Даниэла Стил - Neighbors

She was still thinking about it when the phone on her desk rang. Debbie usually answered, but she didn’t, so Meredith answered it herself, sounding distracted, and she was stunned to hear her daughter’s voice on the line. They hadn’t spoken in at least two months. Kendall never answered her calls, and even when Meredith left her a voicemail, she didn’t return the call, or waited a month to do so. She’d been planning to call her the night of the earthquake, but her last two calls to her had gone unanswered. Kendall called her when she felt like it, at her own convenience.

“Kendall?” she said, sounding surprised. The phones hadn’t been working right after the earthquake, except for cellphones, and now full service had been restored.

“Mom? Why didn’t you let me know you were okay?” She sounded annoyed not to have heard from her mother.

“Our Internet was down at first, and the house lines didn’t work. I could have called you on my cellphone, but you never pick up anyway.”

“You could have sent me a text,” she said practically.

“True. And you could have called me. I pick up when I see your number.” Unlike Kendall, when she saw her mother’s.

“If Jack and Debbie don’t get it first. I always think they don’t give you my messages.”

“Why would they do that?” She knew Kendall didn’t like them. Meredith had always suspected she was jealous of how close her mother was to them. But they had always been there for her, and Kendall never was.

“Are you okay? Is the house okay?”

“A lot of broken glass, but this house is solid, nothing major broke, some of the paintings fell down and the frames broke. We don’t have full power yet, but hopefully we will in a few days, or maybe in a week or two. It was a huge shake-up and quite frightening. I have six of my neighbors staying with me, and two little kids. Their houses took a harder hit than mine did, and are pretty severely damaged, so I invited them to stay here.”

“Your neighbors? Do you even know your neighbors?” Kendall sounded shocked. Her mother, the famous recluse, had neighbors staying with her?

“I didn’t until the earthquake, but I have room for them, and they’re very nice. Arthur Harriman, the concert pianist, lives next door, and he’s one of them.”

“Isn’t he blind?” Kendall sounded amazed by everything her mother was saying to her.

“Yes, he is. He has a young man living with him to help him, but he’s busier and livelier than the rest of us, at eighty-two.”

“I was worried about you. The coverage on TV looked awful, fires burning out of control, the bridges damaged and closed, people buried under houses.”

“I’m fine. How are you? We haven’t spoken in a while.”

“We’re fine. I’ve been worried about Julia. She dropped out of school, and is trying to be an actress in L.A. Dad has seen her a few times. She’s been very difficult about it. I think she wants to follow in your footsteps.” Kendall didn’t sound pleased about it. She still blamed everything on her mother, and never on Scott.

“Or your father’s.” Kendall never blamed him for his career, only her mother.

“I want to come out and see her one of these days.”

“Why don’t you come to San Francisco when you do? You haven’t been here in ages.” Kendall hadn’t, and she still didn’t want to. It had depressed her profoundly every time she did. Her brother’s room was still intact, her mother hiding from the world. Jack and Debbie, who acted as though they owned Meredith. It was too much for her.

“Maybe you could meet us in L.A.?”

There was a long silence at Meredith’s end, and then she answered. “Maybe I will. I’d like to see Julia.”

“She looks a lot like you.” So did Kendall, but she never acknowledged it. “Well, I’m glad you’re all right. I was afraid you might be hurt when we didn’t hear from you.” But it had still taken her several days to call her mother. Her instinct never was to just reach out and call her.

“It was very unpleasant, but I’m fine. Actually, I’m volunteering at a shelter for the people who lost their homes, or can’t get into them because they’re damaged. The city is going to be a mess for a long time.”

“I’ll let you know if I go to L.A.,” Kendall said to her in a gentler voice. “Julia says she’s not ready to see me yet. I think she’s afraid I’ll try to talk her out of an acting career.”

“And will you?”

“I tried, but she says it’s the only thing she wants to do. I’d rather she was here in New York, going to school, or in a sensible job, but that’s not what she wants. Dad thinks she has talent, and he’s arranged a few auditions for her.”

“That’s nice of him,” Meredith said coolly. She still didn’t like hearing about Scott, or even the mention of his name. “I see that his last two films did extremely well,” Meredith said generously.

“He won an Oscar for both of them, which is pretty amazing,” Kendall added. Meredith had won an Oscar at the height of her career, but Kendall had never been proud of her. She hadn’t gotten the mother she wanted, a normal, ordinary bourgeois mother who wasn’t a movie star. They had both been unlucky. Meredith had a daughter who never wanted to talk to her, but at least she had called to make sure she was alive. “Take care of yourself, Mom. It’s probably still dangerous, with things falling. It sounds like a lot of people got hurt.”

“I was never in danger,” Meredith said gently. And Jack and Debbie took good care of her, which she didn’t say to her.

“I’m glad,” Kendall said. “I’ll call soon.” It had shocked her that it had never occurred to her mother to get in touch with her after the earthquake, and say she was okay. Kendall hadn’t tried to call her for the first few days either. It was sad for both of them that their relationship had deteriorated so severely over the years. They both hung up feeling nostalgic, remembering the old days when Kendall was young, and Justin was still alive, before everything changed and Meredith’s world fell apart. Meredith was still sitting at her desk, staring into space, thinking about it, when Ava stuck her head in the door and asked if she was ready. It woke Meredith out of her reverie.

“Sorry. My daughter called from New York. I forgot to call her to tell her I was okay. It never occurred to me,” she admitted, feeling guilty. All it did was tell them how far they had drifted apart in the last fourteen years. And she barely knew her granddaughter, Julia. Meredith recognized that some of it was her fault. She had disconnected from the world, and everyone in it, even her daughter. Maybe Arthur was right, and it was time to reconnect again. She almost felt ready to.

She grabbed a denim jacket and put sneakers on, and took the pile of clothes to donate, and two minutes later she was out in the hall, where Ava and Tyla were waiting for her.

“Where are the children?” she asked Tyla.

“They’re with Debbie, she said she’d make cookies with them, and Arthur is going to give them another piano lesson.” Tyla smiled and Meredith wondered if it was worth risking her husband’s fury to work at the shelter, but Tyla seemed to think so and was taking a stand.

They drove to the Marina and spent the day there, each one at their assigned tasks. Meredith was sent to the children’s room again, to entertain them and give their parents a break. She read them stories, put them down for a nap, and fed them lunch with the other volunteers. Tyla was at the first aid station, and Ava was in the kitchen this time, helping to make soup in enormous vats, and washing pots afterward. They all looked tired and rumpled by the time they drove back to Meredith’s home again.