the closets to grow pot. Maybe it was naïve, but Joanna had thought life in the suburbs – suburbs like this – would be untouched by economic strife. More than that, Spirit houses seemed so expendable. Without people inside them, they were without identity, mere structures of concrete and siding and faux stone.
She sighed, rolled out of bed, and stumbled for the bathroom, forgetting for the millionth time that it wasn’t in the hall but to the left, part of the master suite. Though they’d lived in this house for two weeks, she still felt lost here. She felt a little aimless, too – she’d quit her job in the city two weeks ago, the position at the non-profit not lucrative enough to justify the commute into the city, and it was the first time in years she’d woken up without somewhere to go, without anything concrete to do. There were rooms to paint, she supposed. There were new fixtures to buy for the kitchen, patio furniture to scope out. And there were all the unpacked boxes to attend to, including the ones stacked in the living room that contained stuff from Joanna’s old apartment in Philly.
She walked downstairs and looked at the boxes. She hadn’t seen any of the old items in almost a year, as she’d put the stuff into storage when she first moved in with Charles. Only one box had been opened, its flaps gaping free. All its contents were still packed inside: a stack of old foreign films on VHS, a pair of seventies-style sunglasses she had bought at a thrift shop and worn incessantly one summer, an industrial-sized backpack she’d used on a trip to Europe, funded all on a ridiculously tiny amount of money. The items smelled a bit moldy and unclean, instantly conjuring up a long-suppressed memory of a house party she and her roommate had had about five years ago that had culminated in a bunch of strangers kissing. The time when she’d used all of it felt like three Joannas ago, and she couldn’t quite remember who that Joanna had been. She wondered, too, what the Joanna who’d used those items would think of the Joanna now. She had no idea where to put any of the things, or even if they belonged in this clean, bright house at all.
She turned away from the box toward the kitchen, examining a Crate & Barrel box by the fridge instead. Inside was the Cuisinart mixer she and Charles had been given as a wedding gift. She hefted it out of the Styrofoam packing material and put it on the counter. Perhaps she’d make cookies.
A sound in the backyard made her turn. The women from the neighboring houses were standing outside in their yards. Two little kids sat in an enormous sandbox that straddled the two lawns, feeding sand into a wheeled and levered contraption and sifting it out in a neat, pyramid-shaped pile.
Joanna sprang into action, running her hands through her hair and putting on a bra, a clean t-shirt, and a pair of jeans. She walked down the stairs, turned right instead of left for the kitchen, stopped, reversed directions, and padded around the island and the table and the pile of broken-down boxes near the laundry room. Sun dappled across the back deck. The one birdhouse they’d installed twisted on its chain. When the women heard Joanna’s sliding glass door opening, they turned their heads for just a moment, gazing at her disinterestedly, as though she were just yet another Canada goose slowly meandering across their lawn. Undeterred, Joanna walked over.
‘Hi,’ she said. Her heart beat quickly, although she wasn’t sure why. She’d made plenty of new friends before. She was usually good at it. ‘I’m Joanna Bates-McAllister. My husband and I just moved in. I’ve been meaning to say hello for a few days, but I’ve been so busy.’
The brunette woman nodded. ‘I thought I saw a van.’ She was the type of woman who wore color-matched velour sweat suits and shimmering athletic sneakers, ready to exercise at a moment’s notice. She lived on the left side of Joanna, and Joanna had watched yesterday as she’d hung a silk flag decorated with an Easter basket outside her front door, in honor of the upcoming holiday.
‘I’m Teresa Cox,’ the woman added, in afterthought. ‘And this is Mariel Batten.’
Joanna turned to Mariel, who had blunt-cut blonde hair, a slender, down-sloped nose, and very white teeth. There was a lipstick imprint on her white coffee cup. She appraised Joanna without much enthusiasm. ‘Is your husband related to Timothy McAllister?’ she asked blandly. ‘From Chadds Ford?’
‘Oh.’ Joanna tugged self-consciously on her earlobe. ‘No, my husband’s last name is Bates-McAllister. His father was from Boston. He didn’t have family from around here. His mother did, though. Sylvie Bates?’
Mariel shrugged noncommittally. There was no recognition of Sylvie’s name. No swift change of expression, no taking of Joanna’s arms and saying it was so nice to meet her. No begging that she’d have to come over for dinner some time, she and her husband. No huge grin and confession that when they’d heard Joanna and Charles were coming to this neighborhood they’d become so excited, for it’s truly an honor to have them.
Joanna rubbed her hands up her bare arms, struck dumb. ‘Anyway,’ she fumbled. ‘Cute kids.’
Teresa Cox smiled. ‘The girl is Forrest. She’s mine. Hollis is Mariel’s. Do you have any?’
Joanna shook her head. And then there was the dead air again. But my mother-in-law is on the board of directors at The Swithin School, Joanna wanted to say. The best school in the county. She’s a socialite. Didn’t that matter? Who cared about kids when there was that?
‘Anyway,’ Joanna said, not able to stand the pointed, exclusionary silence any longer. ‘It’s nice to meet both of you. I have things to do inside. So.’
‘Nice to meet you, too,’ the women said in unison. They tilted their bodies away. Joanna took faster steps than normal back to her house, suddenly painfully aware of how cold it was outside. Goose bumps rose on her arms. Her whole body shook with shivers. There was a peal of laughter behind her, a gasp. One of the children turned a crank of a sandbox toy.
She shut the screen door quietly and placed her palms flat on the cluttered kitchen table. The house was judgmentally quiet. She longed for noise of the city, traffic screeches and subway rumblings and buzzing chaos to drown out what had just happened. She snatched her cell phone from the island and pressed the speed dial for Charles’s office. When he answered, she let out a whimper.
‘What is it?’ he gasped.
‘I just tried to meet the neighbors,’ she blurted in a scratchy whisper. ‘The ones I told you about? With the shared sandbox? The ones that just stand there and talk all day?’
There was a three or four second pause. ‘Okay…’
‘They were so…cold. I felt like I was the new girl at school and I wasn’t wearing the right clothes.’
There were voices in the background, someone else’s phone extension ringing. ‘I’m sure they’re very nice, Joanna.’
‘Oh.’ She sat down on the couch, not anticipating this answer.
‘I don’t remember you being this way about people in the city.’
‘I wasn’t. It didn’t matter.’
‘Why does it matter now?’
She stared up at the ceiling. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered powerlessly. There was something about this wide-open space and these people peering out from their identical houses that made her want to conform and belong. Hideously, it reminded her of her mother sitting on that Adirondack chair at the country club, in the right place but so, so wrong. Joanna had assumed it would be so much easier for her.
‘Is that all?’ Charles asked.
She swallowed, now almost in tears. ‘Are you okay?’ she blurted.
‘Me? Yeah. Why?’
‘You’ve been…quiet.’
‘No I haven’t.’
She squeezed the red throw pillow on the couch. Give me something, she thought. Anything. ‘Are you guys worried about Scott? Is there anything I can do?’
He paused for a long time. Let me in, she willed, staring at her reflection in the