The New Neighbor Read Online Free PDF Page B

dreamed it.”
    “I don’t know why you’d dream about me,” I said.
    “Well, I think about you, all by yourself out there.”
    “I live five minutes from here.”
    “I know, but you’re all alone, out in the woods. My mother fell, and—”
    “I’m not going to fall,” I said.
    “I know, but—”
    “I’m not going to fall.”
    She sighed. “All right, Miss Margaret. And I’m sorry if you get an unwanted call, because I did tell someone I thought you were looking for help.”
    “Who?”
    She lifted her chin to indicate the bulletin board by the front door. I never look at it, being both uninterested in and immune to the usual exhortations to go to church, buy a house, do something charitable, or join a club. I followed her gaze, confused. “She put a sign up there,” she said. “I can’t think of her name—I guess I am getting old—but she said she’d rented Barbara’s old house, which puts her near you, so maybe that’s why you came to mind.”
    “Jennifer Young?”
    “Yes!” she said. “You know her?”
    “No,” I said.
    She looked at me a moment, awaiting an explanation I had no plans to offer. “Well,” she said, “she does massage, and she’s new here and just getting started. I thought she might be willing to come and see you, from time to time, if you needed that.”
    “I don’t,” I said.
    I do not like to be treated with the restrained patience one must show a petulant child, and so I was quite annoyed by the way she was looking at me, by the careful way she said, “I know you don’t.” She flashed a quick smile to signal her withdrawal from the field. “She seems like a nice lady. A tiny bit shy, I think. She has a cute little boy. I hope she likes it here.”
    “Where did she come from?”
    “I don’t know.” Sue cocked her head, considering. “I don’t think I asked. That’s not like me! She’s a little . . . I said shy. So you know me. I just chattered.”
    “About me.”
    “Well, not just about you! Miss Margaret, my goodness. Don’t be mad at me. You know I mean well.”
    I relented. “I know,” I said. “It’s all right.” I slid the books to my chest and said, in my sweet-old-lady voice, “Thank you for these.”
    We said our goodbyes, but I lingered near the front door, pretending to look at the carrel of new releases. I was waiting for Sue to be busy, and once someone finally appeared at the desk to occupy her attention, I stepped to the bulletin board. LICENSED MASSAGE THERAPIST, the sign said. IN-HOME MASSAGES. Then those tear-off strips, printed with a phone number and the name Jennifer Young.
    Now I sit here at my desk knowing I could call this person, my new neighbor, if I wanted to. I have her number right here, on the little slip of paper, and, just in case I lose that, copied into the Rolodex I keep beside my phone. If I want to, all I have to do is pick up the phone and call.

In the Beginning
    S he was fourteen when she first knew him, and not an old fourteen. She’d never kissed a boy, unless you counted a sloppy encounter during a game of Truth or Dare, which she didn’t. He was a junior. He had long legs and thick, unruly hair. At seventeen he already carried himself with an air of amused experience. He was good at eye contact. He had an all-inclusive smile. Everybody wanted to be near him, even—or especially—the ones who were too nervous to approach. Truth and beauty, he was truth and beauty, the beauty part probably more important than the truth, or at least what made the truth so interesting. Was he even, objectively, as handsome as he seemed? It was hard to tell, impossible to be objective in the face of his charisma. To Jennifer her longing for him seemed natural, inevitable. She made no effort to explain. Above his right eyebrow was a beauty mark—probably he would have called it a freckle or a mole, but she studied it surreptitiously every day and she called it a beauty mark.
    It was geometry class that offered her