The People Next Door (15 page)

Ingrid got back to the Nash place with time to spare.

Briela was still sleeping on her bedroom floor, balled up like a little lamb. The sitter stood in the bedroom doorway, watching
her mysterious charge, as she had been hired to do. The degree to which her life had changed in the past hour filled her with
an ecstatic terror. The money was going to set her up for a long time, she had been handed a kind of security she had never
known. But more than that she no longer felt adrift. She had a purpose now, as if the compass needle that had been spinning
inside her had found its true magnetic north. She still didn’t understand everything they had planned, but she knew enough,
and she had to be careful now. Do exactly as she had been told.

Carry on as usual. Observe. Report. Come to us if their routine changes in any way, no matter how minor. Above all else, tell
no one we are watching
.

We will protect you. Always
.

Her legs never got tired and she stayed there, focused and unmoving, until the front door slammed thirty-seven minutes later.

Amy’s voice carried down the hall. ‘Hellooo? Anyone home?’

‘In here,’ Ingrid said, barely able to contain herself.

Amy came in behind her. ‘There you are – oh.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘She’s napping. Everything all right?’

Ingrid nodded and they stepped into the hall. ‘She went down about ten minutes ago. I was just checking on her again because
it’s so unlike her.’

‘Were there any …?’ Amy winced in preparation for another report.

‘Not at all. We had a swim. She must have worn herself out.’

Amy sighed with relief. ‘It’s this heat. I might take a nap myself.’

‘Tough day at school?’ Ingrid said. ‘I hope those two boys weren’t harassing you again.’

Amy frowned, stopped. ‘How did you – did I mention Eric and Jason to you?’

‘Your car window,’ Ingrid prompted. ‘No girl comes up with that.’

Amy nodded, studying her. ‘But how’d you know there were two of them? I don’t remember telling you about that.’

Ingrid laughed, surprised at her own insight. ‘I don’t know. Lucky guess? I mean, don’t hyenas always travel in packs?’

‘I suppose so.’ Amy walked into the kitchen and Ingrid trailed. ‘Did Mick sneak off to work again?’

‘He was here when we went out back for a swim, but
when we came in to watch a movie, he was gone. He must be feeling better, right?’

‘As if he would tell me.’ Amy went to the fridge and studied the contents.

‘I’m sorry,’ Ingrid said. ‘I totally forgot to make your salad. Want me to run to the store?’

Amy shut the door. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’m not even hungry. That’s my problem, you know? I eat when I’m not even hungry.
When I stop and think about it, I realize half the time I’m bored, or pissed off, or who knows what.’

‘You look like you’ve lost some weight,’ Ingrid said, not sure if she really meant it. It simply came to her and seemed like
the right thing to say right now.

Keep up appearances. Confirm their own self-image to them
.

‘I do?’ Amy looked down at herself. ‘I doubt it. Funny you say that, though. I haven’t eaten all day and that’s so not like
me.’

‘I wouldn’t worry about it. You’re beautiful, Amy. I wish I had your skin.’

‘Aw, Ingrid.’ Amy took down a cup and held it under the faucet, beaming at her. ‘That is so nice. See, that’s why I love knowing
you’re in charge of sleeping beauty down the hall. You have the sweetest manners and set such a good example.’

Ingrid shrugged. ‘She makes it easy. Same time tomorrow?’

Amy began to blabber about her schedule and plans for the party next week and a bunch of other meaningless crap. Ingrid smiled
and nodded and said, ‘All right,
see you then.’ She walked to the bus stop in a much brighter mood than when she had arrived this morning. She wouldn’t be
taking the bus much longer.

She had so many fun things to do before she left for Portland. And yet, the more she thought about the possibilities, the
more she realized maybe Portland wasn’t the thing any more. Maybe the thing, the real thing, was right here with the Render
family.

Saturday night. Kyle was at the fourth party at Sha heen’s house, in the development behind Boulder Country Club, when he
saw her again. He was standing by the pool, unsure of his purpose here. Ben and Will were hovering around a table with two
steel tubs full of ice and the last few cans of beer. Tiki torches bordered the golf course, and kids were walking around
barefoot, pulling tubes and trying to grill frozen pizzas. Lucas was out on the fairway, swinging Shaheen’s dad’s Ping 5-iron.
The sixth or seventh time a ball banged off someone’s roof, Shaheen came out and told Lucas to cut the shit, did he want someone
to call the cops?

Lucas laughed and handed over the club. Kyle knew most of the guys were afraid of Shaheen, and some of the girls too. He was
mellow, but he had scary serious eyes, and he was body-builder yoked at age fifteen, his skin so dark in places it was like
smoke-streaked stone. Everyone found it chic being buddies with a Persian dude, but that didn’t stop them from staring at
him in weird ways. He was only five-five, with flecks of gold highlights in his thick black hair and he always wore dark
sunglasses, even at night. Kyle sort of wished he was Shaheen. The hair, the build, the skin, the cool knives and little motorized
bong he carried in his leather satchel – all in all Shaheen was kind of sci-fi, a graphic novel dude come to life.

There were maybe forty people, they were down to five beers, and the party was far from over. Michelle Harper was standing
on the other side of the pool, next to the portable fireplace, where Samantha Turner and Steph Jameson were smoking and sipping
wine spritzers. But ever since he saw that girl in the park, Kyle barely thought about Michelle Harper. She had touched his
arm at the last party, and he’d spent the rest of the night following her around like an idiot, not knowing what to say, her
friends giggling at him before moving on to a more interesting corner of the party.

Tonight Michelle seemed to be sagging in some new way, and in a rare moment of insight Kyle realized when she was old she
was going to be one of those hunched women. Her hair was sort of just hanging there. Twice she gave him a little wave and
her thin smile. C’mere, that smile seemed to say. I won’t laugh this time.

Kyle smirked and looked away, nervous about what was coming. He had waited in the car earlier – Will had stolen his mom’s
Corolla while she sat in her condo watching the
Witches Lane
marathon – feeling sick while Ben, Will, and Lucas went into the Gunbarrel King Soopers to get some beer. He knew they were
boogying the beer. Ever since Will’s fake ID got grabbed that day at Cornucopia, they had no connections. They were in
the store for ten minutes or so, and when they came back out, they weren’t even running. Will was just walking calmly, a suitcase
of Bud pulling his skinny frame to one side. Lucas and Ben were carrying bags of snacks.

‘So easy,’ Will said when Kyle asked how they did it. ‘You go get all the food first, your chips, some brats and buns, a six
pack of Coke, whatever the fuck. You pay for that shit, get the receipt, smile at the checkout bitches. Then you circle back
to the cooler and grab whatchoo need.’

‘That’s it?’ Kyle said.

‘But you gotta be smooth,’ Ben said.

‘Yeah,’ Will said. ‘The thing is, you got to let them see you. You just stroll, and if some manager asshole face at the photo
booth sees you, you just smile and keep walking. He sees the bags, Lucas here holding the receipt, he figures, well, no way
those kids are crazy enough to walk right under my nose with a case of beer. It’s all about confidence.’

‘What if he stops you?’

‘Lucas swings the bag of groceries at his head, we drop the beer and run like a motherfucker. But they never stop you.’

‘You gotta go at rush hour,’ Lucas said. ‘Like when people are stopping by on their way home from work. Look around, Nash.
See how full this parking lot is? There’s like fifty people going in and out of that huge front door every thirty seconds.
They have no clue.’

‘It’s not even really a boogie,’ Ben said. ‘It’s, like, the mellow boogie.’

Since school got out, Will had done seven beer boogies: four at King Soopers and two more at the Safeway off of Iris. Lucas
had done at least five, and Ben was constantly stuffing forties of Busch into his sweatshirt. They had become heroes at every
party, charging the other kids full price to boogie for them, pocketing the cash. Lucas was all like, damn, maybe boogying
is my part-time job this summer.

Kyle hadn’t boogied yet, but they were losing their patience with him. He had offered to pay for the few beers he drank, but
that wasn’t the point.

‘Nash, hey, Nash,’ Ben said from behind the table. ‘Get your ass over here.’

Kyle went to them. They pointed into the tub, where two cans of Bud floated.

‘Guess who’s up,’ Will said.

‘Oh, man, come on,’ Kyle said. ‘My dad will kill me.’

‘You’re not gonna get caught. Why would you get caught?’ Ben said.

Kyle glanced around nervously, as if they were already in the store. Another group had come in, four guys and two girls. Kyle
recognized them as Fairview kids, maybe one from Boulder High. The girls were kinda goth, but in that expensive way, one of
them six feet tall, a basketball player Kyle had seen at Baseline games, scaring the other girls with her black sprocket of
hair. They filed around the island, fist-bumping Shaheen, the host with the most. Even Shaheen was counting on him to step
up.

‘I don’t know,’ Kyle said.

Will shrugged, pulling his pajama bottoms up off his hips. ‘Just get it over with. Lucas will be your wingman.’

Kyle imagined his father staring at him with that look of beaten disappointment. His dad had been a party guy in his youth,
Kyle knew. He would look the other way over a beer here and there, a C on the report card. But he was a business owner. When
he talked about his employees stealing, his face turned purple. Stealing was a line you didn’t cross.

‘Guys, look, I just can’t
…’ Kyle was ready to say no and take the consequences, even if his tribe cast him out for the remainder of his high-school
tenure.

But then he saw her. Not Michelle Harper.
Her
. The perfect girl. The one from the park. The one who had looked at him and mouthed some secret words. She was right here,
in the kitchen behind the others, standing next to the cordless phone on Shaheen’s wall, tucking a lock of her Pantene commercial
hair behind her ear – shy or above it all, he couldn’t tell. She didn’t seem attached to any-one. It was as shocking and
terrifying as seeing a ghost.

‘Whoa, daddy, who is that stone cold Steve Austin?’ Will said, and Kyle felt his heart sink. They were onto her already. She
was a gazelle thrown in with lions. They would devour her before he got her name.

‘Oh my God,’ Ben said. ‘Oh, sweet Dairy Queen. Who is that girl?’

‘No idea,’ Will said. ‘But she’s clean.’

‘She doesn’t go to Fairview, that’s for sure,’ Ben said. ‘I know because I’ve jacked off to every page of the yearbook.’

‘Bogie in pursuit,’ Will said. ‘Twelve o’clock and closing.’

She was headed right toward them, shifting beneath a thin, tight-fitting black thermal shirt and a pleated skirt of black
and yellow plaid. Black canvas sneakers. In between, the cream white of her thighs. All of the guys and half of the girls were
staring at her. She was fifteen feet away, ten, slipping out onto the patio, pausing, glancing around to scope it out. She
stared at the pool, hypnotized by the wands of light roving around from someone’s dive.

Kyle wondered when he had last showered. This morning? Last night? All at once he felt exactly like the sweaty, slightly pimpled,
lanky and foppish-haired fifteen-year-old spaz he was. He looked down to see if there were any stains on his shirt. He was
wearing his red Billabong button-down, brown skate shorts, black Vans chukkas. Everything was about as decent as it could
be. He thumbed the corners of his mouth.

‘Two beers left,’ Ben called over Kyle’s shoulder. ‘Ladies first. Any takers?’

She turned, looking at the three of them behind the beer tub.

‘Hey, darlin’,’ Ben said. ‘I saved you one.’

Kyle wanted to ram the beer can into Ben’s eye socket, tell them he had seen her first, lay off. But of course it didn’t work
that way either.

‘Okay,’ she said, and walked toward them as if approach ing a carnival attraction. She would play this game for a minute,
but flee at the first sign of anything hinky.

Kyle’s eyes darted to her and away and back every 1/32 of a second. He laughed abruptly for no reason, stopped.

Ben handed her a can of Bud. ‘And I guess the last one’s mine. Cheers.’ He raised his can but she didn’t raise hers to meet
him.

‘I’m Will,’ Will said. ‘This is Ben.’

What about me, assholes? I’m invisible? Ben actually kicked his shoe under the table, trying to nudge him out of the picture.

‘Hi,’ she said to both of them. She hadn’t opened the beer. She was just holding it against her hip.

‘What’s your story?’ Ben said. ‘And does it have a happy ending?’

‘I doubt it.’ She looked over their heads, her smile barely tolerant.

‘Bummer,’ Will said. ‘So, what’s your name?’

She opened her mouth to answer, halted, pivoted, and looked right into Kyle’s eyes. She aimed the can of beer at him, her
slender pointer finger extending past the rim. Her nail was painted bright lemon yellow.

‘I’ve seen you. Who are you?’ Her tone was accusatory. For a moment Kyle couldn’t speak, and then his throat clicked loose.

‘In the park,’ he said. ‘You were standing next to Boulder Creek.’

‘No.’ That was it. Her voice dull but firm; he was lying.

But he wasn’t lying. He was sure. ‘You were wearing a Sonic Youth shirt.’ Where was this confidence coming from? He didn’t
know, but he plowed on. ‘The red one with the nurse, from the
Rather Ripped
tour.’

After what seemed a long time, she smiled, her glossy lips revealing perfect white teeth and virgin gums the color of bubble
gum.

‘That
was
you. You know Sonic Youth?’

He hadn’t until that Thursday night, when he spent four hours searching megasites that sold rock T-shirts, using the keywords
‘red’ and ‘nurse’, spotted it, then checked out the band’s website and downloaded the album. He’d sort of fallen in love with
the band, but he couldn’t tell if that was because he really liked their sound or because he imagined she did.

‘It’s one of their catchier albums,’ he said, hoping he sounded calmer than he felt. ‘And “Turquoise Boy” is pretty epic,
some of Kim Gordon’s best vocals. But I like
Dirty
better. That record is just plain …’ What’s the word? That word for the Seattle sound his dad used to talk about? Grun—

‘Dirty,’ she finished for him, beaming. ‘Dirty guitars and fuzz and distortion. The sound is the record. Exactly.’ Her voice,
Kyle decided right then, was the sound of peach-colored popsicles melting in the sun.

‘I’m June.’ She offered her hand.

‘I’m Kyle.’ He took her hand, heard his mother say
like a gentleman
, and held it so, raising and lowering it gently. Her palm was hot silk, her nails grazing his fingers as she withdrew. ‘Nice
to meet you for the sort of second time.’

‘The sort of second time,’ she repeated with a sly smile. ‘That sounds like the title of song, Kyle.’

Will let out a breath as if he had been punched.

Ben stomped off, muttering obscenities.

So far it was a miracle. This girl was easily sixteen, maybe seventeen, two inches taller than him, and perfect in every way.
Her eyes were the lightest blue Kyle had ever seen, almost silver in the dark, and her nose and cheeks were dusted with tiny
dark freckles. She smelled like warm bread and honey and … girl.

‘So, what’s the deal?’ She gestured at the tub. ‘Is this the end of it?’

‘Kyle was just on his way to get some more,’ Will said, dangling the keys in front of him. Kyle clasped them in his fist before
he knew what he was doing.

‘You have a car?’ she said.

‘It’s mine, but he’s a big boy,’ Will said. Lucas and Ben would never back him up like this, but maybe Will understood something
was happening here. Maybe Will figured Kyle deserved a shot. ‘Aren’t you, Kyle?’

‘Sure.’

June said, ‘I’m starving actually. Mind if I tag along?’

‘Cool.’

He could feel her moving behind him as he floated into the house, pushing the warm summer air at his back. Shaheen gave him
a thumbs up. By the refrig erator, Michelle Harper froze, a jug of cranberry juice in her hand. Her mouth was set in an unflattering
pucker.

Swaying with newfound grandeur as he walked out the front door, Kyle Nash tallied it like this:
I’m fifteen. I have no driver’s license. I have seven dollars to my name. And I’m on my way to steal a case of beer with the
hottest girl in the State of Colorado. This is either going to be the most humiliating night of my life, or the greatest
.

But once they were in the car and she was smiling at him, her eyes shining almost as if they were filling with tears, her
hands trembling just enough to let him know she was nervous too, he realized it didn’t matter. Whether he succeeded or failed
epically, this was already the greatest night of his life.