The Good Neighbor: A Novel Read online

  In reply, Meg moved her arm off her midriff and awkwardly patted the top of his thigh, letting it rest there for a moment before bringing it back to cover her belly.

  Austin stared at the ceiling, electrically aware of the tiny platinum hairs stirring on his forearms, stomach, and legs in the breeze from the fan above. “Why tonight?” he asked gently.

  Meg sighed, drew one leg up, and pushed the hair off her sweaty forehead with her free hand. In helpless relaxation she allowed that hand to fall above her head and rest. Quietly she replied, “I think I got drunk enough to realize how sick I was of myself.”

  From the side away from her, Austin crooked his own arm and let it fall behind his head. His fingers found and held hers. “We were pretty nasty to each other tonight.”

  “I don’t want to be that way,” Meg said clearly.

  “I don’t either,” Austin said.

  What remained to be spoken went unsaid. They lay quietly next to each other, both turning long furrows in their own thoughts for quite some time. Finally, Meg moved away and turned on her side to face him. “What do you think of our neighbors?” She asked with every intention of changing the subject. In her sudden sleeplessness, she wanted Austin’s company in his role as her best friend.

  Austin moved the hand closest to her to his groin, shifted himself, and brought his hand to rest on his belly. “Rory’s a good cook, I’ll say that,” he said and yawned.

  “There are things going on there,” Meg said assertively.

  “What do you mean?”

  Meg lifted her head to rest it in her hand and said, “Rory’s a queer in a gilded cage. I think Bruno controls everything.”

  “Forget about it,” Austin said dismissively. “They were the same way the first time I ever met them. Nothing’s changed.”

  “Did you know Bruno was married at one time? He was with Rory before and after the poor woman. I can’t imagine going through that.”

  Austin didn’t respond.

  “Really… , why would Bruno do that? It must have killed his wife.”

  Austin looked at her without turning his head. “I don’t know, Meg. C’mon. Chalk it up to true love. Or, most likely, he got married in the first place because he thought it’d help his career.”

  “That’s pretty much what Rory said, and I think it’s pretty coldhearted,” Meg replied with some heat. “I mean, you grow up expecting things. You grow up dreaming about the wedding, the kids, the living life together. Then all of a sudden, it’s not anything like you always believed it would be. All because…”

  “All because why?” Austin asked quietly.

  Meg didn’t respond at first, then she said, “all because your husband has the hots for another guy. It would be bad enough if it was another woman. It just doesn’t fit in with anything you’d think of.”

  “You grew up believing those things, didn’t you? The happy ever after,” Austin asked gently.

  “Yes I did,” Meg said. “No little girl ever grows up thinking she’s got to be worried about losing her husband to his best friend.”

  Austin let go of her fingers and brought his hand down to rest under his head. “Did you ever think your life would be all this? Is it what you thought it would be, or is it different?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean, Austin?”

  “I’m just saying, my life isn’t at all what I thought it would be,” Austin said dreamily. “I never imagined us in a house like this, for one thing. Then there’s the kids. You always think about kids, but it’s just an idea. You never think about how they stink sometimes, or how they make your heart break sometimes. You never see any of that bullshit for the way it’s going to be. I always just had these ideas about being an adult. I never thought I’d just wake up one day and be in the middle of it. To tell you the truth, I don’t have a clue how I got here. Sometimes shit just happens.” Austin spoke in a rush, as if she had opened a dam in his psyche.

  “Are you happy?” Meg asked in a still, small voice.

  “I don’t sit around asking myself things like that, Meg.” he said and raised himself on his elbow to kiss her. He patted her hip and kissed her again. “Right now I’m happy. This minute I am. How’s that?”

  “Thanks for that. I’m glad,” she said and watched him give her a smile, then turn on his side away from her. He bunched his pillow under his head and drew his legs up into a comfortably fetal position.

  “Get some sleep, sweetheart,” he said.

  Meg reached across the bed and ran her hand from his shoulder to his hip once, and then again, as if she were stroking a large dog that had found its way into her bed. She sighed and turned to face away from him. As she settled, she couldn’t shake the feeling he was no one she had ever known at all.

  At last, alone and untouched on his side of the bed, Austin’s mind drifted with the current of his buzz through the backwaters of the evening. He found the picture of a nude white-winged angel and stared. When the angel looked back with a sleepy-eyed look and an amused smile, he felt his dick stretch lazily and lie along his thigh in its interested ease. Austin moved his hand from his side and freed a crease in his scrotum from between his legs. I don’t know how I got here, he thought, unalarmed and bemused, and unquestioningly drifted on toward sleep.

  5150 ST. MARK’S COURT

  RORY REAPPEARED IN the kitchen shucked down to his boxers and a guinea-T. “Well, that was excruciating,” he said to Bruno as he walked to the cabinet to get a clean glass.

  Bruno looked up from the pot he was washing and grinned. “Aww, c’mon. They weren’t that bad. They just had a little too much wine. In vino veritas.”

  Absently, he tossed Bridget a dog cookie and watched as she caught it deftly and trotted into the family room. As the old dog turned before sinking to the floor, Rory opened the refrigerator and loaded his glass with ice. “I don’t particularly care about their veritas. You should have heard Meg with the girl chat while you guys were outside. I sort of felt sorry for Austin.” He walked back to the cabinet by the sink and searched for a moment. At last, he took out a bottle of aspirin, opened it, and tipped the bottle to his lips before he recapped it and put it away. Dry swallowing the tablets, he walked to the bar and poured what was left of a bottle of water into his glass. “That wife of his is a piece of work.”

  Bruno rinsed out the pot, slopping water onto the bar. “I bet he ain’t seen no pussy for a right good little while.”

  Rory walked over and picked up a dish towel. Absently, he mopped up the water Bruno had sloshed and took the dripping pot from him. “You got that too, right?”

  Bruno walked from the kitchen into the family room and pulled his shirt over his head. “He almost shit when Meg asked you to come over and put up that picture lamp.” Bruno tossed his shirt and managed to fling it precisely on top of a bar stool. That done, he took off his pants and tossed them in the same direction. The heavier pants landed on top of the shirt, and pulled them both off the stool into a heap on the floor. Bruno ignored the heap and sat on the edge of the sofa in front of the TV in his boxer shorts.

  “She showed him up. It embarrassed me, and I know how to do it.” Rory said as he finished drying the pot and put it away.

  “So are you going to do it?” Bruno asked as he settled into the corner of the sectional, put his feet up, and picked up the remote control. Idly, he began flicking through the channels.

  “I said I would. I’ll wait until the guy calls me though. I’m not going to strap on my tool belt and show up at his door like Joe Electrician. Sheesh, poor guy.” Rory gave the kitchen a last glance and satisfied, turned off the light. He walked into the family room and pointedly looked at the pile of Bruno’s clothes on the floor.

  Bruno caught the look. “I’ll pick it up in the morning,” he said as Rory moved between him and the coffee table. He spread his legs and patted his chest. “Right here, star child,” he said and grinned.

  Rory settled on the sofa between his legs and laid his head back on
Bruno’s chest. “Mad TV is on seven until Saturday Night Live comes on,” he said tiredly.

  Bruno grunted. “Saturday Night Live is already on. It’s one we’ve seen.”

  “I can’t believe it’s that late already,” Rory said and closed his eyes.

  “Modern Marvels is on the History Channel,” Bruno said and punched in the number.

  “Which one is it?”

  Bruno watched for a moment. “Hydraulics!”

  “Cool,” Rory replied without opening his eyes. “Leave it there if you want to.”

  Bruno tossed the remote onto the coffee table, where it slid out of reach. Bruno put his free hand under Rory’s T-shirt and slid his palm just under the elastic of his boxers. “Are you going to go to sleep on top of me?”

  “Probably,” Rory said and sighed happily.

  Bruno reached his little finger out and tugged at the top line of Rory’s pubic hair. He studied the screen where a huge dump truck lumbered over an excavation site.

  “Look!” he said, “Big twucks!”

  “I wike twucks,” Rory said and grinned. “Bruno? Do you think those two are as good together as we are?”

  “I don’t know, maybe.” Bruno considered the screen a while longer, then said, “It’s probably different for them with kids and shit. They probably have their kind of fun. Straight people stuff. I’ve never thought about it.”

  “For a minute there, they were at each other’s throats.” Rory said thoughtfully.

  Bruno grunted in reply.

  “I mean, we don’t do that, though I could have punched you for bringing up the whole deal with the new band.”

  Bruno looked at the top of his head and grimaced. “I still don’t want you to do it. I don’t understand what the big deal is.”

  His face out of Bruno’s line of sight, Rory rolled his eyes. “The big deal is the point that it’s something I want to do. It’s not going to affect you, it has nothing to do with you. It’s about me doing something for myself.”

  Bruno moved his hand off Rory’s belly and rested his arm over the back of the sofa. “Why can’t you just be satisfied with how things are? What’s this rush to go out and embarrass yourself with a group that has nothing to do with the kind of singing you know anything about? Besides, face it, you’re forty years old. Your singing days are over.”

  Rory decided to let that dig go by. He was too tired to get into it with Bruno and there was no way he could explain his drive to be something more than what he was these days to someone who was happily in thrall to his own career. He stirred and sat up. “Whatever, Bruno. Whatever.” He twisted neatly and got his feet on the floor under Bruno’s leg. “I’ve got to go to bed or I will fall asleep on top of you,” he said and yawned.

  “I don’t care,” Bruno said sincerely.

  “I know. But you will in the morning when you wake up with a backache,” Rory said. “Do you think they had a nice time?”

  Bruno turned his attention from the screen and looked at him levelly. “Changing the subject is a little juvenile. Besides, I thought you didn’t really care.” He turned his attention back to the trucks on the screen. “They acted like they did.”

  Rory thought about Austin for a moment. He really did seem whipped and a little lost. Meg had confided far too much personal information while she helped him after dinner. Rory leaned toward Bruno’s feet and retrieved a sofa pillow. He stood and Bruno obligingly shifted his foot to the coffee table to let him stand. Instead of going to bed, he simply walked around the coffee table and curled up on the sofa at the right angle to Bruno’s. He lay there for a moment before he felt Bruno’s hand smooth his hair and then pass down to rub his side a couple of times. When he was done, Bruno lifted his arm and let it rest on the back of the cushions over his head.

  Satisfied that the ultimate showdown about the new band had been deflected, Rory closed his eyes and turned his thoughts to the Hardens. In their own way, they probably are each other’s best friends, like we are when Bruno’s not being an asshole. They probably have to be; neither one of them mentioned having any other friends. Meg’s a little nuts, but Austin seems like a pretty nice guy. He mumbled as he thought.

  “What’s that, Rory?” Bruno said. “We’ll talk about this band thing later, okay?”

  Sleepily, Rory nodded while his thoughts flowed past responding. Soon his thoughts merged with the narration from the television. The marvel of hydraulics soothed him toward sleep. Bruno stirred and grumbled softly. In no time at all, Rory slept.

  CHAPTER SIX

  It’s no big deal

  AUSTIN AND RORY sat next to each other on a pair of chairs flanking a low table across from the sofa in the Hardens living room. The focus of their rapt attention was the picture lamp’s satisfying glow. All in all, it taken a little over an hour from the time Rory knocked on the front door until the lamp was wired successfully, the painting rehung, and the sofa shoved back into place under it. As Rory had promised, it was no big deal. For Austin, however, it represented a success that was worth more than the time it took to get the lamp up and turned on.

  “I thought that outlet might be wired to the switch in the foyer,” Rory said pleasantly. He stood and looked at Austin kindly. “Builders do that a lot so you can turn on the living room lamps when you first come in.”

  “I never would have imagined,” Austin said truthfully as he stood as well. “I really appreciate you taking the time to do this.”

  Rory smiled and shook his head. “Well, I’d better be getting back next door.”

  Austin looked hurt. “What’s your rush? The least I can do is offer you a beer or lunch or something…”

  Rory smiled and looked at his watch. It wasn’t quite eleven A.M., but he could sense Austin didn’t really want him to go. He had eagerly opened the door on his arrival and hadn’t managed to stay three feet from him the entire time he’d done the work. At one point, Rory had taken him by the shoulders and moved him out of his way politely, but firmly. From that, and the amount of chatter Austin produced while he was working, Rory understood that Austin was both bored and lonely. Rory was used to people who hovered while he went about whatever job called him into someone’s home—that was why he’d long since stopped doing handyman work. Now Austin stood looking at him with a look that would have embarrassed him if he could have seen his own face. Rory shrugged and said, “I have some time before I have to be somewhere, but it’s a little early for that beer. Could I please have a glass of water with a lot of ice?”

  Austin grinned and said, “Sure, sure. Let me get it for you. Have a seat.”

  Rory sat down once more as Austin hurried past him to the kitchen. The chair, one of a pair of cheap matching fauteuils, complemented the sofa across from it. The whole living room made Rory sad. It appeared to have been furnished with a living room suite purchased in early marriage that strove to imply the owners had taste and a sense of the good things. The upholstery was mauve, peach, and sea green, telling of its age and a style long since passed. Even the large painting which the hapless picture lamp now illumined was expressionistically slathered in the same tones, as if it too had been purchased and financed along with the furniture.

  Rory imagined the room as a place roped off and only used at Thanksgiving and Christmas. It appeared to be that place where the ladies of the house eased off their pinching shoes and chatted while the men watched football in the other, more personable, rooms of the house. For a moment, he felt a particular type of panic he hadn’t felt in a long time rise in his throat. The room seemed to close in on him with a threat that he’d be locked in there forever, living a life in which he couldn’t breathe. When Austin loped back into the room and offered him his glass of water, he took it gratefully and nearly drained the glass in an effort to choke down his fear.

  “Jeez, you were thirsty,” Austin observed. “You should have said something.”

  Rory wiped his top lip with the back of his hand and shook his head. “No problem.”


  Austin looked around the living room and said, “So what do you think? Meg did this room herself.”

  Rory smiled. “That’s an interesting painting.”

  “We got it at the Coconut Grove Arts Festival,” Austin said proudly.

  “Nice,” Rory said and glanced toward the door.

  “Why don’t you paint anymore, Rory?” Austin asked genuinely. “I think you’re great. I’d hang one of your paintings in my home in a minute.”

  The thought of one of his intellectually freighted paintings hung in a room awash in a sea of mauve and green was enough to startle Rory. He fought the urge to laugh, but he knew Austin was being sincere. It was a question no one had asked him in a long time. He briefly considered the harmlessness of Austin’s rather peripheral interest, and for once felt obliged to answer as honestly as he could. Fighting the urge for a cigarette, he leaned forward and sat his glass on the carpet in front of him. He held his hands together between his widespread knees and looked across at Austin under his lashes. “This probably sounds stupid, but I don’t paint anymore because I don’t have anything to say.”

  Austin was seduced by Rory’s suddenly serious tone into adopting the same earnest pose before he said, “I’m not sure I understand what you mean. Please explain.”

  Rory sighed. “For me, I paint because I have some problem I’m working out. I’m looking for a way to say something. Usually, I painted in series… a body of paintings that worked out some intellectual, technical, or representational idea… like the ones from my senior show. All those works used Tiepolo as a jumping-off point, and then I made that imagery mine to say something about my life and the world I found myself in. Do you understand?”

  Austin nodded. “I think I do. Go on.”

  Rory gave him a rueful smile. “That’s pretty much it. I haven’t really had much to say since Bruno and I got back together all those years ago. My emotions were too raw and undisciplined then to make much sense of them in paint. Since then, the art world has left me behind. There’s not really any interest in my kind of painting, if there ever was. I didn’t establish myself as a name in New York back when I had the opportunity, which I didn’t take advantage of because of Bruno. That chance has long gone.”