Good Neighbors Read online

  “That’s when the stewardesses were still stewardesses!” Drew said, raising his eyebrows suggestively while the other men all nodded appreciatively, Nela calling them animals. In another moment, Lorraine rose from behind her long bench seat to hug Paige and Nela came around from the other side of the table to join them. I was shocked. Paige was, too. You could tell by the way she opened her mouth in an O when Nela reached out to her, then closed it quickly and leaned forward to clasp Nela’s back. Paige’s face not just happy but thankful, too, as if by hugging her, Nela was granting Paige something she’d never dreamed of getting: Nela’s blessing.

  I watched Nela as she asked for particulars about dates and medical exams, about whether Cameron would go with them, how they would manage it all. Something had shifted in Nela’s delicate face, some sort of acknowledgment or acceptance, as if Paige was not who Nela had suspected she was but, instead, someone better. Someone to be hugged and even celebrated. Or maybe this was just what I was thinking, relieved that someone else was thinking it, too, that maybe this would make it true.

  I rose and gave Paige a hug, her back bony beneath her white cotton blouse, ideas about the adoption flitting through my head like images in a silent movie. The girl adorable in a fur-trimmed snowsuit, even though I doubted a Russian orphan wore anything with real fur. The girl rosy-cheeked and fair, waiting at the orphanage. I wondered if she fully understood what was about to happen. I wondered if she was excited. I wondered if she had any way of imagining the perfect idyll to which she was being transported. The Edwardses’ giant Tudor with its coffered ceilings and stained glass windows. The long hallways filled with silver picture frames and fine Oriental carpets. All of it elegant and lovely and no doubt beyond the imaginings of a child who had grown up with rough blankets, industrial beds, metal cribs. I could barely wait for Paige and Gene to go to Russia and return again, to be part of their daring and wonderful rescue.

  OFFERINGS

  SUITCASES WERE PACKED. A passport acquired for Cameron. Timers attached to light fixtures. All of this relayed to us in a long group e-mail from Paige, who wanted us to keep an eye on the house while she was gone. This despite Yazmin’s daily dispatch there for dusting and checking up on things. Which was so Paige: overly privileged and overly waited on. Who needed daily dusting while they were away in Russia? Why couldn’t her nanny enjoy a vacation? But still. I dreamed of her voyage. Longed for her return. Tried to imagine the moment when she would become the girl’s mother.

  For three long weeks the house sat silent, vacant, like an expectant pause in a soon-to-begin drama. And then, all at once, it was Thursday. The day of the Edwardses’ return. The plane descending into Logan within a few hours. The light already fading into a purplish dusk at five o’clock as Lorraine and I converged at Paige’s house with our plates of homemade food and our group gift. We’d agreed on two Burberry scarves, one for each child. Lorraine had suggested it, and I’d eagerly gone to the mall for them. Certain that Burberry was exactly what Paige would want, if she’d been able to ask us for it.

  Nela totally disagreed. She was actually miffed by our suggestion. Didn’t we know that Burberry was overpriced and not that attractive? Didn’t we know that Burberry was the ultimate in phony tradition? Of course I knew this. I wore flea market necklaces. Bangles from Mexico. But phony was what Paige went for. Couldn’t Nela see that? She couldn’t. She declined to go in on it with us.

  Now Lorraine and I were at the Edwardses’ front door, leaving our separate driveways to converge in our overcoats and winter boots, standing on the Edwardses’ slate stoop in the February cold, ringing the bell, waiting as we were greeted by Yazmin, the nanny Lorraine had found for Paige when her own search had turned up two qualified candidates. Even though I’d counseled Lorraine against getting involved in Paige’s business, nervous about how Paige treated the women who worked for her. Which I suspected was poorly. Several quitting suddenly, complaining to my housekeeper about Paige’s condescending behavior. But Yazmin had stayed. She’d been there a year now, maybe two. Which just went to show you. How maybe Paige wasn’t so bad. I greeted Yazmin, handed her my coat, which she insisted on hanging up for me. Yazmin overly solicitous, calling us Miss Nicole and Miss Lorraine, neither of us bothering to insist on just our first names as Yazmin offered us coffee and freshly made cake.

  We declined the cake even as Yazmin brewed us the coffee. We eagerly accepted it in Paige’s good coffee cups, the ones with mint-green leaves curling around the thin porcelain lip, the cups nothing like my own coffee mugs, with funny sayings or bank promotions. Paige’s house always filling me with a warm and satisfied feeling. The marble more gleaming than my own. The inlaid cabinets more ornate, the daily china of better quality. A feeling of luxury and entitlement sweeping over me completely when I was there, happy to let Yazmin wait on me and bring me coffee in a way I would never allow Idallia to do in my own house.

  When we’d finished our coffee and our pleasantries, we arranged our Burberry boxes in the center of the island, one for Cameron, one for Winifred. The new daughter apparently named after Gene’s grandmother. Which was ridiculous. Naming a Russian girl anything like Winifred. Naming any girl Winifred! Which I suspected we both thought but neither of us said. Happy to hear from Yazmin that the Edwardses planned on calling her Winnie. Both of us eager to hear what else Yazmin knew about the Edwardses’ trip and imminent arrival. Lorraine peppering Yazmin with questions as was her customary manner: Had she heard from them today? What time exactly would their plane land? Had they said everything was going smoothly? Was the girl healthy and happy? Was Cameron? And to everything Yazmin smiled vaguely and said, “I’m not sure” or “I don’t know” in her heavily accented English, as if by knowing something about the Edwardses she would risk revealing how she really felt about them, too. Or maybe it was only I who sensed this: a shrinking into herself whenever the idea of Paige and Gene entered the room, a sudden pretending to not understand what we were asking.

  In the hallway we heard the stomping of feet, a voice calling, coming closer. It was Nela. We’d left the door ajar, invited her to join us. Nela’s short, sleek hair plastered with snowflakes, an armful of white lilies in her arms, their scent dense and sweet, the bouquet gorgeous and exactly the right thing for the occasion. Which suddenly made me ashamed of my Burberry gift and plate of cold chicken.

  “From a family event,” Nela said as I complimented her on the arrangement, not wanting to suggest, I supposed, that she went out and bought them. Not wanting to suggest that she was in any way like us. Which she was quick to show us as she turned to greet Yazmin in Spanish. Shedding her fleece to reveal a tight Harvard T-shirt, black leggings; Nela no more than five feet, but her figure curvy and perfect.

  Yazmin smiling toward Nela, speaking rapidly in Spanish, reaching up to a high cupboard to get down a vase from the spot where Paige kept them. Nela helping her arrange the lilies, fussing with the stems while Lorraine and I sat blankly at the island, afraid to break into English and seem like we were speaking over them. Lorraine checking her gold watch, then getting up to open the fridge again, to wonder if the dinner would be visible as soon as the Edwardses opened it and whether we should tape instructions to the refrigerator door. Shrugging my shoulders, not wanting to interrupt Yazmin to ask for the tape or the pen. Nela finally joining us at the island, allowing us to drop the petty concern about the note. Nela announcing that she had wanted to throw a shower for Paige.

  She had?

  “But she said no, she would be too tired,” Nela added, looking from one to the other of us for some sort of response we couldn’t give her. Nela had never once had us to her house for a party or even dinner. Why was she suddenly being so solicitous of Paige?

  “I just thought it was the right thing to do. To honor her decision to take this on,” Nela continued, softly, as if she was already disappointed and sad about it.

  “That was really nice,” I said, trying to be encouraging. Not sure exactly what Paig
e was taking on that the rest of us hadn’t already taken on—namely, having children and raising them.

  “Do you think she’s embarrassed?” Nela pressed, resting her chin on her thumb and forefinger and staring at me as if I had some sort of special insight. Which was flattering, even if I wasn’t going to give it to her.

  “What’s Paige got to be embarrassed about?” I asked instead, curious to know what it was that Nela was thinking, her reasoning opaque and confusing to me in the best of circumstances.

  “To have a daughter who isn’t hers. Who doesn’t even look like an Edwards,” Nela said, glancing from one to the other of us for some sort of response we weren’t prepared to give her. “Some Russians look Asian,” Nela added.

  “She’s probably just nervous about who she would invite. I wouldn’t read too much into it,” Lorraine cautioned. Not reading into things was Lorraine’s specialty.

  “I’m sure she addressed all her feelings at her group,” I offered. Eager to move off the race issue. Eager for there not to be a race issue!

  “What group?” Lorraine practically shouted, causing Nela and me to look toward the sink to see if Yazmin had heard her. Yazmin’s back toward us, the water running over the coffeepot noisily.

  “My friend saw Paige at her group a few times,” I said, lowering my voice. “She wasn’t supposed to tell me, but when I told her Paige was in Russia, she let it slip,” I offered, fiddling with my bangles, nervous that I’d betrayed a confidence.

  “What group?” Lorraine pressed again, her mouth open in disbelief, her entire body poised on the verge of laughing. My breach of privacy of absolutely no concern to her. Lorraine wanted to know only one thing: had Paige been to some sort of group therapy? Paige Edwards the last person in the world any of us could imagine doing anything that required self-evaluation.

  “It’s a group for couples to explore different paths,” I explained, looking from Lorraine to Nela to see if they were getting it. If my faux pas had been worth it. Lorraine’s mouth still open, revealing her perfectly square white teeth. Nela’s face blank, her pursed lips and high cheekbones giving her an air of superiority.

  “Like whether you want to do an open adoption, or how you feel about adopting a foster child. It’s really tricky. My friend has all this shame around using a surrogate. It’s much more complex than I ever realized,” I said.

  “So you’re telling me Paige Edwards went to group therapy?” Lorraine repeated, glossing over any family confusion, laughing lightly, causing Nela and me to laugh a little bit, too, even as we pointed to Yazmin’s back and put our fingers to our lips.

  “So anyway, not having a shower. I don’t think it has anything to do with shame,” I continued. “I mean, she’s got to know women who adopted black babies and brown babies, even crack babies. And half those parents are in jail!”

  Nela silently running her tongue under her top lip, no doubt steaming that I’d just associated brown babies and black babies with jail and with drug abuse.

  “I’m just saying that adoption is pretty commonplace these days,” I said, looking directly at Nela, trying to cover up my insensitive comment. Which wasn’t all that insensitive in my book to begin with. Couldn’t we ever just be honest?

  “Can we have a party at your house anyway?” Lorraine joked, not eager to linger over anything unpleasant.

  Nela smiling reluctantly. Nela seemingly relieved that the shower wasn’t a reflection of how Paige felt about her new daughter’s ethnicity or appearance. Willing to forgive my insensitivity. Or at least to accept it in the spirit in which it was intended. Yazmin done with her coffeepot, turning to us, asking if we needed anything else. Not kicking us out but nervous, perhaps, that we might tell Paige if she didn’t do everything exactly right. All of us saying, “No thanks!” and “The coffee was delicious,” aware that it was time to leave. That we couldn’t have a party and gossip in Paige’s kitchen without her. Even though we’d been doing exactly that for the past half hour.

  We said our good-byes and slipped out the front door, Nela rushing next door in some sort of hurry to get home while Lorraine and I stopped for a minute to acknowledge the moment and hug each other lightly. The moon casting its glow across the blackened trees and snowy lawns of our neighborhood.

  NOTES ON HOW TO BEHAVE

  THERE WERE SNOWBANKS STACKED against bushes, wind gusts sweeping the neighborhood. Paige hadn’t called. Hadn’t sent a thank-you for our presents, even though she’d been back for nearly a week, a fact that amused Drew, who called me to joke about it, but irritated Lorraine, who couldn’t see the humor in it. “Why wouldn’t you call?” Lorraine asked me. It was our fourth call of the day. Lorraine prone to constant calling once you’d answered and seemed willing to talk, which I was. The kids home for February break, Lorraine a welcome distraction.

  “Maybe she’s jet-lagged,” I offered, certain this wasn’t the reason but aware that Lorraine needed one.

  “So what, you’re jet-lagged. You pick up the phone and say, ‘Hey, we’re back. We missed you. And by the way, the rice pilaf with Craisins was really good!’”

  I laughed lightly. Lorraine so clueless about how the real world worked. Lorraine living her whole life in Fair Lawn within ten miles of her extended family. Everybody getting together for holidays and birthdays. Everyone arriving on time, speaking civilly to one another, agreeing to play by the same rule book. Difficult topics weren’t mentioned. Like the fact that Lorraine’s aunt was a compulsive shopper or that Lorraine had a new boyfriend before her divorce was even final. Everything papered over with money and good manners and plans for next time. It would have been laughable and pathetic if I weren’t so jealous.

  I said I had to go. I said the kids needed me, suddenly eager to retrieve the mail, which I’d heard drop through the slot. I found a thick, wet envelope, half covered with snow, my name in pen on the outside of it. Inside, a note from Paige explaining what to say to our children about “the event.” About the fact that Paige and Gene and Cameron had traveled halfway around the globe one January morning and come back three weeks later with a new daughter for themselves, a sister for Cameron.

  “Don’t say ‘real parents’ when referring to her Russian family,” the sheet intoned. “We are the real parents. Say ‘biological parents.’ Winnie had biological parents in Russia who could not keep her.”

  This was good, I told myself. Instructive. Not the tone, which was bossy and supercilious. But I liked the content. The content was obviously well researched, if not by Paige, then by some adoption professional she was trying to mimic. There were other rules, too. About not saying that Winnie was “given away.” About not mentioning the orphanage. Or her lazy eye. But none of these were as interesting to me as the stuff about the real parents. I liked it. It fulfilled my own idea about what was possible: how a person could be saved with love and will and a little bit of money.

  In the kitchen I heard laughter and the sounds of marbles pinging against each other. I walked with Paige’s envelope toward the boys’ voices, eager to share something important with them.

  “Did you know Cameron Edwards has a new sister?” I began, standing over the kitchen table, fumbling with my silver bracelets. Murmurs. Heads bowed. Fingers collecting marbles from a series of hollows in a long wooden plank.

  “She’s adopted from Russia. Do you know what adopted means?” I asked sweetly, wondering if Lucas was aware of the adopted Ethiopian boy in his second-grade class.

  Lucas ignored me. His long, narrow torso resting on top of the kitchen table; his thick, curly head of hair nearly on top of the game board. Lucas constitutionally unable to stay in his seat. Josh sitting quietly across from him, his lips pursed in concentration before saying, “In China they wrap the girls in blankets and leave them near the river,” not looking up from the game. Then adding cheerily, “They don’t like baby girls!”

  This was all wrong. But this was so true! How cruel some cultures were. I wanted to correct him. To praise him. T
o find out where he was getting this outside information from, this dark and carnal truth about the world. He was only in kindergarten! His cheeks still chubby, his sweetness not tempered yet. But before I could refer to Paige’s sheet, gather my thoughts and my own brand of protective, tender truth, there was Winnie in the stroller outside my kitchen window. Paige and Gene pushing through the heavy veil of falling snow while Cameron walked slowly alongside them. I ran outside in my bare feet, eager to catch them before they passed, eager to be the first one to see them. To greet Winnie.

  “Welcome back!” I shouted when I reached the street, kissing Paige and Gene, hugging Cameron before taking in Winnie’s lazy eye, the snot dripping from her nose, the pale and crumpled face that peeked out beneath the pink, fur-trimmed parka hood. She looked like a disfigured doll, not at all like I’d pictured her. Not at all like I wanted her to be. A shining star of girlhood. The lucky one who’d gotten away.

  “Can I hug her?” I asked Paige, no longer wanting to but feeling like I should.

  “She doesn’t really like hugging strangers,” Paige said, cocking her head to the side so that the weak sun hit her pale and aging face, the tiny cracks and places where her cheeks fell in.

  I was surprised and disappointed. I thought it strange that Paige would say something so definitive after knowing the girl so briefly. But I didn’t really feel like hugging Winnie anyhow; she seemed dirty and unreal to me, more like an old man in a wheelchair than a child in a stroller, which was embarrassing for me to think about.

  Beside the stroller rail, Cameron stood mutely, wisps of blond hair escaping from his plaid cap, the flaps lowered over his ears. Already he resembled Paige, with his high cheekbones and delicate chin. His neck long and elegant.

  “Are you happy to have a sister?” I asked, suddenly aware that I should be making a fuss over him, too, not just his new sister.