It wasn’t that the knock frightened Lena, although it was startling.
She had been deep into chapter 7 of Beyond the Fields (just wonderful!). Odile, escaped from the concentration camps, was hiding up in a tree in a Bavarian forest, salivating at the smell of cheese and bread from the German family’s picnic a few feet below her. Trying to stop herself from fainting from hunger, Odile shifted slightly in the tree and accidentally rustled its branches. The family’s little girl looked up and—
Had Lena perhaps imagined the knock?
Nope, there it was again. Three impatient raps.
Tommy, her UPS man, rang instead of knocked and it was too early for packages anyway. Rudy the landscaper wasn’t due until eleven, which reminded Lena, she had to collect fresh mint leaves and get his tea brewing soon.
Another two knocks, insistent, harsh: I know you’re in there! An aggressive Gestapo knock.
Lena always wondered while reading Holocaust novels, which she did with some frequency: When the Nazis were rounding up people from the ghettos, did anyone just not answer?
Presumably breaking down a door would be nothing for the SS—they were capable of much worse—but did anyone in the ghetto successfully grab that small window of time to escape?
Lena would bet they didn’t. When faced with true evil, your mind tricked you into minimizing it. Work with it, it commanded, just go along.
At least, Lena’s mind commanded that; maybe other people had more admirable instincts.
A third series of knocks pounded on Lena’s door. In her mind, Rachel shook her head in alarm.
Don’t answer it.
The version of Rachel who lived in Lena’s mind was constantly judging Lena’s bad choices. It hadn’t always been that way between them, but unfortunately, before the night everything changed, Rachel had been going through an obnoxious stage. Lena had, back then, openly complained about how Rachel treated her, which she now regretted. Hearing the stories, Lena’s best friend Melanie had compared sixteen-year-old Rachel to a demanding hotel guest.
Lena decided to ignore the door, and turn back to Odile.
Had the little girl picnicking with her family heard the crack of the tree branch? Odile looked down and the little girl looked up into the foliage and yes, met Odile’s eye.
She had been caught.
Lena gasped—aloud—just as the bell rang twice in quick succession, sharp and accusatory.
This was why everyone answered when the Gestapo knocked: it was futile to do otherwise. The authorities never gave up. Lena had read with rapt attention about one fugitive who responded to the knocks of federal agents by darting into a back room, trying to hide under the bed.
Not an effective strategy, as it turned out.
She placed her finger in the middle of the book to hold her place, and carried it with her down the front hall.
When she opened the door, she tried to place the small woman on the other side of the door, who was immediately familiar. She stared at Lena from under the brim of a dark baseball hat, her lips pursed tightly in a not-quite-smile.
It was the Fierce Walker, the slight woman who thrust herself around the neighborhood loop at a breakneck pace in rain, shine, or snow, pumping her little arms and dragging behind her that muscular ugly taupe dog, who now stood next to her on Lena’s front step.
The dog had yellow eyes, which slanted as it regarded Lena with a sharp-toothed pant. Not a Nazi dog, Lena was pretty sure—they only used German shepherds—but hardly cuddly.
The Fierce Walker worked to maintain a brittle smile, because what else would Lena inspire?
Lena and Tim had picked the Cottonwood Estates neighborhood all those years before because of the natural beauty and the community—the bridge clubs, the cocktail hours, the tennis tournaments, the poker nights. Everyone in each other’s business was wonderful for social creatures like the Meekers!
But there was a dark side to having everyone in each other’s business that Lena hadn’t foreseen. For starters, the judgment. Even if Lena never heard it, she could feel it drift uphill with the wind: Poor, lonely Lena, rattling around in that big house.
The Fierce Walker had obviously heard the whispers of the wind. She chewed on her bottom lip and Lena could see, beneath the woman’s dark glasses, the darting movement of her eyes, from Lena to the ground and back to Lena.
To put her at ease, Lena waved her right hand in a friendly way. It was a regretfully awkward movement, given that Lena was still holding the book, the pages of which flapped ridiculously.
But it seemed to work: Fierce Walker inhaled and then sighed like a woman in love.
“That. Book,” she said, and clutched her heart.
Lena leaned closer, despite herself. “I just got to the part where Odile is in the tree.”
“With the family below her? I was dying.”
“Tell me it turns out okay.”
“I’m not going to spoil it for you. You’d never forgive me.”
The Fierce Walker frowned suddenly, like she’d received a silent reprimand from an unseen handler to remain on task. She pushed back her shoulders and jutted out her jaw.
“I’m Annie Perley and I live down the hill on Pinon Road,” she said.
“Lena Meeker,” Lena said even though Annie knew this, of course she did. Poor Lena Meeker. A cautionary tale. Tell your children.
Annie removed her sunglasses and folded them onto the collar of her shirt, revealing a cluster of tiny tattoos—an elephant, a star, a butterfly–on her inner wrist. She was younger than Lena had imagined, and freshly pretty, with smooth, pale skin and delicate features.
Lena smiled: she’d always appreciated beauty, and Annie had the comforting attractiveness of a stock photo model. But waves of intensity evaporated off her, and for a dizzying moment, Lena worried that Annie would start the sympathy stutter, So sorry, thoughts and prayers and I can’t even imagine.
“I’ve seen you trekking around the neighborhood,” Lena said to cut this off at the head. “And marvel at your willpower. I wish I had the drive in regards to exercise, but alas I never have. I have all the momentum to start any kind of fad, but it’s the follow-through that stumps me. The consistency. Too many bad habits, too ingrained, I guess. Do you do the entire loop every day?”
Lena was aware she was babbling, but the angsty look in Annie’s eyes was gone, so it had been worth it.
Annie nodded. “As pathetic as it sounds, exercise keeps me sane. And it helps Yellow.”
When she patted the dog’s head, Lena surmised that he/she/it was Yellow, even though it was more of a muddy greige.
“We got her when my son Hank was learning his colors,” Annie explained. She shot a wry look at Lena. “Or not.”
Lena managed a passable casual laugh. This wasn’t going horribly, not at all, or maybe it was?
Annie Perley paused and reddened slightly. Another correction from the off-site handler. There was something unsavory to discuss, Lena sensed. Presumably, the Fierce Walker had not knocked on the door to talk about Lena’s book selections and lack of commitment to exercise.
“Can I help you with something, Annie?” Lena said.
“No, no, I’m just here because. Well”—Annie Perley mashed her lips together for a moment, summoning courage to deliver unwelcome news—“there’s a penis on your mailbox.”
It sounded physically impossible, but Lena found herself following Annie across the driveway. There was something so resolute and directed about her.
At the mailbox, Annie raised her eyebrows grimly. Voilà.
Thick lines of aerosol black paint covered Lena’s custom copper mailbox. “I think it’s a face?” Lena said. “With a really long nose?”
Annie shook her head and tapped her fingernail against the copper. There was a decisive ping.
“Only one hole,” she said.
“Oh.” Lena frowned. As far as uninvited penises went, it had a disarmingly cheerful innocence. “It’s kind of friendly-looking.”
“It’s those big round puppy eyes,” Annie said with a sigh, as though the penis was just being manipulative and couldn’t be trusted.
Other properties had been hit, too. Lena, Annie explained—again with that intense eye contact—should not take it personally. Lena was about to respond that of course she didn’t take it personally, but then she realized that she did. The universe had taken a while to deliver a mailbox penis to Lena, but now that it had, her only question was: Why the delay?
“I can help you try to get it off,” Annie offered. She smacked her forehead as the double meaning hit her. “Sorry. I just meant—what I’m trying to say is I can help you remove it.”
Annie’s laugh was a wave of nervous high-pitched giggles and her cheeks reddened to a lovely deep pink. Years ago, Lena, who had been quite social (mind-bogglingly social! flitting around, hosting parties, fiddling, fiddling, fiddling while Rome burned) would have identified this warm magnet pull toward Annie Perley and thought: new friend.
She would have invited Annie to her next party, deposited her in a conversation with someone fun and lively, offered a gougère just out of the oven, fragrant and steaming.
Everyone had always gone crazy for Lena’s gougères and she had become increasingly nutty about getting them perfect. You’re missing the party, Tim would accuse.
And what had Gary Neary joked that night? The gorgeous gougères. Lena had giggled like it was high comedy, just like Annie Perley was doing now.
This was the problem with meeting new people: they dredged up old recollections, even when they didn’t mean to. Lena had never been able to conclusively destroy the unwelcome memories, but her occasional therapist Dr. Friendly had taught her a visualization process—flatten the memory like a trash compactor would, note its diminishment, move on.
She thought desperately of five minutes in the future when Annie would be gone and Lena could curl up on her couch with Odile.
But Annie, flushed and still hopelessly giggling at the wordplay, didn’t appear to be going anywhere. She clutched Lena’s arm and wiped her eyes and bent over and her sunglasses clattered down from the front of her shirt to the lawn, which only intensified Annie’s laughter.
Lena regarded the penis’s goofy face. It was funny. And so was Annie, doubled over with laughter, grasping helplessly onto the grass for her sunglasses. If Annie’s chortles were fizzy champagne, Lena’s were a vintage car engine sputtering a bit before roaring to life.
A voice floated up from somewhere deep within Lena. “Would you like to come in for coffee, Annie?”
Annie wiped her eyes with the back of her wrists. The invitation hovered between them like a balloon that Lena wished she could pop.
She’d been too forward, hadn’t she? Lena was so out of practice, but the way Annie gravely studied Lena’s house behind them—as if Lena had proposed becoming roommates instead of a warm beverage—wasn’t right either.
“I’m due at the school by ten thirty,” Annie said. “But for a little while, why not?”
Lena thought that Annie sounded disappointed in her own response, as if she had at her fingertips a million reasons why not, but had for some reason been powerless to use them.