The Good Neighbor (14 page)

“You're right,” I said. “It just caught me off guard.”

“Look, this is one person who read Darby's restaurant review of Sebastian's and happened to mention it to you, and one of the thousands who have read your Valentine's post so far who happened to mention it to you, by chance. You see Donna five days a week all day long. It isn't that unlikely, you know.”

I wouldn't see Donna five days a week if I lost my job. But the idea of someone's knowing it was me, and me having to answer for the posts about Mac, and the insinuations that I was in a pretty damn good relationship and had a lot of insights into dating, gave me pause.

“And would it really be that bad to have some of the real people you're giving out advice to know who you are? Would it be so bad for Mac to know?”

I stood and walked in ovals again, shaking the hand that wasn't holding the phone. My mouth was dry. My skin was hot. “That wasn't the deal, remember? I don't want it public. I have Noah to think about. And Bruce. And my job. My job that I
care about and love so much and am so dedicated to
.”

“Why are you yelling?”

I cupped my mouth and whispered, “People are being laid off left and right in the district. I can't afford to be next. No one can know it's me, please.” And you can't know I'm lying about Mac.

Steering the posts away from Mac and into the middle of reader traffic until I could ease out of this jam was much safer for everyone. I couldn't forget that I was helping Jade by writing this blog. She'd said so herself. She needed me. Jade had not needed me in a long time.

“I just thought you might want to take advantage of your popularity.”

“How?”

“Drew had an idea. He thought maybe you and Mac could write something together. He's impressed with you, Pea. I like Drew, but he is
not
easy to impress.”

“Call him off, J. Please. I can't.”

“I want you to think about it, okay? But nobody is forcing you. You haven't written anything negative. I bet Mac would be flattered. Drew said he wished someone would write about him like that.”

The Divorce Guru of Philadelphia was a hopeful romantic?

“What do you think I should say if Donna brings it up again? If she asks if I've read it yet.”

“Tell her you think it's the best damn blog in the universe.”

Only Jade could make me laugh when I felt nauseated. She'd done it in college after too much beer at Smokey Joe's, and she'd done it through my bouts of morning sickness.

“So, while I have you in a good mood, Pea, can you come over Wednesday night? I have the bloggers, designers, and other staffers coming for dinner. Just pizza, but we need to meet in person. You should be here. I need you to be here. And before you say anything, just bring Pirate Boy with you. I haven't seen my little buddy in weeks. I'll buy Pirate's Booty. That should make him happy. I see it in all the mom carts at Whole Foods.”

“Noah loves Pirate's Booty!” Great, now the surveillance team would hear me talking about snack foods.

“See? I'm totally kid-friendly.” Jade was totally Noah-friendly. “Pirate's Booty still sounds like a slutty Halloween costume to me, but what do I know?”

I guffawed and whispered, “Lots.”

*   *   *

That night, Noah nestled next to me in bed. I stroked his hair as if keeping it in place. With a light touch I scratched his arm, knowing the rhythm would relax him, eventually send him into a deep sleep. I watched his torso rise and fall.

“Mommy, the other day Daddy said he's coming home soon.”

“That's wonderful, honey. I know how much you miss him.”

“Mommy?”

“Yes, Noah?”

“What's ‘soon' mean?”

I was lying to my dearest friend, my closest cousin, my parents, brothers, and thousands of readers a day. But I would never lie to Noah.

“I don't know.”

Noah deserved so much more than to contemplate the passage of time. And after all,
soon
was subjective. If I didn't understand how Bruce could leave Noah, certainly Noah didn't understand. Just by being born he had earned more than a faraway father and a makeshift home amid my memories. But did I?

Perhaps I wasn't meant to mother a houseful of children, but I was meant to be Noah's mother. I knew that from the moment that cherished stick had two pink lines. Noah was my
beshert,
my meant-to-be. My Jewish forefathers didn't mean it that way when they thought up the word, I knew that. It was Bruce whom they would have called my intended. And we
were
intended. For a time. Just not for forever.

With Noah asleep, I pulled away my hand and collected all the books. Pop-up pirate ships, flip-up pages, fuzzy lions to pet, and cardboard levers to pull. Noah had started reading on his own, part of his speech-therapy sessions at school. Sometimes I just wanted him to stay the way he was, stumbling over his
r
's, in cutesy pajamas, wearing the eye patch that made everything so clear to us both.

Padding downstairs, I grabbed my laptop from the living room, my Phillies cap from the kitchen, and went back upstairs. I slipped in next to him and set the pillows as a wall between us and turned off the sound and turned down the brightness. He just snored, and it was all I wanted to hear.

I assumed people in all time zones and with all varieties of internal clocks were meeting on Facebook for the camaraderie I had on Pop Philly, the camaraderie I sought for my true self. But the pages stood still. Nothing new was on Rachel's profile, I didn't see any banter with Jeremy, and no matter how hard I tried, the inspirational quotes in colorful boxes did nothing to inspire me. And I couldn't talk to cute-cat videos; Felix would be jealous.

Maybe that was another thing about being married that I missed. Someone to talk to when everyone else was asleep. Although Bruce had been known to zonk out before the
Tonight
show, he was there. I could poke him with a “Hey, you know what?” and he'd open his eyes and pretend to listen. There had been a lot of pretending in our five-year marriage, but during the good times, which I tended to forget, there was also a lot of talking.

I knew hundreds of comments awaited on
Philly over Forty
but I hesitated. I yearned to banter with words that came out of my mouth and not my fingers. I wanted to talk and just be myself. Use my name. It was too late to call anyone, even Jade.

I opened the blog and scanned the page, ready to read comments at random, like a game. Click on page four, read comment fourteen. Click on page twenty-two, read two comments in a row. I was nothing if not creative. Just then, on page eleven, one comment jumped out with all capital letters.

YOU HAVEN'T WRITTEN ABOUT MAC IN DAYS. WELL, HE SEEMED TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE ANYWAY.—CD

My make-believe world had just gotten very real.

 

Chapter 14

Chinese Jump Rope

W
EDNESDAY NIGHT
I
FOUND
a parking spot on Bainbridge, only a half block from Jade's house. Noah seemed impervious to the cold. He clapped away breath clouds between his mittens during his gallop to the door.

Before Noah's finger touched the doorbell, Jade opened the door. She crouched and opened her arms, as if she'd been waiting all day for him to arrive. Noah flung himself at her. She looked up at me after opening her eyes, as if to say,
Thank you for sharing him with me.

“Hi, handsome. Let me get a look at you.”

She said that even when she'd seen him the day before. Taking Noah's hand, Jade stood and they walked inside. I stayed in the foyer for an extra second, as if by following I'd have interrupted something private.

When I closed the door behind me, Noah was already sitting on the kitchen counter collecting slices of apple from a tray.

“How about dinner?”

“This is just my first course, Mommy. Right, Aunt Jade?”

“Pizza won't be here for another forty-five minutes, and I knew little dude would be hungry.” Jade lifted Noah down from the counter and transferred him to a chair at the kitchen table. Then she turned on a small flat-screen TV and Nickelodeon sprang to life.

“Thanks.”

“No thanks necessary. He'll be fine for a while, right?”

Noah was eating an apple slice like an ear of corn. At this rate he'd be fine for an hour. “Sure.”

“Great, everyone else will be here any minute.”

The doorbell rang. No one was late for a meeting with Jade.

I waited on the sectional in Jade's office while Jade ushered in the Web-site troops. I stood, smiled, and nodded. Holden's two-handed handshake allowed me to relax. Our e-mail rapport was flourishing. I could ask him about the person who commented that Mac was too good to be true, but since there had been no repercussions, and no more mysterious comments, it wasn't an emergency. Even seeing Darby in her fitted sweater dress and tights reminded me that this was business, not just a hobby for her or Holden or any of the others I could have given birth to if I'd started at fifteen.

Andrew Mann walked in last, a graying head shorter than the sports blogger, Zach, who stood next to him. Jade smiled. She liked Coat Guy. Maybe more than she was willing to admit.

As the “kids” sat down on the sofa and the floor, pulling out tablets and laptops and talking in jargon, Jade crooked her finger at me. She laid her hand on Drew's back. The three of us walked to the great room.

“Have a seat,” Jade said.

I chose the one lone overstuffed chair, as opposed to the ones that looked pretty but uncomfortable. Jade and Drew sat next to one another, half a cushion between them on the midcentury modern sofa. I only knew that it was midcentury modern because Jade had told me.

“Drew wants to talk to you about Mac.”

My mouth fell open. Did Jade and Drew know? Was Drew the one commenting that Mac was too good to be true? Was it Jade? Was this her way of allowing me to confess so she didn't humiliate me completely? I would rather they just come out and say it, chastise me. Fire me.

“I'm sorry. Mac's not up for discussion.”

“He needs to be,” Jade said.

My pulse slowed.

Drew leaned closer, his elbows on his knees. “You've stopped writing about him. And those posts brought the most traffic. There's nothing to be embarrassed about. If I were Mac, I'd be flattered.”

If you were Mac, you'd be invisible.

“You seem to be in a really good place with him. Why not let him know how much you appreciate things like when he put the glass in your screen door? Or how much you enjoyed just watching movies when Noah went to bed? I mean, I'm sure you tell him, but reading about it would boost his ego.”

What did Andrew Mann know about needing an ego boost?

“I'm glad you like what I'm doing. Both of you. I really am. But I can't have anyone knowing who I am on Pop Philly. Mac included.” I had not yet addressed Drew by name. Did I call him Drew, or was that Jade's name for him? Andrew? Mr. Mann? It was the internal awkwardness of having
Coat Guy
on the tip of my tongue.

“I think people do know
exactly
who you are. They just don't know your name—Elizabeth Lane.” Then Andrew Mann stood.

“Izzy.”

“Excuse me?”

“You called me Elizabeth.”

“Elizabeth is your name.”

“Yes, but only one person calls me Elizabeth.”

“Your mother?”

“No, my mother chose my nickname before I was born. I was named after my father's aunt.” Why was I telling him something personal?

“Mac?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your boyfriend? The one we're talking about, the one you won't tell about
P-O-F,
the one who you're supposed to be writing about? Is he the one who calls you Elizabeth?”

“No!” They knew. They were waiting for me to crumble into a confession. But I wouldn't topple. My façade was sturdier than the truth. “I'm sorry.”

“What are you sorry about exactly?” Jade asked.

I felt pushed and prodded and poked. “I don't know. I assume I'm doing something wrong or you wouldn't have pulled me aside here with Mr. Mann and then not said two words to me.”

“Please don't call me Mr. Mann. That's my father. You can call me Drew. Or Andrew. Just don't call me Andy, because that's what my mother calls me.” He smiled to match his bus-stop posters.

Charming was not going to get me to say more about Mac.

“Look,” Andrew said, “we don't have a problem with the questions and the banter you're generating. People peruse dating information and online dating sites long before they get divorced. Like window-shopping before you need something. And sometimes couples going through divorce need to change lawyers.”

“That's horrible!” I was cultivating a client base for a lawyer keen on spurring divorces.
I
was horrible.

“We just need to make sure you're still writing those posts about you and Mac and not just asking questions. The Mac posts spike traffic.”

Jade nodded. “The psychology behind that is that the readers want relationship stories as much as or more than they want dating advice, but you've stopped talking about Mac. So we need a way for you to really get under the skin of your readers. If you're not going to do it with Mac, then we need you to spur some controversy.”

“What if I don't have anything like that to say?”

“We're not asking you to lie,” Drew said. “Just add a little attitude.”

Too bad, because lying I could do.

“Would you excuse me for a second, ladies?” He headed down the hallway, presumably to the little Mann's room.

“What a jerk.”

“He's a good guy, Pea. And he spends a lot of money advertising on the site. He made it possible for me to give you that check last month. And he'll be the one responsible for the check I give you next week. You know, the one that pays for Noah's day care?”