The Good Nearby Read online

  So I might as well do the “outing” myself. Watching Mama drink the vodka, waiting for her to pass out, I’d made myself a mental list. Since it was summer, the backpack I usually used for school was empty. I’d fill it with a few clothes, a brush and toothbrush, a bag of beef jerky Mama had gotten for Ted, some graham crackers, and the bag of chocolate chips Mama had bought one weekend when she’d decided to make chocolate-chip cookies—which she’d never made because Ted had come over and they’d gone out. The food would get me through the night—especially since it was nearly morning. Plus, I’d take Grammy’s pillow, and the pictures of Grammy and Susie I had on my dresser. With that in mind, I looked around the living room for any other pictures I wanted.

  But there weren’t any to choose from.

  Not a single picture of anyone.

  I looked harder. I knew there used to be one of my school pictures on the bookshelf. But it wasn’t there. Why had Mama moved it?

  It didn’t matter. Gone was gone. But why hadn’t I noticed till now? noticed that Mama and Ted wanted nothing to do with me? And neither did Daddy. He had a new life now, with a new, normal kid on the way. He hardly ever called, and he’d never asked me to come visit. Not that I blamed him. If I could get away and start over, I would too.

  Speaking of . . . I raised my chin and looked defiantly at my mother. What was that old saying? “Kick me once, shame on you. Kick me twice, shame on me.” I’d taken an awful lot of kicks. Twelve years’ worth was more than enough.

  Mama’s snores seemed deeper. It was time to go. Where? I didn’t know.

  Away was good. Anywhere that wasn’t nearby. For there was no good nearby here. Not in this house.

  12

  In due season God will judge everyone,

  both good and bad, for all their deeds.

  ECCLESIASTES 3:17

  Unfortunately, no good fairies cleaned the kitchen while Gladys was sleeping. The night before, she’d come home from the store and her God discussion with King, and had marched right past the mess and up to bed.

  Where she’d slept fitfully.

  Her lack of a good night’s sleep was God’s doing; she knew it was. But if he thought he could niggle and nudge her into giving in . . .

  Now, standing in the doorway leading to the kitchen, the biscuit debris assailed her, startling evidence of her meltdown over the baking powder.

  She retrieved the baking sheet from its landing site near a chair, and in that one bending action, that one movement, was forced to face the truth.

  Whom was she kidding? This mess was not caused by baking powder. It was caused by her inability to see the recipe. It was caused by the fact that she was going blind—and it really ticked her off.

  But didn’t she have a right to be mad?

  She tossed the pan in the sink with a clatter and forced herself to take a breath. Her mind swam with thoughts she’d been fighting to avoid. Why couldn’t God leave her alone? She was very willing to return the favor.

  A couple more breaths in and out, a couple more attempts to clear her mind and think of anything else, made her take drastic action. She grabbed the edge of the counter and looked upward. “You want me to talk to you, God? Fine. You got it. But answer this: why are you doing this to me?”

  The heavens did not offer an answer.

  “Just as I thought.” Gladys pulled the trash can from under the sink and moved to gather the biscuit remains. “There is no reason you’re doing this except the fact that you can. You like to mess with people’s lives; I know you do. Just when things are going good, you insist on stirring things up. You just love making people feel weak and needy.”

  She drilled a biscuit into the trash, then looked up from her work, pointing a finger for emphasis. “I am not playing into your game, God. I won’t do it. I’ve handled everything you’ve tossed in my direction. All my life I’ve handled things and I’m going to continue to handle things. You gave me this brain and this will for a reason. You should be glad I’m willing to use them and not sit around and get mushy and woe-is-me about things.”

  Gladys looked at the mess on the floor, which showcased a prime example of a woe-is-me moment. She spread her arms to encompass the room. “This represents one weak slice of time. This does not represent a life—or a change in attitude. I’ll get through this, God. You watch me. I’ll get through it.”

  She concentrated on the cleanup. Yet she couldn’t help but sense that the Almighty was looking down on her, watching. . . .

  So be it.

  * * *

  Angie spotted Margery waiting outside Neighbor’s and beeped the horn once.

  Margery waved and got in the front seat. “Morning.”

  “Morning to you,” Angie said. “Buckle up.”

  Margery fastened the seat belt across her chest as Angie pulled away. Her hand lingered on the leather upholstery. “This is a beautiful car.”

  “SUV,” Angie said. Then she laughed. “My husband always corrects me when I call it a car.”

  “Guys and their cars . . . Mick would kill for an SUV like—”

  When Margery broke off her sentence, Angie glanced in her direction and saw her redden.

  “He’d love to have one, just like this,” she said.

  “Mick’s your husband?”

  Margery nodded quickly. “What’s your husband’s name?”

  “Stanford. Stanford Sebastian Schuster.”

  “Is he nice?”

  It was an odd question that was oddly difficult to answer. Was Stanford nice? “He’s very patient with me.”

  “Patient?”

  It was a stupid answer. She changed the subject. “Do you have any children, Margery?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Give it time. Trying is half the fun.”

  Margery shook her head no.

  “No?”

  Margery gnawed on a fingernail, but managed to talk around it. “Mick and I are going through a tough time right now. But it’ll be okay. I’m doing everything I can to make it okay.”

  Angie waited for her to explain.

  “My husband and I are separated.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m hoping he’s innocent of the drug thing.”

  “Drug thing?”

  Margery looked stricken. “Oh, dear. I thought you knew, that you’d talked to Gladys or . . . forget I said anything. I don’t want you to think—”

  “He was arrested?”

  “Drugs. Dealing.”

  Angie didn’t say anything.

  “He told me he was innocent but . . .” Margery shook her head. “I didn’t know he was dealing. I always thought he was home when I was working at the Chug & Chew.”

  “You work there and Neighbor’s?”

  “No, no. I quit the bar to get a job with Gladys. I didn’t like working there. It was awful.”

  “I can imagine.” And she could—if she dredged up some long-dormant memories of another Angie in another time and place during her pre-Stanford years.

  Margery sighed. “You and your husband have been married a long time, haven’t you?”

  “Thirty-one years.”

  “Wow.”

  “Not that it’s been perfect. It was rough at the beginning. I was rough.”

  Margery laughed. “You? Rough?”

  “Me, rough. Very rough. Stanford was my Henry Higgins.”

  “Who?”

  “From My Fair Lady. Pygmalion.”

  No response.

  “The character Henry Higgins adopts a poor, uneducated girl as a project and makes her into a lady.”

  “Stanford did that with you?”

  “He took me from a nothing clerk at Wal-Mart and made me into—” Angie caught her words. “Sorry. I . . . he . . . he taught me how to be a lady. A proper wife.”

  “He must love you a lot.”

  Angie was shocked by her own shrug. “He enjoys a challenge. He taught me what to wear, how to talk, and which fork to use. He made me over
.”

  “An extreme makeover.”

  “The extremest—minus plastic surgery. Stanford is responsible for the life we have. I grew up poor and had an unstable family life. I pretty much raised myself and stayed out of my parents’ way. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  “There was just me,” Margery said. “I think I was enough.”

  “My mother was enough for me,” Angie said. “I started thinking about escape when I was little but hung around—probably too long. I felt responsible for her. She was rather pitiful.”

  Margery ran a hand along the dashboard. “How did you get out?”

  “I got a scholarship to college. But I still had to pay some of my way by working as a waitress. That’s where I met Stanford. Like I said, I was his Eliza Doolittle. He made me into what I am today. And I loved that I didn’t have to work—to make a living.”

  “So you haven’t had a paying job since?”

  “None. I was plenty happy being a stay-at-home mom for my two children. But after they grew up, I got bored and began to get more involved in volunteer work.”

  “I bet he’s proud of you.”

  Angie shrugged. “Stanford likes my volunteer work because it’s the right thing to do, but he does not approve of me actually going to the shelter and seeing the needy people close up. He’ll tell me, ‘Just write a check, Angela.’” She sighed. “He can be quite the snob sometimes.”

  “Maybe he’s worried about you getting hurt. It’s not a good part of town.”

  She shook her head. “He doesn’t want me to get my hands dirty.” She smiled toward Margery, needing to lighten things up. “See? Everybody has troubles.”

  But Margery didn’t give it up. She angled in the seat toward Angie. “Marriage is complicated, especially when it’s messed up because of something that can’t . . . what if it’s not any one thing that’s wrong? What if it just feels wrong even when it’s supposedly right? What if . . . ?” She sighed. “It’s hard to explain.”

  “Are things that bad?” Angie asked.

  Her voice was soft. “Sometimes.”

  “You said you were separated. Are you getting a divorce?”

  Margery shook her head vehemently. “I can’t do that. Mick and I, we’re meant to be. We’re supposed to make a baby.”

  “That sounds a bit . . . archaic.”

  “What?”

  “Old-fashioned. Outdated.”

  “I’m supposed to be a mother.” Margery put a hand to her chest. “I need to love a child. Especially because . . . I need to make up for the one I lost.”

  “Oh, Margery. You lost a baby?”

  “It was born too soon.”

  “And it wasn’t healthy?”

  “I fell. Our daughter was born too soon and died. She was our special baby. The reason we got married. The reason we were brought together.”

  “So you were pregnant when . . . ?”

  “I got pregnant, we got married, then I lost the baby.”

  They drove a block in silence. “Does Mick want a baby as much as you do?”

  There was a moment of hesitation. “It’ll work out. I know it will. Soon too. It has to happen soon.”

  “Why?”

  “I feel the clock ticking.”

  “You can’t rush these things, Margery. And sometimes the more stressed you are about it, the longer it takes.”

  “People say that. But I don’t know how not to be stressed. Life is stressful.”

  “Then maybe . . . maybe you shouldn’t be having a baby. If Mick’s into drugs . . .”

  “A baby. I have to have a baby.”

  Have to. What an odd way to put it.

  When Angie pulled in front of Sarah’s house, the subject was suitably changed as Margery reacted to the Mancowitz home. “Whoa.”

  She was right to be impressed. Sarah’s house was a stately Georgian with red shutters. Yet it wasn’t that big a house. Angie’s was bigger. Margery’s reaction made Angie wonder about her own housing situation. “It’s nice, isn’t it?”

  “If Sarah’s family is so rich, why does she need a mentor?”

  “Rich kids have problems too,” Angie said.

  “Like what?”

  Good question. “I’m not sure yet. Sarah puts on a good front; she’s holding back. I think her parents are gone a lot.”

  “When I have a baby I’m staying home.”

  Angie thought of her daughter Talia who’d had to go back to work. “That’s ideal but not always possible.”

  “So Sarah’s mother has to work?”

  Angie wanted to steer away from any economic differences between the two young women. “Sarah’s a good girl who needs some one-on-one attention, someone to talk to. That’s where I come in.”

  “I could have used someone like you when I was a teenager.”

  There was no time to ask for details because Sarah came outside. She hesitated when she saw another person in the car, and Angie suddenly questioned bringing Margery along without warning. But Sarah took it in stride and got in the backseat.

  “Happy Sunday,” Angie said.

  “Hi.”

  Margery looked over her shoulder and made her own introduction. “I’m Margery. I’m coming along.”

  Angie delayed backing out of the driveway to explain. “Margery works at Neighbor’s Drugstore. Yesterday, when I was in there, we got to talking and she offered to come with us.”

  “Are you poor?” Sarah asked.

  “Sarah!” Angie couldn’t believe the question—though Margery’s clothing was nothing special and her hair did look as though it had been cut with a hacksaw.

  Margery took it in stride. “Why do you say that?”

  Sarah’s blush revealed a welcome existence of shame. “I’m sorry. I just thought . . . since you’re just a clerk and . . .” She waved her hands in the space between them. “Never mind. I’m sorry.”

  “Tact, Sarah. Tact would be a good thing to learn,” Angie said.

  The girl’s eyebrows dipped together, nearly touching. “Maybe I’d better not go.” She suddenly opened the car door, got out, and ran up the front walk toward her house.

  Angie and Margery exchanged an incredulous look, then scrambled after her. Angie called out, “Sarah, come back.”

  “Sarah, it’s okay,” Margery said.

  Sarah fumbled her key in the door. “I really blew it. What I said . . . it was mean. I didn’t mean for it to be mean, and it was something my mom would say and I can’t believe I said it, and—”

  Margery put a hand on Sarah’s, putting a stop to the fumbling. She waited until the girl looked at her. “It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean it. It’s okay.”

  Angie was an outsider watching the exchange of emotions: Sarah’s angst meeting Margery’s forgiveness. Finally Sarah’s shoulders slumped and she pulled her hand away. “I am sorry.”

  Margery nodded once, then held out her hand. “And I’m Margery.”

  Sarah smiled and shook her hand.

  Quite a girl, that Margery.

  * * *

  Gennifer edged the curtains aside and looked through the window. Douglas was in the front yard, raking leaves. He didn’t have to do that. They had a yard service to mow and fertilize. With one phone call Gennifer could get them over to rake.

  Suddenly, Douglas stopped raking. He rested both hands on the top of the rake’s handle, lifted his face to the sky, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.

  Was he smiling?

  For the first time Gennifer looked past the work, the chores, and the obvious, and noticed it was a lovely fall day. The leaves both on and off the trees were an artist’s palette. The sky was undecided between blue and gray, a haze of clouds preventing sharp shadows. The scene was soft, intense, and full of spice. It was the kind of day for football and drinking hot chocolate. She wondered if the movie Rudy was on television.

  Gennifer headed to the kitchen, filled with purpose. She remembered seeing some instant packets of hot chocola
te in the pantry. Sure enough, there they were. Add hot water. She could do that.

  And she did. But as she put on a jacket and carried the drinks toward the front door, she questioned what she was doing. This trip into nostalgia was worthy of a Hallmark commercial, but the reality was that her husband was having an affair. The reality was that Gennifer was seriously ill and had told her boss about it, but not her family. The reality was that their daughter was off with some busybody do-gooder, serving food at a shelter.

  There was little right in the Mancowitz family. Real life was proving to be nothing like a movie. The person with good intentions never got carried off the field on the shoulders of teammates no matter how hard Gennifer tried to manipulate things.

  The front door opened, making her step back. Douglas, his cheeks flushed from the cool air and the exertion, saw the beverages. “What’s this?”

  Gennifer smiled. “I saw you raking . . . I made hot chocolate.”

  His smile was genuine. “Thanks. I was just coming in for something to drink.” He cocked his head toward the door. “Want to go sit on the step? It’s pretty out.”

  The movie reel started up again.

  * * *

  Sitting on the step brought back memories. Talking. Planning their lives. Sharing their hopes. Loving each—

  “I like raking leaves.”

  “I like having the leaves raked,” she said.

  They both sipped their hot chocolate—which was pretty tasty, considering it was instant.

  Gennifer suddenly realized that now might be the perfect time to tell him about her sickness. If Douglas ever discovered that people at work knew about it before he did . . . no matter what was going on, she didn’t want to hurt him. Not like that. She cupped her mug in her hands. “Douglas, I have—”

  “Do you remember the time we went to New England in the fall?”

  She did. She’d just taken a job at the firm, and she and Douglas had decided to go on a vacation before she started work. “It was beautiful up there.”

  “We loved Maine.”

  She nodded.

  “Remember that room we got at the Bar Harbor Inn that had a corner balcony with wicker rockers and a view of both the harbor and the islands?”

  “Room 221.”