I ring the doorbell with my right hand while balancing the cake on my left. After a few moments, the door swings open and Sean is standing there wearing jeans and a T-shirt, except the T-shirt does very little to conceal the muscles in his chest. His eyes widen when he sees the cake.
“I brought you an upside-down cake,” I announce. “Fresh out of the oven.”
“Wow…” He steps back to let me inside. “That looks great. But… well, I don’t want to spoil dinner. So I better not.”
“One piece isn’t going to spoil your dinner!”
“Yeah…” He runs a hand through his thick brown hair. It makes me miss when Elliot used to have hair. “I better not.”
Wow, great. Now what am I supposed to do with this huge cake? “Maybe I’ll just leave it in the kitchen then. You can have some after dinner.”
“Okay.” Sean follows me to the kitchen, and while I gently lower my cake onto the counter, he hollers out to Bobby in the backyard that his mother is waiting. “He says he’s coming.”
“Okay, thanks.”
He rifles through some papers on the kitchen counter. “Hey, can I ask you something?”
My stomach flutters. “Yes?”
He picks up a piece of paper and shakes it in his hand. “So I mentioned to Julie when I saw her the other day on the street that we were thinking about getting a dog. And today I found this taped to our door. Is she for real with this?”
I take the piece of paper. It’s Julie’s standard dog rules. “No, it’s not a joke.”
“Who does she think she is?” He shakes the paper again and it crumbles in his big hands. “I’m not submitting an application to her. It’s my house and my property. If I want a dog, I’ll get a goddamn dog.”
“You should.” It will drive Julie absolutely crazy. “You should get a pit bull.”
He grins crookedly. He has a very cute smile. “You know, I think I will.”
I really, really hope he gets a pit bull.
“Anyway.” Sean looks down at the cake and then back at me. “So… are you going to grab Bobby or…？ Because Owen has to get started on his homework…”
And that’s when I realize he wants me out of here. He wants me to take my kid and get out. He doesn’t want to sit around eating slices of pineapple upside-down cake. He doesn’t want to chitchat about our kids. He wants me to go. Now.
“April?”
I startle at the sound of Maria’s voice. Where did she come from? Why didn’t I hear her key in the lock? Or her feet on the floor behind me? All of a sudden, she’s just there.
“Hi, Maria!” I say in my most chipper voice. I whirl around to look at her, and she doesn’t look happy. I’d say she looks downright pissed off. “You’re home… early.”
“Yes,” she says. “That I am.”
“Hey, hon.” Sean goes right over to her and tries to put his arm around her waist, but she pulls away from him. He looks uncomfortable and scratches at his beard. “How was work?”
“Fine.” Maria’s brown eyes are still focused on me. “And how was your day?”
Before Sean can answer, I pipe up, “Sean brought the boys to the park. And I was picking up Bobby, so I brought over some pineapple upside-down cake.”
“How nice,” Maria murmurs.
And then we all just stand there in horrible, uncomfortable silence.
Thankfully, the silence is broken by the boys finally storming back into the house. Both of their sneakers are caked in dirt, and my heart bleeds for Maria’s floor, but she doesn’t seem to care. She wants me out of here. They both do.
I don’t get it. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I just came in to pick up my son and drop off some cake. Is that a crime? Yes, I was alone with her husband, but so what? It’s not like we were kissing. He was barely even tolerating me.
“Bobby,” I say in that same high-pitched chipper voice. I can’t seem to make my voice normal again. I’ve lost the ability. “It’s time to go home!”
“No!” Bobby stomps his sneakers on the floor, which isn’t making the dirt situation better. “I want to stay. Can we stay for dinner, Mom? Please?”
Oh God, no. “I’m afraid not. Maybe another time.”
“Why not?”
Would it be too much to hope for that just one time Bobby would accept my telling him no without asking why not? “Because we’re busy tonight.”
“We are? Busy doing what?
“Busy having dinner as a family.”
“But we can do that any night. Why can’t we have dinner here tonight?”
Sean and Maria are both staring at me, waiting to hear what bullshit I’ll come up with. “We’ll do it another night.”
“Why not tonight?”
“Because it’s too last minute.”
“So?”
Sometimes I want to throttle that kid. “I told you, Bobby, we’ll do it another night!”
“When?”
Guh! Finally, miraculously, Maria takes pity on me. She bends down to talk to my son. “How about sometime next week, Bobby? We can order pizza.”
If I said that, I’m sure he would’ve pressed me harder for a day, but he’s better behaved around strangers than his own parents. He nods, and for the moment, that’s the end of it.
Maria walks us to the front door so she can lock it behind us. I keep looking over at her, trying to read her expression. When I first met Maria, she seemed so sweet and uncomplicated. Now I don’t know what to think anymore. I can’t stop thinking about what she did to that babysitter in her store. And now she seems to have a problem with me.
And there’s something about this house that makes me nervous too. Something I can’t entirely put my finger on.
“Maria.” I offer her my warmest smile when we get to the door—one I usually reserve for the camera. “Thank you so much for having Bobby over this afternoon.”
She doesn’t return the smile. “Well, Sean was the one watching them.”
“Yes, but…” I take a deep breath. “I just wanted to tell you how nice it is having you next door. It’s nice having a friend who lives so close.”
“Yes.” She still isn’t smiling. “It is nice.”
“Really.” I know I should probably shut up, but I can’t help babbling on. “This is exactly what I always wanted. I don’t think I told you this, but for years, we had a neighbor living here who was just so unpleasant…”
“Doris Kirkland,” she says.
I stop, my mouth hanging open. “Oh. I didn’t know you knew her.”
And then I think back to the other day, when Mrs. Kirkland’s niece came by. How she had been talking about the life alert necklace. She was scared about breaking a hip, you know? I couldn’t believe she didn’t have it on.
If this were a movie, I’d say for sure somebody pushed her.
“Well, we bought the house from her niece.” Maria shrugs. “Guess the name must’ve come up.”
Coming over here with my pineapple upside-down cake was a mistake. I sort of want to go back to the kitchen and retrieve it, but I don’t dare.