SEVEN

Jessie took a deep breath and opened the door, stepping out onto the front porch to greet her new neighbors.

Of course, they weren’t really new. She’d known them since she was a little girl, when she and Monica, dressed up as princesses or Spice Girls, would ring their doorbells, trick-or-treating along the cul-de-sac of Hickory Dell at Halloween time. The Wilsons—Heather’s parents—had given out the worst treats: a single bite-size Tootsie Roll wrapped in a Bible verse. The Gorins—even if Mrs. Gorin was the nosiest neighbor of all time—had given out the best: homemade red velvet cupcakes with orange buttercream frosting. The problem was, if you didn’t eat the cupcakes right away, they tended to get smooshed in your trick-or-treat bag. So Jessie and Monica had usually wolfed them down and then continued on their way, frosting all over their chins and fingers.

But the world had moved on since those innocent days. Now, as the residents of Hickory Dell made their way up Jessie’s lawn, they remembered not the little girl dressed as Sleeping Beauty with frosting on her face but instead the young woman on the back of a Harley, her eyes caked in black mascara and eye shadow. They remembered the suspected criminal the police had interrogated, and the searches across the Clarkson property with dogs and flashlights.

I was innocent then and I’m innocent now, Jessie thought as she lifted her hand to wave hello to her arriving guests.

“Jessica!” Mrs. Gorin beamed a smile in her direction. “How lovely to have you back in the neighborhood! And where is that darling little girl I glimpsed from the window?”

“Hello, Mrs. Gorin,” Jessie replied, looking down at the round little woman. “Abby is out back with her nanny, firing up the grill.”

“I brought a tuna casserole,” Gert Gorin told her, handing the ceramic covered dish up to her.

Jessie accepted it and grinned. “Thank you so much. Though I must admit that I was hoping you might bring those red velvet cupcakes I remember so well.”

The older woman made a face that looked as if she’d suddenly sucked on a lemon. “I only make those at Halloween time. Can’t risk making them more often. You see, Arthur is at risk for diabetes if he doesn’t lose some weight.”

“I am not at risk for diabetes and I am not overweight,” Mr. Gorin said, approaching them now, a little out of breath. “Do I look overweight to you, Jessie?”

He did indeed look a little paunchy, but not any more than most men his age; Jessie estimated both Gorins to be in their mid-sixties. “I think you look just fine, but I guess it’s good to have your wife watching out for you,” Jessie said diplomatically. “Please, both of you, head around back and grab a glass of punch. I’ll be around momentarily.”

She noticed Gert eying the house through the front door. “Don’t we get a tour of the place?”

“Oh, sure, in a bit. We’ve only just started the renovations. Inga is starting on the kitchen—”

“Inga?” Gert’s penciled eyebrow arched up at Jessie.

“Yes. Abby’s nanny. She’s really become part of the family.”

“I see . . .” Gert Gorin said, insinuatingly, as she nudged her husband in the ribs with her elbow. She didn’t think Jessie saw, but she did.

As the Gorins headed around to the backyard, Jessie greeted the next visitor up the hill. Oswald Thayer was probably past eighty now, though he was far better preserved than Arthur Gorin. Still slim and trim, with a full head of bright white hair carefully combed and slicked into place, Mr. Thayer wore his perennial white twill pants under a blue blazer with gold buttons, finished off with a bright red ascot tie bulging from a crisply starched, open-collared white shirt. Jessie didn’t think she’d ever seen him dressed any other way, except in the wintertime, when his twill pants were gray. A broad smile of dazzlingly white dentures bloomed on his face when his blue eyes met Jessie’s.

“Welcome home, my dear,” he said, extending his hand. “Your dear mother and father would be so happy to know you were back in the family homestead.”

“Hello, Mr. Thayer. Thank you so much for coming.” Jessie shook his hand warmly, balancing the casserole dish in her other hand. “And thank you for the lovely flowers. They arrived this morning. They’re in the living room on the mantel.”

“I felt flowers were the better alternative, as I don’t have Gertrude Gorin’s culinary skills in being able to whip up a tuna casserole,” he said, dropping his gaze to the dish in Jessie’s hands.

Jessie laughed. “I’ve never been all that good in the kitchen myself. That’s why my daughter and her nanny are handling the grill this afternoon.”

Mr. Thayer had fixed her with a serious look. “I meant it when I said that your parents would be glad to see you here. You know that your father was a dear friend of mine. Rather like the son I never had.”

Jessie smiled. She had never been as close to Dad as she had been to Mom; Monica had tended to be their father’s favorite. But she had still loved him, and respected him; they had just been very different sorts of people. Dad had been a banker and a broker, and a Republican; Mom had been a hippie and a poet, and a Democrat. Yet somehow they’d always made their marriage work, right up until the day Dad died, much too young, of a heart attack at age forty-four. Their long, happy, successful marriage had always inspired Jessie, but also intimidated her. She’d never been able to find the kind of relationship her parents had enjoyed.

Monica had, of course.

“I remember,” Mr. Thayer was saying, seeming to warm to his purpose for coming over here today, “something your father once said to me. Your sister was the one he understood best, because she was like him. But you . . . you were the one he most admired. Because, after all, you were just like your mother, the woman he loved.”

Jessie was touched. “Thank you for telling me that, Mr. Thayer.”

“He was a good man, your father. I tried hard to get him to run for mayor of Sayer’s Brook. I had the entire Republican Town Committee ready to back him. But then, the heart attack took him from us.” A flicker of moisture appeared in the old man’s bright eyes. “He would have been a good mayor.”

“Yes, he would have, indeed,” Jessie said.

Mr. Thayer squeezed her hand. “And now I will make my way around to the back and mingle with the Gorins. I am sure the conversation will be scintillating. That woman knows everything that goes on in this town.”

Jessie laughed, and smiled after him as he walked off. She could see Monica and Todd coming out of their house now, heading up the hill, and in the street it looked like Heather and Bryan and their kids were on their way. Jessie took another deep breath and scooted back inside the house to put Mrs. Gorin’s casserole on the table.

For a moment, she wanted to hurry upstairs to her bedroom and lock herself in her room. Jessie looked out the window as the guests assembled in the backyard. Aunt Paulette had walked up from her cottage carrying the big bowl of salad she’d made. The Gorins were greeting Monica and Todd, and Mr. Thayer was kissing Heather on the hand, and clapping Bryan on the back. Everyone had so far been nice to her; Mr. Thayer had even gone out of his way to tell her something nice about Dad. This was going to be easy. No one was going to hold any grudges about the troubles with Emil. That was six years ago now. It was over. Jessie needed to just forget it and move on. No one was blaming her anymore.

But it wasn’t so easy to move on.

At least, not from everything.

She’d grown accustomed to seeing Todd in the last week. It wasn’t so hard seeing him. After all, their romance had been in high school. They’d just been kids. Sure, at the time, Jessie had been convinced Todd was her true and everlasting love—but she’d been a teenager, and most teenage girls believe their high school boyfriends are their soul mates, even if very few turn out to be so. So Jessie had been able to put some closure on Todd’s long-ago rejection of her in favor of her sister. It was Bryan Pierce who still dredged up the raw feelings.

Unlike Todd, who’d become part of Jessie’s family, Bryan hadn’t been around in the days before Jessie left. He and Heather had been living elsewhere when Jessie had taken up with Emil, and it had only been while Jessie had been away that the happy couple—and their two adorable kids—had moved into the Wilson house on Hickory Dell. So Jessie had maybe seen them just two or three times—and then just fleeting encounters—since college and the heartache of the breakup.

And Bryan held a different place in her heart than Todd. Jessie had really, really fallen for Bryan. She had allowed herself to go so far as to imagine marrying him. She’d been twenty and twenty-one years old when they’d dated, old enough for deeper, more profound feelings than the teenage crush she’d had on Todd. So when Bryan told her he had fallen in love with Heather—the best friend in whom Jessie had confided her hopes and dreams of marriage—it had been a devastating blow. It had left Jessie shattered, and susceptible to the machinations of Emil Deetz.

She looked outside through the window once again. There was Bryan, looking a little older than she remembered him, with his red hair slightly receding at his temples, but really just as handsome as ever. He was flashing that smile of his, and his green eyes still sparkled when he did so. Heather stood by his side, not smiling much, as Bryan spoke with Mr. Thayer, and their two little kids, redheads like Bryan, clung to their father’s pants.

Those could have been my kids, Jessie thought.

But she’d her own kid, and Jessie wouldn’t trade Abby for anything, for any other life. For all the pain she’d been through with Emil—and the memory of the callous way he’d slit that man’s throat would never fully leave her—Jessie wouldn’t change what she had been through. If she hadn’t met Emil—if she hadn’t slept with him—she wouldn’t have Abby. And life without Abby was unimaginable.

You didn’t feel that way about the boy.

Jessie forced such thoughts out of her head. It had been a while since she thought about the twin she’d miscarried, the little boy fetus in the pool of blood—the little boy who had haunted her dreams for so long. For the last couple of years—and especially since she’d learned Emil had been killed—Jessie had been largely free from such haunting memories. Why was she suddenly thinking about the baby she’d lost this afternoon—when she had a yard full of guests to entertain?

She knew why. Those people out in the yard represented her past. They knew Mom and Dad. They knew her secrets. They knew what she had been through. Not just with Emil either. They knew about her heartbreak with Todd and with Bryan, and they all would watch to see how Jessie reacted when she greeted them, their wives at their sides.

Jessie held her chin high and walked through the dining room toward the back door. As she did so, she passed a photograph of Mom. She’d found it yesterday, and slipped it into a frame and hung it on the wall. It was a picture that her mother had given her when she had gone off to college. Jessie had been nervous, afraid she wouldn’t be able to handle the workload and the pressures of living away from home for the first time in her life. Mom had found a photo of herself from when she was Jessie’s age—seventeen. In the photo, Mom was smiling wide, sporting her mid-1960s hairdo that flipped up at the ends. She wore a little black choker with a heart in the center. And she’d taken a black felt-tip marker and inscribed the photo for Jessie.

You can do anything, my sweet baby. There is nothing you can’t accomplish when you put your mind, heart and spirit into it.

She’d signed it, Love, Mom.

Jessie paused and looked at the photo, rereading the inscription. Then she nodded to herself and headed outside.

She walked straight into the foursome of Monica and Todd, and Heather and Bryan.

“Hello, Jessie,” Heather said.

There was a brief hug between the two women.

“Welcome home,” Bryan told her.

Jessie didn’t hug him, but shook his hand.

“Thank you.” She paused. “It’s good to be home.”

“You look great,” Bryan said.

His words seemed thick, and pointed, and full of meaning. In that unspoken way Aunt Paulette would have described as psychic, Jessie seemed to sense Heather’s discomfort with her husband’s observation.

“Jessie always looks great,” Todd reiterated, and this time Jessie felt Monica’s discomfort.

“Where are your children?” Jessie asked, directing the question to Heather. She found she couldn’t look at Bryan fully. “I thought I saw them a moment ago.”

It was Bryan who answered her. “They spotted the swing set,” he said.

They all looked in that direction. Bryan’s two kids were scrambling onto the two swings, leaving Abby just to watch. Inga was with them, supervising it all.

“Piper and Ashton are thrilled to have someone in the neighborhood finally to play with,” Heather said.

“I hope they’ll be good friends,” Jessie said.

There was a moment of awkward silence. “Good friends” was a term with some freighted history among that particular group.

“I was pleased to see how well your son and Abby played together the other day,” Jessie said at last, breaking the silence. “Why didn’t your daughter come up as well?”

Bryan and Heather were looking at her blankly.

“Your son,” Jessie repeated.

“This is the first time Ashton has been here,” Heather said.

Jessie smiled. “No, actually, he came up the other day. . . . He and Abby swung on the swings for a bit, then walked down to the brook. Inga was with them.”

“That’s impossible,” Heather insisted. “Ashton never goes anywhere without his sister, and they know better than to leave our yard without asking permission.”

Jessie frowned. “Well, it was some little boy. . . . Aunt Paulette said it must have been Ashton because there aren’t any other little boys in the neighborhood.”

“That’s right. No other little kids, period. I don’t know who it was that played with your daughter, Jessie, but it wasn’t Ashton.”

Jessie looked off at the boy on the swing set.

“Strange,” she said.

“Well,” Bryan offered, “I suppose whoever it was, we’ll learn next week. Is Abby starting school at Independent Day?”

“Yes,” Jessie replied. “She starts kindergarten.”

“Ashton’s in first grade there, and Piper’s in second,” Bryan said. “I imagine you’ll find Abby’s little playmate there. Maybe he comes from one of the new houses they built on the other side of the woods.”

“But then he would have had to cross Manning’s property,” Todd said, “and our esteemed neighbor has ‘no trespassing’ signs everywhere.”

“I don’t know about you, Todd,” Bryan said, “but a ‘no trespassing’ sign never stopped me as a kid.”

“Well, some of us like to play by the rules,” Todd replied icily.

Jessie picked up on the disdain between the two men, and wondered why. Then she remembered that they worked at rival investment brokerages in the city. Both had gotten help early in their careers from Mr. Thayer, but then Bryan had jumped ship, going over to the other side. Now they were like two hostile tomcats, each staking out their territories and trying to assert their claim as the alpha male. Jessie found it all terribly tedious, and oh so terribly just like men.

Another awkward silence had descended.

“You should see the work Jessie has already done inside Mom’s house,” Monica said, trying to keep the conversation going. “Hardly here a week, and already she’s retiling the bathroom and repainting the kitchen. . . .”

“Well,” Jessie admitted, “it’s mostly Inga, Abby’s nanny. She’s a terrific help around the house. Really handy.”

She watched as Bryan’s eyes looked back over at the swings and seemed to take in every detail of Inga’s solid, strong, full figure.

“We’ve been through four nannies in six years,” Heather said, sighing. “Our two are rather . . . a handful.”

At that moment Ashton was shouting at the top of his lungs, angry at his sister for swinging higher than he could manage. The little girl was laughing derisively at him. Jessie noticed that Abby still stood off to the side, watching the other children monopolize her swing set.

“Kids,” Heather said, shaking her head.

“Well, I should mingle,” Jessie said, feeling she’d spent more than enough time trying to make conversation. “Please help yourself to some punch.”

Everyone smiled as Jessie moved off across the yard.

She headed straight for the swing set.

“Everything going okay?” Inga asked as Jessie approached.

Inga knew the backstories that united the afternoon’s guests. Jessie had shared the basic details: the breakups, the rejections, the heartbreak, the scandals. So the nanny understood all too well the difficulties Jessie would face meeting everyone today.

“As well as can be expected,” Jessie said, with a small laugh.

She looked at the little redheaded boy with freckles sprinkled across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. He was attempting to swing as high as his older sister but without much success. His face was flushed and his teeth were gritted.

Inga seemed to intuit Jessie’s thoughts.

“Not the same kid,” she said. “Not the one who was up here the other day.”

Ashton’s big green eyes made contact with Jessie’s. She looked away.

“Mommy,” Abby said, tugging on Jessie’s khaki shorts. “When can I have a turn on the swings?”

“These are our guests, sweetie. Let them swing first. I’m sure they’ll give you a turn soon.”

“No, I won’t,” said the little girl, Piper. “I am going to swing all day. Ashton can give her his swing, since he keeps losing to me anyhow.”

“I’m not getting off, either,” Ashton shouted. “I am going to beat you, Piper. You’ll see!”

“Five more minutes and one of you is giving Abby a turn,” Jessie told them. “These are her swings, after all.”

“I’ll make sure they do,” Inga said, giving Jessie a wink.

Jessie tousled Abby’s hair and started back across the yard before Inga stopped her.

“Remember the crap you’ve been through, Jessie,” the nanny told her. “You got through all of that. And you’ll get through today, too.”

Jessie gave her a smile and a thumbs-up.

Aunt Paulette was passing around a tray of cheese and crackers among the guests. “Everyone keeps saying how pretty you look,” she whispered as Jessie passed.

Dear Aunt Paulette. She made Jessie think of Mom, and that was a good thing.

“When are we going to get the house tour?” Gert Gorin was asking as Jessie approached.

“Well, come along now then,” Jessie replied. “There’s not a lot to show, but you can see what there is to see.”

The Gorins and Mr. Thayer followed her into the house. She took them through the kitchen, instructing them to step over the paint cans and containers of spackle, and then up the stairs, where hours of scrubbing and vacuuming had left the wood floors shining and the windows sparkling in the afternoon sun. Jessie noticed Gert Gorin’s eagle eyes taking in everything, her inquisitive mind soaking it all up.

“Where does the nanny sleep?” Gert wanted to know.

“Her room’s down the hall,” Jessie replied.

“Mmhmm,” Gert said, looking away.

Jessie glanced out the window down at the guests. She was glad to see that Abby had finally gotten onto the swing set, but she sat by herself. The other two kids were chasing each other in circles through the grass. Inga had moved over to the grill, where she was lighting the charcoal. It was an old-fashioned grill, no gas, no instant charcoal. It would take a while for the briquettes to get hot enough for cooking. Monica and Todd and Heather and Bryan were still together, the women largely silent as the two men spoke about something—something boring and corporate, Jessie was sure. She had no doubt they were constantly trying to one-up each other. Aunt Paulette still flitted among them all with her platter of cheese.

Jessie was about to look away from the window when she spotted something else. A man was walking through the bushes at the far end of the yard toward the house. From up here Jessie couldn’t make out what the man looked like. But he seemed tall and dark. He walked slowly, carefully, deliberately.

It could only be John Manning.

So their famous neighbor had decided to grace them with his presence after all.

Jessie hurriedly finished the tour so she could get back outside and greet her newest guest. She’d never read any of John Manning’s books—she didn’t like horror stories; she’d lived through enough of her own—but she knew people who did. Her editor at the publishing house was a huge fan of Manning’s, and wished she could lure him away from his current contract. After all, John Manning’s books had sold millions of copies, and made him and his publishers millions of dollars. A number of movies had been made from his books, and his latest, The Sound of a Scream, was being turned into a TV miniseries. Inga had just started reading it, curious about the man who lived just beyond their pine trees—and whose wife had died in a mysterious fall just a few feet from where they lived.

“What a dark imagination,” Inga had said after reading the first few pages. “He sure enjoys slaughtering people.”

It was hard for Jessie to imagine writing about such things. In her own work she wrote about transformation and survival and joy—not death and destruction. And she’d come to believe that what one wrote reflected the core of who one was. So she was more than a little apprehensive about meeting this neighbor of theirs.

When they returned outside, they found that the sun, so bright just moments before, had slipped behind a cloud. The shadows had abruptly disappeared from the yard, leaving the day shrouded in a bluish haze. Jessie noticed that John Manning had approached none of the adults, but rather had paused at the grill, where the three little children were now watching Inga lay the hamburger patties over the smoldering coals. He was saying something to the kids, though Jessie couldn’t hear what he said. He seemed so enormous standing next to the children. Well over six feet, he was dressed all in black: a black T-shirt over black jeans, and on his feet he wore black sneakers. Jessie felt a sudden chill and forced herself to shrug it off.

“Hello,” she said, approaching, her hand held out in greeting, a smile on her face.

John Manning’s deep-set dark eyes looked up from the children and found her gaze. Jessie took a small, involuntary step backward, as if knocked off stride by the man’s extraordinary, movie-star good looks. He reached out and took Jessie’s hand.

“Ms. Clarkson, I take it,” he said.

“Yes,” Jessie replied, and realized her voice unexpectedly trembled a bit. She was being foolish. She wasn’t usually impressed by celebrities. Even handsome celebrities. “Thanks for coming.”

John Manning gave her a small, tentative smile. “I thought I should, given that we live next to each other. I’ve gotten used to seeing this house always dark. Now I’ll need to accustom myself to seeing lights over here.”

Jessie remembered the day she’d seen him stranding in his window, staring over at her house. For some silly reason, she trembled again. Her hand was still in Manning’s, and he must have felt the tremor pass through her body.

“You seem cold,” he observed, “and on such a beautiful, warm day.”

There was something about his eyes. So dark, so magnetic. It was as if Jessie was being drawn into his mind against her will. Suddenly she saw an image: Manning’s wife, Millie, lying facedown in a pool of blood on their concrete patio. She trembled again.

“I guess I’ll feel better once the sun comes back out from behind the cloud,” Jessie said, and extricated her hand from Manning’s grip.

He smiled a little wider. “We won’t have to wait long for that, I don’t think.” He looked up. “Except for that one big cumulus straight above, the sky is otherwise a solid sheet of blue.”

Even as he spoke the sun emerged from behind the cloud, filling the yard up once again with golden light.

“Happier now?” Manning said, his smile turning cheeky.

Jessie laughed. “Thanks for arranging it.”

“Anything to be a good neighbor,” he told her.

In the direct sunlight, Manning seemed even more handsome. His dark eyes were flecked with gold. Jessie didn’t know what it was, but she found herself entranced by this man, and she felt as if she could stand there all day looking into his eyes.

“I understand you’re a writer,” Manning was saying.

“Yes,” Jessie said, although her voice seemed a world away. “I . . . am.”

He smiled. “Perhaps we can share trade secrets sometime.”

Jessie felt her whole body blush.

But then Inga was at her side, breaking the spell.

“Excuse me, Mr. Manning,” the nanny was saying, “but I wanted to tell you I’m a third of the way through The Sound of a Scream and you have me absolutely hooked.”

Jessie noticed the small smile that had been playing with Manning’s lips suddenly broaden across his face. “Well, thank you very much,” he said, turning his attention away from Jessie and toward Inga. “It’s especially rewarding to have such a pretty fan.”

“This is Abby’s nanny, Inga,” Jessie said, as introduction. She noticed Inga was blushing a bit.

“And such an exquisite accent,” the author was saying, taking Inga’s hand in his and kissing it. He hadn’t done that to Jessie. “I’d say it’s Bayerisch, if I hear correctly.”

Jessie was surprised. She thought Inga barely had an accent at all. She spoke perfect English to Jessie’s ears.

It was Inga’s turn to smile broadly. “Yes, indeed it is. I am impressed. I was born in the south of Germany. You must have traveled quite a bit in my country.”

“I have indeed.”

Suddenly Manning began speaking in thick, guttural German to Inga’s obvious delight. It wasn’t often she got to converse with someone in her native tongue.

Jessie stood by awkwardly as the two carried on in a lively conversation completely oblivious to her. It was as if neither even remembered she was standing there. She felt oddly left out—even jealous.

She told herself she was being ridiculous.

“Help yourself to some punch,” Jessie whispered, leaning in toward Manning, who barely acknowledged her comment. He was too busy speaking fluent German, telling Inga something about his book, since the phrase “sound of a scream” kept popping out from the indistinguishable foreign words. Jessie gave them both a little smile and slunk away.

Of course John Manning would pay greater attention to Inga than to Jessie. Inga was nineteen years old, shapely and sexy, with the biggest, brightest blue eyes Jessie had ever seen. She had some experience with men preferring other women to her. Why should she have been surprised by Manning’s sudden diversion of interest? Moreover, why should she be bothered by it?

But she was. She couldn’t deny that what had just happened did bother her.

Once again, she scolded herself for being ridiculous.

“Mommy.”

Abby was tugging on her hand.

Jessie looked down at her daughter. “What is it, sweetie?”

“Those kids are back on the swings and won’t let me swing again.”

“Come on, baby,” she said, taking Abby’s hand. “Let’s go over and talk with them.”

“No!” shouted Piper, when Jessie asked her to give Abby a turn, as she swung higher and higher into the sky.

“No!” echoed her brother Ashton, desperately trying to keep up with her.

“Well, they are Abby’s swings, after all,” Jessie said.

“But we’re your guests,” Piper shrieked, as she whizzed past Jessie and Abby, flying higher with each rotation. “My mother says guests come first.”

“That’s right,” came a voice behind Jessie.

It was Heather. She had wandered over to the swing set, attracted by her children’s voices.

“But we must be good guests, too,” she told Piper. “Five more minutes, then let Abby have a turn.”

Jessie was about to tell Heather “five minutes my ass” and order the little brat off the swing pronto. But she held her tongue. She didn’t want to cause friction with the neighbors on their first day of contact. Besides, she thought part of her anger was still, absurdly, rooted in the little scene back by the grill between she, Manning, and Inga.

It seemed Heather had observed that interaction as well. “Tell me, Jessie,” she said, her voice reminiscent of a cat’s purr. “Does that girl you have working for you always pounce so quickly on available men?”

Jessie laughed a little. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that Inga pounced. . . .”

“No? John walked into the yard and suddenly she was all over him.”

Jessie looked at her old friend. Heather seemed upset, even jealous. This was getting crazier. What kind of effect did this John Manning have on women?

“You called him John,” Jessie said. “Do you know him well?”

Heather averted her eyes. “We’re friendly. We’re neighbors, after all.”

“Monica said he keeps to himself. I was surprised he came by today.”

Heather was watching the conversation between Manning and Inga, still proceeding intensely beside the grill.

“He’s a lonely man,” Heather said. “His wife’s death really affected him. I’d hate to see some gold-digging teenager take advantage of him.”

Jessie’s momentary pique at Inga dissipated and she came to her defense. “Inga is no gold digger, Heather. She’s a hardworking girl. All she did was tell Mr. Manning she was enjoying his book, and then was delighted to find he could speak German.”

“I assume she’s in this country legally?” Heather asked, her eyes finally returning to Jessie.

For a moment Jessie was flabbergasted. “Of course, she is,” she finally managed to respond.

Heather just shrugged and walked away.

“Wheeee!” came the voice of little Piper, behind them on the swings.

Jessie turned and made a beeline over to the kid.

“Off,” she ordered.

“But my mommy said five minutes.”

“Yeah, and those five minutes are up. Off!”

Piper let her feet touch the earth and then sprung off the swing. Jessie caught it in midair and motioned for Abby to get on.

As Piper ran crying over to her mother, Ashton giggled. “Wanta race?” he asked Abby, who nodded, and soon they were off.

Even as she kept up her running conversation in German with John Manning, Inga managed to grill the burgers, and soon everyone had one in their hands, except for Abby and Ashton, who kept up their swinging. A pouty Piper refused to eat, her big lower lip protruding, her little freckled face scrunched up like an old lady. Jessie noticed how Heather managed to get a seat next to John Manning at the picnic table, and how she whispered something in his ear. The handsome author seemed to pay no notice to what she said, keeping his attention on Inga. Heather seemed furious.

What the hell was going on here?

Jessie took a seat beside Aunt Paulette, who was applying relish to her burger—a veggie patty, since the older woman didn’t eat meat.

“You notice anything weird between Heather and Mr. Manning?” Jessie whispered.

Her aunt lifted an eyebrow. “Gert Gorin was just telling me she’s seen Heather leaving Manning’s house several times late at night.”

“Gosh,” Jessie said, grinning despite herself. “The things those binoculars have seen.”

“Remember to keep your blinds closed,” Aunt Paulette cautioned.

Jessie was suddenly aware of Bryan sitting down beside her. With his wife trying—in vain—to get the attention of Mr. Manning, Bryan was apparently left free to make his own moves. And Jessie was startled to realize he was moving in on her.

“I have to tell you, Jessaloo, you look amazing,” he breathed in her ear as he sat down.

Jessaloo was the name he’d called her in college. Jessie blushed despite herself.

“Really, really amazing,” he said, keeping his eyes on her as he took a bite of his hamburger, juice running down over his chin.

“Thanks,” Jessie said, stiffening.

“Look,” Bryan said, smiling at her, “it can either be comfortable or uncomfortable living down the street from each other.” He paused. “I vote for comfortable.”

“Of course,” Jessie said, keeping her shoulder from touching his and her eyes from returning his gaze. “That’s why I had this picnic. I want us all to be good neighbors.”

“You know I’m sorry for how everything happened.. . .”

“It’s ancient history, Bryan,” Jessie said. She turned to Aunt Paulette and asked how she liked her veggie burger, but before her aunt could reply, Bryan was touching her shoulder, indicating he had more to say.

“I made the wrong choice, you know,” he whispered. “I never should have married Heather. I should have—”

“Don’t say any more,” Jessie said harshly, spinning around to look at him. “Don’t you dare say another word.”

Gathering her plate and napkin, she stood up from the picnic table and stalked off. Aunt Paulette followed.

“You okay, honey?”

“Yes,” Jessie said. “Just need to use the little girl’s room.”

She hurried back inside the house, letting the screen door slam behind her.

She took a deep breath. Then another, and another.

She couldn’t eat any more of her burger, so she tossed her plate into the trash.

How dare Bryan say such a thing, after all this time, and with Heather sitting just a few feet away at the other table?

Was it even true?

Jessie felt certain that something was going on between Heather and John Manning. If his wife was having an affair, Bryan would naturally want to lash out. And who better to make Heather jealous than Bryan’s former girlfriend, the woman he’d left on her account?

That was all it was. Bryan was trying to use her in a ploy against his wife, to get back at Heather, to have a little revenge.

But what if what he’d said was true?

Jessaloo, you look amazing.

Jessie looked at herself in the hallway mirror. She did look good. She was finally starting to see that about herself again. She was pretty. She could admit that now.

Maybe Bryan really did feel he’d been wrong to choose Heather over her.

What if seeing Jessie again had rekindled his feelings for her? What if he really did regret hurting her the way he had, and wanted to see if he still had a chance?

“All the more reason to spit in his face,” Jessie whispered again.

What a lout for saying such a thing—now, in front of everyone.

Jessie couldn’t believe how furious she was. Maybe this whole housewarming party was a mistake. What had she accomplished? She knew Monica and Todd weren’t happy about the idea. They guarded their privacy closely; they never liked socializing with the neighbors. And Jessie had gone and invited that snoop, Gert Gorin, right into their yard. Moreover, she’d brought Todd into contact with Bryan, a man he loathed, and she’d forced Abby to endure the brattiness of Bryan’s two spoiled, selfish kids. She’d dredged up all sorts of emotions she’d thought she’d banished forever: insecurity, rejection, jealousy, heartbreak. Jessie just wanted all these people to go home, right now.

But she couldn’t exactly head back out there and order them all off her property. She looked again at the photo of Mom and the words she’d written. Jessie could get through this. She’d gotten through far worse.

She returned to the party.

The first thing she noticed was that John Manning was gone. When she inquired of Aunt Paulette, she was told the author had asked her to give Jessie his thanks, but he really had to get back to his writing. He was on a deadline. Jessie felt it was rude for him to leave without saying good-bye to her in person. She’d only been inside for a few minutes, after all. But then she noticed Heather and Bryan off to the side of the yard in the midst of a rather intense conversation themselves, and she suspected something had happened that had caused John Manning to make a quick getaway.

Within a few minutes, the dueling couple were gathering their kids and making their own farewells.

“It was wonderful to see you again, Jessie, it truly was,” Heather said, taking her by the shoulders and kissing the air beside her face. “Sorry we can’t stay, but I have a ton of work to do. Catering a big party tomorrow.”

“I’m glad you could come,” Jessie said, reflecting on the irony of her words.

“Good-bye, Jessie,” Bryan said, “and thanks.”

His eyes barely made contact with hers. Jessie noticed she wasn’t “Jessaloo” anymore.

Bryan and Heather hurried back down the hill, their kids screaming after them.

Mr. Thayer was the next to leave, thanking them far more authentically and telling Jessie once again how pleased he was that she had returned to the neighborhood. Monica and Todd took that as their cue to leave as well. Monica asked her sister—halfheartedly, Jessie thought—if she needed any help cleaning up, but Aunt Paulette piped in that she’d take care of everything. Monica didn’t object, and she and Todd headed back to their house. That left the Gorins, who didn’t leave until Inga had wrapped the last of the uneaten burgers in cellophane and Jessie had begun peeling the plastic covers off the picnic tables.

“Well,” Aunt Paulette said with a sigh when they were finally alone, “was it so bad?”

“I guess it was good as a way to break the ice,” Jessie acknowledged, “but I’m glad it’s over.”

“Do I have to play with those kids again?” Abby asked.

“Not if you don’t want to,” Jessie told her.

“They weren’t very nice.”

“I know, baby.” She smiled sadly. “But apples don’t tend to fall too far from the tree.”

She saw something suddenly, out by the brook.

It was a child.

A little boy . . .

Had Ashton returned?

No, it wasn’t Ashton. The boy was standing down at the brook, staring up at them. Jessie couldn’t make out his face, but she could see he wasn’t a redhead like Ashton.

“Abby,” she called. “Look down there. Is that your little friend—?”

But in the moment Jessie had moved her eyes over to look at her daughter, the little boy had disappeared. When Jessie looked back at the brook, there was no one standing there anymore.

“Where, Mommy?” Abby asked.

“Never mind, honey. I guess I made a mistake.”

The sun was dropping lower in the sky and the yard was filling up with shadows.

“Jessie,” came Inga’s voice. “Everything’s cleaned up here. Do you mind if I run over to Mr. Manning’s house for a moment?”

Jessie looked at her. “Whatever for?”

“He told me he’d give me a couple more of his books, and an autographed copy I could send home to my mother.”

Jessie approached her. “You sure were in quite the conversation with him.”

“I know.” Inga blushed. “He was very charming, a very nice man. He knew the town where I was born. He’s been all over the world.”

Jessie tried to push away the ridiculous feelings of jealousy she felt. “Of course, Inga,” she said. “Go on over. Everything’s under control here.”

“Thanks. I won’t be gone long. I’ll be back to help get Abby ready for bed.”

Jessie watched the nanny scurry across the lawn toward the line of fir trees that divided their property with John Manning’s. She hadn’t noticed how skimpy Inga’s shorts were before, or how perfectly they showed off her long, shapely legs.

She sighed.

“Abby,” she called to her daughter, who was heading back over to the swing set. “Let’s go inside and watch television okay?”

For some reason, she wanted Abby close to her tonight, and inside the house. A smile stretched across Jessie’s face as the child hurried over to her and took her hand.