The Good Neighbor Read online

  waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  “Come on,” she said, holding out another string of lights. “Put these on. Let’s have a party.”

  “You look ridiculous.”

  The Good Neighbor 67

  “You look ridiculous. Sitting there as though something was wrong, when there clearly isn’t. A person would think you’re up set, after getting such good news.”

  “I can be upset if I want to.” “But what are you upset about?”

  “Nothing. I just don’t want to put on any damn Christmas lights.”

  “Fine,” said Francie, unplugging herself from the wall. “Be a party pooper. Be a big old bucket of poo. All I care about is we got it, Coltrane. We got it!”

  “Yes,” said Colt. “We got it, all right. The question is, what did we get?”

  ❚ ❚ ❚

  Next day, Francie went furniture shopping for their new place, armed with a handful of sketches of what she wanted. This was something she was good at, picking out furniture. She had the ability to look at an empty room and envision it as it should be, sketching blank walls and filling them with interesting shapes, and then filling the shapes with furniture. It was almost as satis fying as writing a good poem, as long as she tried not to think about what a pathetic substitute it actually was. She went to a department store and purchased couches, coffee tables, chairs, a credenza, knickknacks, and a glass-fronted case to hold them. She bought an oversized wingback reading chair and a duvet cover. Af ter much wrangling, she succeeded in hiring—”bribing” was more accurate—the store’s deliverymen to bring everything all the way out to Pennsylvania, since there was certainly no room for any of it in New York. She was told it would arrive “soon.” In the lingua franca of furniture deliverymen, this meant sometime before all parties concerned were dead of old age, though there were not even any guarantees of that. Yet Francie knew it was best not to press for details, lest the deliverymen grow spiteful.

  68 WILLIAM KOWALSKI

  Colt was in favor of waiting for everything to arrive at the new house before they went back to it, since otherwise, as he pointed out, there wouldn’t even be anything to sit on. But Francie com plained that the walls of the city were beginning to close in on her. Besides, she was too excited. She didn’t think she could wait any longer, she said; they should take the extra furniture from the apartment out there now and get set up.

  “Yeah, but to tell the truth I sort of saw this as a summer place,” Colt said. “To hang out in during nice weather. I mean . . . well, it’s gotten cold out.”

  “Oh, I don’t see it as a summer place at all,” Francie said.

  She was going through the receipts of her purchases, but she paused now, horrified at the thought that she might have to wait until spring to go back. Already she’d had dreams of herself out there in the wilds; she’d filled a notebook with drawings of the liv ing rooms, the parlors, and the den, all furnished in ten different styles apiece, from Louis Quinze to modern Scandinavian.

  “Colt, are you serious? I thought... I mean, I know I could finally do some really good writing there. It’s such a... I don’t know, a rich place. Just thinking about it makes me feel productive!” she said.

  “Do you have any idea how much it’s going to cost to heat it? Houses like that are totally inefficient. Old windows. Bad insula tion,” Colt said.

  “But . . . Colt!”

  “Well, I’m just saying, is all. What are you so worked up about? That house has been sitting there for a hundred and fifty years, Francie. It’s not going anywhere before spring.”

  How was she to explain it to him? In the short time the house had been theirs, ideas had started to come to her again. The well was beginning to fill once more. She could sense it, and for the first time in years she was beginning to get that old feeling again, the one she hadn’t had since her Golden Age. It was, quite simply, the feeling of being inspired, and that was not the kind of thing you put on hold until it was warm outside.

  The Good Neighbor 69

  “I sort of want to live there,” she said. “All the time, I mean.” Colt looked at her as if she was mad.

  “You never said that,” he said.

  “Didn’t I?” She was surprised at herself; it must have seemed so obvious that it hadn’t needed mentioning. “Colt, we . . . we bought a house. What did you think we were buying it for, if not to live in? At least part of the time?”

  “A vacation place, Francie, for God’s sake,” he said. “For summer weekends and stuff. And to have people out there for parties.”

  By “people,” Francie knew Colt meant “work people”: the tall, brittle men of finance and their brassy-voiced wives. She had a vi sion of the graceful driveway filling with expensive city cars, and of herself standing on the porch steps, a mink stole around her shoulders, a glass of bubbly in her hand, welcoming all with air kisses. Weekends of lawn bowling and adultery and feuding among the servants, ending with a good murder or two. No. More likely it would be loud alcoholic dinners and houseguests who didn’t rise before noon, with Colt bragging all the while about this and that to anyone who would listen and Francie hiding in her room with a book until everyone went home again. God, what a fate, she thought. With her unerring sense for compromise, she came up with a rapid plan on the spot.

  “Let’s just go out there and get settled,” she said. “Clean the place up and organize everything. Spend a few days. Celebrate. Then we can come back to the city. This is a big deal, Colt. You’re due some vacation, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, but . . .” Colt let his voice trail off. The fact was, he hated vacations, which Francie knew very well. He preferred work to anything else, and when he did take time off, he always wanted to go to some tacky resort in the Caribbean, with beaches crammed to the treeline with the sunburned bodies of other rich Americans. It was occurring to Francie for the first time that they had wanted this house for very different reasons. Oh dear, she thought. It would appear I have miscalculated. This place is just another tro

  70 WILLIAM KOWALSKI

  phy for him, isn’t it? Just another thing to hang on the proverbial wall and admire. Like the Camaro. Or me.

  “Come on,” she said. “Please? For me? It would make me so happy, Colt.”

  The promise of domestic bliss was a trump card she rarely played. Never, in fact. So, after examining their schedules—Fran cie’s empty, while Colt grumbled about shoving around his vari ous meetings and planning sessions, et cetera, talking as if anyone actually cared, she thought—they planned to depart on the fol lowing Wednesday, the last one in a month that had already turned the earth as hard as iron, but had yet to produce any snow.

  ❚ ❚ ❚

  That Tuesday evening, just as they were sitting down to dinner, there came an unexpected buzzing on the intercom.

  Who the hell is that?” Colt asked, irritated.

  “My psychic powers are failing me just now,” Francie said, get ting up.

  “No, don’t answer it. Whoever it is, it’s not someone we’re ex pecting.”

  Francie stopped and glared at him.

  “That’s what makes life interesting,” she said. She pressed the intercom on the wall. “Hello?”

  “It’s me,” said a voice in a burst of static. “Me who?”

  “Me! Michael!”

  “Mikey!” Francie screamed into the box. “Is that really you?” “Let me in, Sissie,” came Michael’s wan voice. “It’s freezing out

  here!”

  Francie buzzed him in and began a frenetic happy-dance around the apartment. Now it was Colt’s turn to glare at her.

  “It’s Mikey!” she told Colt. “He’s visiting us!” “Joy,” he said, without feeling any.

  The Good Neighbor 71

  “Mikey” was Francie’s brother Michael. Once again, the wide- eyed wanderer had appeared out of nowhere, with no warning. These surprise visits were part of Michael’s self-described style; he knew how to make no other kind of visit, in fact,
since he seemed largely incapable of following most social conventions. It was the fifth or sixth time since their marriage that he had simply shown up. “Again he does this?” Colt said, resting his forehead in his hand.

  “It’s too much trouble for him to call?”

  “That’s my brother for you,” said Francie, out of breath, exhila rated. “He’s a free spirit.”

  “You say that like it’s a good thing. What if we weren’t in the mood for visitors?”

  “He’s family,” Francie told her husband. “That’s not the same as visitors.”

  “No. It’s worse.”

  “If you had a brother, you’d be glad to see him, wouldn’t you?” “Yeah, but I don’t.”

  The buzzer sounded and Francie yanked open the door, screech ing with delight, for there stood her baby-faced, slope-shouldered little brother, soft and pudgy in the stomach, ambitiously whiskery, his thin lips plastered tight against his teeth in a stoned approximation of a smile. Colt noted that Michael was still sport ing the same long, greasy hair, and the same old knit poncho— swept dramatically over one shoulder, as if it were a cape, and he minor nobility. Colt wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Michael hadn’t showered much since the last time they’d seen him; hygiene, or rather the lack of it, was as much a part of his style as itinerancy. This never seemed to bother Francie, who at tacked him now with kisses, practically bending him over back ward in the hallway, Gable-like, before he even had a chance to enter the apartment.

  “Mikey!” she screamed. “How are you? Where have you been?” “Whoa,” said Michael, pleased at her assault but fending her

  off. “Hi, Sissie. Hey, Colt.”

  72 WILLIAM KOWALSKI

  “Hi,” said Colt.

  “Come in!” said Francie. “Are you hungry? Are you tired? Do you want a drink?”

  “Shit, yeah,” said Michael. “D, all of the above. I started out in Ohio this morning, and my bus is on its last legs. Kind of a tense trip. Wassup, Colt?”

  “Nothing, as you so quaintly inquire, is ‘up,’ ” said Colt. “You still driving that same old hunk of crap?”

  “Yup,” Michael said. “Almost two hundred fifty thousand miles on her now. Big hole in the floor, too. Rusted right out. You can practically drop things through it, if you want.”

  “Sit down, Mikey,” said Francie, closing the door and pushing him into a chair.

  “Right on,” said Michael. “Sit down I will. Colt, my man. Nice to see you.”

  “Right on,” said Colt. “You’re on vacation from work, I take it?

  Got a couple of weeks off from the old grind?”

  “No, dude,” said Michael. He gave a phlegmy smoker ’s laugh, like a motorcycle chugging underwater. “I’m not working at the moment.”

  Colt put his hands to his face in a gesture of mock surprise. “What!” he said. “Mikey McDermott, without a job? Shocked, I am!”

  “At the moment, I said,” said Michael. “I’m on tour, dude. Mak ing a cultural survey, you might say. Exploring this great land of ours. You know.”

  “No, I don’t. I’ve never had the luxury,” said Colt.

  “Finding out what makes America America, man,” said Michael. “I’ve seen the most amazing shit. You wouldn’t believe it.”

  “I can’t wait to hear all about it,” said Francie. “Something tells me we won’t have to,” said Colt.

  ❚ ❚ ❚

  The Good Neighbor 73

  They resumed their interrupted dinner, with Francie floating now between table and counter, helping Michael to more meat loaf, more juice, more salad; she even opened a bottle of champagne, one of the expensive ones Colt had been saving for a special occa sion. From the look on Colt’s face as the cork popped, it was clear that this visit didn’t fall into that category, but Francie either failed to notice or didn’t care; if it was up to Colt to decide when and how they would celebrate the small blessings in life, she knew, every day would be like a funeral. Michael talked and ate; Francie cooed; Colt listened, trying and failing to hide the sneer of contempt that kept sliding across his face like an eclipse.

  “Meat loaf and champagne,” he said. “I wonder if that’s on the menu at Le Cirque.”

  “Tell us everything,” said Francie, ignoring her husband. “I haven’t talked to you in ages. The last time I spoke to Mom she said you were out West.”

  “I was in Denver,” Michael said.

  “Ooh, Denver! I’ve never been there. What’s it like?” “Mountainy. And cold.”

  “‘Mountainy’?” Colt echoed.

  “Yeah. With snowcaps. And mountain goats. Totally wild.” “How did you end up there?” Francie asked.

  “I was hanging out in Phoenix, and I heard Phish was playing a concert up there, so I just went. And I met this girl out in the parking lot. Yolanda, her name was. She was cool, so I decided to stick around for a while.”

  “Wow, a parking-lot romance,” said Colt. “Did she have hairy armpits?”

  “I hope you were careful,” said Francie.

  “Aw, c’mon,” said Michael, blushing. “They have parties in the parking lot,” he explained to Colt. “It’s not like she was just sit ting there on the curb or something. There’s dancing. And food. Sometimes there’s even other bands.”

  “Oh, well, in that case,” said Colt.

  74 WILLIAM KOWALSKI

  “So what happened?” Francie asked. “You didn’t want to bring her along home with you?”

  Michael shrugged and forked another slice of meat loaf onto his plate. “Y’know,” he said. “It ran its course, I guess. We hung out for a few weeks, and then it was time to move on.”

  “Aw,” said Francie. “Did she hurt you, sweetie?” Colt snorted with laughter.

  “No, it’s cool,” said Michael, shooting him an icy glare. “No at tachments, no regrets. Y’know. Things happen the way they’re supposed to happen. I wasn’t upset about it.”

  “Good,” Francie said. Colt picked up a butter knife and made sawing motions on his wrist. Francie continued to ignore him. “Go on,” she said. “What else did you do?”

  “Lessee. I went to this sweat ceremony with these Indians, where you’re like crammed into this tiny little underground room with about thirty other people, and there’s no air? We were in there for like six hours. And you have to like confront your own death and everything? And I fainted!”

  “Oh, my God!” said Francie. “Were you all right?” “He’s here, isn’t he?” Colt said.

  “Sure, I was okay. I got in touch with my totem animal. It was a snake.”

  “This is spellbinding,” said Colt, toying with his mashed pota toes.

  “Seriously, man. All kinds of crazy shit happened to me out West.”

  “Was it ‘heavy-duty,’ man?” asked Colt. “Was it ‘far out’?”

  “Is he making fun of me?” Michael asked Francie. “Sometimes I can’t even tell.”

  “Just ignore him,” said Francie. “That’s what I do.”

  “Yeah, that’s the Coltster for you. I ended up catching two con certs, too. And I hooked up with these really cool people who let me stay with them for a while. Yolanda’s friends. They had this great house. Really old.”

  The Good Neighbor 75

  “I bet it’s beautiful out there,” said Francie dreamily. “I’ve never been out West.”

  “It’s awesome, Sissie. Everywhere you go looks like a movie set.”

  “Except, of course, it’s real,” said Colt. “Right?”

  “Yeah, man, that’s what I mean. Just that it looks fake, ’cause it’s so beautiful.”

  “Yes, I got that. I just think it’s kind of pathetic that your only frame of reference for describing natural beauty is the work of a bunch of Hollywood set designers,” Colt said.

  “Jeez, get a load of the Coltster,” said Michael. “What’s up your ass?”

  “Nothing at all, as far as I know,” Colt said mildly. “Last time I checked, anyway.”

 
; “Coltrane, shut up if you can’t be nice,” said Francie. “Mikey, we bought a house. A great big old house, out in the country. In Penn sylvania.”

  “No shit?” said Michael. “When did this happen?”

  “In the last couple of months. We just saw it and fell in love with it. And we’re moving some of our stuff out there. The an tiques, and the extra furniture.”

  “Tomorrow, as a matter of fact,” said Colt.

  “No fucking way!” said Michael. “That is so cool! Hey, what about this apartment? Are you gonna keep it?”

  “Of course. But we’ll be going out to the country for a few days, to get things set up.”

  “Hey, no shit,” said Michael. “In that case, can I crash here for a while? Just until I figure out where I’m going next?”

  “Of course you—”

  “No,” said Colt, interrupting his wife. “Absolutely not.” “Coltrane!” said Francie. “Why not?”

  “No, listen, really,” said Colt. “I’ve got to put my foot down. If you’re going to show up unannounced and uninvited, the least you can do is make yourself useful. We’ve got a shitload of stuff to

  76 WILLIAM KOWALSKI