The Good Neighbor

by Amy Sue Nathan

  “Right.”

  “Look, I’m sorry about this, but it will all work out. For you and for us. Do you want Holden to publish the post?”

  If I let Holden push the magic PUBLISH button, my troubles would end. Although new ones would likely begin.

  “No! Don’t publish it. It’s not what you think.”

  “You’d be surprised what I’m thinking, Pea.”

  Maybe not.

  Chapter 20

  Monkey in the Middle

  RACHEL ARRIVED WITH FOUR kids and two pizzas. We settled all the kids in the kitchen and ourselves in the living room.

  “Sit with me,” Rachel said, patting my sofa.

  Had Jade told her I’d broken up with Mac?

  “I have to tell you something,” she said.

  This wasn’t about me at all.

  “I met Jeremy for coffee.”

  “Okay,” I said softly and evenly, while my heart rate increased. “What does that mean, exactly?”

  “It means having coffee!” Rachel twirled a curl near her ear with one finger, her eyes cast toward the front window. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing. But I wanted something to happen.”

  “Wanting is different from doing. But you’re sure nothing happened?”

  Rachel nodded. “I’m sure. But does that matter?”

  “Of course it matters.”

  “I’m not sure how to stop.”

  “No more Facebook photos. No more talking or texting. If you have to see him, you better have a lot of other people around. Whatever’s wrong, this isn’t going to help you fix it.”

  The past had wriggled through a crack in the universe called the Internet and landed where it didn’t belong. In the present.

  “It was so easy. So fun. So innocent. Until it wasn’t.”

  I did not want details. “I understand.” Rachel was right. It was easy and innocent when everything was contained online—or it seemed so—but then the online life seeped into real life.

  She sat up, looked at me, and waited. “What did you do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You said you understand. What did you do?”

  It was now or never. Plus, telling her would alleviate some of her guilt. Not all of it, I hoped, but some.

  “I made Mac up. To Bruce, on my blog, to you, to Jade, to everyone.”

  “Yes, I know. His name’s not Mac. At this point I’m figuring I’ll never know his real name—”

  “No, listen to me. I haven’t been on a date in months.”

  “Sure you have. Just last week—”

  “I didn’t. I lied.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “No, pay attention. There was never any Mac.”

  “So you didn’t break up?”

  “No! There was no one to break up with!” Jade had told her about the breakup. Could this get any more complicated? Stupid question. Of course it could.

  “So you never really dated this guy who’s name isn’t Mac?”

  This version of Who’s on First wasn’t funny. “He’s imaginary, Rache.” Then I knew how to make her understand. The only thing that held no ambiguity. “Mac is like Tiny Maggie.”

  I watched as realization settled over her. I watched as her chin dropped; her mouth opened as wide as it could. Tiny Maggie was Rachel’s one-inch-tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed imaginary friend who lived under her bed in a shoebox and slept on a bed made of dominoes until Rachel was six.

  I said nothing and cupped my hand, the way Rachel insisted upon every time she’d “handed me” Tiny Maggie.

  “Wow.” It wasn’t the good kind of wow. “I need a minute to wrap my head around this. I was so happy for you. And you know, Jade’s really worried about you.”

  I felt smaller than Tiny Maggie.

  We chased the kids from the kitchen, but didn’t clean the dishes or wrap the leftovers. Instead, I stared out the window and talked, while Rachel listened. Then I sat at the table. Rachel talked and I listened. It was past everyone’s bedtime when we were finished.

  “We’re a mess,” she said.

  And now it was time to clean up.

  * * *

  I buckled myself into the passenger seat of Jade’s BMW, while looking up at my living-room window. Inside, Darby corralled Valentine’s-candy-charged Noah. My guilt was assuaged by heated leather seats.

  “They’ll be fine,” Jade said. “It’s like a mutual admiration society in there.”

  “What’s up with that?”

  “That kid of yours is pretty great.”

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

  “Darby has a bunch of younger brothers and sisters. I think she’s just one of those kid people. Like you. She reminds me of you, actually.”

  I shuddered. The few times I’d been in Darby’s company, I’d felt picked on, even bullied, and even in my own home. Noah seemed to think she was okay. Plus, Darby was babysitting on Valentine’s Day, simply at the request of Jade. I wondered how Holden felt about that.

  “Where are we going?” I did not want to be in a restaurant with candlelight and tablecloths, even with Jade. I’d have suggested a drive-through, but my best friend had her standards.

  “Why doesn’t Andrew have plans on Valentine’s Day?”

  “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Forget about the faux holiday. I did. I figured we’d go to the Oxford Diner—is that okay? We’re going to keep your mind off you-know-who, and that seems like one of the few places that won’t be dripping in hearts and roses.”

  “Thanks.” The Oxford would help me forget about Valentine’s Day and my fake breakup with fake Mac. I’d focus on Jade, her and Andrew’s plans for Pop Philly, and how I figured into them.

  But the parking lot was empty. The diner was dark. Jade parked by the steps and I ran to the front door: CLOSED DUE TO PARTIAL ELECTRICAL OUTAGE. Closed? Diners didn’t close. Diners stayed open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Didn’t a closed diner violate the diner code of ethics?

  “There has to be somewhere else to eat around here that won’t be crowded or expensive or junk food,” Jade said as I slammed the car door.

  “Sure.” I yanked off my gloves. I pointed to the neon signs that lined the street ahead of us.

  “Not a chain restaurant.”

  “Can’t help you. I’m the mother of a five-year-old.”

  An SUV pulled up alongside Jade. The diner’s closed, Jade mouthed.

  Andrew Mann looked over and motioned as if to say, Follow me.

  Within minutes I was hanging up my coat in a different diner, one I hadn’t been in since high school. This place had not been renovated, and I remembered the amber glass and globe lights as if I’d been here yesterday.

  Andrew slid into the booth and scooted toward the wall. I did the same on the opposite side. Jade sat next to me and fiddled with the bangles on her wrist. The jingling got on my nerves as if it were a leaky faucet.

  “How do you know about this place?” I asked.

  “I grew up here.”

  I looked up from my menu and at Andrew. When seated, he seemed to be my height. “Where?”

  “Right down the street.”

  “You grew up here?”

  “Yes, that’s what I said.”

  The kids from this neighborhood attended a different high school from my brothers and me, but many belonged to our synagogue, and some had worked in my parents’ store. “Did you know Howie Solomon or the Kahn kids?”

  “I was the best man at Howie and Lisa’s wedding. How did you know him?”

  “Howie worked for my parents. And I went to camp with Lisa.”

  “Wait. You’re a Lane Hardware Lane?”

  I nodded. He knew our store? Everyone did. But had Andrew come into the store any of the summers I’d worked there? Even through high school, anyone—even a guy around my age—buying a screwdrive
r or a gallon of paint had seemed the same to me: boring. I plucked a napkin from the metal dispenser, unfolded the rectangle, and smoothed the creases. Andrew knew Howie and Lisa. Howie was older than me, but younger than my brothers. Lisa had grown up in Cheltenham, but went to Camp America with me for eight years. My parents had attended that wedding. As a twenty-nine-year-old, single woman invited without a date, and without the desire for a wedding-night hookup, I had declined.

  “You know Howie and Lisa. How about that!”

  “You know Howie and Lisa so I can’t know them?”

  “No … I just didn’t think…”

  Andrew looked at his menu. “Exactly. Just think. We might have met a long time ago. Even at the wedding. We could have been old friends by now. Funny how we’ve never crossed paths.”

  “Hey, this is business, you can play Jewish geography later, okay? If we don’t talk business, I can’t write this off.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “No Valentine’s Day plans, Andrew?”

  “Stop!” Jade said.

  “I write a dating blog, it’s Valentine’s Day—that’s business if you ask me.”

  “I’m here with you two, so I guess these are my plans,” Andrew said. “I could do worse.”

  Jade’s leg swept past mine and kicked Andrew under the table. “You’re very funny.”

  “Okay, I confess. My Valentine’s Day plans were over before dinner. Thank you for asking. What about you? Why aren’t you with Mac?”

  Damn.

  Jade put her hand on my arm. “Without going into any details, Drew, there is no more Mac.”

  “I figured.”

  “What do you mean you figured?” I really had to move this conversation in another direction. “Where’s our waitress? I’m starving.”

  * * *

  “These matzo balls are perfect. Just the right balance of lightness and lead.” I chuckled at my own joke.

  I had talked about my soup, Andrew’s Reuben, Jade’s Cobb salad, and the waitresses’ retro black-and-white uniforms that I knew weren’t meant to be retro. Andrew popped the last bite of his sandwich into his mouth, followed by a french-fry chaser. I kept my hands away from the ketchup bottle, although I noticed that when Andrew poured, a few drops landed in the lid.

  “Well, speaking of perfect, that Mac was too perfect, if you ask me. Not my type.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “No, not that. I just mean that perfect guys make guys like me look bad.”

  “Oh, is that your problem?”

  “Be nice,” Jade said. “We are here to talk business!”

  “Fine. Talk business.”

  “Drew and I were discussing a new direction for P-O-F.…”

  “I don’t think that’s going to work for me, unless by ‘new direction’ you mean no dating.”

  “You don’t even know what the direction is!” Andrew shook his head.

  “We’re going big, Pea. I can’t give you all the details, but we’re launching sites in new markets, and we want you to be on each one!”

  All of a sudden I realized my soup was cold, or maybe if was my body. “I can’t do any more than I’m doing. I have tons of work at Liberty, and basically I’m Noah’s only parent, and it doesn’t really seem right to blog about dating when I’m not dating.” That was the most honest I’d been.

  “I don’t necessarily agree with that, but still, this is different. Remember Dear Abby?”

  “Yes…”

  “We want you to be our Dear Abby. You can take questions from anywhere, and the column will be on all our sites. What do you think?”

  “Isn’t Dear Abby copyrighted or something?” I said.

  “Not that you’d actually be Dear Abby, just like Dear Abby. Dear Izzy! We’ll target singles over forty, but it won’t just be about dating. Maybe someone will ask about parenting or travel or buying a house. We’ll call in experts, too, but it’s your column. Not much different than what you’re doing now, but the focus is not on you. We figured that’s what you’d want, right? No more trolls!” Jade put her arm around me and squeezed twice.

  Her words jumbled in my brain with each one. “Who’s we?”

  “Drew and me.”

  “So, you—and Andrew—who doesn’t know me at all—no offense—made this decision on my behalf? I have had enough of someone else deciding what was right for me.” I glared at Jade. “Dear Izzy? Are you telling me I can’t do this if I’m not willing to use my real name?”

  “No, no, we’re asking. I’m asking. I want you to be part of this for the long haul, Pea. You don’t know when Bruce is coming back. You don’t want to rely on him anyway. This will be an extra paycheck. Just like now. Maybe even more in the future.”

  “I’m not using my real name.”

  “Think about it this way,” Andrew said. “You’re good at what you do. You can still use fake names for any man you might meet. Like—if we went out, you could call me Hercules, for instance.”

  Jade laughed. She was so predictable.

  “You’re kidding, right?” I didn’t care which of them answered.

  “I wasn’t asking you out,” Andrew said. “I was just giving you an example.”

  “Hercules?”

  “A joke?”

  “Knock it off before I put both of you in time-out. Look, Pea. Drew’s right. Using nicknames for people you write about could be your thing. But you need to consider just being yourself.”

  She had no idea. “What I need is to go home to Noah.”

  “I’m sure the little matey is sound asleep by now,” Andrew said.

  “I know neither of you understands this, but soothing the woes of misbegotten middle-aged singles isn’t my priority.”

  “Ouch. Your friend’s brutal.” Andrew cringed. “I should hire her for my litigation team.”

  “I thought you wanted to help me. I need your help moving forward, but we have to do things a little differently. We won’t get you into any trouble,” Jade said.

  I wasn’t sure she understood. I worked for the school district, I had an ex-husband. And parents. And a kid. “I do want to help you.” I slowed my words. “I always want to help you if I can, but why do I have to use my real name?”

  “Credibility,” Andrew said. “And it’s only a matter of time before someone figures it out anyway. It always happens.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Holden did some research about anonymous bloggers, and they rarely get more than six months under their belts before they admit who they are, or someone exposes them,” Jade said. “Why not just do it yourself?”

  I had no idea. “What is this really about?” I asked them both.

  “It’s about lots of things,” Jade said. “Just keep an open mind. Please. We always wanted to find a way to work together. Now we have. Think of the possibilities.”

  Yes, they were endless. And awful.

  “Even if I would agree to do this, and I’m not saying I will, I’m not going to suggest people get a divorce. That’s not my place.”

  “Understood,” Andrew said.

  “Being a single parent sucks. People should avoid it if at all possible.”

  Andrew’s hand reached halfway across the table, and then he pulled it back.

  * * *

  Andrew and I walked Jade to her car. I hugged her again, but she and Andrew just nodded and waved to each other. Then Andrew opened the passenger door of his SUV for me. “Thanks for taking me home.”

  “No problem. It would have been foolish to have Jade go out of her way just because you don’t want to be in the car with me for ten or fifteen minutes.”

  I stepped up into the seat and noticed two car seats in the back.

  Andrew walked around to the driver’s side and climbed in.

  “You have kids?”

  “Yep.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  “I didn’t think of it.” That didn’t come out as lighthear
ted as I’d intended. I didn’t turn around but pictured the identical boosters. I glanced around the car for signs of errant Cheerios, or a lip gloss. A pink breast-cancer ribbon dangled from the rearview mirror.

  “Meghan died almost three years ago.”

  He didn’t need to say anything else.

  “I’m sorry, Andrew. I didn’t know.”

  “That’s kind of a theme with you, isn’t it?” He looked at me, and right into my eyes the way people say they do, but rarely actually do. Iris-to-iris contact. I gulped and turned my head to look out my window, discomfited yet calm.

  I uttered my address without a sidebar or sarcasm. Andrew drove to Good Street in deliberate silence. After his SUV turned onto my block, I pointed to the right side of the street, then nodded when we double-parked near my house. I fumbled for more than my keys. An apology seemed immaterial, yet I was sorry. For what I’d said. For what Andrew and his children had lost. For my initial lack of tact. For my ongoing lack of perspective.

  “Oh my God!”

  “What?” Andrew jolted, and squeezed the steering wheel with both hands.

  I pointed to the blue Honda parked ahead under the streetlight. “That’s my ex-husband’s car.”

  Chapter 21

  Trouble

  ANDREW PARKED AT THE far end of the street. I tempered my breathing to dull my nausea.

  “You didn’t know he was coming over?”

  “I didn’t know he was back from California.”

  “He moved to California?”

  I turned my head and looked at Andrew. He looked at me, his expression solemn. I realized then that he knew nothing about me. Nothing true. “He was in Palo Alto. On business.”

  “Must’ve been hard on Noah. And you.”

  “You have no idea.” As the words left my mouth, I tried to suck them back. “I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to say.”

  Andrew raised and lowered one eyebrow, a trick I’d never mastered. “Don’t worry about it. People say stupid things all the time.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Not what I meant.” He banged his head back on the headrest twice. “So, are we even?”

  At ease, I smiled.

  “How about if I walk you in? I have experience with ex-husbands.”

  “You have experience with ex-husbands?”