One moment Alex was holding a glass of orange juice, and the next it was streaking toward the floor. The glass landed with a crash. Jagged pieces shot out in all directions.
She noticed that her hands were shaking. Is that why I lost my grip?
She fetched a broom from the utility closet, swept and mopped, and discarded the remnants into the blue recycling bin in the garage. The bin was filled near to capacity, mostly with wine bottles.
When did Nick go to the dump last? Two weeks ago? This couldn’t be from a single week.
Alex checked her hands again. They were still shaking.
She’d never had a tremor before. Probably wasn’t related, but she could pinpoint the source of her headache and dry mouth.
No wine this week, she promised herself. That was that. No big deal.
Alex sent Zoe out the back door unleashed, as usual, to do her morning business. They didn’t have a fenced-in yard, but Zoe always came back. She returned some minutes later having decided it was a good idea to roll around in the mud. Alex sequestered her in the laundry room until she had time to clean her up. Zoe barked unrelentingly at her forced confinement, making Alex’s headache drum louder.
Make it two weeks dry.
Nick entered the kitchen barefoot. Before Alex had time to warn him, his foot found a glass shard she’d missed. He let out a yelp that frightened Zoe into silence.
“Sorry, honey,” Alex called. “There was an accident this morning. Dropped a glass. Thought I swept it all up.”
She left out the part about the shakes. As Nick headed for the bathroom to perform first aid on himself, Alex went upstairs for a towel to clean off the dog.
Lettie glided down the hallway like a phantom, an apparition haunting their home, one that couldn’t be bothered with a good morning.
“Sorry about last night,” Alex said, not sure she should be the one apologizing. She hadn’t started the fight. It wasn’t her college career on the line. “I don’t want to put more pressure on you than you already have.”
“Okay, then don’t,” Lettie said.
“Is everything all right? Are you … you know, good with everything?” Way to bring your A game to parenting, Alex thought.
“Yeah, I’m good,” Lettie said morosely.
Fears about her daughter’s mental state overtook her. She’d talk to Nick about it later—about what Ken had said, specifically—but now wasn’t the time. Everyone was in a rush.
Alex took her coffee to the window overlooking the Kumars’ house. She wanted to catch Mandy before she left for work, make sure she was all right. The house looked still and quiet, like all the houses on Alton Road.
She was thinking of some excuse to ring the doorbell when the Kumars’ garage door opened. A Lexus rolled out moments later, giving Jay’s Subaru in the driveway a wide berth. Alex wasn’t surprised to see Mandy’s Audi still parked inside. She’d mentioned commuting with Samir. But as sunlight flooded the car, Alex could see only one occupant within, and it wasn’t Mandy. Even in the low light she could make out Samir’s typical grimace.
Alex finished her coffee. After the goodbye/see you/love you ritual with Nick and Lettie, she grabbed her work bag and left the house. She stopped at her car door.
She’d worry about Mandy all day if she didn’t at least try to connect. It would be easiest to text, but Alex never had gotten her number. She vowed to rectify that, but it gave her a reason to stop by. If something was wrong, they had no way to get in touch.
There. That’s not being too nosy.
She marched up the steps to the Kumars’ front porch. The doorbell echoed louder than most. She took a deep breath. This visit felt intrusive, not neighborly. At least now her hands had a reason to shake.
No one came to the door. She tried the doorbell once more and waited, her anxiety mounting. Her imagination was getting the best of her, just as with Lettie.
Of course Mandy is fine. This is Alton Road, not some Hitchcock film. All couples argue.
Even so, Samir’s angry shouts echoed in her mind.
She thought Jay might appear—he could tell her where his mother was—but no such luck. The only Kumar she saw that morning was the one who worried her most.
The day passed in a blur, stuffed with other people’s problems. By the time Alex got home, she’d forgotten all about the promise she’d made to herself that morning. She was drinking wine and paying bills when Nick returned from his workday. Lettie was out with friends, so she had a chance to ask him about what he’d said to Ken.
“Maybe I made some comment in passing about her being gloomy, but it wasn’t a diagnosis. You know Ken—he’s always stirring the pot. Lettie’s fine.” He kissed her cheek gently, as if that settled matters.
When he left the room, Alex felt profoundly alone. Her daughter was pulling away, and she and Nick were as close as Mars and Pluto these days.
She picked up her phone out of habit. A memory from years ago appeared on Facebook, allowing Alex to relive a day spent apple picking. Lettie’s two front teeth were missing. Nick beamed with pride over his family. Alex assessed her appearance back then.
I glowed, she thought. What had dimmed her? She wanted to climb into the photograph, return to that very moment, bite the shiny red apple that Lettie clutched in her impossibly tiny hand. She drank from her glass of wine instead. It didn’t taste as sweet.
Alex saw Samir leave for work again the next day. As before, he was alone in his car. When it happened a third day in a row, Alex grew distressed. She called Emily, Willow, and even Brooke, but no one had seen Mandy.
That evening, when Samir drove off alone once again, Alex decided to follow.
She raced to her car, pulled out of the driveway as if making a getaway, and waited until Samir was a safe distance down Alton Road before pursuing. His route was haphazard, as though he were taking her on a leisurely tour of Meadowbrook.
Ken’s words from the other day came back to her. Was she butting into other people’s affairs, as Ken had charged, or was she just a concerned neighbor, as she herself wanted to believe? In her work mediating divorces and at home with Nick and Lettie, she thought of herself as the problem solver, a peacekeeper, the go-to person for everyone in the neighborhood.
Her conscience was telling her there was an issue at hand, a potentially volatile one at that. She even feared Samir might be leading her to Mandy’s body and harbored a vision of being discovered later on in the same roadside ditch as his wife. Then she felt foolish for having those crazy thoughts.
A few moments later, she ended up following Samir into the parking lot of the Big Y supermarket.
Alex felt utterly ridiculous on her drive home. She saw no need to tell Nick of her excursion. He’d only laugh at her, and she was in no mood for ridicule. She was only trying to help, and her intuition kept telling her that something was amiss between the Kumars.
Alex was only half buying her own justification. Maybe she was being nosy. Either way, this failed attempt to intervene did not mean that trouble wasn’t afoot.
She wanted to confide in someone who’d share her concern. It was a relief to see Emily heading up Alex’s walkway as she got home.
Alex lowered her car window.
“Glad you’re here! I was coming over to vent,” said Emily.
“Good timing, then,” Alex said. “I’ll make some tea and tell you about my failed reconnaissance mission.”
“Were you out looking for Brooke’s stalker?” Emily asked.
“No, but maybe I should have been,” said Alex with an uneasy laugh. “Between the stalker and Willow’s big share, Alton Road has become a lot more interesting, that’s for sure.”
“Or dangerous,” suggested Emily.
The sisters had discussed the party game at length, but weeks later it still felt like fresh ground.
Emily followed Alex into her kitchen and settled herself on one of the cushy stools at the counter. Alex filled a yellow kettle with water for tea.
“This whole stalker situation is really distressing,” Emily said. “I’m home alone a lot these days. What if I become a target? With Ken’s travel schedule, it’s just Dylan and me, and he’s off with Riley half the time. In fact, Ken just announced he’s taking another business trip—which, by the way, is what I came to vent about.”
Alex joined Emily at the counter with two mugs of steeping tea.
“Is that a problem? Ken’s always traveling somewhere.”
“This time it feels different.” Emily’s voice was laden with worry.
Alex didn’t need more details. “You’re not thinking that—”
Emily’s widening eyes said yes, she was.
“Maybe he and Mandy aren’t together, but she could have stirred something in him. I can’t explain it exactly. He seemed … I dunno, too damn excited about a work trip to New York City. And there was nothing on the calendar, so this was a last-minute thing, or so he said.”
“Did he tell you what the meeting is about?”
Emily shook her head. “No, and I didn’t ask. It felt too—I don’t know … accusatory? It’s been years since—you know, but suddenly, for no reason, I have this feeling Ken isn’t being faithful anymore.”
“There is a reason,” said Alex. “You have that concern about Mandy.”
Alex had a different concern regarding Mandy, but now didn’t seem a good time to bring up their neighbor’s absence.
“There’s no proof that anything is going on. It was just a stupid look, right?” Emily sounded like she was reassuring herself.
“Right,” said Alex, feeling her stomach knot. She’d withheld information about Ken sneaking off into the woods behind Mandy’s house. Should she have said something?
The doorbell sounded. When Alex opened the front door, she saw Samir Kumar standing there.
Alex greeted him with a plastered-on smile. “What a nice surprise,” she said, her heart thumping. Remembering Samir’s hesitancy to shake hands, Alex kept hers at her side.
“Sorry to intrude,” Samir said, offering a barely there smile. “I was hoping to speak with you for just a moment.”
“Of course,” said Alex. “My sister, Emily, is in the kitchen. Why don’t you join us?”
Samir glanced at his fancy watch. “I won’t take long,” he said.
Wary, Alex led him to the kitchen where Emily, now standing, offered a lukewarm greeting. She noticed the shift in Emily’s demeanor as her tepid hello gave way to a more protective stance—arms folded, one leg crossed in front of the other, all indications that she, too, felt unsettled around their new neighbor.
Alex went to the kettle. “Would you like some tea?”
“No, no thank you,” Samir said. “I just came to offer my apologies.”
Alex’s eyebrows rose. “You’ve nothing to apologize for,” she said, resisting the urge to demand, What have you done with your wife?
“No, I do,” said Samir. “I feel terrible that we haven’t been more neighborly. I know Mandy feels sorry that she couldn’t come to your party the other night.”
“That was actually last month,” Emily said.
Samir looked slightly abashed. “My point exactly,” he said. “The move has been far more distracting than we were prepared for. We’ve both been out of sorts, and it’s not like us to be neighbors who keep only to ourselves.”
“So where is Mandy?” Emily asked.
Alex held a breath.
Samir leaned back on his heels, as though the question had pushed him off balance.
“Mandy’s not at home,” he said. “But she told me I needed to make this apology myself, as it was more my insistence than hers that she not attend your gathering. I was supposed to do this sooner, but time got away from me. So I’d like to make it up to all and invite you to have dinner at our house. Say two weeks from Friday?”
“Dinner? Yes, of course, I’d like that, but I have to run it by Nick to make sure we’re free,” said Alex. She was glad to know Mandy was alive—at least allegedly.
“And Emily, you and Ken are of course invited as well,” said Samir. “Without your help we wouldn’t be living in our lovely new home.” He sounded enthusiastic.
Alex probed Samir’s eyes, seeing his good intentions as nothing but a front. But what reason could he have to play the nice guy?
“Great,” said Emily. “I’ll check with Ken as well, and let you know. He’s away on business.”
“Ah, very good,” said Samir, who made a move toward the door. “Since it will be in November, I’ll open the invitation up to some of the other neighbors and we’ll call it an early Thanksgiving—and there’s much to be thankful for, including our new community.”
“It’ll be a Friendsgiving, then,” said Emily.
“Precisely,” replied Samir.
Alex didn’t miss a beat. Samir had deftly avoided answering Emily’s direct question about Mandy’s whereabouts. Alex felt compelled not to let it go. “So where is Mandy?” she asked, willing cheer into her voice. “Someplace fun, I hope.”
What little friendliness Samir had managed to cling to during this visit abandoned him entirely. He gave Alex an icy stare. “She’s gone to New York City to see family.”
Alex and Emily eyed each other, mouths slightly agape.
Sisters could speak without saying a word. New York was a big city, but was it a coincidence that Ken had gone there as well? Alex had her doubts. Maybe Samir did, too.
“I’ll let her know you asked for her,” he said. “Have a good evening.”
Samir realized he could depart through the kitchen door that Emily always used, making his exit quick and easy. He paused before leaving and turned to give Alex a pointed stare. “Interesting that you take the long way to get to the supermarket as well,” he said. “It’s nice to know that others appreciate Meadowbrook’s more … scenic beauty.”
He left with a nod and the slightest of smiles. It wasn’t friendly.