Neighborly: A Novel Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Ellie Monago

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542045773 (hardcover)

  ISBN-10: 1542045770 (hardcover)

  ISBN-13: 9781542048286 (paperback)

  ISBN-10: 1542048281 (paperback)

  Cover design by Rex Bonomeli

  First edition

  CONTENTS

  AUGUST 20

  CHAPTER 1 WELCOME TO THE AV!

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22 ELLEN

  CHAPTER 23 KAT

  CHAPTER 24 ELLEN

  CHAPTER 25 KAT

  CHAPTER 26 ELLEN

  CHAPTER 27 KAT

  CHAPTER 28 ELLEN

  CHAPTER 29 KAT

  CHAPTER 30 ELLEN

  CHAPTER 31 KAT

  CHAPTER 32 ELLEN

  CHAPTER 33 KAT

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  AUGUST 20

  Welcome back to GoodNeighbors.net!

  You have 8 new messages from your neighbors!

  Looking for a reliable landscaper. Any recommendations?

  Server at the microbrewery that just opened on Main didn’t wash her hands after using the restroom.

  Free aquarium.

  Thanks for all the nanny referrals! You AVers rock!

  You don’t want to miss one of the last block parties of the summer.

  My three-year-old lost her favorite stuffed bunny (rip in his right ear, answers to the name Carrots). Last seen at Shoreline Park. Reward for its return—Chardonnay at our house!

  Lemonade stand now open at 1340 Griffith Street.

  AVers, I have some horrifying news. Last night, one of our own was shot. Details are still emerging, but it looks like the perpetrator was another resident of the AV. At a time like this, we need to lean on each other more than ever . . .

  CHAPTER 1

  WELCOME TO THE AV!

  Two Months Earlier

  Doug and I grin at each other in surprise and delight. Even Sadie’s in on the act: I feel her feet hyperextending joyously as she’s suspended against me in the BabyBjörn.

  I couldn’t have imagined anything like this—who gets welcomed to their new neighborhood with a block party and a ten-foot-tall balloon arch?—and yet, it’s exactly why we spent everything we had to live in Aurora Village (AV to the locals). They say it takes a village, and Sadie deserves one.

  Our block is a carefully maintained mishmash of architecture that includes Colonials, Mediterraneans, Tudors, Georgians, Victorians, and California Craftsmen. Some are original, meaning they’re more than a hundred years old. Our Craftsman is by far the smallest, a bungalow really, but our neighbors don’t seem to mind, so I won’t, either.

  While the houses might appear to be a random assortment, the trees reveal the AV’s covert design. Beech, Japanese maple, jacaranda, birch, cherry, and oak all come together to create an ever-changing seasonal kaleidoscope. The tree canopy above dances like a mobile. There’s a flowering pear tree in front of our house, and its fluffy white blossoms take on a silver cast as dusk falls. It’s stunning, and I mean that literally. We moved in last week, and I’m still stunned that we get to live here.

  Good thing I took care of all that move-in trash yesterday. Sure, my methods were unorthodox, but it had to be done. This place is immaculate. It’s like that movie Pleasantville, only it’s already in Technicolor. The sun is high in the sky, radiant yellow against cloudless blue; it’s a child’s drawing of a day. The air carries the smoke and tang of barbecue.

  The neighbors must have been waiting for us. Before we’ve even descended our front steps, there’s a round of applause, whoops, and whistles.

  The children below are bubble blowing and Hula-Hooping and playing tag, dogs at their heels. I spy a pogo stick. There’s not a handheld device or smartphone in evidence—no video games, no scrolling. It’s like we’ve stepped back in time, except for all the late-model luxury cars, including, in one driveway, matching Porsche Cayenne SUVs. Since it is the San Francisco Bay Area, the landscape is dotted with Priuses. There are some solidly middle-class cars like ours, a Subaru Outback that we bought used before Sadie’s arrival and that I now wish we’d thought to wash.

  Card tables span the block, piled high with homemade appetizers, salads, innumerable bun options (several of them gluten-free; one made from a blend of ground-up seeds), and desserts. I feel guilty that Doug and I don’t have some sort of contribution, though I was explicitly told that we were meant to be empty-handed as the guests of honor. While there are plenty of cut-up vegetables and six kinds of hummus, the buffet could have used some pretzels, popcorn, or chips. Everything seems so well organized, nearly military in its precision, that I imagine the absence of snack food is not an oversight. In the AV, I bet there are no oversights, only a consensual choreography.

  “Do you think there’s a block-wide ban on chips?” I whisper to Doug.

  “Maybe someone once choked on a fat-free, low-carb quinoa crisp,” he whispers back. We giggle, loopy with excitement, irrepressibly thrilled to be the newest residents of the 1800 block of Bayberry Lane. Sadie—who, at four months old, is reveling in her new superpower of controlling her head instead of it lolling around on her neck—strains upward, letting out a giggle of her own.

  Four high-end grills are lined up, laden with every variety of organic, grass-fed, free-range meat and, of course, meat substitute product imaginable. A man with appropriately fire-colored hair is moving back and forth among them, alternating between tongs and brushes, a study in male dominance and efficiency. It’s a martial arts display. The thought that our neighbors have gone to this much trouble for us is nearly dizzying.

  Everything we did to get here was 100 percent worth it. It wasn’t exactly a devil’s bargain, but it was close.

  So many people would kill to be in our shoes. Hundreds showed up at the open house for what is now our home, so many that prospective buyers had to enter in shifts, waiting outside like it was an exclusive club, the selling agent acting as bouncer. Now we’re on the other side of the velvet ropes. That balloon arch is directly in front of the walkway to our house. The welcome banner is for us.

  All morning, I could hear the setup happening outside: “Let’s move this table!” and “How about over here?” and “What do you think of this?” accompanied by laughter. A lot of laughter. I just kept thinking, Our neighbors like each other; please let them like us. Please let them
like me.

  Everyone loves Doug everywhere he goes, effortlessly. He’s good-looking but not intimidatingly so—tall and well built but not six-packed, with brown hair and brown eyes and a ready smile. His wit is quick yet never scathing. He listens deeply when people talk; he has a gift for making others feel interesting. He engenders goodwill and reminds you there are trustworthy people in the world. I often need that reminder. In large part, I married him for it.

  And people go nuts for Sadie, with her golden curls and cerulean blue eyes. Whenever we’re out, strangers make references to the Gerber baby. I was a true blonde, too, when I was her age. Now my hair’s much darker, wavy rather than curly, and my eyes are hazel. Me, I’m passably pretty, but she’s prototypically beautiful. Doug is an extrovert, while I’ve always been slow to warm up. Yet that’s about to change. Moving here wasn’t just about a new house to go with our new baby. It was about a whole new life, one I’ll do my best to meet unguarded, with open arms.

  At that very notion, my smile wobbles. What if I’m marked in some way that I can’t see? What if my life before is indelible, the past written in invisible ink? What if the intensity and purity of AV sunlight will bring it out?

  As I teeter, our next-door neighbor approaches and hugs me, her arms a wide arc to encompass Sadie, too. Several days ago, she knocked on our door to introduce herself and extend the invitation to today’s party. I was so touched by her warmth and kindness that everything flew out of my head, including her name.

  Since moving in, I’ve seen her the most of anyone, through our front window. She and her husband are empty nesters with a pair of golden retrievers they walk three times a day. She’s always wearing workout shorts and microfiber T-shirts. A space-age fanny pack lies extremely flat against a stomach that’s also notably flat, but it somehow goes with her look. Her husband is tall and trim, with a shock of silver hair, and I see he’s off talking to a cluster of men who I presume to be the block alphas—all dressed neatly in chino shorts and polo shirts—owners of the largest and most renovated houses on the block. These are men who get their lawns serviced professionally rather than simply mown, who work with large sums of other people’s money.

  I try to listen as the woman I think of as Fanny introduces herself to Doug, but just then, Sadie lets out a peal of excitement. Well, Doug’ll tell me later. He’s good at remembering names.

  “Come with me,” Fanny says, taking my hand and leading me forward. “Meet everyone.”

  There are orange cones at either end of the block, which she tells me were put there by the neighbor across the street, Wyatt, who is a police officer. I don’t know if it’s legal to arbitrarily cordon off his own block for gatherings, but I’m not about to question the Shangri-La before me.

  A huge bounce house is emblazoned with pictures of Mickey Mouse and friends, and Fanny informs me that the Rileys own and inflate it for every gathering. “Just one of the perks of being on this block!”

  A face-painting table is set up with a stool and a five-tiered makeup kit, manned (womanned, actually) by a comely brunette. The little girl on the stool is currently half-cat.

  “That’s Tennyson,” Fanny says, indicating the painter. “Isn’t that a beautiful name?” I murmur my assent, hoping I sound convincing. “Her parents were English professors. She was almost named Coleridge. She lives in house number 1812. Her husband, Vic, will be dressed up like a clown later, making balloon animals. He’s a day trader. He’s also the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus.”

  No response leaps to mind, so I just nod, smile, and wipe at Sadie with the burp cloth that’s tucked into the Björn. I’m on constant drool patrol.

  A children’s soccer game is being organized on an expanse of emerald lawn; meanwhile, chalk is laid out on the sidewalk for the artistically inclined. Younger kids play harmoniously with older ones. It’s unclear which are family members and which are simply neighbors, since a deep familiarity exists from the youngest to the oldest, kids and adults alike. People move easily among different clusters, with shoulder pats and laughter. It’s so different from our last neighborhood where we’d rented for years, just twenty minutes away in downtown Oakland, with anonymous bustle and bars and nightclubs. That was pre-Sadie, and this, the AV, is very definitely post. This is where I want to be. These people—they’re who I want to be.

  While I’ve never been as outgoing as Doug, I’m sure I can hold my own. It’s just that I haven’t done much socializing since Sadie came along. I’m a little rusty, that’s all.

  This is going to work out. It has to. We did what was necessary to get here, because that’s how it is once you have children. You make sacrifices so they can have the best lives possible. But that feeling in my stomach is more than a pit. It’s the whole peach.

  I almost wish I still drank. A glass of wine might sand my slightly jagged nerves. I can’t help noticing that there’s plenty of white wine and champagne on ice in what appear to be expensive silver buckets. Several coolers are full of juice boxes and milk for the kids, while another is yawning open, full of beer.

  I haven’t had any alcohol in more than a year, not since before I was Sadie’s incubator, and now I’m her main food source. For the first time, I seriously consider a pump and dump, but I’ve always hated the idea of anything going to waste. Doug’s already grabbed a Sam Adams and is taking in his surroundings with a huge smile.

  I need to find my next someone to talk to. The vibe is incredibly friendly, and I’ve got my own balloon arch. There’s nothing to worry about. I just need to look around and leap.

  By and large, the clusters are gender-specific. Doug joins a male minyan, and I scan the quorums of women. I notice how variously dressed they are, yet so easily commingling. This isn’t like high school, where social organization is by type—jocks with jocks, brains with brains. Here, I can’t tell who the popular kids are.

  The vast majority of women appear to be in their thirties through late forties, so in that way, I fit right in at thirty-four. Some are in lululemon; others are outfitted from REI, like they just got done with a hike; there are lots of sundresses; a few women are done up like Real Housewives, in high fashion with perfect coiffures and full makeup and expensive jewelry; there are a couple of pairs of frumpy knee-length shorts; and one woman wears cat’s-eye glasses with a retro print romper, an arty tattoo vining along her arm and up her neck. There are different body types, some much more toned than others, but obesity seems to have been outlawed. Two obviously pregnant women are chatting with each other, mirror images, each rubbing her belly in slow concentric circles.

  Women spend their lives trying to set up a certain image—through their clothes, their hair, their shoes—that will serve as a dog whistle for other women of similar ilk. Me, I’ve always been a career-minded quasi-intellectual, taking pride in my work. I’m happy to see the New Yorker magazine in the dentist’s office but never subscribe; I aim to look reasonably attractive but not like I’ve spent too much time to get there, with wedge heels and never stilettos, in the requisite cute top and jeans, loath to take any risks with bold accessories. I don’t want to call too much attention to myself; I’m just hoping to blend in. It seems like a low bar, but at a glance, it’s not at all obvious to me where I fit. That I will fit.

  As I’m scanning the crowd anxiously, I’m set upon by two men. They’re both tall, but that’s where their similarities end. One has a baby face, silky blond hair, a neatly trimmed beard, and is wearing a pair of jeans and a plaid button-down; the other is craggily handsome, his hair dark with filaments of gray, his muscles on full display in a tank top and tight shorts, his arms tattooed from shoulder to wrist in bright colors, like exotic plumage. I’d guess there’s at least a fifteen-year age difference between them, maybe even twenty.

  “Hey there! I’m Brandon and he’s Stone,” the older, tattooed man tells me with a broad smile. “Congratulations on the house! Welcome to the ’hood! We’re so excited to meet you!” He leans down to get a better look at Sadie
. She preens for him prettily, a flirt at four months. “Look at this little one! So gorgeous. We need another, pronto.”

  Stone’s smile says he’s happy being background to Brandon’s foreground. “She is a beauty.”

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “Have you met Oliver yet?” Brandon asks me. I shake my head. “He lives in that perfectly restored Victorian over there. When Stone and I first moved onto the street, I couldn’t stop laughing.” I must look perplexed because he points to the Victorian: “Oliver,” and then to his partner: “Stone.” I laugh. “This one,” he says, gesturing to Stone again, “calls me Bran. Doesn’t Stone Bran sound like a remedy for the worst constipation you ever had?”

  “Stone and Bran should have an ‘Esquire’ at the end,” Stone says, mildly corrective.

  “I’ve always felt we’re more of a variety show,” Brandon counters. “We’re like the Mandrell sisters. When I first said that, Stone had no idea who they were. Do you know who they are?” I indicate no, and he does an exaggerated sigh. “You young folk. No sense of history.”

  I can tell this is a routine they’ve done before, but I don’t mind. I like them.

  “Enough about us. I want to hear all about you!” Brandon says. “It’s Katrina, right?” He pauses to mug for Sadie, who coos appreciatively.

  “Yeah, but I go by Kat.”

  “I love Kat! So spunky.”

  I want to live up to that billing, but nothing comes to mind. “What do you guys do?” Ugh. Could I have seemed any less spunky and more conventional?

  “I’m in one of those finance jobs no one wants to hear about,” Stone answers. “And he’s creative.”

  “I’ve always got a project going on. I’ve constantly got to beautify myself or Zoe or the house. I’m a fifties housewife trapped in the body of George Clooney.” Brandon dimples. “A much younger, more attractive George Clooney.” He glances over to where Doug is engaged in energetic conversation. “Speaking of good looks, can I just tell you, that husband of yours . . .” He does a little wolf whistle.

  “Thanks. He’s a great guy.” I wonder if Brandon’s thinking that Doug is too handsome for me, suddenly self-conscious about my new size-eight body. Before Sadie, I was a four. Doug and I used to be better matched. Physically, that is.