Даниэла Стил - Neighbors

“So which of the men here were you flirting with when I was working?” At first Meredith thought he was joking, but his tone said he wasn’t. There was a vicious edge to it, she saw him grab Tyla’s arm, and she winced. He had clamped his hand over the ugly purple bruise. There was nothing flirtatious about Tyla and no cause for what he’d said.

“Don’t be silly, none of them. I was with the kids,” Tyla said, as they disappeared into the room they were using, and Meredith went to her own room. Debbie showed up a few minutes later.

“So what am I supposed to feed them for lunch, now that I’m running a restaurant?” She knew she had to stretch the food supplies they had and make them last, since there was no way of knowing how long grocery stores would stay open and if their stock would run out. She looked sour and annoyed as she said it, and Meredith refused to give in to Debbie’s displeasure at having strangers in the house, during a crisis.

“Sandwiches, salad, pasta, whatever is easy for you. And you can take some chickens out of the freezer for tonight. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Just simple food to keep everyone fed.” Debbie was usually much more pleasant than that, and Meredith was surprised by her attitude. Jack had been no better. Whenever one of the guests spoke to him, he answered them tersely and was barely civil. It was unlike them, they were always so kind to her. Debbie and Jack’s unspoken hostility was a side of them Meredith had never seen.

“I wasn’t expecting to run a hotel after the earthquake. There are shelters they could go to. They don’t need to stay here. They’re taking advantage of you.” She was trying to instill fear and anger into Meredith, and it wasn’t working. Meredith didn’t respond. She had an idea and went to knock on Tyla and Andrew’s door. Tyla looked startled and nervous when she opened it, and Andrew was standing right behind her.

“I was wondering if you’d like me to keep the kids with me, while you check out your house,” Meredith offered, and Tyla turned to Andrew for the answer.

“No, they can come with us. Will can help me clean up, and Daphne likes to stay close to her mom,” Andrew said. It seemed as though he didn’t want Meredith to have time alone with them, but that was understandable too. They really didn’t know her.

“Well, let me know if I can do anything to help, or if you’d like Jack to come with you,” she said pleasantly.

“We’ll be fine,” he said, and closed the door before Tyla could, and Meredith heard his words before she walked away. “What did you tell her?” he said in a vicious tone to his wife.

“I didn’t tell her anything. She’s just trying to be nice,” Tyla said in a pleading tone.

“Just keep her out of our business, and away from our kids,” he said in a raised voice, as Meredith walked away as soundlessly as she could. A few minutes later, she saw Peter and Arthur Harriman heading down the stairs, and went to speak to them, still startled by what Andrew had said to his wife. What were they hiding?

“We’re going to check my piano,” Arthur explained to her. “I want to be sure it didn’t get damaged in the aftershocks,” he said with concern, as he made his way down the steps at a good clip, with Peter right behind him. For an eighty-two-year-old man, he was agile and alert, and had more energy than anyone in the group. “Peter doesn’t think I should practice in the house in case something falls in an aftershock,” Arthur said, faintly annoyed. Normally, nothing could keep him from playing.

“I have a piano here, in the drawing room, if you’d like to check it out. It’s probably not up to your standards. It’s a baby grand, a Steinway,” Meredith offered.

“I’m sure it’s a fine instrument. I’m used to mine. We have a long relationship. I’ve had it for thirty years. My wife and I used to play duets on it. She was an excellent pianist as well. We met at Juilliard when we both studied there. We were seventeen when we met. We were married for fifty-seven years.”

“Do you have children, Mr. Harriman?” she asked when they reached the front door. She was touched by what he had shared with her.

“No, I don’t. We had each other, and our work. For us, that was enough. We never felt ready to include children in our lives. We were devoted to each other.”

“It sounds like a beautiful love story,” Meredith said gently.

“Do you have children?” he asked her, curious about her too. “Peter says this is a very big house, I doubt that you always lived here alone,” he said.

“I have a daughter, in New York. She’s grown and married now, with a daughter of her own.” She didn’t tell him about Justin, the story was too sad and too personal to share with people she had just met, virtually strangers. “I love this house, and it is big, but I rarely go out. I have my own private world here.” He frowned as he looked at her, almost as though he could see her.

“That’s never a good idea, having one’s own private world behind walls. The world needs you, Mrs. White. Look at us. We all need you now. Don’t deprive others of your company, or yourself of the world. It’s a troubled place these days, which is all the more reason for you to participate in it. You have a great deal to offer.” He couldn’t know that, and he knew who she was. He certainly didn’t lead a secluded life. He still had a heavy concert schedule, and traveled constantly. There was nothing elderly or reclusive about him. She was mildly embarrassed that she had admitted to him that she was. She let him and the Johnsons out of the gate a few minutes later, and the house was very quiet after that. She went upstairs to her room, and dealt with some bank papers she had meant to take care of the day before and hadn’t.

When she left her room again, she crossed Joel and Ava, and he was saying to her, “Come on, baby, let’s go back to our place and finish what we started when the earthquake hit,” and then he laughed.

“What if the house falls down on top of us in an aftershock?” Ava said, and Meredith was embarrassed to have overheard them.

“Wouldn’t that be a great way to die?” Joel said, and didn’t care who heard him say it. “Having sex.” He acted as though it was all he wanted to do with her, and Meredith felt sorry for her. She was clearly a sex object in his life, and not much more. He could hardly keep his hands off her, and was always rubbing some part of her, her back, her waist, her neck, her bottom, in a sensual almost lewd way. Meredith felt like a Peeping Tom around them. It didn’t surprise her now that they’d been naked, wearing bathrobes, when they’d walked into the street after the earthquake. It was as though he wanted everyone to know that he had sex with her all the time. It was more than Meredith wanted to know about them. And she had a strong sense that there was much more to Ava than Joel Fine saw. She was a bright girl who was clearly trying to better herself. She was proud of going to college online, and had mentioned it at dinner the night before. She couldn’t afford to go to a top design school, but she was applying herself diligently online. She had mentioned in passing that her parents had both died when she was a child, and she was brought up by a strict aunt and uncle in Salt Lake City, and had fled to San Francisco as soon as she was able after high school. She got work as a tradeshow model in San Francisco. She’d worked hard at it and got by for nine years. Her life had been altered unimaginably when she met Joel, and he introduced her to a whole new world of luxury, and his ability to have and do whatever he wanted due to his success. Joel paid for whatever he desired, and treated her as though he owned her, with no interest in how bright she was or her dreams.