The Good Neighbor: A Novel Page 7

The boys rewarded him with cautious, but slightly condescending chuckles. “Stan and Kyle are South Park. We’re not cartoons,” The older one said and pitched himself over the fence into Bruno’s backyard. He hesitated for a moment and gave his brother a jerk of the chin. Encouraged, the younger fellow managed to make his way to the top of the fence where he considered the ground awkwardly before jumping. Satisfied his brother was up and over, the bigger boy walked toward Bruno and said, “I’m Noah.” Gesturing behind him, he said, “He’s Josh, remember?”

  Bruno nodded and looked out to where the thin filament of his cast line disappeared into the water. He gave the pole a slight twitch to flash the lure in the water. “My bad, you goddamn hippies.”

  The boys looked at each other and giggled at the familiar phrase from their favorite, forbidden cartoon. “You’re not going to catch anything,” Noah repeated more insistently this time. “My dad said there’s no fish in this canal. There’s no way for them to get in. Because fish don’t just happen. They’ve got to come from somewhere.”

  “Yeah,” Josh seconded.

  Bruno nodded, eyes intent on his line. A healthy-sized oscar sniffed at the hook. With another wiggle of his pole, Bruno teased him. “That right?” Bruno replied.

  “Yeah, word,” Noah said smugly. “You’re just wasting your time.”

  “Word,” his brother echoed.

  Bruno teased the line once more and the oscar struck. Bruno jerked his line and set the hook. Casually, he reeled in the dull fish, made bright by the flash of struggle in the morning light. Expertly, Bruno reached out to grasp the fish and squatted to let his pole rest on the ground. The boys gasped and crowded around him to take a look at the very fish whose existence they had so vigorously denied.

  “Wow! What kind is it?” Noah asked excitedly.

  Bruno grinned as he gently took the fish in hand and freed it from the hook. Extending it toward the boys for a better view, he said, “I don’t see no fish. There ain’t no fish in this canal.”

  “Aww man,” Noah said. “C’mon. What kind of fish is it?”

  “It’s an oscar,” Bruno replied.

  “Can I touch it?” Josh asked eagerly.

  The captured fish struggled in Bruno’s grasp. “Hold out your hands,” he said. “I’ll let you throw him back.” The little boy held out his hands. “Now, hold on, and take him back to the water and let him go.” He placed the squirming fish into Josh’s hands. “Be gentle,” Bruno cautioned.

  In a single fluid motion, the boy took the fish and fled to the water’s edge. He squatted and placing his hands in the water, then released the grateful fish back into the canal. “Cool!” He said looking back to Bruno with lit eyes.

  “Why didn’t you keep him?” Noah asked, as he squatted next to Bruno.

  “You could eat him,” Josh said as he made his way the few short steps back to where they waited.

  “No. The fun is in catching them,” Bruno said gently. “Oscars aren’t good to eat. It’s better to let him go free so he can live a long time and make other fish, right?”

  The boys looked at him dubiously. Bruno smiled and reached for his bait.

  “Where did Oscar come from?” Josh piped up.

  His brother gave him a condescending glare, “It’s an oscar, stupid. His name isn’t Oscar.” Then he looked at Bruno, obviously interested, for the answer.

  Bruno gave Josh a smile, sorry for the tone of his brother’s correction. With many brothers, he had been corrected many times in the same way as he grew up. He baited his hook and stood. He searched the nearby banks for what he was looking for and pointed to a small flock of spoonbills poking along in the grass. Then, wordlessly, he pointed again at a good-sized, patient gray heron nearby.

  “Fish don’t come from birds,” Noah said dismissively.

  “Oh yes they do,” Bruno said. “Why would I shit you? I swear, fish can come from birds.”

  “No way,” Noah said to his big-eyed younger brother.

  “Yes way,” Bruno insisted. “Josh, you see the birds are standing in the grasses don’t you?”

  Josh nodded, as did his skeptical older brother.

  “Well, fish lay their eggs in the shallow water around those stalks of grass,” Bruno continued. “The eggs stick to the birds’ legs in one place, like in the Everglades. When the birds fly to another body of water, the eggs tag along. When the birds land and stand in the water in the grasses at another place, the eggs wash off. That’s why fish seem to appear out of nowhere in canals and lakes where there might not have been fish before.”

  “No shit,” Noah said, happily incredulous.

  “No shit,” Josh echoed.

  “No shit,” Bruno affirmed. “And there’s other ways. I once saw an osprey drop a ten-pound bass right out of the sky and into the canal.”

  The boys gave him a long sideways look.

  “I swear,” Bruno said. “Now, what if that was a mama bass?”

  “More eggs, right?” Josh asked tentatively.

  “That’s right, big guy. More fish!” Bruno said triumphantly as he turned and skillfully cast his line near the shore once more.

  “Boys!”

  The brothers’ heads turned toward a familiar reproachful voice. It was at once commanding and slightly panicked. Meg Harden strode out her pool enclosure’s door and made her way into the backyard and down the fence toward the canal. “What are you doing bothering Mr. Griffin?”

  “They’re not bothering me, it’s okay,” Bruno said as he reeled in his line and, smiling, turned to face her.

  She stepped to the fence and gave him a tentative smile in return. “Even so, how did you boys get into Mr. Griffin’s backyard?”

  “We climbed the fence, Mom.” Noah answered as if it was the only obvious answer.

  Meg rolled her eyes. “Well, climb it again and come back into your own yard. Now!”

  The boys gave Bruno a look betraying both resentment at being ordered about and also an exasperated surrender to feminine demand. He nodded sympathetically. Taking his fishing pole, he followed behind them. As they made their way back over the fence, he said, “I’m afraid I distracted them, not the other way around.” Giving her a rueful grin and stepping up to the fence, perhaps closer than necessary, he continued, “I caught an oscar and they had to see it. It’s no big deal. You know guys and fishing.”

  Meg, flustered by his physical closeness, took a step backwards. She became aware of his sweaty physicality by scent and well-built mass. Aware of how she was responding viscerally, her practical experience with overweening males kicked in and she stepped back to the fence. She was a woman not easily intimidated, yet she was a woman still. She lowered her eyes and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear before taking in the long length of Bruno with an appraising eye. She had to admit, he was an impressive man, if a gay one, all the same.

  “Don’t worry about them jumping the fence,” Bruno continued. “It’s no big deal. I’m not a jerk about things like that.”

  Meg smiled. “I appreciate that. Still, good fences make good neighbors. Don’t let the boys get on your nerves. Boys, why don’t you go see what your father is doing.”

  Aww, Mom.” Noah said and jerked back from her reaching hand.

  Meg cut him off with a look. “Tell Mr. Griffin goodbye.”

  The boys said their obligatory goodbyes and walked off toward the pool’s screen door. Meg watched until they were out of earshot, then more warily she continued, “You have to understand, these days, we have to be careful with the boys… with… well, you know. You can’t trust everyone not to… take advantage.”

  A light of recognition flickered in his eyes. Rather than being taken aback, Bruno’s smile took on a more set cast. “Let me assure you, you have nothing to be concerned about in that regard on this side of the fence. From either of us.” He coolly appraised her, “I hope you understand that.”

  Meg, used to professionally putting people off guard and gauging their reactions when s
he did, nodded. Point proffered and taken. “Thanks. I think we understand each other completely.”

  Bruno straightened his shoulders and nodded. “I’m glad we have that bit of unpleasantness out of the way, then. It would be very difficult to live next to each other, or to step out into my backyard, if you thought your boys would be in any type of danger every time I did.”

  Now Meg was taken aback. Hoping to blunt her harsh inference, quickly she replied, “Oh! I didn’t mean that at all.” She noted Bruno looking at her skeptically. “Please forgive me if I gave you that impression, really.”

  He searched her face and noted her discomfort, then gave her a sincere look saying, “The world is a crazy place these days. I understand your concern. There is nothing to forgive.”

  Thoroughly uncomfortable now, Meg offered him an embarrassed half laugh in return.

  “Rory and I were talking. We feel like we haven’t had the opportunity to welcome you properly to the neighborhood, things have been so busy lately,” Bruno said.

  “It has been crazy,” Meg replied. “We’re still getting settled.”

  “Boy do I know that feeling,” Bruno answered. “Rory and I have been playing the real estate game since we’ve been together. It seems like we’ve moved every two years or so. It’s a bitch, moving and meeting new people. Would you and Austin like to come for dinner some time?”

  Meg was disarmed once more. While she had reconciled herself to having gay neighbors, she had never entertained a notion of socializing with them. The idea was alien, but could hardly be dismissed, offered as it was so openly, so genuinely. “That would be really nice of you guys. I’m not sure when…”

  “How about two weeks from tonight? Is that enough time to plan ahead?” Bruno asked earnestly.

  Meg was charmed by his sincere invitation and insistence. On top of that, he had the look of an endearing little boy for all his size and imposingly sweaty appearance. Meg considered it briefly and smiled. “I don’t see why not, if we wouldn’t be putting you out.”

  Bruno gave her a grin, the tenseness in his shoulders disappeared, and he said, “No, it would be really great. It’ll give us a chance to get to know each other. We’re nice guys if you give us a chance.”

  Meg laughed. “I never doubted you were. It’s a date then, two weeks from tonight. I won’t even need a sitter, being out just next door.”

  Bruno raised his arm to wipe the sweat from his forehead with the back of his forearm, making his bicep and triceps bunch impressively. “Great! We’ll see you then if not before. And look, um…” he gave Meg a searching look.

  “Meg. It’s Meg,” she encouraged extending her hand.

  Bruno wiped his hand on the side of his shorts and grasped her hand gently, “Sorry, Meg. Your name disappeared for a second there.” He looked her in the eye, “Until then, if you guys need anything. Anything at all, well, we’re right next door, okay?”

  Meg met his eye, then looked away suddenly shy. “Thanks, Will.”

  He laughed and let go of her hand. He took a step back from the fence and stretched his arms, palms out, as if to say “you can see why,” but saying, “Bruno. You can call me Bruno.”

  Meg laughed. Deciding it would be well within bounds, and certainly to her advantage, she offered, “I think that’s an ugly name for such a handsome man.”

  In response, Bruno blushed under his already sun-reddened skin and stagily kicked his toe in the grass and ducked his head, as if embarrassed as a six-year-old. “Aw shucks, ma’am,” he said and gave her a long once-over under his long lashes. He stared appreciatively until Meg felt herself flush as well. Laughing pleasantly, they both turned back to their morning.

  Bruno fished for awhile longer, congratulating himself on defusing an awkward situation with Meg Harden. As far as he was concerned, the best way to deal with the problem of Meg’s reservations with living next door to him and Rory was to give her a chance to get to know them. It was a great deal harder to be a bigot if you broke bread with the people you really didn’t know. That was the way he’d learned it could be when he’d divorced his wife and gone back to Rory.

  It was Bruno who’d made the decision to go straight. From the way he’d looked at it as he was finishing his MBA, it would be a great deal easier to get ahead if he had a proper wife. For two years, he’d actually lived with Rory and dated her on the side. Once it became time to look for a job, he’d cast off Rory and married the woman. Living with her, and with himself, proved a lot harder than he’d projected it would be. Then, too, there was the fact that he was in love with Rory and missed him with a need and appetite that wouldn’t be denied. When the choice came down to Rory and possible discrimination at work, or no Rory and a successful life with a woman he neither loved nor could force himself to care about, he’d chosen Rory. From the first, he’d confronted the whispers head-on and presented Rory to his world as if there could be no discussion on the issue. He’d brazened it out all those years ago with no ill effect on his career. Bruno handled potential snickers from his neighbors through the years in the same way.

  It was Bruno’s way of doing things. Growing up in a houseful of competitive brothers, he got nothing he wanted, from his parent’s attention to his choice piece of chicken on the supper table, without sheer balls and brawn. He’d long since stopped questioning the need to bully his way through things; it worked in life and at work. If the same tack was what it took to be at ease in his own back yard, so be it. Still, the conversation with Meg Harden took some of the sheen off the morning for him. He cast his line out repeatedly, but he was lost in his own thoughts, too much so to be very productive as a fisherman.

  He stood in the sun, enjoying the heat and his own defiance of Meg’s unreasonable judgment, until he heard Bridget barking from the pool enclosure. He reeled in his line and looked around. Sure enough, Bridget was standing at the sliding glass door, baying with impatience. Rory was home. Happily he dumped the dwindling remainder of his bait into the canal and trudged up the sloping backyard. Once inside the pool enclosure, he made his way to Bridget. Setting his pole against the wall of the house by the kitchen, he let himself and the dog inside. The kitchen was empty, but the door to the garage was open. He stepped through to find Rory hauling in the last of the grocery bags. “Hey,” he said, and his heart filled with a bright sense of happiness.

  “Hey,” Rory said and gave him a smile. As he struggled past, Bruno blocked him and stooped to kiss him, ignoring the open garage door.

  “Damn, I’m glad you’re home,” Bruno said as he allowed Rory to pass and managed to pull Bridget away from her own happy greeting.

  Rory laughed. I thought you’d both be getting hungry. I brought you some fresh bread and some deli stuff. Close the garage door, you’re letting all the air-conditioning out.”

  Obediently, Bruno pressed the button and was rewarded with the growl of the heavy door as it slid back into place. Then he folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the kitchen doorjamb, watching Rory as he placed the groceries on the counter and began to unload the bags. Rory was economical in his movements, but lithe. He reminded Bruno of a large cat moving concisely between counter, cabinets, and pantry. Bruno enjoyed just looking at him.

  Finally, Rory looked at him and raised his eyebrows. “What are you doing over there?”

  Bruno grinned. “Watching you. I’m always amazed watching you move around doing stuff. You’re like a dancer.”

  Rory snorted and moved to the refrigerator. Opening it, he said, “You must want a beer.” He took one out, opened it, and sat it on the counter of the bar. “Come sit down, you’ll be more comfortable while I dance.”

  Without a word, Bruno moved to the bar and took his seat. The cold beer did sound appetizing and he was thirsty. He watched Rory as he took a long pull at the bottle, wondering how people like Meg could get it so wrong. How could he want to touch her children, or any one’s children for that matter, when he had this man in his kitchen? This man he could tou
ch and hold and love? This man who touched and loved him back was what his life was really all about. Embarrassed by his own introspection, he let out a loud burp and grinned at Rory.

  “Nice,” Rory commented as he unpacked the last of the groceries into the refrigerator and pulled out a beer of his own. He opened it as he came to stand close to Bruno on the opposite side of the bar. “You look like you’ve got some sun. Did you fish the whole time I was gone?”

  “Pretty much,” Bruno said. Then, “I had a nice chat with Meg from next door.”

  Rory nodded and took a gulping drink from his beer. Sighing with satisfaction, he burped as well and grinned back at Bruno. “So, what brought on all this sudden socialization?”

  Bruno looked at him and scratched his shoulder thoughtfully. “The boys jumped the fence and came over while I was fishing. We were just standing around talking and she swooped out of the house like a mother hen.”

  Rory rolled his eyes. “Oh god. She thinks we’re child molesters. I get so sick of that bullshit. Well, I hope you didn’t invite them over for sensitivity training.”

  Bruno just gave him a look in reply.

  “You did, didn’t you?” Rory asked incredulously.

  Bruno nodded and held up his hands.

  “Damn it, Bruno! You know what happened the last time you did that when we moved to that place in Plantation. The neighbors turned out to be fundamentalists. The whole time we lived there they kept trying to get me to go to their church. You blew them off, but I still had to deal with it. These people are Baptists! Do you have any idea what those people are like? Smile in your face and spit at you behind your back. Why couldn’t you just let them be? It’s not my job to make the world comfortable with gay people.”

  Bruno reached across the counter and lifted Rory’s beer high over his head. “You’re going to need a cold drink after you stop spitting all that fire, pretty boy.”

  Disgustedly, Rory turned his back and stepped toward the refrigerator. He opened it and began loading his hands and the crook of his arm with sandwich makings. When he had all he could carry, he returned to the counter and began to place them in front of Bruno without saying a word.