The Woman Next Door (4 page)

Her son. He had a blanket wrapped tightly around bun. "Mommy, I'm cold. I can't sleep."

Marilyn sat up and switched the light on. She looked at her husband. "Brett?" She looked at her son. "Come here, Greg."

He went to her, crawled into bed beside her. "Brett?" Louder now, but he continued snoring. "
Brett!
"

He stirred, stopped snoring, opened his eyes, looked at her, saw his son. "Greg?" he said. "What are you doing in here?"

"He's cold," Marilyn said. "And so am I. Something's wrong, Brett. Go and check."

Reluctantly, Brett swung his feet to the floor. "I told you it was cold," he said. "Where's my fucking bathrobe?"

"Where it always is," Marilyn said. "In the closet. And I wish you'd watch your language, Brett." She nodded at Greg snuggled up next to her.

Brett closed his eyes briefly. "Sorry," he murmured. He got his bathrobe, put it on, and left the room.

Marilyn switched the lamp off. She turned her head, looked out the window. The
Bennet
house was dark now.

I
t was incredible, the whole six months. Incredible. And now, just yesterday. . . .

Was he seeing her, really seeing her, another facet of her, for the first time? And what was he seeing? He wanted to ask her. He wanted to know; he
needed
to know.

"Christine?" he whispered. He studied the pale oval that was her face. "Christine?" he repeated, no louder.

He decided to let her sleep: It would take an effort to wake her. And it would be cruel; she would lead him to believe that it was cruel, even though she had gone to bed shortly after dinner, a good six or seven hours ago. Usually, that much sleep would have been enough—too much, in fact. She had always awakened before him, always seemed to regard sleep as a waste of time, a necessary evil, always had the kind of driving energy he envied and was also a little afraid of, for her sake.

But it had all changed. Her energy, her passion for living. Changed. Altered.

He thought at first that it was related to her handicap, but (partially out of fear that it was true) quickly discarded the idea.

Now, their first night in their first house, that fear nagged at him. Because, beyond the mandatory, "It's nice, Tim, you've done a good job, I like it," she had had absolutely no reaction to the house—as if it were some hotel they would be staying in for a couple weeks, a stopover, and no reaction was required.

It hurt him deeply. A lot of hard work, to say nothing of the money, had gone into this house. And, in most respects, it was hers, had been designed for her comfort. What had been the second floor—consisting of two small bedrooms and a closet-sized bathroom—was now an open loft, his studio. For her convenience, it was connected to the ground floor by a small elevator. But when he'd shown her the elevator and explained how it worked, she had merely smiled in a patronizing way—a smile she had never before used on him.

And it was the same throughout the rest of the house: The floor-standing cupboards in the kitchen—each with its own lazy Susan—sparked nothing but a patronizing smile; the one large bedroom and bathroom on the first floor—a patronizing smile; the wide doorways, the ramp leading to the front door, the swing-in front windows—a patronizing smile.

He studied her face again and thought how beautiful it was despite the . . . exhaustion that had overcome her, that it was even more beautiful than when he had first met her. In the light it had a soft pink glow, a
healthy
glow, the glow of youth.

That glow, when he first noticed it several months ago, had led him to think—foolishly, he supposed—of vampires, or the reverse of vampires—that one had somehow gotten inside her and was sapping her energy and showing its face through her. Had there been an apparent reason for the change that had come over her (she was working too hard, or there had been a death in her family, or she was having a reaction to medication), he would have shared the thought with her in the hope that it would be comic relief for them both. But there was no apparent reason. Only the fact that she had changed.

He sensed movement beside him, very slight. Then he became aware that the tempo of Christine's breathing had altered—from slow and deep to slow and shallow. She was waking.

He turned his head. "Christine," he said aloud. He saw her open her eyes, focus on him. "Darling?" he murmured.

"The house, Tim." She was speaking lovingly, soothingly; it was the first time she had spoken that way to him in months. "Thank you," she went on, her tone the same. "Thank you," she repeated. And she reached over and touched his cheek. A second later she had withdrawn her hand and was asleep again.

January 9, 1961

7:30 P.M.

T
he babysitter smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry," she said.

Evelyn Winter looked briefly, doubtfully, at her husband, then back at the babysitter. It was the girl's first night, and Mrs. Winter was having second thoughts about trusting a thirteen-year-old. The previous babysitter had been a woman in her thirties; a recent traffic accident had left her bedridden. In the small town, this young girl had been the only replacement immediately available on a long-term basis.

"Yes," Mrs. Winter said, "well, if you have any problems, just call that number we left near the phone."

"I'll do that, Mrs. Winter."

"She'll sleep until we get home, but if she should wake up and start crying, it's probably because she needs to be changed."

"Yes, Mrs. Winter . . . I know."

A pause, then: "You're sure you can handle this?"

"Yes, I'm sure, Mrs. Winter. I've got two younger brothers at home."

"Okay, then." She pulled the front door open. "We'll be back by twelve, and, as I said—"

"Yes, I know"—the babysitter smiled nervously, as if to apologize for cutting in, and waved her arm toward the kitchen—"you left your number by the phone."

Evelyn Winter frowned. "We'll be back by twelve," she repeated. "Help yourself to whatever you like in the icebox." She started out the door, her husband in tow. She stopped. "Oh," she said; she looked back accusingly. "No boys." And she left. Her husband smiled feebly—
Sorry
, the smile said—and followed.

The babysitter closed the door quietly behind them. Evelyn Winter, she decided, was a real class-A bitch. And her husband was a weasel.

This job was going to be hell.

T
he babysitter glanced at the kitchen clock: 9:06. Three hours left. "Shit," she whispered. And nothing on TV: "The Lawrence
Welk
Show," "
Gunsmoke
"—a lot of crap.

She pulled the refrigerator door open again and peered in, hoping she'd missed something. But no. A couple half-pints of plain yogurt—disgusting—a half-dozen eggs, a bottle of Heinz ketchup, a quart of low-fat milk, the hardened remains of a Mrs. Paul's coffee cake, a dozen or so jars of Gerber baby food. And, except for a pound of chicken breasts and some leaf spinach, the freezer, she knew—she had checked it twice—was empty. She threw the door shut. Damn Mrs. Winter might as well have told her to help herself to whatever might be crawling around in the damned cellar: "Help yourself to whatever goodies you find in the cellar, darling. Lots of keen things down there." The babysitter laughed shortly. It was a shrill laugh, and harsh.

10:15

T
he child had been crying for twenty minutes. It was sporadic crying, on and off, and the babysitter had hoped that each time it stopped it would stay stopped. But it hadn't, and, at last, the babysitter realized that she'd have to do something. "Jesus H. Christ!" she hissed; it was a curse she had learned just recently, and she enjoyed the sound of it.

She went into the child's room.

It was obvious to the babysitter, even before she switched the light on, that the child had vomited: The smell of it hung sour and heavy in the room. It was a yellow smell, she thought—a very pale yellow streaked ever so lightly with orange. Some people did their bathrooms in the same color.

She switched the light on.

The child was standing up in the crib, a Raggedy Ann doll clutched in her right hand. Her cloth diaper, heavy with urine, hung around her knees. She had started crying again as soon as the babysitter came into the room.

"Jesus H. Christ!" the babysitter said from the doorway.

The child stopped crying and stared inquisitively.

The babysitter crossed to the crib. She lifted the child by the armpits, felt the wet diaper against her belly through her blouse; she grimaced, held the child away and shook her a little. The diaper dropped to the floor.

11:45

T
he babysitter sniffed at her fingers and wrinkled her nose. The smell of vomit still clung to them, though she had scrubbed her hands several times. She lifted the bottom of her blouse and sniffed it. She cursed: This job was worth more than a lousy dollar fifty.

She heard the child crying again, got up from the couch, went to the child's room, pushed the door open. In the light from the living room, she could see that the child was standing up in the crib again, that the Raggedy Ann doll was on the floor in front of the crib.

The child looked pleadingly at the babysitter, then reached over the edge of the crib for the doll. "Dolly," she said.

The babysitter crossed the room, picked up the doll, and pushed it at the child. The child took it and lay down slowly, the doll clutched to her chest.

The babysitter crossed to the doorway. She looked back. "Now, go the fuck to sleep!" she said. She flicked the light switch on, then off, on, then off. "To sleep!" And she left the room.

M
arilyn Courtney knew they couldn't see her. During cloudless days, the glaze of sunlight and blue sky made her windows opaque. She had checked. Often she had stood at the downstairs windows and watched as passersby nodded and pointed and smiled at her house, pleased by it, of course, unmindful of the fact that she was there, behind a window, very pleased that they were pleased. And once she had even stood naked in front of one of her windows and seen no change in the nodding and pointing and smiling. That had proved it: In daylight, she could watch and not be seen. At night, she had merely to shut off the lights.

She wanted to hear them talking, to hear what he—the husband—was saying, anyway, because he seemed to be doing all the talking. She—the wife—looked almost glum in that wheelchair. Poor little thing. She didn't even appear to be listening to him.

They must be on their way to somewhere close, she thought, or they would have taken their van. Probably on their way to the market a couple blocks away, or maybe he was just showing her the neighborhood, or maybe she just needed some air.

They had stopped. He was nodding at the house. Smiling and nodding at the house. Marilyn watched, expressionless, enjoying his pleasure.

T
im
Bennet
often grinned when he was nervous. He didn't know why, exactly; he supposed it was self-defensive, an attempt to deny that he was nervous.

"Why today?" he asked. "I was hoping you could help me with some of the decorating today."

Christine said, "I don't know if I'm up to that, Tim. Tomorrow, maybe."

Tim continued grinning. He nodded at 24 Longview Terrace again, though Christine, in the wheelchair, her back to him, couldn't see the nod. "How do you know if anyone's even home?" He paused only briefly; it had been a stupid question, he knew. "Maybe they're busy with something; maybe they're having lunch."

Christine turned her head a little and looked at the house. "They're not busy," she said.

How can you know that?
Tim wanted to say, but it was obvious from her tone that, whether she knew it or not, she believed she knew it. He sighed. "It's our first day here, darling. There's a lot we've still got to do. We have all the time in the world to go around introducing ourselves to the neighbors."

Christine turned her head as much to the left as she could. Tim saw her look at him out of the corner of her eye.

"Just this one," she said. And she smiled.
Humor me
the smile said.

Tim, sighing again, turned the wheelchair to the right and began pushing it slowly, carefully, up the snow-slick driveway. "Okay," he said. "But I hope they're not making love or something." He chuckled, embarrassed by the inanity.

Christine said nothing.

M
arilyn Courtney stepped away from the window. For God's sake, they were coming here, to the house. To introduce themselves, no doubt. To be welcomed to the neighborhood. And they had moved in only yesterday.