Neighbors

by Danielle Steel

  The social worker left the house a few minutes later, more than satisfied with everything she’d seen. Tyla was a responsible mother, the children were well cared for and doing well, and they had devoted adopted grandparents on the scene, living in a house that was everyone’s dream. She just hoped that Andrew Johnson didn’t manage to slither out of the charges against him, and that he would go to prison for his crimes.

  “How do you think it went?” Meredith asked Tyla after Jane left.

  “I don’t know, but she was very nice. She wasn’t scary, and I thought she would be. I was terrified she’d want to take the children away and put them in foster care.”

  “I don’t think you need to worry about that.”

  Charles kissed Meredith after Jane left, and rushed back to his office. He had a busy day ahead.

  * * *

  —

  Peter called Meredith that afternoon. “We saw the police outside the Johnsons’ house yesterday, and Ava said she saw that the living room windows were broken. Did they have a break-in?”

  “No,” Meredith said with a sigh. “It was Andrew again. Tyla agreed to meet him there, which was a mistake, and he lost control again. He was arraigned this morning, and is in custody without bail this time.”

  “Did she get hurt again?” He sounded horrified.

  “Barely. The police came before he got too out of hand, but he was heading there. The police broke the windows to get in.” They were being repaired that morning. “I think she learned a lesson. She can’t get anywhere near him. He tricked her into agreeing to a meeting, and started going nuts when she showed up.”

  “I hope they keep him in custody this time,” Peter said, and he knew that Arthur and Ava would be upset to hear about it too.

  “How are all of you?”

  “Wonderful,” he said with a lilt in his voice. “Ava has turned my room into a closet. We got a storage unit for some of her stuff. Arthur loves having an assistant, Ava loves her job, and I’m the happiest man on earth. What about you?”

  “We’re fine.” They hadn’t seen each other in a few weeks, since Tyla was in the hospital. “Why don’t the three of you come to dinner tomorrow night? We have a new cook, a couple actually, she’s a very good cook and they’re very nice. She makes fabulous Mexican food,” which after living with him for nearly a month after the earthquake, she knew was a favorite of his.

  “We’d love it,” he spoke for all of them, and knew Arthur would be pleased to see them too. “Are Debbie and Jack gone?” He sounded surprised.

  “They are. It’s a long story, but we made some unpleasant discoveries.”

  “I thought they’d been there forever.”

  “They were. They’d been stealing from me for years. It was very upsetting.”

  “I’m sorry, that’s awful. See you tomorrow,” Peter said, and went to tell Arthur and Ava, and about a new incident with Andrew the day before.

  * * *

  —

  Charles told Meredith that night when he got home that he had spoken to the police about Andrew’s arraignment, and he was being sent to a psychiatric hospital with a locked facility for a thirty-day psychiatric evaluation, to see if he was competent to stand trial.

  “Is that good news or bad?” she asked Charles, not sure how to interpret it.

  “Both possibly. It means he’s not going to be out wandering the streets for the next month, but it could mean that the charges would be dropped, and he would be sent to a mental hospital instead of prison. It depends what they decide, and if he has a good lawyer, they’ll probably do everything to plead insanity to get him off, and then get him out of the psych hospital later and claim he’s cured.” She didn’t like the sound of it and neither did he.

  * * *

  —

  The next morning when she came down to breakfast, she saw what Tyla had feared since the beginning. The story of the charges against Andrew, and how severely he had injured her, was on the front page. There was an old photograph of him looking distinguished and intelligent and very handsome. It spoke of how prominent he was, and listed the charges, and said there had been a second incident yesterday. Several newspapers and a TV station had called Tyla on her cellphone for comment by nine A.M. It meant that all the parents of Daphne’s and Will’s school friends would be aware that Andrew was being charged with attempted murder. It added a sordid element to what was already a painful time in their lives.

  “I’m sorry,” she said to Tyla over coffee after the children had gone to school.

  “I feel bad for the kids,” Tyla said with a sigh. “It was bound to come out eventually. He’s a prominent physician with a busy practice. It wasn’t going to stay a secret forever, or even for very long.”

  Two news vans were parked in front of their house all day. They didn’t know that Tyla and the children weren’t living there at the moment, which was some relief. She was letting all her calls go to voicemail so she didn’t have to talk to the press.

  * * *

  —

  They talked about it with Peter, Ava, and Arthur after the children left the dinner table that night. Arthur was still shocked that an educated, intelligent man, who could be so pleasant and entertaining to talk to, could almost murder his wife.

  “He should be hanged!” he said in a stern voice. Ava had just confided to Tyla and Meredith that she had seen Joel a few days ago, helping a pretty young blond girl who looked like a model carry a mountain of suitcases into his house.

  “So I’ve been replaced,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “Do you care?” Tyla asked her gently.

  “Not really,” Ava said with a smile. “It feels a little weird. It never takes him long. The girl looks about eighteen. She’s probably twenty-one or twenty-two. It’s just a little awkward living next door to them. But we’ll probably never run into them.”

  “Did he say hello?” Meredith asked her.

  “He didn’t see me. I was in the car…spying on him!” She laughed. “She’s a pretty girl.”

  “So are you,” Meredith said firmly. “Better than that. You’re beautiful, and smart and interesting, and better than he deserved.”

  “I’m not complaining. If I hadn’t been living with him, I would never have met Peter and all of you during the earthquake,” she said, smiling. It was nice being together again, although two members of their earthquake group had disappeared from their ranks now, Joel and Andrew. In two short months, all of their lives had changed dramatically.

  * * *

  —

  They talked about their plans for Thanksgiving. Peter, Ava, and Arthur were staying home, and so were Tyla and the children. Meredith hadn’t seen Kendall for the holidays in years. She never invited her mother, and she had declined Meredith’s invitations for ten years before her mother finally stopped inviting her. Meredith had spent all holidays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and her birthday, with Jack and Debbie for years.

  “Why don’t we spend it together?” Meredith suggested. “You can all come here.” It sounded like a good idea to all of them. None of them went home for the holidays usually, and they agreed that it would be fun to be together. Charles normally went to his daughter in Texas, but he was going to ask her for a pass this year so he could be with Meredith. He had told his daughter about Meredith, and she was happy for him.

  As always, it was a wonderful evening, and Tyla felt strongly supported by her friends. She tried not to think about Andrew, who was going to be spending the holidays alone this year, either in a psychiatric hospital, or in jail. She remembered what the social worker said about abuse being the hardest thing to get away from, and forced her mind back to the present. She had her children, she had friends, she was living in a gorgeous home for the time being, and miraculously, in spite of Andrew, she was alive!

  * * *

  —


  When Charles and Meredith woke up the next morning, after dinner with Arthur’s group, they both admitted that they were tired. It had been a long stressful week, with Andrew nearly committing mayhem again and stopped in the nick of time, Will running away, their spending half the night looking for him, a visit from CPS, Charles’s regular meetings to attend to, and Meredith breaking in new housekeepers, and Tyla and her children in residence.

  “What do you say I spirit you away to my chateau in the Napa Valley?” Charles said good-humoredly. His small, cozy house there had special meaning to them, since they had made love there for the first time.

  “That sounds heavenly.” Meredith smiled at him. She still had a mild headache from the bump on the head Andrew had given her, but she was grateful it hadn’t been worse. “I need some quiet time with you,” she said gently.

  “I thought recluses were supposed to have small, boring lives, with nothing to do. We haven’t stopped for five minutes.” And they had gone from one drama to the next. “Your recluse card is seriously out of date. How fast can you pack for the weekend?” he asked her.

  “Give me twenty minutes and I’ll meet you in the car,” she said, looking delighted. It was a chilly, blustery weekend, but even sitting in the house set among the vineyards would be a nice break from city life, and the issues they had been dealing with all week.

  True to her word, she was ready twenty minutes later. She had told Tyla they were going, and Charles drove out of the courtyard, and headed for the Golden Gate Bridge.

  They both enjoyed the drive, and when they got to Napa, it was cold, but bright and sunny. They set their bags down in his house and went for a long walk through the vineyards, breathing the crisp air, and they could smell wood fires in the distance.

  “I love it here,” she said, taking a deep breath of the country air, which smelled of earth and recent rains. “I’m so happy you have this house.” She’d been to his city home too, which was small and spare, and practical for a man living alone, but he hadn’t put much effort into decorating it. He traveled a lot, and preferred to entertain in restaurants since he was no longer married. She liked having him spend nights with her. His city house was just a closet and a home office now. He rarely spent a night there since they’d been together. But his little Napa house had charm, and was a welcome change from the grandeur of her home and all the people in it on a daily basis, with security men, cleaning staff, workmen, repair people, and the new housekeeping couple.

  “I’m thinking of going to L.A. the week after Thanksgiving,” she said to him when they got back to the house. He lit a fire, and handed her a glass of wine. “I wanted to go before then, but things keep coming up.”

  “Would you like me to go with you?” he offered, and she smiled.

  “I’d like that. But I want to spend some time with my granddaughter. Do you have something to do there?”

  “I have two clients I need to see. I can see them when you’re with your granddaughter.”

  “That sounds good,” she said. Their plans and schedules had been dovetailing nicely. “I don’t know if she’ll see me. I want to call her once I’m there, and be casual about it. If I try to set it up in advance, she might turn me down. If she’s anything like her mother, she’s not warm and fuzzy. But I haven’t seen her since she was a child of ten, when she last visited me in San Francisco, and I’d like to get to know her. She has an amazing talent, and she looks like an interesting girl.”

  It seemed sad to him that Meredith had to put so much thought into it, and done some careful juggling. His relationship with his own daughter was easy and effortless. Meredith’s daughter sounded like a tough customer with an axe to grind about her mother, even a chip on her shoulder, which left Meredith almost daughterless, and she expected her granddaughter to be the same way. She was looking forward to meeting Charles’s children, who seemed to have a friendly, relaxed relationship with their father. They called him once or twice a week, and often for advice, and it was obvious that he enjoyed them. But every family was different, and some family members were more difficult than others. Kendall had always been cool and distant, and aloof, even as a child, even before the divorce and her brother’s accident. Meredith liked her husband, but never had the opportunity to talk to him. She was hoping to salvage some kind of relationship at least with her granddaughter. It was the only family she had.

  The two days in Napa were just what they both needed. They went for a bicycle ride on Sunday, another long walk, bought cheese and pate at the Oakville Grocery, and by the time they went back to the city on Sunday night, Meredith felt as though she’d had a two-week vacation. They had slept late too, and made love when they woke up, without the intercom ringing every five minutes, and someone needing her attention.

  She had discovered too how easy her house was to run without Jack and Debbie. They had always made a big deal about how complicated it was, in order to make themselves seem important and essential. Instead, as soon as they left, she realized how much easier it was, and less expensive, without them skimming the cream off the top, to put in their pockets, or inflating what they spent. The more she saw, the more she understood what crooks they had been, and was embarrassed she hadn’t figured it out sooner. The new couple was simple and straightforward to deal with.

  “How was the weekend?” Tyla asked them when they walked in. Their cheeks were pink, they looked healthy and relaxed in jeans and heavy sweaters.

  “Perfect,” Meredith answered with a smile.

  “I knew I rented that house for a reason,” Charles said, as they made sandwiches for dinner. “I thought I’d never use it.”

  “What about you?” Meredith asked Tyla. She could see that she was feeling better.

  “Nice. I took the kids to the science museum and a movie.” It was so wonderful not to have to worry about Andrew coming home, and having a fit about something. The children were more relaxed too. No one was going to get angry at them or beat their mother.

  * * *

  —

  Another week flew by and then it was Thanksgiving. Arthur, Peter, and Ava came to dinner at Meredith’s as planned. They all dressed nicely in suits and dresses, and the new couple served the meal in the dining room. Meredith had hired a chef to prepare it, and the turkey was delicious. The conversation at the table was lively and fun. Arthur was about to fly off to do another concert, and since he had someone who traveled with him, Peter and Ava would have a break while he was away. Peter had bought theater tickets to surprise her. They lived on a small budget, unlike her life with Joel. But they both enjoyed simple pleasures, and Ava didn’t miss having a Ferrari. She thought about Joel at times, and wondered if he thought about her at all. He was part of her history now, but she felt as though she and Peter had been together forever, and it seemed like the perfect fit. Joel never had been. He liked to show her off like an object, but he had never valued her as a person. Peter did.

  * * *

  —

  They left for Los Angeles the Monday after Thanksgiving. Charles had set up his client meetings. They were planning to stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and had taken a bungalow. The hotel had a charming 1950s Old Hollywood flavor to it. Important people and big movie stars still stayed there. She and Scott had stayed there often and loved it. She hadn’t been back since they separated, because she was trying to avoid the paparazzi when they first split up and they would have had a feeding frenzy there. And since then, she had no reason to go to L.A.

  They treated her like returning royalty when she and Charles checked in. He was as handsome as any actor, with his thick white hair, bright blue eyes, and trim, athletic figure.

  “Wow! They never treat me like this when I stay here,” he teased her. There was a magnum of champagne in the room, three enormous vases of long-stemmed red roses, all her favorite magazines, pastries, petit fours, chocolates, and caviar in the fridge, as a
gift from the manager.

  “This is mecca for old movie stars.” She grinned at him. “They all come here to die, like ancient elephants.” He laughed at her comment.

  They had lunch at the Polo Lounge before he left for his first meeting. And there were two important stars and a flock of agents having lunch there.

  When she went back to the bungalow after lunch, she opened the thick file she’d brought with her about Julia, with articles about her, some photographs, her agent’s contact information, and a bio she’d gotten from the Internet. She’d even checked out her Instagram and liked it. As she sat looking at the pages in the file, she knew that she was stalling. What if Julia never returned her calls, wouldn’t answer, or hung up on her? She might be a little diva, or the carbon copy of her mother.

  She finally decided to call Julia’s agent first. It was a woman, who was apparently young and had started her own agency after working for ICM, and handled mostly young talent.

  A receptionist answered the phone, and Meredith put on her best Hollywood voice, which she hadn’t used for years. It was fun for a minute.

  She asked the girl for Julia Price’s phone number, as though she had a right to it. The receptionist asked for her name, and that was the fun part.

  “Meredith White,” she said grandly, “I’m her grandmother.”

  “Meredith White? Meredith White?” The poor girl sounded as though she’d been struck by lightning. “Of course…oh…yes, right away, Miss White. Please hold while I get it for you. I won’t be a minute.” Meredith then got to listen to a rap concert while she waited, and three minutes later a young, crisp, efficient voice came on the line.

  “Hello, I’m Sarah Gross, Julia Price’s agent. Who is this?” She obviously didn’t believe the receptionist, and Meredith didn’t blame her. A lot of crackpots or opportunists called actors with crank calls. She was surprised that the agent was on the line herself, instead of an assistant.