A Good Neighborhood Read online

  “Us, too,” said Julia, as bright in attitude as the orange block print on her shorts.

  “Eight months of noise and commotion,” said Valerie, not really meaning to go there but also kind of wanting to. “The air compressors and nail guns and saws, the drywall guys blasting their music all day long … Honestly, every day off I’ve had since September was spoiled by the noise.”

  “Oh,” Julia said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Done now, though,” said Brad. “All’s well that ends well.”

  Valerie said, “Until one goes up next door or across the street from you. Then you’ll see for yourselves. You met my son, Xavier?”

  “Brad did. Hi,” said Julia. “Pink lemonade?”

  Xavier sat down in a chair next to his mother’s. “No, I’m good, thanks.”

  “That’s Lily in the pool,” Julia said, “and that’s Juniper.” She pointed to her older daughter, who had set her book aside and was getting up to join the group on the porch.

  Hanging on to the pool’s edge, Lily said, “Hi, Mrs. Neighbor. I’m sorry, I forgot to hear your name.”

  “She’s Mrs. Alston-Holt,” said Julia. “Did I get that right?”

  “Ms. Alston-Holt,” Valerie amended. She did not personally mind if the kids used her first name, but a lot of parents in the South insisted on the formality of titles. If that was how these people were, they should at least get the title right.

  “I like the girls’ names,” she added. “Plants are my thing.” Then she said, “Brad, you say you do HVAC work? Maybe you could have a look at my compressor. It’s making a strange noise.”

  She glanced at Xavier. He was holding back a laugh. He knew that this was not a sincere request, that there was no troubling noise; Valerie was razzing Brad Whitman in return for his assumption that Xavier was her yard boy.

  “Glad to,” Brad said. He set his beer on the table. “Let me just get a shirt and shoes, and—”

  “Oh. I didn’t mean this minute.” She had not expected him to be willing to do it himself. “Thanks, though. And, you know, it doesn’t even make the noise all the time. I don’t think I heard it today. Zay, did you hear it?”

  “Not today,” Xavier said.

  “It can keep. Besides, I wouldn’t think to bother you about it on a Sunday.”

  “God’s day,” said Juniper, who’d sat down beside Julia. “Except we don’t go to church anymore.”

  “We go sometimes,” Julia said.

  Lily said, “God is everywhere, even right here in the pool.”

  “Yes indeed, sugar pie,” said her father. He told Valerie, “I confess: I like to golf on Sunday mornings. Better tee times.”

  “He likes to golf every day,” Julia said. “But he only goes on Saturdays and Sundays.”

  Valerie said, “We’re not regulars at church, either. Especially this time of year. I like Sunday mornings for working in the yard.” This, too, was a little bit of a dig. These people barely had a yard, and what there was of it was professionally landscaped to within an inch of its life. There would be no yard work for them, Valerie was sure, only yard workers.

  Brad said, “You’re going to think, ‘What a pushy guy,’ but I’m just one of those people who likes to know things, so here’s my question: Is there a Mr. Alston-Holt?”

  Valerie said, “No. It’s just us.”

  “Sure,” said Brad. “No problem.”

  “I’m a widow,” she clarified.

  Both Brad and Julia reacted as new acquaintances always did: the quick look of surprise that preceded Oh, I’m so sorry, and then the lingering curiosity that they were too polite to voice.

  Julia said, “Juniper’s about to be a rising senior at the Blakely Academy. Are you in school, Xavier?”

  “I’ll graduate from Franklin Magnet in a few weeks.”

  “Oh, high school. I thought you might be older. Congratulations!” Julia told him. “I bet that feels good. Will you go to college this fall?”

  Valerie answered. “He got a scholarship to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. I’m very proud of him.”

  “Partial scholarship,” Xavier said. “But, yeah. I play guitar.”

  Brad said, “Hey, like Jimi Hendrix!”

  Xavier shook his head. “Acoustic. Classical. Don’t worry, nobody even knows it’s a thing.”

  Juniper turned to him. “Is it true that kids at Franklin bring guns to school for gang fights, and the only reason there hasn’t been a shooting is because security guards confiscate the guns?”

  “What?” said Xavier. “No. Where did you hear that?”

  Juniper looked at Brad. “Isn’t that what you said?”

  Brad glanced at her sharply, Valerie thought. This reaction (if she read him right) suggested that his cheerful man-child exterior might be a veneer. If so, she would not be surprised. In her experience, some men—well-off white men in particular—were so accustomed to their authority and privilege that they perceived it as a right.

  Juniper’s botanical name notwithstanding, to Valerie she seemed an ordinary teenager. A tiny bit hostile maybe, nothing unexpected there, given that her parents had moved her to a new house just weeks before the end of school when she probably had papers and projects due. Fortunately, she wouldn’t to have to change schools for her senior year. Private education did have that advantage.

  Now Brad was saying to Juniper in a kind tone, “You got something mixed up, honey,” and Valerie decided she had misheard and misjudged him. She did have some prejudice, because of the clear-cutting. Lighten up, she told herself. Give the man a chance.

  Brad went on, “I might have said something about some other school. Or maybe you heard it from one of your friends.”

  Juniper said, “Maybe. I guess.”

  “For the record,” said Valerie, “Franklin is one of the highest- performing public schools in the state.”

  “Well, sure,” Brad said. “Just look at Zay here. Classical guitar. I don’t know what that is, exactly, but if you got a scholarship to do it, you must be good. Juniper takes piano—though I don’t believe she’ll win any scholarships with her playing.”

  Julia said, “She needs to practice more. But she’s very at good cross-country running. She ran varsity as a freshman.”

  “Nice,” Xavier said to Juniper. “Will that be your thing in college?”

  “Like a sports major?” Juniper replied. “No, I think I want to study zoology or botany. I’m hoping to get into a program in Washington State.”

  “Since when?” said Julia.

  “I’ve been thinking about it.”

  “We’ll see,” Brad said. “I’m sure your mother’s not crazy about the idea of you going to school so far away.”

  “Or at all,” Julia said, shrugging. “What can I say? She’s my first baby; I don’t want her to grow up.”

  Valerie was about to empathize with Julia when a half-dozen Latino men in matching bright yellow T-shirts came around the side of the Whitmans’ house to the back property boundary. One man had a spade. Another had a gas-powered posthole digger.

  “There they are,” Brad said, rising. “Fence guys. They were supposed to have this done before we closed—got backed up because of last week’s rain, they said. We got the C.O.—certificate of occupancy—anyway; I know a guy in the permits office. He was useful in a lot of ways,” he said with a wink. Then he went to speak with the crew.

  “You’re putting in a fence,” Valerie said to Julia. “Of course. I’d forgotten about that regulation. Used to be no one in Oak Knoll could afford a pool.”

  Julia said, “A nice wooden fence, don’t worry. Not chain link.”

  It wasn’t the fence material that worried Valerie. It was the further disruption of her trees’ root systems that would arise from the digging. And what could she do about it? Nothing. The pool was in. A fence was required.

  Brad returned to the porch. “It’ll only take them a couple of days for the install,” he said. “Apologies in advance for
the noise. It’ll be nice, though, right? More privacy for everyone.”

  “Sure,” said Valerie.

  She sincerely wanted the noise to be the worst of the trouble. And root disruption aside, she approved of there being a fence between her yard and theirs. She had no desire to forever be looking out her windows at this pool and patio, which alone must have cost as much as she and Tom had paid for their house. Nor had she been crazy about the prospect of seeing young, beautiful Julia Whitman lying around the pool all summer—in a bikini, probably—showing off her five-day-a-week-workout-fit body when she, Valerie, had ten extra pounds she’d been failing to lose for about as many years.

  She said, “You know what Frost says: ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’”

  “Frost who?” said Lily.

  Juniper said, “Robert Frost. He was a poet.”

  Valerie nodded approvingly. Yes, the youth were going to save them all.

  And so the Whitmans and the Alston-Holts sat a little longer in the shade of the covered porch and talked of inconsequential matters, parting after another twenty minutes as the fence crew got under way, Brad and Valerie satisfied that they all were as well acquainted as they needed to be. This was as auspicious a beginning to the relationship as any of us could have hoped for. None of us were giving the trees or the kids a second thought.

  4

  Two days later, Xavier was standing at the kitchen counter making himself a grilled ham-and-cheese sandwich for an early supper when his mother joined him.

  “How was school?” she said, coming over and putting her arm around his waist. He was a good ten inches taller than she was, which still felt weird to him. He’d spent most of his life wishing he were bigger, taller, grown—and now he looked down at most adults, not up. Now he could see the top of his mom’s head. Now he was six-three, an inch taller than his dad had been. He wished he had a dollar—no, make it ten—for every time someone assumed he played basketball.

  He told Valerie, “Review for exams. Pretty dull.” He lit a burner and set a griddle over the flame.

  “Finish line’s in sight.” She gave him a squeeze, then let go. “Hey, so I’ve been thinking of this and I wanted to ask you: What’s your read on our famous new neighbor, Brad Whitman?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I found him … opaque. I couldn’t tell if he’s as good as he seems.”

  “I thought he was all right,” Xavier said. He’d buttered the outer sides of two sandwiches and was about to put them on the griddle. “Want me to make one for you? Then I have to go to work.”

  “Sure, thanks.” She got a tomato, a knife, and a cutting board, and sat down at the kitchen table. “Maybe I’m being too sensitive. I don’t want to think the worst about these people when I don’t even know them. Prejudice is ugly. I don’t like to think I’m capable of it.”

  “I hate to break it to you, but you’re human,” Xavier said, assembling a sandwich for her. “Besides, it’s not prejudging if you’re doing it after you meet someone, right?”

  “I basically judged them from the second the chainsaws started, and that bothers me. I try to give everyone a chance, or how can I complain when people prejudge me?”

  Xavier placed three sandwiches onto the griddle. They sizzled, sending the hot butter’s lipid molecules into the air. Scent was chemistry. Breathing was chemistry. Digestion was chemistry. Plant growth and oxygen production from those plants was chemistry, too. His mom had taught him all about the plant stuff especially, hoping, maybe, that he’d come to share her passion for ecology. He’d gotten deep into it for a couple of months, and then his interest was sated.

  That happened a lot. Xavier had learned that while he was interested in many different subjects, there were few he loved. Every time he’d latched onto something new, though, his mom let him indulge himself, encouraging him to take it as far as he wanted to go. She said this was one of the benefits derived from the civil rights battles. That is, he was the child of a white man and a college-educated black woman, being raised in a middle-class household in a country where, she said, “you can pursue anything you want. Anything. And you get to be just a kid, not a black kid. We have to give credit where it’s due, Zay, and not take any of this for granted.”

  He knew it wasn’t wholly true, though, this just a kid, not a black kid assertion. He knew she didn’t believe it, either. There were a lot more folks nowadays who tried not to differentiate their treatment of others based on skin color, yes. Then there were the ones—mostly older white folks—who scowled at him or avoided him or watched him, hawklike, when he was in a store, as if he was going to stuff his pockets or pull a gun. Once he’d asked his mom, “Why doesn’t half white equal white the way half black equals black?” Her answer, i.e., the history of the one-drop rule, etc., made sense but didn’t satisfy him. Factually he was just as white as he was black.

  He said now, “Your issue is with the things the Whitmans did, not who they are. Every complaint should be evaluated on its merits, period.” She’d taught him that, too. Use logic. Be fair. Demonstrate your humanity and integrity the way Dr. and Mrs. King had always done, the way John Lewis still did.

  “Yes, but I have to tell you, Zay, this kind of antipathy is new for me. I’ve had preconceptions of people and things lots of times—it’s impossible not to, right? But I can’t think of a time when I’ve been so predisposed to despise something or someone this way.” She shook her head. “It’s the situation, I guess—the fact that it’s so personal to me.”

  He looked over at her and said, “Don’t be too hard on my mom. She’s a good person.”

  This brought a smile. “Thank you, sweetie,” she said. “How about you?”

  “How about me what?”

  “What do you think of them? The Whitmans.”

  “If you don’t count them being fine with the clear-cutting and all, then, like I said, they seemed okay to me. Neighborly, for sure. Can’t say I’ve really thought about it since the other day.”

  “No, of course. You’ve got plenty of more important things on your mind.”

  “I do,” he said. He’d been thinking—too much, he already knew that—about just the one Whitman. Juniper.

  5

  Though there were other big new homes and new residents in Oak Knoll, we were especially curious about the Whitmans. Their house was the largest, had cost the most, and had upscale details that most of us hadn’t seen except on homes in Hillside or in the movies or on TV. For example: copper gutters and downspouts; landscape lighting; a double-sided fireplace between the family room and screened porch. A butler’s pantry. A steam shower. It also had Brad Whitman, who, as he’d indicated to Xavier, was a minor celebrity in the region. He did his own commercials for Whitman HVAC, so a lot of us had seen him on our screens. We’d heard him on the radio. There wasn’t a more charming man in the region. Warm. Affable. In every TV spot, he looked right into the camera and said, ““You are my favorite customer and that’s a fact.”

  We’d used his company to service and repair and replace our aging heating and cooling systems. We felt privileged—some of us did—that he’d chosen to make our neighborhood his new home. We wanted to get to know him and his beautiful family, see up close how the other half really lived. We were keenly interested in the wife, Julia. She seemed so lovely, so young, so fortunate.

  * * *

  “What’s on your schedule today?” Julia Whitman asked her husband as he left their bed and headed for the shower.

  “The usual,” he said. He reached into the shower to turn on the water, then stepped out of the silk shorts he slept in. “You?”

  “Same. Except tonight.”

  Her evening promised a change of pace: she’d been invited to attend Oak Knoll’s neighborhood book club. Tonight she’d be just a visitor, since she hadn’t read this month’s book, a historical novel. Usually she read contemporary fiction—legal thrillers and woman-in-peril stories and British cozy mysteries. But if the group liked
her and the discussion was good, she might pick up tonight’s book along with the one for next month’s meeting, “a beach read,” neighbor Kelli Hanes had told her when she’d invited Julia to come. They always did a beach book for the June meeting and everyone was supposed to dress accordingly. That would be fun.

  Julia said, “I’m going to Valerie’s—the neighbor behind us?—for a book club meeting. You’ll be home, right?”

  “Yep,” he said, entering the shower. “Got a Chutes and Ladders date with Lily.”

  Julia watched him for a moment. He was still a handsome man, everyone said so. That sandy hair and impish grin, those startlingly blue eyes. But he’d gained at least fifteen pounds since the first time she’d seen him naked. He was doughy and pale every place the sun didn’t reach. His hair had thinned atop his head, though he combed it in such a way that it was hard to tell. Middle age was settling onto him, even if he wasn’t settling into middle age—his newest car being a vivid example of his resistance. Did men never stop being teenaged boys?

  She went to her closet. “Omelet?” she called to him.

  “Scrambled. Throw in a couple of sausage links, too. Thanks.”

  The Whitmans’ weekday morning routine was systematized: Julia and Brad got up at six; he showered while she dressed in the appropriate clothing for her morning fitness activity, be it tennis or Pilates or barre or spinning; she had a hot breakfast for Brad on the table at 6:20 and woke the girls right afterward; then the girls came down and she ate with them—something light for her, yogurt or a hard-boiled egg, and she encouraged Juniper to eat light, too; she cleaned up the kitchen while the girls got dressed (uniforms made that easy); Brad left for work at 6:35, and she had the girls in the car by seven. Being in the new house wouldn’t alter this routine, since they lived as near to the school as they had before, just in another direction. Though she thought she might need to nudge their departure time up a little, depending on the in-town traffic. An unremarkable routine? Yes, which was why it pleased her so much.