The Neighbor

by Joseph Souza

  LEAH

  Thursday, October 15, 6:14 p.m.

  CLAY REEKS OF BEER WHEN HE COMES HOME, BUT I DON’T REALLY care at this point. He’s a little later than expected. I’m just glad he came home and liberated me from this oppressive house and all the upkeep it takes. I quickly kiss him good-bye and leave.

  I learned that Cordell tends bar part-time in a French restaurant twenty miles out of town. I called the restaurant earlier in the day and found out that he’s working tonight. I’m obviously not dressed for such a fancy place, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll have a glass of wine at the bar and wait to speak to him.

  I park in the back of the restaurant and walk inside. He’s not hard to recognize with his long dreadlocks and chiseled good looks. His photograph has been published a few times in the newspaper, and I’ve seen him interviewed on TV. The bruises on his face are healing but still evident. After a precautionary night spent in the hospital, he was released and sent back to his dorm.

  The restaurant is busy tonight with people waiting at the bar. I spot a lone stool and quickly snatch it. Cordell walks over and places a napkin down in front of me. His left eye is slightly discolored and puffy. He’s much darker and thinner than I expected. If he loved Mycah so much, I wonder why he isn’t spending every waking minute looking for her.

  “Can I help you, ma’am?”

  “Chablis, please.”

  Cordell pours me a glass and places it down on the bar.

  “Cordell?”

  He turns and stares at me. “Do I know you?”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Then how can I help you?”

  “I need to ask you a few questions about Mycah,” I whisper.

  He leans over the bar and glares at me. “Are you a cop?”

  I shake my head and he looks confused.

  “I can’t talk to you here,” he says.

  “I know that Mycah was not who she claimed to be,” I whisper. “She was seeing someone else on the side.”

  “Shhhh,” he says, looking around the room. “I can’t talk about this right now.”

  “Then where can we go?”

  “How can I trust you?”

  “I give you my word.”

  “You going to run to the police and shoot off your mouth?”

  “Why haven’t you told them everything?”

  “Because then they’ll think I did it. But I had nothing to do with any of this. I’m the victim here.”

  “Will you tell me what you know?”

  “I get off shift in an hour,” he whispers. “There’s an Applebee’s down the road, next to a little Chinese joint. Meet me in one of the back booths so we can have some privacy.”

  I leave the restaurant and drive over to Applebee’s. It’s easy to find, as all chain restaurants are with their faux charm and gaudy lit signs. I park in the lot and wait patiently. I’m fearful of going inside and drinking too much while I wait for him. No way I want to run the risk of getting pulled over by the cops on my way home and arrested for DUI.

  Thirty minutes pass and I’m bored to death. It’s nerve-racking waiting here and listening to song after song on the soft rock station. I know I must look strange sitting in my car and staring straight ahead. Finally, after a haunting song by Adele, I get out and head to the front door. A cold wind blows through the lot, a sure sign that the seasons are changing.

  The young host ushers me to a booth near the window. It’s perfect; I’ll be able to see when Cordell enters. The place is empty except for a few customers sitting at the rectangular bar. The exuberant young waitress comes over and asks if I want a drink, and against my better judgment, I order a glass of Chablis. I take a small sip, determined to make it last until Cordell arrives. Oh, but it tastes so cold and delicious. The first sip goes straight to my head and gives me a false sense of confidence. I open my spiral notebook like a real journalist and gloss over the notes I’ve taken.

  The waitress sets down my third glass of wine when I look up and see Cordell slip into the booth across from where I sit. He looks nervous as he leans over the table and glares at me. My head feels warm and fuzzy, and the wine has provided me with the impetus to see this interview through. Although this warm buzz is exactly what I need right now, it will certainly come at a cost. There’s no way I’ll be able to drive home in this condition.

  “I’m glad you could make it,” I say.

  “I’m not glad at all.” The waitress comes over and Cordell orders a draft beer. “Who are you and what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  I’m taken aback by his hostile tone, but I will myself to go on.

  “I thought you’d be happy to see me.”

  “Happy? Are you crazy?” he says. “You show up at my work, asking some serious shit, and I’m supposed to be happy? Hell, I don’t even know you.”

  I pull out my fake badge and show it to him, thinking that he’ll immediately recognize me for the phony I am. He gives it a perfunctory glance before pushing it away.

  “A goddamn reporter? I don’t need to talk to no reporters.”

  “Better you control the narrative before the truth comes out.”

  “Damn. I never should have gotten mixed up with that girl.” He shakes his head, the dreads swinging like Tarzan riding jungle vines.

  “Mycah?”

  “Who the hell else?”

  “What happened that night?”

  “I had nothing to do with her kidnapping or whatever happened to her. That girl was trouble with a capital T. I never should have agreed to help her. And if you quote me on that, I’ll deny it.”

  “Did you love her?”

  “Love her?” He laughs. “Hell no, I didn’t love her.”

  “She’s beautiful. Smart too.”

  “Too smart for her own good, if you ask me.”

  “But so are you. I read that you received an early decision to Harvard Law.”

  “Wasn’t supposed to find out until later in the year. After Harvard heard about that hate crime, they sent me an acceptance letter.”

  “With your grades and stature on campus, you most certainly would have been admitted anyway. And what about your basketball accomplishments?”

  “I know what you’re implying.”

  “Sorry, I’m not following you.”

  “You’re implying that the reason I got in is because I’m black.”

  “No,” I say, horrified by his accusation. “You’re certainly most deserving of Harvard Law.”

  “My LSATs were not close to being Harvard material.”

  “Standardized tests aren’t everything,” I say. “So tell me what happened that night.”

  “You can’t print any of this. Not right now, anyway.”

  “Not until I get all the facts.” I realize that I’m a very good liar.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Is the baby yours?”

  He laughs as if I made a joke.

  “Mycah was cheating on you?”

  “It’s more complicated than that. We had what you might call an arrangement. We just needed to be honest with each other and all was cool.”

  “She lied to you?”

  “Not exactly a lie.” He looks around nervously. “But she wasn’t always forthright, either.”

  “Then why couldn’t the baby be yours?”

  “Because we never actually . . . consummated the act.” He looks embarrassed.

  I blush, feeling the alcohol rushing to my cheeks. It must look obvious as I sip my wine.

  “The paper said you two had been together for over a year.”

  “The newspaper said a lot of stuff.” He downs his beer and raises it for another. “Waiting until marriage, I guess you could say.”

  “That’s very noble of you. But I thought you said you didn’t love her.”

  He laughs as if I’m being naive. “What’s love got to do with it? We were a power couple.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “My daddy
happens to be an influential Baptist preacher in Mississippi. Premarital sex is seriously frowned upon down there.”

  “I can respect that.”

  “Well don’t. It was the agreement Mycah and I had.” He shrugs as if he’s hiding something.

  “And it didn’t bother you in the least that she was sleeping with other guys?”

  “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

  “How about you? Were you seeing anyone else?”

  “No.” He blinks his eyes three times in rapid succession, which clearly tells me he’s lying.

  “Who exactly was she sleeping with?”

  “I saw her one time with this older white dude. The two of them were standing outside her apartment building. She also told me she was seeing a professor at Chadwick.”

  I feel like throwing up. I want to call a cab and rush home, hug my husband and kids, and never leave them. Why did I ever get involved in this? Why am I even here? For whatever reason, all the wine is making me emotional.

  “It drove me crazy to think she was sleeping with one of her professors, but Mycah told me to be cool and it would all work out. She said he might even write me a recommendation to law school.”

  “You were worried about your relationship?”

  “About our arrangement.”

  “Why aren’t you telling the police all this?”

  “Because then they’ll think I was a jealous boyfriend and that I set her up. Maybe even killed her and hid the body.”

  I toss some bills down onto the table and slide out of the booth. Cordell killed her, I can sense it. I need to get out of here, breathe some fresh autumn air, and collect my thoughts. Latching on to the strap of my pocketbook, I head toward the exit without saying good-bye. I feel as if I’m having an anxiety attack and might pass out. Cordell follows me until we reach the parking lot. I lean back against my car, frightened, and gulp oxygen.

  “You okay, lady?”

  “Did you kill her?”

  “Hell no. How can you even say that?”

  “You should consider talking to the police, Cordell. Tell them everything you know.”

  “You can’t breathe any of this to no one. You hear? Promise me you won’t.” He stands too close to me, wagging a long finger in my face.

  “I have a confession to make. I lied to you. I’m not a real reporter.” I pull out my fake press badge and show it to him. “It’s fake. I made it at home.”

  “Damn.”

  Tears spill from my eyes.

  “Mycah asked me to write checks out of the council’s budget. Said if I valued my privacy, I’d do it, and that she’d repay it once her daddy sent her a check.”

  I fumble inside my pocketbook for the keys as the parking lot spins around me.

  “It happened a week before the attack. Before she disappeared. No one even knows about the missing funds. Not sure the college wanted that to go public for fear of appearing racist.”

  “How much did she take?”

  “Nearly ten thousand dollars.”

  I start to bawl and, to my surprise, Cordell leans over and hugs me. I don’t push him away or try to escape his grasp. His long dreadlocks fall around my face and chin. It’s the most affection I’ve received in a long time, and I’m now convinced that he’s totally innocent. His embrace feels warm and loving, and I press myself into his bony chest. After consoling me, he steps back and looks at me.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m sorry for tricking you like that. I’m just a bored housewife with nothing else to do.”

  “I’m the one should be crying. People don’t know half the truth of this story.”

  “You swear you didn’t hurt Mycah or have anything to do with her disappearance?”

  “Swear to God. There’s no shortage of people on campus who despised that girl.”

  “I believe you.”

  “You have to because it’s the truth.”

  He leans over, parts his dreads, and shows me the stitches from the attack. They resemble train tracks running across the back of his scalp. “I’m Rasta and my daddy would kill me if he ever found out I wasn’t Christian. Truth is, violence goes against everything I believe in.”

  Cordell walks back to his beat-up old Jeep and then disappears down the street. I look around the near empty parking lot and wonder what I’m doing here. I’m finished sneaking around and pretending to be a reporter. It’s too hard. I want to go back to being a boring mother and housewife. I’ll leave the investigating up to the police and let them figure out what happened to Mycah.

  I jingle the keys in my hand as I collapse inside the car. My head is still spinning from the wine and I feel close to passing out. I turn the ignition only to realize that I’m too drunk to drive. Tom Petty’s “American Girl” blares over the speakers. I shut off the engine, recline back in the seat, and then everything goes black.

  CLAY

  Thursday, October 15, 11:00 p.m.

  IT’S ELEVEN O’CLOCK AND LEAH’S NOT HOME YET, WHICH WORRIES me. She’s been acting strange as of late, and every time she acts this way it makes me wonder what she knows. Is she suspicious? Does she have any idea that I’ve cheated on her?

  I call her cell phone repeatedly, but she doesn’t answer. Has she gotten into a car wreck? Been mugged? I should drive around and look for her. A car wreck wouldn’t surprise me. She’s a terrible driver, already getting into two fender benders since moving here to Dearborn. And I’ve been finding wine bottles hidden at the bottom of the trash and under the kitchen sink. She’s fooling no one. She’s a hundred and ten pounds and eats like a sparrow.

  Thank God the kids are finally asleep. I run upstairs and check on Zadie. Her princess blanket is pulled over her head so that only her angelic face can be seen. Zack is asleep on his back with a book open over his chest. I head back downstairs and pour another beer out of the growler I’d brought home. Despite my near panicked state, there’s nothing I can do but wait for Leah to come home. I feel like an anxious parent waiting for his teen daughter to pull into the driveway.

  I wish I could kick back and relax. Only I can’t relax. My mind is swirling. I try to watch one of those travel shows where the host gets ridiculously drunk and makes a fool out of himself. Usually, I love watching such garbage, but for some reason I have no interest in it tonight. I watch numbly as he roams the steamy streets of Vietnam, eating pig brains and heart skewers, and getting loaded on rice wine. At one point, a young kid gulps down a still beating snake heart along with a shot of whiskey. Boy, those Vietnamese sure know how to party.

  I call Leah’s cell phone three times in succession, but it goes to voice mail. Where the hell is she? I envision her with another man, getting payback for the way I’ve wronged her. Too much beer has made me paranoid, and I curse myself for what I’ve done. The more worried I get, the more I drink; it’s becoming somewhat of a pattern lately.

  I switch to the news and run out to the kitchen for another jar. I’m anxious and drunker than I should be. While opening a bag of chips, I hear the reporter mention the missing girl. I stagger back to the couch and collapse on it. My heart races as they switch to a reporter on the scene. I pray to God that Leah’s safe, vowing to never again cheat on her.

  Why did I ever betray Leah?

  * * *

  I open my eyes and am instantly blinded by the sun filtering in through the blinds. Below me on the floor are the empty beer growlers. I can’t believe I drank two of them—sixty-four ounces of IPA—and that’s in addition to all the beer I consumed at work. Flamenco dancers cavort in my head, castanets snapping like clamshells against my synaptic nerves. I sit up slowly so that the blood doesn’t rush too quickly to my brain. I glance at the clock and remember something.

  The kids need to get ready for school.

  I look around, but they’re nowhere to be seen. Mr. Shady sits on the floor in front of me, his big brown eyes staring at me in adoration. I can do no wrong in his doggy eyes. The kitchen table is empty except for a single s
heet of paper. I stumble over and see Zadie’s perfect penmanship. Morning, Daddy, Zack and I dressed and made our own breakfast. Since you were asleep, we walked down to the bus stop by ourselves. Hope you have a great day, Daddy. Luv, Zadie.

  I can’t believe I overslept. A high-pitched whistle blows in my ears. My eyelids flutter like a pair of hummingbirds freebasing on crack. I run upstairs and notice that my bed is still made. Leah never made it home last night. Panicked, I look at myself in the mirror and see a man burdened with neglect and fear. A man hungover and guilt-ridden by a terrible secret.

  Where the hell is Leah? Has she left me? Is she having her own affair? I head downstairs and grab my phone off the coffee table and dial her number. She’s still not answering. I envision her lying in a ditch somewhere. Or possibly hooked up to a life-saving device in one of the local hospitals.

  The news comes on. A reporter is standing in front of an apartment building. A college student from Chadwick has been found dead. When she mentions the student’s name, I wonder if I’m hearing things. The man’s photograph appears onscreen. His expressionless face appears burrowed beneath vines of long dreadlocks. It’s Cordell Jefferson, Mycah Jones’s boyfriend, star basketball player and vice president of Chadwick’s student body.

  Something feels terribly wrong, and Leah’s disappearance only adds to my torment. This can’t be a coincidence. A ton of work is waiting for me down at the brewery, yet I feel as if my world is coming apart. Outside, a car’s engine roars to life. I move to the window and see our next-door neighbor. What’s her name? Clara? Clarice? Claudia? She’s taking her kids to school. What the hell’s wrong with me? I can’t even remember the name of my own neighbor.

  I tidy up the area where I slept last night, making sure to toss the empty growlers in the bed of my truck. I clean up the wrappers and get rid of the empty bag of chips. A confetti of crumbs lies across the couch and I sweep them into the dustbin. I gaze into the fridge and notice that I’m completely out of beer.