Good Neighbors(6)

Rhea ought to warn these people. She was obliged, for their safety. But if she did that, they’d think she was a killjoy. They’d think it had to do with Gertie.

She played the conversation out in her head. She’d go out to 116, trespassing on Gertie’s property, and urge them to go home. To take hot showers with strong soap. They’d put down their beers, nod in earnest agreement, wait for her to go away, and then start having fun again. Probably, they wouldn’t say anything mean about her once she was gone. Not openly. But she knew the people of Maple Street. They’d chuckle.

She backed away from her window.

Returned to her papers. Sipped a little more Malbec as she reviewed the next assignment in the pile, which was written in 7-point, Old English font. It was about how the last stolen election had proven that democracy didn’t work. We needed to move into Fascism, only without the Nazis, the student argued. She took out her red pen. Wrote, What???? Nazis = Fascism; they’re like chocolate and peanut butter!

Between the papers, the people outside, her husband at work, and even her children upstairs, Rhea felt very alone right then. Misunderstood and too smart for this world. All the while, Slip ’N Slide laughter surrounded the house. It pushed against the stone and wood and glass. She wished she could let it in.



* * *




Like so many people who find themselves on the far side of middle age, Rhea Schroeder had not expected her life to turn out this way. She’d grown up only a few miles away in Suffolk County, the daughter of a court officer. Her mom died young, of breast cancer, and her dad had been the strong, silent type. He’d loved her enough for two parents. They’d shared an obsession with science fiction, and what she remembered most about him was the hours they’d spent on the couch together, watching everything from The Day of the Triffids to the poor man’s 2001—The Black Hole.

As a kid, friends hadn’t come easily for Rhea, but school had. She’d been the first in her family to graduate college—SUNY Old Westbury. Her first job out had been retail at the mall, like everyone else. Through connections, her dad got her into the officer’s academy. Too many personalities. Too much phys ed. She didn’t want to be a cop. She dropped out, floundered for a while, then stopped her dad one night before he headed down to tinker in his workroom. Told him about this PhD program in Seattle. People expressed themselves through imperceptible signs, she’d explained. She wanted to translate them. She wanted to solve the puzzle of what made people tick. Her dad was understanding. Hugged her and said he’d been selfish, suggesting detective work on Long Island because it was close. He hadn’t wanted to lose her.

She’d been sad to leave him on his lonesome. But excited, too. Her life became her own. Five years later, the University of Washington awarded her a PhD in literature, with a focus in semiotics. Then they hired her, tenure track. The work was great. The students were great. The teachers were great. It was the happiest she’d ever been.

But then she got a phone call. Her dad died suddenly, of a disease she’d never imagined. Would never have suspected. In the shock of it, her work downslid. Her sadness felt impossibly heavy, a physical accumulation that she couldn’t expunge. A knotty weight inside her that she came to think of as the murk.

Before her dad died, she’d never felt the need for other people. Never understood the phoniness of passing notes with fellow third-grade girls, or the high school version of it: trading clothes. Who were they kidding with all that desperate posturing? Those friendships weren’t real. In adulthood, the women her own age had seemed so alien, with their bad jobs and insecurity. She’d stayed away from them, afraid low self-esteem was contagious.

But after her dad, she’d had nobody to call on Sundays and remote-watch Solaris with. Nobody to visit over holidays, or shoot clay pigeons with at the Calverton Shooting Range. They’d had something easy and perfect between them. A stillness, into which no words had ever been necessary.

Seeking relief from her empty apartment, the blank page that was meant to be a book based on her dissertation, she started taking her students out for coffees and beers after class. Their cheerful passion distracted her. Made time pass a little easier.

By the next semester, she was starting to feel like herself again. Waking up wasn’t as scary, because the memory of his passage didn’t suddenly grab her like undertow at an ocean. She was starting to actually become friends with her students and the faculty, too. The murk lifted.

That’s when the accident happened. A totally unforeseen, random event. Through no fault of her own, she wound up with a sprained knee. To this day, it ached in bad weather. The other person got hurt even worse. An accusation was lodged. False, but damning nonetheless. Rhea got demoted, which, in academia, is the same as being fired. And that was that. A stellar career, destroyed.

Her life got even emptier. No more coffees. No more beers. School and home and school and home. She felt bad about the accident. It was a terrible mistake that her mind wanted badly to undo.

That’s when fate stepped in. Fritz Schroeder, a German chemistry PhD ten years her senior, moved into her apartment complex. He knocked, asking if she knew how to use the cheap convection ovens provided in each kitchen. Wearing a pink polo shirt with the collar pulled up, his khakis stained at the knees with brown chemical from the lab, he’d looked lonely. Helpless. Something about him was broken.