“Doorbell! Mac, the doorbell! Come on, let’s get the door!”
We’ve been waiting for our first official doorbell ring for what feels like forever. The movers mentioned that coming up to Abington Cambs is a huge pain for them, because the neighbors are always getting in the way with all their welcome baskets and impromptu wine-based meet-and-greets.
At the moment, I’m not concerned whether the new neighbors might cause the movers “a pain,” since we’ve waited over a week for our stuff to arrive. Thirty miles away! Eight days of waiting! Turns out after foreman Manny was hit in the head, he had a little trouble reading the bill of lading back at the warehouse and our things were shipped via rail to Atlantic City, not Abington Cambs. Straightening this all out took forever — and more than a little yelling on Mac’s part. Every day the moving company would promise “tomorrow,” but after a few days, we wondered if tomorrow would ever actually come. (Please don’t tell Mac, but part of me wonders whether, if he’d been a little less shouty on the phone, things might have been resolved faster.)
Anyway, after we left the city, we slept at the Patels’ house for three nights while we waited for our beds and stuff to arrive. Kara’s parents assured us we could stay as long as we wanted, but that seemed like such an imposition. Also, after a couple of days, Kara freaked out over being obligated to visit, and Mac became really interested in learning to cook Indian food, which. . no. So we bought an air mattress and a couple of beanbags and officially moved in here. Those three items plus what we packed in overnight bags comprise all of our accessible belongings, as I refuse to replace what I already own.
Mac and I have been “urban camping” for five days, and all I want to do is sit on a chair with a back. I’ve been trying to write my novel since we got here, but I keep going off on tangents about sturdy, comfortable Amish furniture. I’ve waxed on and on about stately farmhouse tables and wide-slatted rockers, varnished and lovely and solid. I devoted eight pages to the matching bedroom set Amos handcrafted for his zombie crush, Miriam, but instead of reiterating how conflicted he was about his unrequited, undead lust, I… Well, why not just read it for yourself?Amos: Miriam, my sparrow, please direct your loving gaze to the dovetail joints on this fine sleigh bed that are as firm and strong as my bond to you. Pay special heed to the curved footboards I crafted with my own hands.Miriam: Why, Amos, are you making your wanton intentions clear, that this shall be our marriage bed?Amos: Uh, sure, yeah. But please note the ergonomics that went into the curved shape of the headboard that would make it ideal for late-night reading or snacking or perhaps watching television. I mean, if we watched TV. I didn’t make the headboard out of any kind of stupid fabric, so it’s not going to hold stains or any odors. And I hand-tooled and lacquered the wood in a cherry stain because I know it’s your favorite finish, because it’s not too light like honey oak and not too dark like mahogany, and really, this particular color would go so great with, say, a really awesome antique Persian rug, you know?
I ran some of the new pages past my niece Claire, and she said they “sound like an IKEA catalog, only boring-er.”
Another downside of not having our things — and trust me, there are plenty — is that we haven’t been able to prepare meals, since our pots and pans have been wending their way back from the boardwalk. For the first few days we lived on takeout, and that got so old that I found myself missing Mac’s culinary abominations.80 All I wanted was something from my own kitchen, so we resorted to microwave cookery. As luck would have it, the nice microwave in the big kitchen died the second I tried it, so we’ve been using the antique one in the basement. Said microwave is perfectly functional, but I’m afraid it’s going to go all Hot Tub Time Machine on me and send me back a few generations every time I nuke a hot dog.
But now the moving truck is here at long last, which means the neighbors have been alerted to our presence. Somebody’s at the door, and I may be even more excited than the dogs, who are leaping and howling at the possibility of visitors. I can’t believe I’m finally living in a place where I’ll know my neighbors. I’m not the kind of gal who’d run next door to borrow a cup of sugar, but after so many years of being anonymous in the city, I’ve taken a shine to the prospect of brief, friendly chats with other homeowners when we’re getting our newspapers in the morning.81 I’m cool with the idea that someone might keep an eye on our place when we go on vacation, not because they have to, but because they want to. I’m a little bit enamored by the idea of trick-or-treaters, and I’m thrilled with the notion that someone might sell me Girl Scout Cookies.82
When I was growing up, the street where we lived looked run-down and depressing, yet a closer-knit community could not be found. Sure, a few families allowed their dirty children to play outside at night in their pajamas, but even so, every single adult in the neighborhood watched out for those ragamuffins. We banded together to shovel Mrs. Kingery’s driveway, and we picked up Mr. Signorelli’s arthritis medicine once he got too old to drive, and brought casseroles every time the Kubiaks had a new baby.83 If indeed it takes a village, Spring Street was that village.
As we make our way to the door behind two elated, scrambling dogs, I quiz Mac. “What do you think we’re getting, a fruit basket? Maybe a pie? Ooh, I hope it’s wine!”
“I’m dying for a nice, heavy casserole, with ground beef and macaroni and cream of mushroom soup.” Mac rubs his stomach. “I can’t eat another hot dog. I can’t.”
I settle the dogs and smooth my ponytail, running my tongue over my front teeth to make sure there’s no stray lipstick before I make my first impression on our new neighbors… and possibly our new friends.
I grab the door handle — hmm, that feels a bit loose — and I swing open the door. Not too enthusiastically, mind you. Don’t want to appear desperate, just welcoming. “Hello! I’m Mia! And this is Mac and Duckie and Daisy,” I say, pointing to each of them.
A small, fastidious middle-aged man stands in front of me. He’s wearing undersize round tortoiseshell glasses, and one of those tweedy blazers with the sewn-on leather arm patches, and… Oh, Jesus Christ, is that an ascot?
No, wait. It’s just a scarf.
But still, it could have been an ascot. How badass is that?
Seeing my neighbor here dressed like it’s casual Friday at Harvard Law School makes me laugh about how far I’ve come from Spring Street. The only jackets neighborhood men wore were of the Carhartt variety, except for state occasions such as christenings and weddings, which called for synthetic sport coats festooned in plaids best described as “tasty.”
Mac and I stand next to each other in the doorway, two dogs sitting nicely behind us, all waiting for our new elbow-patchy neighbor to say something. I can’t help but notice his well-manicured hands are empty, but maybe his wife’s on her way with something potable or macaroni-based and delicious? Mac and I grin briefly at each other and then back at our neighbor.
“Would you like to come in?” I offer.
“Are you the new owners?”
I’m a bit taken aback by this stranger’s brusqueness. But maybe he’s cranky because he couldn’t find his ascot? Self-consciously, I try to knock the excess dust off of me. I bet my stupid yoga pants and dirty hoodie are throwing him off. We’ve been busy cleaning and I must look a mess.
Mac’s detected something off about the man’s voice, too, and I notice he pulls himself to his full height. Duckie stops wagging his tail, and Daisy slinks down to the floor. “We are. Can I help you?”
“Yes, you can help me. You can help me by taking care of your diseased tree, southeast corner, three paces in.” The man whips out a digital camera and begins to scroll through the photographs of limbs and sticks. “Here, you see the flagging on these branches? And the brown streaking in the sapwood here? And this bark beetle gallery! Ugh! Listen to me: I will not lose my elm tree because you people refuse to service your property, and I’ve already reported this to the city.”
“Whoa, hold on,” Mac says, and gestures at the team carrying in our couch.84 “We’re just now moving in.” At this point Daisy slinks away and Duckie’s hackles raise.
“It’s my understanding that you’ve been here for a week. My expectation is that you would have taken care of this the first day.We have standards around here, and you’re already in violation.” With this, Mr. Elbow Patch removes his glasses and gives them a quick polish with his handkerchief.
As Mac’s drawing his breath to set him straight,85 I surreptitiously pull him back a step and attempt to defuse the situation. I don’t want to be disinvited from the block parties for the next twenty years because we’re tired, dirty, hungry, and sore from sitting on bean-based furniture for most of the week. “Yes, of course, I’m really sorry. We’ll take care of this immediately. Is there a landscaping service you can recommend?”
Elbow Patch’s disgust is almost palpable. “Hiring a service? We keep our gardeners on staff around here.” And with that, he spins on his heel and marches up our driveway.
Mac makes a stern face at me and repeats, “‘We keep our gardeners on staff around here,’ ” and we both crack up, causing the dogs’ moods to lighten as well.
“Who says stuff like that?” I wonder, wiping my eyes.
“People who wear elbow patches,” Mac replies.
I glance down, noticing a small splotch of mustard on my jacket, and I absently scratch at it with my thumbnail. “I guess there’s one grumpy person in every neighborhood. Although I can’t remember who the meanie was on Spring Street.”
“Didn’t you tell me that Babcia used to confiscate all the balls that landed in your yard and would then sell them back to kids at garage sales?”
“Ha! Yeah, I forgot about that. I guess she always had entrepreneurial tendencies.” Nothing used to make Babcia’s blood flow quicker than a stray baseball or Frisbee in our grass. She’d practically vault over the ottoman to get around to the door in order to snatch the wayward toy before its rightful owner could get to it. Babcia fetched balls faster and with more vigor than a purebred Labrador retriever. “I wonder if people thought she was the neighborhood crank?”
Before Mac can answer, the bell rings again.
“Showtime!” I exclaim. We move toward the door, and I’m a tad more reserved when I open it this time. This time, the dogs don’t follow because we’ve put them out. A woman about my age stands in front of us. She sports the kind of sassy haircut made up of points and flips that no one over a hundred pounds can get away with. She’s all done up in Lululemon togs. Aha! I knew people had to wear athletic gear up here at some point.
I suspect the weird looks I’ve been getting at the coffee shop all week have had to do with how I’ve been dressed. Whereas I’ve been tooling around in the same workout clothes and ratty old Nikes, everyone else appears to be ready for lunch with an ambassador. Seriously, it’s like every woman in the AC is channeling Grace Kelly, with superstarched Peter Pan — collared blouses or twinsets, pencil skirts, or tailored pants, finished off with kitten heels or ballet flats. And the jewelry? Don’t even get me started on the jewelry. Charm bracelets and pearls and, oh, my God, the diamonds! I’m talking studs the size of horseflies and solitaires big enough to skate across.
A woman last week must have been sporting twenty-five carats between her neck and wrist alone. So I said to the guy in line behind me, “I bet she’s having a bling-uccino.” Then he looked at me all blankly, so I pretended I was talking into my Bluetooth instead.
My point is, I don’t understand how these gals manage to be so pulled together at ten o’clock in the morning, at Starbucks of all places. I can barely remember to put on pants before I have my coffee.
Anyway, I notice our new, sporty neighbor doesn’t have any kind of obvious welcome gift with her either, unless the enormous SUV stroller containing two apple-cheeked toddlers is meant for us, in which case. . thank you?
I handle the introductions. “Hi, I’m Mia, and this is my husband, John MacNamara. But most people call him Mac.”
“Do you have dogs?”
Wow, Abington Cambians don’t waste a lot of time with conversational foreplay, do they?
“Um. . yes, we do,” I tell her. “They’re on the back porch right now. Their names are Duckie and Daisy. Did you. . want to meet them?” I can’t imagine where she’s going with this until I glance down at her sleeping children. Oh. I bet she’s concerned about the pit bull, so I need to put her at ease. “Please don’t worry; they’re totally sweet and docile unless you’re, like, a pork chop or a squirrel.”
Lululemon’s expression darkens. “Do you, by chance, have a doggy door?”
“We do.” Pride practically radiates off Mac as he replies. With a little elbow grease — and a lot of swearing, so very much swearing— Mac successfully completed his first DIY project here yesterday.86 The door works like a charm, and the dogs are delighted to have a say in whether or not they go outdoors.
“I see. Then please take this.” Lululemon roots around in the storage area on the back of her Bugaboo.
Ding, ding, ding, jackpot! The new neighbor does have a welcome present for us! So maybe this lady isn’t that great at conversation, and perhaps it would have been nice if she’d told us her name, but I don’t care, because we’re getting a present! Hooray!
Lululemon hands Mac a small blue-and-yellow bottle. Ooh, what is it? Some kind of small-batch Scotch? A wee container of yummy dessert wine? Possibly an exotic bath soak?
Mac turns the container over and up and down. “WD-40?”
“Yes. Your door is banging open and closed and it’s clearly in need of a lubricant.87 I’ll thank you to fix it at once, because your dogs are disturbing Calliope and Gregor’s afternoon nap.”
As we stand there, astounded, Lululemon executes a perfect three-point turn and trots up the drive and onto the street.
“Calliope and Gregor?” Mac’s expression vacillates between shock and awe.
I reply, “Don’t look at me, dude.”
We try to shake off the incident, chalking up Lululemon’s attitude to toddler-based exhaustion and a desperate need for carbohydrates. Then we spend a few minutes discussing furniture placement with the movers before the bell rings again.
“I’m almost afraid to answer it,” I tell Mac.
This time there’s an old man — ancient, really — standing in the center of our porch, and he doesn’t look happy.
Of course he doesn’t.
Even his wrinkles are frowning. We joked about buying a welcome mat that said, GO AWAY, but now that seems like it might have been a wise investment.
Before we can say anything, the old guy begins to wave an eagleheaded cane at us. “Tell your kids not to park in my driveway,” he hisses.
“Is someone parked in your driveway?” I query. I thought everyone here arrived via the moving van, but I double-check. “Hey, guys? Anyone parked anywhere other than this driveway?” I confirm they haven’t and turn back to the visitor. “If someone’s there, it’s not us.”
He scowls so hard his jowls tremble. “I didn’t say there was someone there now, missy. I said I don’t want your kids parking in my driveway.”
Mac is utterly confused, so I field this one. “I promise that won’t be an issue, sir, as we don’t even have kids.” Because I’m polite, I don’t add that if we were to reproduce, by the time our children were old enough to get a license, he’d be dead.
His beady little eyes dart back and forth beneath fleshy lids. “Well, keep it that way.” Then he totters off our porch and proceeds to slowly traverse the cobblestone path. When he gets to the street, he kicks our mailbox.
“Did you sign us up for a reality show and not tell me?” Mac demands.
“I tried to get us on Property Virgins, House Hunters, and My First Place, but no luck,” I admit. Apparently the producers at HGTV aren’t doing a lot of episodes where first-time buyers purchase starter mansions.
When the bell rings for a fourth time, I send Mac out to oil the doggy door. I’m a lot better in confrontational situations, since I’m not so quick to escalate.
Although, really, odds are good that someone’s going to bring us a damn casserole soon and that we’re finished with all the Negative Nellies. We’ve already been yelled at by neighbors on either side and across the street. Surely there can’t be anyone left in our immediate proximity who has reason to dislike us without even having met us.
You know what?
There are a lot of angry people in this neighborhood.
My shoulders are killing me. Between yanking open the heavy front door and tensing up when strangers yell at me, I’m in desperate need of a massage.
By the time the bell rings for the fourteenth casserole-free time, I’m spoiling for a fight. I’m tired of being told that my driveway needs to be power-washed, that I’m remiss in planting my purple ornamental cabbage to show support for the high school’s baseball team, that I put my recycling in the wrong kind of bin, and that the moving van needs to be repositioned because it’s causing “an uncomfortable glare while I’m trying to watch Wheel of Fortune.”
How is everyone around here so mean? These people live in amazing houses on the most beautiful street in the coolest town and yet no one’s happy? How does that work? At this point I don’t blame this home’s caretakers for not keeping it in better shape; there’s no pleasing anyone around here, so why bother?
Despite the pain radiating up my shoulder, I whip open the door with all my might. “What now?” I bark into the shocked face of Liz, our Realtor.
“Is this a bad time?” she asks, then tentatively offers me an enormous basket filled with lots of wine and cheese and serving accessories.
I apologize profusely, call Mac, and crack open one of the bottles of pinot.88 We move to the couch, where we give her a rundown of our afternoon.
“I don’t get it,” I cry. “Everyone seemed really nice up here when we were looking at houses. What went wrong?”
“Why don’t we have any casseroles?” Mac adds.
“I don’t really know what that means, Mac,” she replies. “But I’m afraid what you’re saying makes sense. After the closing I ran into the trust’s attorney at Starbucks. I found out that if the trust wasn’t able to sell this place by April first, there was a plan to turn the property over to the community.”
“Turn over? I’m sorry. I’m lost,” I tell her.
Liz sighs and takes a small sip of her wine. “Meaning that this property was going to be torn down and made into open lands. Basically, your house was earmarked for a nature preserve that the neighbors would be able to access, and now that you’re here, they won’t get it.”
Mac leans forward and sets his glass on the coffee table. I’m so relieved about finally having furniture that I don’t even dive for a coaster. “We were in a bidding war! If we didn’t buy this place, someone else was going to. The neighbors wouldn’t have gotten their park regardless.”
A pained expression flashes across Liz’s face. When we asked Liz to represent us, she balked, insisting she wasn’t that familiar with the Abington Cambs market and that having the inside scoop could be crucial. But we insisted harder, and now. . here we are.
“So what you’re saying,” Mac continues, “is that we’re already in the proverbial doghouse with these neighbors. They’re predisposed to dislike us.” Then he slumps back onto the couch, mourning the loss of casseroles in perpetuity.
“Unfortunately, that’s about the size of it. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I should have turned you over to a local Realtor and—”
I’m not accepting this brand of defeatism. “Stop right there.You did a great job, because we’re here, aren’t we? Maybe we’ll have to try a little harder to win over the neighbors, but I’m sure we can, because, need I remind you, we were destined to live here. I mean, if the Jablonskis could get over Babcia rewashing everything on their clothesline89 and the Pasquesis forgave her for annexing their yard for her vegetable garden,90 then we can rally. All we did was buy our dream house, and all they need to do is get to know us.”
Liz smiles at me. “I admire your determination.”
“Or your delusion,” Mac adds.
“Everything’s going to be fine. We just need to give it a little time. Trust me.”
After we finish our visit, I walk Liz to her car, hugging her briefly before she leaves. “Thank you for everything, and we’ll see you soon.”
When I close the front door, a blinding flash of pain travels up to my neck and the knob comes off in my hand.
This had better not be a sign.