A Good Neighborhood

by Therese Anne Fowler

  “I could eat some Cheetos.”

  “For breakfast?”

  “Lunch and supper, too,” said Lottie. “And a Pop-Tart, if you’ve still got some. Julia’s trying to ration me with the junk food, you know, but I say, what’s the point?”

  “Sure thing. I’m going to change into my trunks and then I’ll bring out some snacks and drinks so you can just enjoy yourself here.”

  “Good boy. Maybe you don’t know this, but way back when, I told Julia I was worried about her jumping into things so fast with you. I don’t mind telling you now, since I know that you and me, we tend to think alike. I believe you turned out all right.”

  “Thanks, Lottie. Sit tight now, I’ll be back in a flash.”

  Inside, Julia was just done covering Lily with sunscreen. Brad said to his daughter, “You set? Give me two minutes and we’ll go down and see if we can’t catch a shark or two.”

  Lily picked up her net. “Ready and waiting!”

  “Want to be a big help for me? Grandma asked could we bring her some Cheetos.”

  “And a co-cola?”

  “Let’s fill a cooler for her,” Brad said, directing this at Julia. “Make it easier on her.”

  “And the rest of us,” Julia said.

  The Whitmans had come to the beach for a week, sometimes two, every summer since Brad and Julia were married. They’d rented a condo when it was just the two of them and Juniper, usually taking a second one adjacent to theirs for Brad’s brother, Jeff, and his wife and baby. Then came Lily, and Jeff’s next one, so Brad found a vacation rental house big enough for all of them. He discovered that he loved the chaos of having everybody in one place, all the kids underfoot, the adults relaxed and sociable, everybody gritty with sand, faces and shoulders reddened, bellies happy with crab and shrimp and lobster they cooked themselves.

  This summer Jeff would be here in a couple of days, and this time he was coming with just the kids: He and his wife had split up right after Christmas, after she’d found him in a bar with another woman on his lap. Jeff was a fool, Brad thought, always had been. Undisciplined. He no sooner thought a thing than he did it, without considering whether it was wise or might have consequences.

  Brad told Lily, “Got your fishing net? All right, let’s hit the waves!”

  He and Lily raced down to the sand, past where Juniper and Pepper now lay on brightly colored beach towels.

  “Come on,” Lily called to them when she reached the surf’s edge. “We’re going to catch a shark and we might need help. Sharks can be big.”

  Pepper sat up and said, “Do you actually plan to catch a shark?”

  Brad answered, “If she could, she would. Come on in the water, girls. Look at this surf.” The water was as calm as it ever got. “It’s a bath!”

  “Later,” Juniper said, not even opening her eyes.

  When Lily tired of not catching a shark or any fish, she put the net aside and asked Brad to flip her. Again and again he cupped one of her feet in his hands while she held on to his shoulders and counted to three, and then he launched her up high into a backflip and she splashed down, shrieking every time.

  Finally Lily wanted a break. Brad said, “Who’s next? Pepper?”

  “I always get water up my nose.”

  “Juniper? Come on, Juni, you always loved to do this.”

  “I’m too big now.”

  “Since last summer? I don’t think you’ve grown that much. Or are you saying I’m too weak? That’s it, isn’t it? You think old Brad’s gotten too weak.”

  “Maybe she’s saying she’s gotten too heavy,” Pepper said.

  “Thanks for that,” said Juniper.

  “There’s nothing to either one of you girls, even soaking wet. Now, you don’t want to insult me, do you, Juniper? Come on, test me. I think I can do it.”

  “Okay, but just a sec,” Juniper said, and she reached up to the back of her neck to retie more securely her bikini top’s strings.

  Brad admired her smooth belly, the skin pulling taut against her ribs. He considered the swell of each small but perfect breast. His own body’s response was automatic: a hard-on that, given his standing in water up to his own belly, thankfully couldn’t be seen. It strained against his swim trunks, and he thought he might as well be sixteen years old again, wishing that the girl in sight would take pity on his desperate state and help him “detonate and deflate”—that’s how some of the guys he’d known referred to orgasm and it was apt, for sure. At sixteen, though, what with his acne and scrawny as he’d been, he couldn’t get a pretty girl to look at him, let alone touch him.

  When Juniper waded over and put her hands on his shoulders, when she put her foot into his interlaced hands, when she looked into his face and said, “Okay, one, two…,” he let himself have the brief fantasy of an empty beach save for him and her, where he’d push her down onto that bright green beach towel and pull down that little slip of fabric—

  “Three!”

  Up and over and splash. She came up laughing.

  “Again?” Brad said.

  She pushed her wet hair off her face and nodded.

  This time when she put her hands on his shoulders, he put his on her waist—just for a moment, to help steady her. She was already lifting her leg to step into his hands. Her knee, or maybe it was her shin, brushed his crotch and it was all he could do not to groan aloud. He let go of her waist and laced his fingers, catching her foot.

  This time she didn’t look at him as she counted. Embarrassed, probably. Good girl, he thought.

  As Juniper left him and went to play with the other girls, he glanced over at where Lily and Pepper were trying to net minnows. Juni hadn’t been that much older than Lily when he’d first met her. He felt ashamed that he’d once again let his libido get the better of him. He wasn’t a teenager, and Juniper wasn’t just some girl he wished would put out or at least help out. So what if he desired her? Get hold of yourself, he thought. She’s your stepdaughter. You aren’t a king. You don’t get to have every damned thing you want.

  But it wasn’t as if he’d be forcing himself on her. She wanted him, too. He knew she was struggling with it, same as he was.

  27

  How many times had Brad fit in eighteen holes under heavy skies and distant thunder? Golf, summertime, South: Iffy weather is unavoidable.

  Teeing off early made that equation a little less likely, storms being more common in the late afternoon. Some days, though, as June cruised toward July and the convection began earlier in the day—reorganized, often, from the previous night’s thunderstorm—the sky piled itself with fat cumulonimbus clouds throughout the morning and threatened to send the guys racing back to the clubhouse at any time.

  Such was Brad’s situation on this Saturday. Late morning, sixteenth fairway. Thunder. A few fat raindrops. While Tony Evans, the county district attorney and Brad’s sole companion today, teed up, Brad tilted his face toward the sky.

  “I think we’ll luck out,” he said.

  “That’d be me,” said Tony. “Since you’re trailing by four.”

  Tony was a short, stout man, fond of Kentucky bourbon and Cuban cigars, an Old South type who would never have paid Brad the young nobody any attention but who was pleased to know and cultivate a friendship with Brad the successful entrepreneur. Friendships like this equaled support for campaigns such as Tony’s reelection to the office of district attorney. And in turn Brad got support and connections to all kinds of other men in Tony Evans’s orbit. This, too, was a kind of circle of life—if you happened to be white and entitled, as they were.

  In golf, Brad had lost to Tony just once before, and then only by one stroke. Today, though, he’d been vacillating every time he went to choose a club. He’d misjudged several shots, missed putts that should have been easy … At work, too, he was off his game, slow to make decisions. Hell, yesterday afternoon he’d spent five minutes in his closet trying to decide between a blue shirt and a black one. Why? Distraction. Every time he
saw Juniper, he wished he could have her. Not just fuck her; possess her. It was like being an addict in a crack house, surrounded by drugs but with no money to score. Or something. He was thinking of her all the time. And though he hated himself for his weakness, he also loved the fantasies of running off with her and living the good life someplace exotic, loved the way those fantasies made him feel—young, strong, hypersexual, desired all the time by some beautiful woman. Basically a teenage boy’s version of what adulthood would be like if his acne cleared up and he worked out enough and he found a way to make a lot of money.

  Brad knew it ought to be Julia he was hot for. What was he supposed to do? He couldn’t help what he couldn’t help. So he had to just keep doing right, even if he couldn’t keep thinking right.

  But it was damned distracting.

  Thunder sounded. Closer now.

  Less determined men than Brad and Tony would have already left the course. If their usual companions had been with them, these two would have given in sooner; the two men who completed their foursome were both insurance execs who’d risen in the ranks more through cronyism than grit. A little distant thunder and those guys got nervous. Actual raindrops and they were done.

  Brad stood back near the cart and watched while Tony set his feet, settled the driver in his hands, pulled it back—

  * * *

  The flash and boom were nearly simultaneous. Next thing Brad knew, he was on the ground, blinking, ears ringing.

  “Holy mother of God,” said a faint voice—Tony’s. Brad turned his head, saw his friend standing in the tee box. Tony dropped his club and ran toward Brad. “You okay?” To Brad, it sounded like Tony was speaking from far away, or through a press of pillows against his ears. His eardrums throbbed. Tony said, “Christ, that was close!” He pointed to the singed and smoking top of a pine twenty yards off.

  Brad sat up, put his hands to his ears and rubbed, shook his head. Nothing helped. “Am I gonna be deaf?” he said. His own voice sounded far away.

  “My ears are ringing, too. We’ll be all right. Give it some time.” His words were more certain than his tone.

  Brad got himself up and into the cart, saying, “Best to call it a day.”

  Bit by bit, his hearing improved, and Brad and Tony sat at the clubhouse bar for an hour or better recounting their experience to a growing crowd of fellow golfers. They joked. They laughed. They drank. All the while in the back of Brad’s mind ran a looping thought—no, less a thought than a feeling, a sensation, a message.

  That lightning strike was for him. It was a sign. His life had been examined, tested, and reset, in the way he used to do with an HVAC system when he was still a technician with a one-man shop. Oftentimes that was all that needed done. Circuits got glitchy. They misbehaved, produced actions that ran counter to what ought to be happening.

  Brad had been second-guessing himself about a number of things, his desire for Juniper among them, and second-guessing was not Brad Whitman’s style. He’d lost his focus. And now look: He’d nearly been struck by lightning—but only nearly, and that had to mean something.

  Some men would see it as a come-to-Jesus moment. Brad, though, felt no closer to Jesus than he had before. The lightning had reset him, that’s what this meant to him. Restored him to his best full operating mode. He didn’t doubt it, and he was going to behave accordingly.

  He understood now, really understood, that he and Juniper weren’t ever going to run away together. And if she had any such fantasies herself—which likely she did, sweet girl—it was his job to set her straight. It might be that they both just needed to scratch the itch one time, once, that’s all, just get it done and out of the way and out of their systems, and then they’d be able to get over it. It was, he believed, a sensitive and sensible approach, all things considered.

  28

  Let’s briefly go back to that night in January when Brad and Juniper had been at home together alone. The night Juniper made a beef roast for their dinner. The night Brad came into her bedroom and kissed her.

  With Julia away, Juniper had been curious to try on Julia’s role, that of the devoted housewife, the role for which she had in some ways been trained by the New Hope pastors, though by this time the Whitmans weren’t regulars at church. Their attendance had fallen off in the preceding year, maybe because Brad had made all that money and bought a membership to the country club he hadn’t been able to get into before. With that membership came an excellent golf course—finest in the state—and therefore fierce competition for tee times. Until Tony Evans had brought him in as a new fourth for his preexisting Saturday group, Sunday mornings had been where Brad found his best luck, what with so many of the other gentlemen being truer members of the flock. Their faith was his opportunity. Just like Julia’s absence was Juniper’s. She could run the kitchen, make an entire meal on her own without her mother’s constant oversight and input, see how it would feel to be in charge of her own domain. It would be like taking the training wheels off her bicycle to ride unaided and free.

  While Brad was at work, Juniper planned the menu from what she found in the refrigerator. The chuck roast was surely meant to be their dinner on the night Julia returned; well, they’d all go out that night instead, Juniper decided. Cookbook on the counter, she went to work slicing mushrooms, chopping onions, mincing garlic, measuring out oil and red wine.

  While she worked, she envisioned Brad’s surprise and pleasure when he got home. He’d be impressed with her and proud of her initiative. He’d recognize that she was maturing, which might lead to a loosening of the strict rules that had so far prevented her from going to any of the parties thrown by the kids at her school. Girls like Meghan and Kathi might never change their opinion of her, but there were others who, seeing her participating in things like a normal kid, might.

  She wanted Brad to admire her. She didn’t want to provoke a sleeping wolf, didn’t even know that wolf was there.

  Later that night, she’d fallen asleep reading but roused slightly when she heard Brad come into her room. Even an innocent teenaged girl can sense when a situation might take a turn away from innocence. Not knowing what all he might be after and not ready to confront him, she kept her eyes closed and pretended to still be asleep.

  The kiss horrified her.

  * * *

  Had Juniper known all that was going on in Brad’s mind now, she’d have been even more upset. Had he known what was going on in hers—how she was appeasing him so that she could get more time with the black boy he’d mistaken as a day laborer—well, who can say what might have been? We’re only here to tell you what was.

  * * *

  Another summer morning working dispatch for Whitman HVAC.

  This was not a taxing job. It could be a dull one, though, when the phones weren’t ringing, as they often weren’t before nine A.M. Juniper might hear from two or three early birds with finicky A/C systems. Once the day’s heat raced upward and compressors or fans failed to respond, the calls would start coming in.

  Juniper sat at her desk in the small office next to Brad’s, working on a haiku for Xavier.

  Sunrise: a guitar

  Sings a melancholy song

  The girl hears and smiles

  Now that they’d returned from the beach, Juniper was back in the routine: Three mornings a week, she drove to work when Brad did, put in her four hours of answering the service line and coordinating those calls with the technicians in the field. She was good at the work. She listened well, made clear notes, asked the pertinent questions, and then scheduled the techs. And all the while, she felt Brad’s presence—not only his presence, his interest. She hadn’t forgotten that singular moment when they’d been in the water together. His hands on her waist. His … arousal.

  A tap on her door, then Brad opened it and leaned in. “How’s your day going? Can I bring you some coffee?”

  “No, I’m good, thanks. Slow so far.”

  “That’s what coffee’s for!”

  “I
mean the phones.”

  “It’ll pick up. What’s your afternoon like? I’ve got Jason coming at one to wash and wax the Maserati; want to stay and have him do the Land Rover?”

  Juniper shook her head. “Pepper and I are going to a pop-up art thing down at the city park at noon.”

  “Pop-up art?”

  “Arts and crafts for sale in booths. There’s always cool stuff. Earrings and bracelets, some clothes, you know.”

  He took his wallet from his pocket and gave her fifty dollars. “Get something pretty.”

  “You don’t need to do that.”

  “That’s a fact,” he said, and closed her door.

  “Thanks!” she called.

  The kiss had been in January—more than five months ago. When it first happened, she’d known that she wouldn’t tell anyone. No way. The reaction would surely be outsize to the event (it was only a quick kiss, after all), and she didn’t want to face that.

  But then she’d thought, shouldn’t her mom be made aware of the truth about the kind of guy she was married to?

  Or would that just blow up everything for all of them?

  Because, really, it was only a simple kiss. He’d smelled like bourbon. He might have just been drunk. A momentary lapse, not a criminal offense.

  She could ignore it and the whole thing would just go away. No harm done.

  Then she’d thought, what if it wasn’t a momentary lapse, and if she didn’t tell on him he might go after Lily one day?

  No; she shouldn’t confuse his interest in her with an ability to commit incest. Right?

  The question of what, if anything, to do had messed her up for a while. Talking it through with her mother would’ve been natural if the two of them were close in that way (and the guy in question wasn’t Brad). As it was, long experience had taught her that Julia was just about the last person she could count on to put her interests first. Given how devoted her mother was to Brad (or was beholden the word?), Julia might well blame her.