The Good Neighbor (2 page)

Rachel was wrong. Mac
was
perfect. Mac was perfect because I'd invented him—all six two of him, with his full head of dark hair, his humble upbringing, his self-made career. What was his career again? Did he have one? I wasn't sure. Oops. But more important than any career was that Mac was devoted to me. Of course he was. He was my cyber version of
Weird Science
.

Mac had appeared just in the nick of time, on a Saturday morning in October. Amber and Bruce had shown up at Noah's soccer game in matching Temple Owls sweatshirts. Stupid matching sweatshirts. The blatant coupledom punched me in the gut. I had always wanted to be a matchy-matchy couple, but not Bruce. I had bought us matching Phillies T-shirts and caps one Hanukkah, but he refused to wear his when I wore mine. The Hanna Andersson striped pajamas I ordered for us
and
Noah, the ones in which I imagined we'd look like a catalog family, stayed folded and bagged. Then Noah grew, Bruce moved out, and I got a full refund.

Bruce and Amber's sweatshirts, in Temple's official cherry and white, were crisp and new, yet worn. Nonrefundable.

They sat in front of me, our usual effort to appear united. We exchanged our tactical greeting: Bruce took Noah's duffel bag; I reminded him about the cosmic bowling party that afternoon, and decorating the sukkah at the synagogue the next day.

“I know. We'll be there,” Bruce said. Amber nodded. They refocused on the field and leaned into each other's shoulder.

We'll be there?
Since when were
they
a
we
?

“I'll be there, too,” I said. “But now I've got to go. I have plans with…” Who on earth did I have plans with? “My boyfriend.”

I could have said I had a report to finish or that I was having lunch with Rachel. I could have offered nothing more than good-bye. But I didn't because it wasn't enough. I wasn't enough. I wasn't a
we
. I was a
me.
A
me, myself, and I.
And I was alone, laden with inadequacy. Embarrassment filled me. The matching sweatshirts had been my tipping point and I'd invented a boyfriend. So what?

Back then, the mere façade of moving forward had left me aglow.

Tonight my cheeks burned with embarrassment.

“Well, I have to tell you, I'm relieved,” Jade said.

“Excuse me?”

“I thought you were going to say you were getting back together with Bruce.”

I leapt toward Jade and hugged her. “Really?”

Did she know something I didn't?

“I had no idea why you invited us here. Just coming for dinner on a Wednesday seemed a little unusual, Pea, I've got to be honest.” Jade threw her phone into her oversize pocketbook. She used the nickname she'd given me at Penn the day our freshman English professor anointed us
two peas in a pod
. “You hole up here, in this house, and never leave except for work. Yes, you take care of Noah. Yes, you go to work every day. But that's all you do. And then you invite us over on a Wednesday night when I know it's the only night you have to yourself.”

All I had wanted was company for dinner, a glass of wine, a few belly laughs. “I am so sorry you're worried about me.” I swallowed air. Rachel would have to live her romantic dream through someone else. “There's more.”

Rachel clasped her hands. “You're in love!”

“No!”

She whispered, “Pregnant?”

“No!”

“Then what?”

Keep it light. No big deal. It's all a phase. Like Pilates.

“Mac isn't exactly how he seems.”

“Is anyone?” Jade asked.

In real life I hoped the answer was yes.

“Just enjoy yourself,” Jade continued. “But I want to hear more about this little blog of yours, missy!” She dug out her phone, tapped, and scrolled. “There, got it! The
Bizzy Blog
. Very cute.” She held it up, showcasing a miniature version of my make-believe life.

“It gets … well, it got, a few thousand hits. Per day.” This was true. I worked to keep my smile in check. “Apparently, I'm good at it.” They were not the most important words, but hearing them aloud reminded me that the blog had served a purpose. I had created something that connected me to others. And it was mine. It belonged only to me. My thoughts and words were not like dishes or towels or dining-room chairs, or even a five-year-old boy.

No one could leave and then claim half.

Rachel and Jade stared at each other, then at me, then back at each other. I often felt them vying for top branch in my confidante tree, but now I sensed a kinship between them.

“The thing is, though—I mean, the issue is—Mac's not real.” There. I said it. I stood, ready to purge my reasons for embellishing my life and manufacturing men, and more important, for not telling them any of it.

“It's fine,” Jade said. “I get it.”

“You do?”

“Mac's not his real name. And he probably doesn't know you're writing about him. Bloggers do that all the time. Change names to protect the innocent, so to speak. So you made up a name and he doesn't know you write about him. No big deal.”

“What's his real name? I want to Google him! Is he really a dentist?”

How had I forgotten that Mac was a dentist?

“Look, it's okay if you don't want to tell us his name for a while,” Jade said. “I don't tell you everything either, especially about the men I date. It's just—
easier
. I think it's normal.”

If this was normal, I was in big trouble. “Wait, you don't tell me everything?”

Jade just lifted her eyebrows and smirked. “No. So I guess we're even.”

“All I care about is that you're happy,” Rachel said.

I wanted her to make me accountable—or to encourage me to be accountable to myself. I wanted her to challenge me, fight me, but Rachel wasn't a fighter.

“Taking care of Noah by yourself, working, dating, and then you have this blog and you meet this
Mac
 … it's easy to get caught up. I'm planning my reunion and I can spend hours online looking up classmates and sending e-mails. It sucks me right in. I lose all track of time. But I don't understand wanting to share your life with strangers more than with us.”

It was easy to banter with strangers, sometimes more so than talking to my friends, or my brothers, or my parents. I had grown weary of my mother's rolled eyes and weak redirects when I talked about Bruce. I cringed at how some of my married friends thought it would be great to be single again. My brothers were compassionate, but wouldn't be caught dead
back home
. How many times could they listen to me say the same old thing? But sometimes the same old thing was all I had. Writing about it enabled me to make sense of the nonsensical. Plus, strangers had no expectations. They were patient. Even prodding. If they were bored, they were silent. If they rolled their eyes, I couldn't see. To me, the words adhered to the virtual page as new, and without consequence.

I knew nothing of search engines or keywords or that “A Bad Date with a Defense Attorney” would result in hundreds of hits and rampant advice about finding a new lawyer.

But apparently some folks actually
read
the post and commented about real-life Paul the Deviant DA, the perfect-on-paper Jewish lawyer who brought me an erotic novel on our second date because I'd said I liked to read. The people who chimed in on that post were keepers—unlike Mr. Shifty Shades.

My readers didn't feel like strangers. They were people who helped me forget about Bruce and divorce and moving back home. They were the ones who cheered me on when I wrote about blurting out “Mac” at the soccer field. Of course, I'd left out the part about making him up. I'd intended to be honest, but the truth slipped out of my fingers like Noah's green slime. And it was just as messy.

Rachel stepped closer to me. It wasn't my intention to hurt her feelings. My intention was to safeguard my own.

She twirled her fingers in her short brown curls. Rachel twirled her body when she was happy, her hair when she was not.

“Well, no matter what his real name is, we don't have to worry so much now that you have someone to talk to at night, someone to spend time with when Noah's with Bruce. Someone who knows how great you are. Besides us, I mean. Right?” Rachel looked at Jade.

“Absolutely.”

I could've tried again, tried harder, but at that moment, I just didn't want to. Perhaps they didn't really want to know that I'd conjured up Mac because seeing Bruce with Amber had brought me to my emotional knees. I was sure they didn't want to know I sometimes slept in Noah's bed when he was with Bruce, or on the sofa when Noah was home, because a queen-size bed, with its space for two, was overwhelming.

Jade and Rachel loved me, but they hadn't let me explain. Worse, they had rearranged my words to meet their needs. I got it. The lie was much prettier than the truth.

But enough was enough.

Maybe it was time to exert damage control by pressing the little button on the dashboard that said
DELETE FOREVER
. Then my words would evaporate, Times Roman letters scattering chaotically. “The blog was really just an experiment. For fun. I'm deleting it. I don't need a bunch of strangers knowing my business. You're right.”

“Don't you dare! Don't abandon your readers when they've started to trust you. It took me months for Pop Philly to get that many hits per day.” It had tens of thousands now.

Jade's phone buzzed. She tapped the screen with her forefinger and scrolled. “Damn. I've got to go. I'm a little crazed lately.”

And I'm a liar dating a make-believe man named after my laptop.

“You didn't eat!”

Jade grabbed a handful of Goldfish crackers out of a bowl. “Seafood.”

Rachel headed for the Goldfish, too.

“Rache, stay!”

“No, you'll have the whole night to yourself. Seth doesn't like putting the kids to bed anyway.”

I had the whole night to myself every Wednesday. Every other weekend I was on my own. I didn't need, or want, any more alone time. That was another reason I dove online every night after Noah went to sleep—companionship on a whim and a click. Another reason for Mac.

“What is so important that you have to leave right now?” I shifted my effort to Jade, but she guffawed.

“You're not the only one with secrets.”

 

Chapter 2

Pick-Up Sticks

I
WRAPPED MY HANDS
around the mug of chamomile tea and lowered my face to the brim. Mrs. Feldman appeared to be waiting for an answer to a question she hadn't asked. I felt ten again. Maybe twelve.

I'd sat in this kitchen when I was a young girl, when the appliances were harvest gold and the beverage was orange Kool-Aid, which had left triangle-shaped stains on the sides of my mouth that I liked to pretend were fangs. When Mrs. Feldman served hot chocolate, I had always burnt my tongue reaching for a clump of cocoa at the bottom. I'd eaten pounds of butter cookies from a tin, my favorite being the ones with the cherry in the middle. I'd done homework in this kitchen on many afternoons when my brothers were working alongside our parents at the hardware store.

Now, almost thirty years later, I was in Mrs. Feldman's house again, and for the same reason. No one was at home waiting for me.

“So, that didn't turn out the way you planned, did it?” Mrs. Feldman's hands quivered as she refolded an embroidered cloth napkin.

I imagined she was making a tulip or a swan, but it ended up more like a pocket. She slid her spoon into the opening.

“I don't care what Jade said. I'm going to delete the blog when I get home.” I stood up from the table and added three servings of lasagna to Mrs. Feldman's freezer. I placed another on the top shelf of the fridge. I would check in a few days to see if she'd eaten any of them.

“You'll feel better once you straighten this out. You should go home and call them. But no texting. It's too impersonal.”

“I'll talk to Jade later. And I'll call Rachel tomorrow.”

“You can go home now and do it.”

“No, Jade's working and Rachel goes to bed right after her kids. Anyway, I like being here with you.” I liked that one person knew everything.

“And I have a freezer full of lasagna to prove it!” Geraldine Feldman may have been eighty-five, but she rolled her eyes like a teenager.

I folded my napkin, but only came up with what looked like—a folded napkin.

“You should have seen the looks on their faces. Rachel was bursting at the seams thinking I'd been on a lot of dates and had a boyfriend; it didn't even seem to register when I said he wasn't real. Like she didn't even hear me. Jade was preoccupied with work, as usual, relieved I wasn't getting back together with Bruce. Oh, and that apparently I wasn't the shut-in she thought I was.”

“If they only knew most of your date nights were with
me
!”

I threw my napkin across the table. Mrs. Feldman laughed and handed it back to me with a little finger twirl that meant “keep folding.”

“That whole Mac thing. What was I thinking?”

“You were thinking it was easier to be alone if no one thought you were alone.”

“Do you want more tea? Dessert? I brought Jell-O in those little plastic cups.”

“Don't change the subject, Elizabeth.” Mrs. Feldman did not believe in nicknames. “What's done is done. Tell those friends of yours once and for all that you invented a man because it hurt too much to see Bruce with another woman. And that this helped a little.”

“That's not true.” It didn't help at all
.
“I just got a little carried away.”

“Getting a little carried away can get you into a lot of trouble.”