Neighborhood Watch Read Online Free PDF Page A

experience since Dreiser wrote Sister Carrie, but added, rather petulantly, that it was hard to say if this reflected sensitivity or came as a result of a studied attention to his own hair and looks. By the time he called us, most of the hoopla had died away. He hadn’t won the prize, nor had he come out with the much-anticipated follow-up novel.
    He wanted to see us as soon as possible, he said in his message. The last we’d heard, he was living in Florida with his new wife, Corinne, a biology professor. He told us he was coming to New York and wanted to drive up. Would Friday night be okay?
    Of course, was the answer, and right away we started overplanning the visit. We hired cleaners to do the carpet, and bought too much beer and wine, only to start the evening with Corinne’s face-inflaming allergic reaction to the carpet-cleaning chemicals and Geoffrey’s announcement that he’d quit drinking two years ago. Awkwardly, we moved everything out to the patio while Paul hunted for seltzer.
    To me, Geoffrey’s sobriety was the biggest surprise, but I’d never seen him with anything besides a scotch in his hand. Paul had, of course. He had countless memories from their predrinking days as children when Geoffrey was the spirited boundary tester of their group, the driving force behind the neighborhood golf course fire, the point man on dumping fifty boxes of green Jell-O into the community pool. That night, though, I could tell there would be no reminiscing over childhood pranks, because the real surprise of the evening came early, while Corinne’s face was still a throbbing, angry red that didn’t match her expression, which was demure and sweet. She wasn’t, technically speaking, a beautiful woman, though she had all the trappings to be mistaken for one: long blond hair that fell below her shoulders, low-cut jeans, and the flat chest of a dancer, which I later learned she had been.
    “I’ll tell you why we’re here,” Geoffrey said. “We’re looking for a place to buy a house. I’ve been doing some research and this neighborhood fits most of our criteria.”
    We didn’t answer right away. “We’ve got to get out of Florida,” he added. “Pretty quickly. I thought of this place and you guys.”
    We were surprised, of course. For all the practical rationale we told ourselves when buying this house (Brand-new everything! No home repairs for years!), we also understood the aesthetically depressing reality of our street. These were cookie cutter designs with symmetrical driveways lining a street of identical homes. In the beginning, I loved the identical layouts in such close proximity to one another. I’d wanted the borrowed cups of sugar and the shared lives, but after four years living here, I understood that the idea of having neighbors was nicer sometimes than the reality. So why would someone like Geoffrey choose it?
    “We need to disappear for a while,” he said, as if to answer my unspoken question. “Or I do. I need to eliminate my distractions. Figure out how to concentrate again and—well, you know.” He took a drink of water. “Finish my novel.” Corinne said nothing.
    Because we had no response, he kept going. “I want something like I had as a kid, but I can’t deal with home, you know what I’m saying?”
    Of course we did.
    “You guys are friends. You know me. The real me.” He meant Paul, naturally, though he kindly included me, gesturing with his hand. I worried about Corinne, so silent on all this, but we were flattered. We were better friends than we thought! So close, our life was something Geoffrey wanted to emulate!
    Of course there was more to it than that. While the Steadmans were in the process of putting in two offers and finally buying the house next door to ours, I learned that Geoffrey had had some trouble with the law. Something to do with a hunting accident where a Texas Blue Horn, a bird recently put on the endangered species list, had been accidentally shot and