The People Next Door Read online

  23

  Myra Blaylock came into the Straw a few minutes after eleven. She wasn’t there when Mick ducked around the corner to drain off the last three whiskey sours in the bathroom, but when he returned, she was perched on the barstool, brown hair roped into its single thick braid around her neck, her S-curving posture and the crossed legs, one sparkly sandal flapping anxiously from her little tan foot. He stood three or four tables behind her, concocting the nicest possible way to say what needed to be said, what had already been said, what would likely be said again in the future, none of it doing a lick of good.

  Myra waved to him in the bar mirror, better than eyes in the back of her head. Something disturbing about that, like she was in the walls. Well, it was all disturbing. It was like she knew where he was at all times, not just here, but all around town. She had a funny way of showing up in grocery lines, in the next lane at the bank’s drive-thru window. That one hair-raising episode at Briela’s daycare center.

  He took a stool to her left, leaving one between them. ‘You looking to buy a bar, Myra?’

  She aimed all of herself his way, her big brown eyes horned with mascara and glossy with yesterday’s tears. ‘Oh, it can’t be that bad.’

  ‘Worse,’ he said. She sipped at her usual Bombay martini and Mick could almost taste the cigarette they would share after. ‘Come back tomorrow about this time, the lights might not be on.’

  ‘Poor Mick. You should have sold out years ago and moved to Florida.’ She thumbed a pearl dangling at the center of a silver spiral earring.

  ‘Yep.’ Mick looked at his phone, feigning distraction. ‘How’s Henry?’

  Myra batted her lashes theatrically.

  ‘Right,’ Mick said. ‘And the kids?’

  She swallowed more of the clouded booze and he wondered who had poured it for her. The rest of the staff had been cut loose for the night. Business was dead and once again he was the last man working, so maybe Myra just helped herself these days.

  ‘That good, huh?’ Mick said. ‘Glad to hear it.’

  ‘Do you really want to know or are you just being polite?’

  And there it was, the first thrust with the guilt knife.

  ‘I asked, didn’t I?’

  ‘Geoffrey’s with his grandmother in Dallas this week. Caroline’s with the dance company in Chicago for another ten days.’ In other words, I’m free. But it was never free. One ride on the Myra-Go-Round cost you a dozen pleading phone calls and one teary-eyed blowout in the office. Ten, even five years ago, it had been worth it. But he was too tired for such nonsense.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll find something to keep you entertained,’ Mick said. ‘You want a menu? Carlos makes a mean plate of chili nachos.’

  ‘Fuck you.’ Myra swiveled, opting for the bar mirror again.

  ‘Hey.’ Mick took the opportunity to walk around the bar. He needed some distance from her scent, the combination of that rainwater perfume and whatever else was just there on its own. No woman had ever smelled like that, or tasted that way. ‘My accountant just cut off my balls and I’m running exceptionally late, so you picked a bad night to pretend we’re old friends who keep tabs.’

  Myra tilted the rest of her martini back. She set the empty glass on the edge of the bar as if offering him the olive. But not the branch. Myra never offered the branch. She looked down at her purse for a moment, then up at him with a forced smile.

  ‘I didn’t mean to bother you,’ she said, gentler now. ‘I’m sorry you’re having a bad night. I worry about you. I’d miss this place. Lotta memories here, you know. Not all about you, either.’

  Mick’s throat filled with remorse. ‘You’re not bothering me, sweetie. You never did that. It’s just, you know …’ He almost told her he had drowned, but realized that would only force him to tell the story, which would earn her sympathy, and two drinks later they would be necking in her car.

  ‘No, I don’t know,’ Myra said. ‘But I’m willing to listen.’

  ‘We both know where this leads,’ he said, feeling how much of a canned line it was. ‘And it’s never good, for either of us.’

  ‘It was good for one of us not so long ago.’ Myra stood. She rooted around in her purse, slapped a twenty on the bar. ‘And I didn’t say I came here to fuck. But it’s nice to know you think I ascribe such importance to your dick.’

  Yowza. Strike two, guilt fastball. ‘Come on, you know what I mean. Let me buy you dinner.’

  ‘Not hungry, thanks.’

  ‘Myra.’

  But she was already walking out, and that was for the best. When the door closed behind her, he took her twenty and stuffed it in his pocket. Something glimmered beside her glass. She’d left her pearl earring for him. Cute, but not cunning enough for Myra. Might have been a genuine loss, fallen out while she was playing with it. He picked it up and searched around for a shot glass. He’d leave it beside the register as a reminder of things not to do, until the next time she appeared, then hand it over like the thoughtful guy he was. But he couldn’t find a shot glass and when he looked up again she was standing out on the sidewalk, smoking, pacing, and he realized she was working up the courage to come back. No, no, that’s not necessary. Let’s just wrap this up.

  He went out, cupping the earring in his left hand. She seemed very small there in her jeans and the pink blouse. Everything in her still firm, a kind of hardness inside her that bounced him back and pulled him in, often through six or seven of her own greedy little orgasms. Was like she didn’t even need him there, until he had gone.

  ‘Hey, you forgot something.’

  She startled at the sight of him and he held his palm out, a peace offering. Myra Blaylock looked at the pearl. She dropped her cigarette, took two steps and held his face in both of her hands. She kissed him once on the lips, firmly, and released him, pushing him away with surprising force.

  ‘The doctor found a lump in my left breast,’ she said. ‘But that’s not why I dropped by. It’s my birthday. I was hoping you would be the first one to remember.’

  For a moment he was speechless, the memory of telling Amy that Myra had breast cancer coming back to slap him across the face. But here, tonight, this was news. How had he known? His head was swirling.

  ‘What was I thinking,’ she said, not really a question.

  ‘Aw, shit, Myra.’ He reached for her but she spun away.

  ‘Good luck with the restaurant, Mickey.’

  ‘Myra, wait.’

  ‘Tried that.’

  Her thin sandals flapped off into the night. He watched her get into her latte-bronze Buick Enclave and drive off jerkily, the aspirational, I’m-not-a-mini-van, sultry crossover depressing in its melodramatic exit.

  The worst part of it occurred to him then. She hadn’t said she had breast cancer. She said the doctor found a lump. She was scared, and Mick felt certain she had every reason to be. She was dying. They would do the biopsy and it would come back malignant. He knew it the way he had seen Sapphire’s dirty hands all over his money. Myra was going to lose her hair from chemo, but it wouldn’t be enough to save her.

  ‘What in God’s name is happening to me?’ he said to the empty parking lot, in a voice that sounded scared shitless.

  24

  Amy sat forward in her lawn chair but did not stand; she was afraid of drawing attention to herself. Who, or what, the hell was this? Had it been watching her the whole time? It looked like an emaciated deer on its hind legs, with thin limbs, an odd shaped head that narrowed. But it had walked upright, like a person. It had to be a person, the shape merely distorted in the darkness.

  It was standing there against the pine tree at the edge of her lawn, and she could feel its eyes watching her. It was as if it knew when she was looking, and would only move again once she looked away.

  It wants something from me.

  She placed her cigarette on the flagstone and stepped on it, and when she looked up the figure was gone. She refocused, seeking along the tree line. There. Sta
nding a few trees down. It seemed to have shifted position without actually walking. Now it lowered itself to the ground while she stared at it, hunching in a crouch, then rose up again, and as it reached its full height there was a new kind of mass to it. Difficult to know from this distance and in this light, but the longer she studied it, the more convinced she became that it was human, a woman. She needed it to be a woman.

  Amy was only twenty feet from the house. She had time to run, but curiosity (and gnawing fear) rooted her to the chair. It was probably some girl who had come sniffing around for Kyle. He had been caught sneaking out past his curfew eleven or twelve times this spring and summer. Maybe she could scare the girl away. Because I’m really not in the mood for games, Amy thought, and stood.

  ‘Might as well come out,’ she called across the yard. ‘I see you standing there.’

  The figure retreated deeper into the trees, then pivoted and came walking directly at her. The motion-detector was activated, casting a funnel of blue-white light over the patio and lawn, drawing in the figure slowly.

  ‘I hope I didn’t startle you,’ it said, resolving into a thin woman approximately Amy’s age. Her shiny black hair was streaked with red highlights and she wore black designer jeans and a plain black blouse, buttoned crookedly. Her feet were bare, pale and dirty. Her eyes were shiny black, her expression languid. ‘I was just out for a walk.’

  ‘Okay.’ Amy was relieved that it was only a woman, but she was mildly shaken by the shifting shape she had seen, and this flat voice and vacant expression. I will never eat seven orange cinnamon rolls again, she vowed. ‘Something I can do for you?’

  ‘Were you smoking?’

  Amy sniffed. ‘Uhm, yes, I was.’

  ‘My husband says I’m not supposed to.’

  Amy softened, heard herself say, ‘Sounds familiar. Is there some reason you’re sneaking around my backyard, or …?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I think I’m lost.’

  This was like having a conversation with a car crash victim.

  ‘Where’s your husband? Is there a problem?’

  The woman glanced back toward the palazzo. ‘Oh, there it is.’

  ‘That’s your house?’

  ‘I was supposed to bring this over.’ She clumsily proffered a bottle of white wine. Amy couldn’t read the painted label, but the green glass was moist with condensation from its chilling.

  ‘Wow,’ Amy said. ‘You read my mind.’

  This brought the first sign of a smile, albeit a thin one. ‘I’m Cassandra Render. That’s our name. The Renders.’

  Amy nodded politely, thinking, What pills are you on, Cassandra Render?

  ‘I’m Amy Nash. My husband is Mick. Your house is lovely.’

  Cassandra Render looked back at the house. ‘That’s where we live now,’ she said. ‘In our new house.’

  ‘You just moved in this week?’

  ‘Is your husband home?’ Cassandra smiled, her teeth large and white in the artificial light.

  ‘He’s working late. We own a restaurant, so he’s always working late.’

  ‘My husband works late too. He’s always working. You can call me Cass. My husband is Vince.’ Cassandra eyed the lounge chairs with a fearful longing. The woman seemed fragile and Amy found this endearing. Minutes ago she hadn’t been in the mood for company, but a fault line had shifted inside her.

  ‘Well, I think it’s nice,’ Amy said. ‘That house can only increase property values and we could use some fresh blood around here. Welcome to the neighborhood, Cass. Sit down. I’ll grab a corkscrew.’ Amy jaunted off for the kitchen.

  Cass said, ‘I love your swimming pool.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Amy called over her shoulder. ‘Help yourself anytime!’

  ‘You are very kind, Amy Nash.’

  When Amy returned, Cass accepted the corkscrew and then stared at it in her open palm. She looked to the bottle and back to the corkscrew, and for a crazy moment, Amy was sure the woman was contemplating using it as a weapon.

  Amy said, ‘Here, let me,’ and manhandled it open. Cass watched as if trying to memorize it for next time. Amy poured and when she looked up, Cass was studying her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Why are you staring at me like that?’ Amy said.

  ‘I’m sorry. Just nervous, I guess. I don’t have any friends here.’

  Amy laughed but stopped herself. ‘Aw, why do I suspect that’s not true?’

  Cass shook her head and stared into her wine.

  Amy decided to change the subject. ‘Do you want to hear a funny story?’

  Cass smiled.

  ‘Okay, I teach on a program out at Vo-Tech, for kids who are at risk. And there’s these two rotten little scoundrels, Eric Pritchard and Jason Wells. I mean, they’re all troubled, but these two are another breed. Last week they tried to smoke in class and when I told them to put it out, one of them said, “I’m gonna get you for that.” I swear, kids these days have no respect for teachers, and really, that comes from the parents …’

  Cass listened intently as Amy unwound her tale, which became a rant of sorts extending a good ten minutes beyond her best intentions. When she finished, Cass reached across, touching her arm. Her fingers were soft, cool.

  ‘And how did that make you feel? When they called you the c-word?’

  Amy twitched, but Cass would not let go. A warmth seemed to ooze from her palm, into Amy’s skin, until her touch was as pleasant as it had been startling. Amy scoffed, shook her head, and at last decided to be honest. ‘It hurt.

  It made me feel weak. Like a failure and a pathetic excuse for a teacher.’

  Cass nodded, her cold blue eyes unblinking. ‘And? What else?’

  Amy looked at this stranger in the lounge chair beside her. ‘It made me mad. Furious. So mad I could kill them. Make them pay for …’ She paused, shocked by her own rancor. ‘Well, I shouldn’t let them get to me.’

  Cass traced the rim of her wine glass. ‘I understand.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘The world is full of mean people. I’m so glad we’re friends.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Cass sat forward and placed her wine on the patio. Amy realized the woman had not taken a single sip. Cass stood.

  ‘I should go,’ she said. ‘Before it gets too late.’

  Amy stood. ‘Oh. All right, then. Do you want me to walk you home?’

  ‘No.’ Cass turned and stepped awkwardly and something clinked. Amy looked down to see Cass’s bare foot standing on the shattered wine glass.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Amy said.

  Cass slowly lifted her foot and leaned forward to stare at it with clinical detachment. A triangle of glass jutted from the arch, and smaller speckles were embedded in the sole.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Cass said.

  ‘No, no, it’s my fault. Here, please, sit down while I get the first-aid kit.’ Cass took another step, and another, crunching more of the embedded glass.

  ‘Oh my God, no, wait!’ Amy said. ‘Jesus, that looks serious.’

  Cass stopped. ‘It’s no trouble. Vincent will fix it. I have to go.’ And then she was hurrying away, waving a hand that said please do not follow me.

  ‘You shouldn’t walk on that. You could get an infection—’ But it was no use. The woman was already slipping back into the darkness. Amy looked around, wishing someone was here to tell her if what she had seen was as strange as it seemed. Cass was probably on Valium, some kind of sedative. Lonely housewife addiction disorder.

  She went inside and fetched the dustpan and brush. As she was cleaning up the glass, sweeping all around the lawn chairs and between puzzle pieces of flagstone, even with her face so close to the ground her nose was nearly touching the gritty surface, she found not a single drop of blood.

  25

  A summer breeze was blowing through Briela Nash’s hair. She was standing on a wide black road in her pink elephant pajamas, the ground cold on her bare feet. It was nigh
ttime and she didn’t remember coming outside. There were only five or six cars up near the big grocery store’s darkened windows. The bright blue sign above the store blinked and went dark. She knew it still said Albertson’s, but Mommy called it Fat Albertson’s. Which meant this was the parking lot and her family’s restaurant was right behind her! She turned, ready to run to the Last Straw – and stopped.

  A thin man with a red-and-blue baseball cap was staring down at her, quiet as a cat. His eyes were black and lined with red veins and he was trembling with excitement. He smiled, his lips wet as he bent to reach for her. She backed away, but there were others, circling her. Black shapes, their feet sweeping pebbles on the ground as they slinked closer.

  She turned and saw her dad walking toward her. He was playing with the Broncos keyring she gave him for Father’s Day, head down, tired and sad. She had to warn him. The man in the red-and-blue cap and the others were going to get him, and she tried to speak but her mouth didn’t work.

  Everything jumped like the TV fast-forwarding and she almost fell over from the shaking. The whole world was shaking, and there was screaming, and so much violence it was like standing next to a car crash, but it was only people. Roaring with animal rage. Daddy was screaming and they fell on him like a pack of wild dogs.

  Briela’s entire body twitched like it was one electric muscle, yanking her from terrible dreams. She blinked in darkness, waiting to find out where she was. A lone tower in some dark kingdom gradually became her bedpost. The deep black cave her closet door. And then her bookshelf was there, with Pooh in his red shirt. She hadn’t slept with him since she was a baby, but she crawled from her tangled sheets and ran and snatched him down. He was heavy and dusty in her arms and she scampered back to bed and fell onto him, rolling with him pressed to her nose, until the two of them were safe under the covers.

  She wanted to run down the hall and make sure Daddy was home safe, but she was too afraid to leave her bed. Nothing could hurt her here. As long as she stayed under the covers with Pooh.

  Briela had learned the word ‘transmissions’ from a show about aliens Kyle was watching late one night, and she thought that sounded exactly the way they felt. She began receiving them a little more than eight months ago, right after construction on the new house in the backyard began (though she had not made this connection yet, only thought of the house’s appearance as a kind of marker in her life, a change in the landscape that irritated her parents and piqued Briela’s curiosity every time she glanced in that direction, as if she were expecting the house to grow out of the hole in the ground). The transmissions came to her in single shots, like the photos Mommy was always uploading to her Picasa, but sometimes they were longer, like the movie clips Kyle looked at on his Egg.