Lisa Gardner: The Neighbor

All through dinner, Ree giggled and Jason smiled and I sipped champagne. I thought of my husband and his lack of family and friends. And I sipped more champagne. I remembered how easily he’d convinced me to adopt a new name when we’d moved to Boston-all to help protect me from my father, he’d claimed at the time. And I sipped more champagne. I recalled his late nights hunched over the computer. The websites he frequented that he had gone to great lengths to hide. And I thought of that photo. I finally, six months later, fixated on that lone black-and-white photo of a terrified young boy, the hairy black spider clearly visible as it crawled across the boy’s naked chest.

And I sipped more champagne.

My husband was going to kill me.

It was so clear to me now I didn’t know why I hadn’t realized it sooner. Jason was a monster. Maybe not a pedophile, maybe something worse. A predator of such miswired proportions that he remained indifferent to his beautiful young wife, while lasciviously cultivating terrible images of frightened young children.

I should’ve listened to Wayne. I should’ve told him where we were going, except I had never thought to ask. No, I trusted my husband, let him lead me straight to slaughter without pressing for a single detail. Me, the very person who spent her entire childhood learning you can’t trust anyone.

I sipped more champagne, moved the seared scallops around on my plate. I wondered what he would tell Ree when it was all over. There had been an accident, Mommy won’t be coming home anymore. So sorry, baby, so sorry.

I poured Jason a second glass of champagne. He wasn’t a big drinker. Maybe if I could get him drunk enough, he’d miss me and fall into the harbor himself. Wouldn’t that be fitting justice ?

Jason finished eating. Ree, too. The black-vested waiter appeared, ready to whisk our plates away. He gazed down at me with great consternation.

“Was it not to your satisfaction? May I present you with another choice?”

I waved him off with vague excuses of having eaten a big lunch. Jason was watching me, but he didn’t comment on the lie. His dark hair had fallen across his forehead. He looked rakish, the open collar of his dress shirt, the rumpled waves of his thick hair, the deep impenetrable pools of his eyes. Other women were probably admiring him when they thought I wasn’t looking. Perhaps everyone was admiring us. Look at that beautiful family with that gorgeous little girl who is so well behaved.

Didn’t we make a pretty picture? A perfect little family, if only we survived the night.

Reewanted ice cream for dessert. The waiter took her to the gelato case to pick out a flavor. I topped off Jason’s glass with the last of the champagne. He had barely touched his second glass. I thought that was grossly unfair of him.

“I propose a toast,” I declared, definitely tipsy now and feeling reckless.

He nodded, picked up his glass.

“To us,” I said. “For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health.”

I tossed back a quick hit. Watched my husband take a more conservative sip.

“So what else are we going to do on family vacation?” I wanted to know.

“I thought we’d visit the aquarium, maybe take the trolleys around town, check out Newbury Street. Or, if you’d prefer, we could do the museums, book a spa appointment or two.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you doing this?” I waved my hand around the restaurant, sloshing champagne. “The extravagant hotel, the fancy restaurant. Family vacation. We’ve never done anything like this before.”

He didn’t answer right away, but twirled his own champagne flute between his fingers.

“Maybe we should’ve been doing this before,” he said at last. “Maybe you and I spend too much time surviving life, and not enough time enjoying it.”

Reereturned, clutching the waiter’s arm with one hand and the world’s largest bowl of gelato with the other. Apparently, picking one flavorhad been too hard, so she had settled on three. The waiter gave us a wink, distributed three spoons, and quietly disappeared.

Jason and Ree went at it I just watched them, my stomach churning, feeling like a condemned woman stepping up to the chopping block and waiting for the ax to fall

Jason called for a cab to take us back to the hotel Ree had hit the point where the gelato sugar rush was colliding with the late hour to form one hypercranky child. I wasn’t moving so steadily on my feet by then. The three glasses of champagne had gone straight to my head.

I thought Jason seemed less than razor-sharp as he opened the cab door and attempted to load Ree in, but I couldn’t be sure. He was the most self-possessed man I’d ever met, and even two glasses of alcohol barely seemed to affect him.

We made it to the hotel, managed to find our room. I got Ree out of her fancy dress and into her Ariel nightie. A maid had magically transformed the sofa into a bed, topping it with thick blankets, four pillows, and two gold-foiled chocolates. Ree ate the chocolates when I went in search of her toothbrush, then tried to hide the wrappers by sticking them under the pillow. Her deception would’ve worked better if not for the smear of chocolate ringing her lips.

I herded her to the bathroom for face washing, tooth brushing, and hair combing. She squealed, whined, and complained for most of it. Then I corralled her back to her sleeping quarters, tucking her into the bed with Lil’ Bunny snug in her arms. Ree had packed twelve books. I read two of them, and her eyes were already heavy-lidded before I finished the last sentence.

I dimmed the desk lamp, then crept out of the room, closing the door to a small crack behind me. She didn’t complain, a sure sign of success.

In the master bedroom, I found Jason lounging on the bed. His shoes were off, his jacket tossed over a chair. He had been watching TV, but turned it off when I came in.

“How is she?” he asked.

“Tired.”

“She did very well tonight.”

“She did. Thank you.”

“Did you have a nice night?” he asked.

“Yes. I did.” I moved closer to the bed, feeling awkward, unsure of what to do, of what was expected of me. The champagne had made me tired. But then I looked at my husband, his long, lean body sprawled out on the expansive white comforter, and the emotion I felt wasn’t exhaustion at all. I didn’t know what to do with myself, so mostly I stood there, twisting my hands over and over again.

“Sit,” he said presently. “I’ll help you with your boots.”

I sat on the edge of the bed. He got up, kneeling before me and taking the first boot between his hands. His fingers worked the zipper, sliding it down the inside of my calf slowly, careful not to snag the skin. He eased the right boot off, went to work on the left.

I found myself leaning back, feeling his fingers whisper down my calves, cup the heel of my naked foot as he stripped off my sheer stockings. Had he ever touched my legs? Maybe when I was nine months pregnant and couldn’t see my own feet. I swore it hadn’t felt like this back then, however. I would’ve remembered this.

My stockings were off, and yet his fingers remained on my skin. His thumb brushed down the inside arch of my foot. I almost jerked away, but his other hand held my foot in place. Then, both his thumbs were moving, doing positively delicious things and I found my back arching, my breath expelling in a little groan at the decadence of a foot massage after a long night in tight leather boots.