I’m addicted to torturing April.
I keep sending her messages on that burner phone, and I also start posting comments on her YouTube videos. I even toss a rock through her window one night, although I immediately regret it. Anyway, I can tell it’s getting to her. She doesn’t look as put together as she usually does. It’s petty. Sending her these text messages won’t bring back Courtney Burns. It won’t get any sort of justice.
But for instance, after her monster of a son almost breaks Leo’s nose and we are traveling to the hospital in an ambulance, I can’t help but text her the picture I have of her and Mark. I’m only sorry I can’t see her face.
Meanwhile, I’ve gotten to know our new neighbors a little better. Sean and Maria Cooper. And they have a lovely son named Owen. Owen is actually lovely, not fake lovely like Bobby.
But Maria is the one I get very close to. She’s everything I thought April was when I first moved in. She has this great infectious smile with deep dimples. She can’t bake like April does, but she’s a nice person. I feel like Maria and I are becoming friends in the same way April and I used to be. Before I knew what April was really like.
One Sunday in October, Maria and I are sitting together in her kitchen, having some wine I brought over while the boys play upstairs. I love how close Leo and Owen have gotten. And when they’re playing together, I don’t have to worry that Owen is going to give my son a black eye or steal his favorite toy. Even Tristan has gotten in on the fun, even though he’s two years older.
“This is so nice,” Maria comments as she swirls the wine around in her glass. “You… you’re not the way I thought you were when I first met you.” I know the impression I give when I first meet people. I don’t have
April’s warm smile. “Really? How did you think I was?”
“I don’t know. That email you sent about not allowing phones at the PTA meetings was pretty intense.”
That might be true. I wouldn’t have to do it if not for all those meetings where three-quarters of the women in the room were too busy
talking or texting to listen to anything I had to say. It’s so incredibly rude. “Also…” She giggles. “Who picks James Joyce for a book club?”
I laugh along with her. “Hey, I love Joyce. It gives me an excuse to read it. I’m always hoping maybe we’ll have a discussion about it. But April always makes sure to turn the conversation around.”
Maria traces a line along the rim of her wine glass with her finger. “You don’t like April, do you?”
At that moment, I want to tell her everything. I want to tell her how evil April is. I want to confess about my secret burner phone, and how I’ve been using it to torment her. But can I trust Maria? After all, I thought I could trust April and look at what happened. So I simply shrug. “She’s okay.”
“You know, she thinks you’re her best friend.” “She doesn’t really think that.”
Sean has been doing some work out in the backyard and he comes into the living room with his fingers still slightly embedded with dirt. “Hey,” he says. “I’m going to get the grill going in the backyard. Julie, you staying for dinner?”
“Um…” I glance at the stairs. Leo and Tristan will want to stay for
sure.
He holds up his hands and grins at me. “Don’t worry, I swear I’ll wash
my hands before I get started.”
Sean and I got off to a bit of a rocky start. He was pissed off about some notes I left on their door about how they were parking their car incorrectly. But I explained to him that the parking rules were there for a reason. Two years ago, a fire truck couldn’t get through our narrow street because of the way people were parked. I’m not going to be responsible for somebody dying. So I organized the rules about how to park the cars, and we haven’t had any issues since.
Sean understood after I explained it to him. Now we’re good friends. Although he’s not going to be happy when I send him the rules about dogs. After one of our neighbors kept half the block awake with his dog barking all night for months on end, I’ve done what I can to keep that situation from happening again.
I return his smile. “Okay, sure.” “And Keith?” Maria asks.
I wince. “No, just me. Keith won’t be joining us.”
I don’t have to ask my husband to know he’ll be staying late at work. And even if he weren’t, he wouldn’t want to have dinner with the Coopers. They aren’t his kind of people.
“Now, Julie,” Sean says, “before I get started, you gotta tell me if there are any specific block related grill rules that I need to know. Like do I have to get you to individually approve every piece of meat I use…?”
He’s still grinning at me though. Teasing me. Sean is a good guy. You can see it all over his face and in everything he does. And he loves his family.
As promised, Sean washes his hands and then goes out to the backyard to get started on the food. Soon enough, the tantalizing smell of ground meat wafts into the house. Keith was never interested in grilling.
“Do you guys grill a lot?” I ask Maria.
“Constantly.” Maria rolls her eyes. “I think there might be pure ground beef flowing through my veins right now. But Sean loves it. And so does Owen. If your boys weren’t here, they’d be grilling together.”
“He’s so great with Owen,” I say. “I’m surprised you don’t have six or seven children.”
“Yeah.” Maria takes a sip of wine. “The truth is, I can’t have children. I had these horrible fibroids and one of them ruptured. They had to do a hysterectomy to save my life.”
I cover my mouth. “Oh my God, I’m sorry. That was after Owen was born?”
She shakes her head. “Owen is … He’s Sean’s son from another marriage. His first wife… She died of breast cancer when Owen was a baby.”
I don’t know what to say. “That’s terrible. So much tragedy.”
“It was a long time ago.” She smiles distantly. “Actually, it’s how Sean and I met. He had all these hospital bills to pay, even though his wife died, and he had to drive an Uber to make extra money. He was the one who drove me to the hospital when I started having pain from my fibroids, and he kept so calm when I started bleeding halfway through the ride. He made sure I got to the right place and waited with me until the doctor came. He was a complete stranger, but he was so kind.” She takes another sip of wine.
“And then a couple of weeks later, he called me to check on me. We got to talking and… well, you know.”
Maria’s story makes me think of when I went into labor with Tristan. Keith started freaking out about the possibility of my water breaking in his precious BMW. He put down a tarp on the backseat before he would let me get in.
There’s no doubt that Sean Cooper is a good guy. But even good guys sometimes do bad things.
The only reason I ever go over to April’s house anymore is to talk about PTA stuff. Years ago, I used to be there all the time. We used to have coffee together almost every morning. Now I do whatever I can to avoid her.
Today I need to talk about a few details about the upcoming fall festival. Admittedly, she has been invaluable in getting things set up. Everything I have asked her to do, she has done without question.
But when I come in through her back door, I find her in the living room, but she’s not alone. And she’s not with Mark either. I haven’t seen Mark skulking around here in months—maybe she ditched him after that mess with Mrs. Kirkland. Maybe she thought it was too risky. Or maybe she just got sick of him and figured she had taught Kathy Tanner her lesson.
No, the person in April’s living room is Sean Cooper.
I’m not going to lie. Sean is a very attractive man. Attractive in that sort of hot blue-collar laborer way, with the beard and the muscles—the kind of guy who doesn’t even know or care that half the women on the block are slobbering over him. Not that I personally find him attractive. I never liked that type particularly. Also, I might be dead inside after so many years of plotting to get out of my wifely duties with Keith.
April finds him attractive though. It’s painfully obvious. Now that she’s done with Mark, she’s set her sights on Sean. She’s always giving him that coy smile and forcing her various fattening treats onto him. It’s sickening, considering the man is her neighbor’s husband and she’s married herself.
Anyway, I don’t catch Sean and April in a liplock. Thank God. He’s standing on a stool in her living room, changing a lightbulb while she
watches him. But then he sees me walk in, and he gets this sheepish, guilty look on his face. He knows this doesn’t look good for him.
And April, of course, winks at me. Every time that woman winks at me, I want to strangle her.
“Sean is helping me with the lightbulb,” she explains to me. “He’s so much taller than me. It’s much easier for him… I don’t want to break my neck.”
“Of course,” I mutter. Even though I am only an inch taller than April, and I’ve changed every single lightbulb in our house dozens of times.
Sean finishes screwing in the bulb, and the living room lights up. April reaches out to touch his shoulder. “Thank you so much. You’re my hero.”
Sean glances at me and rubs the back of his neck. “It’s just a light bulb.”
“Let me get you those brownies I promised you before you go.”
April hurries off to the kitchen, leaving me and Sean alone in the living room. He shoots me a look. “I was just changing her lightbulb.”
“Sure,” I say.
He grits his teeth. “Don’t look at me that way, Julie. You know I love Maria. I would never—”
“Right,” I say. “Except I’m not the person you need to convince.”
He heaves a sigh. Part of me is hoping he’ll refuse April’s brownies, but he takes them from her before he leaves. I’m disappointed in him. One day it’s brownies, the next they’ll be in April’s bedroom. It’s a slippery slope. He just doesn’t know it yet.
