why on earth would that be a bad thing?

  I may not have had an idea for a blog post, but I did have ideas about Noah. We were together in the house, breathing the same air, yet—stellar mother that I was—I had plugged Noah into a movie in my bedroom along with a peanut butter sandwich, sliced apples, and a snack-size Milky Way. A bed-top picnic instead of a playdate. I had ignored the lure of the snow, the tug of the sky, the compulsion to be together instead of apart. I might as well have been in California with Bruce and Amber, or have been my mother, who spent most evenings of my childhood lounging on our sofa, wearing a housecoat. My dad would be doing paperwork. I never knew what that was. My parents had been close at hand but far away. I sat on my sofa and stared at my lap. And my yoga pants. Oh no. Yoga pants were the new housecoats.

  “Noah? Want to play outside with Mommy?” I yelled as I walked to the foot of the staircase. He still coveted our time together. I knew I always would.

  I yelled it again. Nothing. Those yellow minions had latched onto his brain and stolen his attention. Or more likely, they’d allowed him to forget that he hadn’t talked to Bruce the night before. Still, I couldn’t believe that the promise of a snowball fight and snow angels would go unheeded.

  I was halfway up the stairs when Noah appeared before me wearing so many layers of clothing he looked like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

  He’d heard me loud and clear.

  I was sure our block was the last to be plowed, but I liked the way the snow made the street bright as day at night, and how it covered the sidewalk’s imperfections always. The cement had so many cracks that as a child I wondered if there weren’t broken mothers’ backs all over our neighborhood.

  I still labeled each house on Good Street with its long-ago residents’ names. The house right across the street was the Mason house. I looked toward the Baker, Elliot, and DiNardo houses, then toward the Roberts, Maxwell, and Perry houses at the far end of the street. All those kids were grown, like me, and the families had long ago left for the shore, the suburbs, or Florida. But their ghostly presence warmed me. If I stared long enough at any front door and closed my one eye (with one eye on Noah), I could see my friends at various ages as if they’d never left. I could hear their parents calling them in for dinner through screen doors and out of windows. But they hadn’t stayed like Mrs. Feldman, or come back, like me. We were the old-timers, the resident minders of memories.

  “Uncle Ethan and Uncle Eddie built an igloo one year for me.” Having older brothers had been wonderful. Sometimes.

  “What’s an igloo?”

  A cooler that holds beer. “Where Eskimos live.” Now I was perpetuating ethnic stereotypes.

  “Where do pirates live?” Noah’s speech was still speckled with tricky r’s. “Where do pirates live?” He said it extra slow so that I would both hear and understand.

  “Probably on their ships.”

  “Then I better build some beds.”

  Noah smiled at me and crinkled his runny nose. I held out a tissue and he waddled over; I wiped, then joined in the building.

  Soon we were surrounded by new friends—none other than Snow Captain Hook and Snow Mr. Smee, who donned eye patches, bandannas, and even a plastic hook stuck into the spot usually reserved for an arm branch. Our patio became the ship, the same way it had been the house or the school or the restaurant when I was growing up. We had a real American flag and a brown cardboard plank, and the ship’s steering wheel was an aluminum-foil pizza pan. We stood our broom mast in the corner against the railing, near the beds that we’d made out of lawn chairs.

  Noah’s lips were still pink when I checked beneath his scarf. We had time to finish our pirate scene before we turned to pillars of ice.

  I watched my boy, his deliberate movements packing snow in small handfuls into divots on the side of Snow Smee. Then Noah stepped back, far enough to see the pirates, the ship, the plank, the flag. He smiled so wide his eyes closed. Perhaps he was just imprinting the memory, too special to let go. I closed my eyes as well.

  Like a little old lady who pulls up her chair to the edge of the water at the beach, just waiting for the edges of a spent wave to wash over her feet, I sat and waited for Noah to finish with his boy touches. An extra-big nose for Snow Hook and some muscles. I wiggled my toes and willed them to warm, as my thoughts filtered back to me and Mac. He was the kind of guy who’d build snowmen. Or he would be if he existed. I could make that part of our magical imaginary weekend. I’d make it fabulous. That would be fun to write. Although as Noah threw his wet, frozen arms around my neck, I knew nothing could be better than what I was doing right now.

  A white Mercedes sedan drove up the street and stopped in front of my house. Mrs. Feldman’s house. Same place. Then her front door opened. I hadn’t even thought to invite her to sit with me in the snow, to direct snow-pirate and snow-ship building. Would she have liked that? Sitting in the snow wasn’t something my mother would have done. But then, my mother was not Mrs. Feldman. She emerged bundled in faux-fur-topped boots and a long quilted coat. Was this another of her ladies’ days out? A book club? A movie? She had a better social life than I did.

  “You’ve been busy,” she said, grasping the metal railing.

  I rose to help her down our shared steps. In the middle of the street, someone emerged from the driver’s side of the car.

  “You okay, Ma?”

  “Ray, I’m fine.” The Feldman boys were older than my brothers, so I knew them only as visitors as I was growing up. But I did look at family photos as I dusted the frames on occasion. The photos had given me some insight into their lives; I made up the rest. I was good at that.

  The passenger door opened and Ray’s wife, Meredith, stepped out. She walked to the sidewalk without glancing back toward her husband.

  Mrs. Feldman held my arm tight as we descended the steps.

  “We have twelve-thirty reservations.”

  Ray said it loud and Meredith shook her head. Show-off. Just like in the photos where he flexed his muscles or held up trophies. Mrs. Feldman looked at me and whispered loud enough for Ray to hear, “Because if I don’t eat a fancy brunch, I will starve.”

  Was it a special occasion and I’d forgotten? Mrs. Feldman’s birthday was near mine, in March. I knew she’d be eighty-six, but the end of January seemed early for a celebration. And Ray didn’t seem the type to splurge on a random Sunday.

  He looked away, avoiding my laser-beam glance. I walked Mrs. Feldman to Meredith, not letting go until the two women linked arms. And like a parent giving away a bride, I prayed she was in loving hands.

  “You look pretty, Ma,” Ray said.

  Meredith walked Mrs. Feldman to the car, and Ray came around and opened the door to the backseat.

  “Have a nice time today, Mrs. Feldman!”

  She turned to me and shook her head. Mrs. Feldman wanted me t
o call her Geraldine.

  But there was just something about Mrs. Feldman.

  Chapter 7

  Mousetrap

  WITH MY MATERNAL WELL filled, my limbs thawed, and Noah playing Angry Birds on my laptop, I felt a lightening, an ease of tension in my shoulders. Then I checked my phone. Six texts and two missed voice mails from Jade.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Outside playing with Noah.”

  “In this weather?”

  “It was fun.”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll take your word for it. Do you have a little time now?”

  Jade respected the responsibilities of parenting, I knew that. She built blanket forts that put Boy Scouts to shame, read more books aloud than a librarian on NoDoz. She knew the value of the latest toy and the value of a roll-around snuggle on the floor. But she didn’t pretend to understand the unfettered joy of motherhood or the pangs of parenting guilt. She didn’t want to.

  “I’m here now,” I said as I side-hopped onto the kitchen counter. It was my go-to spot for talking on the phone since the days when the cord only reached that far. “What’s on fire?”

  “I wanted to explain more about what’s going on with P-O-F.”

  “P-O-F?”

  “Philly over Forty?”

  Jade loved acronyms as much as she hated air quotes.

  I wished for a phone cord to twist away my nerves. “Tell me everything I need to know.”

  “I needed an influx of cash for Pop Philly and Drew provided it.”

  “The guy from Meema’s? Why?” Coat Guy was a cash cow?

  “Because we’re friends. I met him years ago and just gave him a call. I thought it would be a good fit, and it was—or it will be.”

  “I’m not taking your money if things are this bad.”

  “They’re not awful. Not yet. It’s just taking a lot more money than I thought it would to upgrade and hire really good people. Drew’s money buys him ad space, and the cash helps me. It’s a win-win. Plus, he has a lot of good ideas, so he’s like an unofficial adviser.”

  Jade talked faster than I could think. I let my thoughts catch up to her words. I knew the site had ads, but I hadn’t given much thought as to how Pop Philly paid for itself, for Jade, for me. For anything.

  “So, these ads…” I said.

  “Are going to sponsor P-O-F.”

  Coat Guy was my sugar daddy.

  “The more people who see the ads, the more valuable you and Pop Philly are to Drew and to other potential advertisers. So, you need to engage your readers. Let them get to know you, to get inside your life.”

  I felt the pounding of love for my friend. I felt contempt for myself.

  “I just want to write the blog posts, J.” I shimmied off the counter and walked around in a circle. “I thought you said I got to do this on my own time and post three times a week. That’s not a big commitment.”

  “Things have changed a bit, but you’ll be fine, I promise.”

  “What things have changed?”

  “I hoped this would be big, Pea, but I didn’t realize how big it could be, and Drew agrees. Launching this new section of Pop Philly gives us a whole new reach. It’s not just about dating and it’s not just about you and Mac. It’s about the city from a new angle. It’s exciting, it’s going to open doors. You should be excited! Today’s weekend traffic has been a third higher than usual. There are singles in their forties who are parents, and some who aren’t parents. Some are divorced, some never married. What do they all have in common? They all want to know how to navigate the wild frontier of dating over forty. And you’re going to show them!” Jade stopped talking. “You didn’t realize how many people were going to see this, did you? Or how important it was?”

  “I know how big Pop Philly is, Jade.” I didn’t know, but I knew. I knew that Jade was listed as one of Philly magazine’s most eligible entrepreneurs under forty, and as one of B’nai B’rith’s Forty Under Forty. And I knew that the teachers and staff at Liberty were smitten with Pop Philly as soon as I mentioned—okay, bragged—that my best friend started it. “But this is not what I signed up for. This is not what we talked about.” How much had we both had to drink that night at Meema’s? “I thought I was supposed to write about my dates and being a single mom who’s dating. Maybe parcel out bits of advice. Maybe a recipe or two. And be anonymous. Don’t forget anonymous.”

  “Anonymous doesn’t cancel out popular. Some of the most popular bloggers out there started out anonymous, or with a pseudonym. And it didn’t start with blogging. Think about Dear Abby!”

  “I’m not just starting out anonymous. I’m staying anonymous.”

  “Fine. I need to keep Drew happy. Because the stakes just got higher.”

  “For who?”

  “For everyone! I hope you’re taking this seriously because it’s going to be seriously big.”

  “Well, talking about big, I was thinking of sort of changing the focus of the blog a little bit. I mean, I saw the logo and that photo of me you dug up, but—”

  “Impossible.”

  “What do you mean, impossible?”

  “I promised an always-introspective, sometimes hot, look into the world of dating in our forties—and he committed to thousands of dollars’ worth of ads for the next three months. So, yes, impossible.”

  “Hot? I’m supposed to write hot?”

  “Hey, if your dates with Mac aren’t hot, that’s not my fault. Drew knows that.”

  My insides rippled. I said nothing.

  “It was a joke, Pea. Oh my God, are you okay? Did something happen with Mac? If it did, don’t tell me. Just find a new guy really fast.” She chuckled.

  Maybe I’ll name this one Dell.

  “Is this friend Jade or boss Jade?” Apparently there was a difference.

  “It’s just me. What happened? Do you still want to do this? Let me know if I need to dial 1-888-LAWMANN.” She sang the jingle that went along with tacky TV commercials.

  “What does Andrew Mann have to do with this?” He was “the Delaware Valley’s number one divorce lawyer,” with billboards on I-95 to prove it.

  “What do you mean, what does he have to do with it? I just explained it to you.”

  “Drew is Andrew Mann?” Now I knew why he looked familiar.

  “I thought you knew.”

  “If I had, I wouldn’t have let him hold my coat.”

  * * *

  Mrs. Feldman was coming for Sunday dinner. My version of Sunday dinner. Pizza. I’d invited her before, but she’d always declined. You’d think she needed to ride the bus, get a transfer, hop on the el, and then walk six blocks. But, since I’d moved back, we always seemed to talk at her house. I was thrilled she’d agreed to come over. I shuddered with giddiness and flitted around as if expecting a date, not my next-door neighbor.

  We all used the smallest-size paper-towel squares and patted away the grease atop our pizza slices. My phone vibrated in my pocket and I ignored it. When it didn’t beep to indicate a message had been left, I knew it wasn’t important. It could have been Bruce, but I wasn’t going to ruin our pizza party. Not yet.

  We folded the slices in half and each took a bite. Grease funneled out of Noah’s slice; I took it from him and dried the top.

  “I think that’s supposed to be there. Or they wouldn’t put it there.” His speech was clearer sometimes, more confident. The improvements were intermittent, yet present.

  “If you wipe it away, you’ll have room for dessert,” Mrs. Feldman said.

  Noah took the paper towel and dabbed until the glistening cheese had a matte finish. And lint.

  I allowed Noah to take the pizza into the living room and sit on my dad’s recliner with a tray on his lap. It was nice to have a relaxing Sunday dinner after a busy day, and what would be a busy night. I slid another piece of pizza onto my plate. “Thank you for coming over here tonight. Noah and I had a busy day, and I know he likes just being able to hang out here. Not that he’s not co
mfortable at your house, he is. And I am.”

  “You don’t have to explain. There’s no place like home.”

  She winked at me. Sharp as a tack, that one. Her cliché tendencies were rubbing off on me and I didn’t mind.

  “What’s it like being home, Elizabeth? Living in the house where you were a little girl?”

  “I can’t really compare it to anything. It just is.” Until now I had pushed aside the shame of moving back home and replaced it with optimism. “It was either move here or find an apartment somewhere unfamiliar. The elementary school is still good, but I thought…” My thoughts wandered out the window and onto the empty sidewalk. “I thought it would be more like it was when I grew up—with lots of kids for Noah to play with. With neighbors sitting outside on the steps at night—I mean, not now, but in the fall. I didn’t realize then how abandoned it would seem. I was too busy moving in and getting the new carpet, painting, figuring out how it would all work. It’s not that I don’t like being here. It’s so familiar, I guess. I don’t think about it.” I kept putting my foot right into my mouth along with the pizza. “I do think about you. I’m glad you’re here. That makes up for a lot.”

  “I think you’re brave. Going back can sometimes feel like going backwards. But you seem to be moving forward somewhat. I’m not sure I could’ve done that.”

  “Done what?” We cleared the table and threw away the paper plates. I kept my back to her, knowing she didn’t like to answer questions about herself. I kept moving around the kitchen, wiping the counter, pretending I wasn’t interested that much. Maybe she’d keep talking.

  “Girls in my day didn’t do all the things you girls do now.”