“Do you know anyone important?” Arlo asked.
Gertie let out a hollow laugh. “Rhea’s about it.”
* * *
Arlo and Gertie were gone by the time Maple Street woke to a new day, Shelly Schroeder’s memorial service behind them. The mercury in their thermometers climbed past any temperature they’d ever before seen. Their air conditioners were no use. By ten that morning, the senior Benchleys had to catch a bus several blocks away to the local cooling center. That candy apple scent from the sinkhole cooked like chemicals in an oven. It permeated the air and the dirt and their clothing.
It appeared that the Wildes weren’t home. But they remembered that Gertie had made an offer weeks ago. The Slip ’N Slide was for everyone’s benefit. Carte blanche.
The people of Maple Street had no qualm with Gertie or her children, they reasoned. Their problem was only with Arlo. The day was swelteringly hot. With the pool closed, they longingly gazed at the yellow Slip ’N Slide. Some of the kids begged.
It was Cat Hestia who gave in, connecting the Walshes’ hose to the Wildes’ Slip ’N Slide, and unrolling it. Except for the Schroeder kids, who were in no mood for play, the Rat Pack got on their bathing suits. They slid across the Walshes’ lawn. They were somber at first, but pretty soon, they were howling with joy. They were joined by older siblings and even some adults. Like a rebirth in tar sands and dirt, even the adults went sliding.
In the light of day, amid yellow plastic and happy, communal laughter, the accusation against Arlo seemed outrageous. They decided that they were glad to be using the Slip ’N Slide. It was a way of including the Wildes, even in their absence. It was a way of moving the line just slightly away from Rhea’s side of things, and all the ugliness that it had always been her nature to spread.
When the Wildes returned from wherever they were at, the neighbors would speak to them. They would ask them directly about the accusations Shelly had reportedly lodged. They would allow Arlo the chance to defend himself.
When a brown Chevy sedan pulled in to the crescent, they took note. A man in a clean, unwilted three-piece suit approached, knocking door to door. Those parents not already there returned to their houses to answer. Yes, they said, we saw Arlo Wilde in just boxers, chasing Shelly that morning. Yes, his own kids were running away from him, too… Yes, they said, our children heard Shelly tell them in no uncertain terms: Arlo raped her, possibly that very morning.
At this, a detective named Bianchi asked to speak with their children, and so, one by one, they called them away from the Walsh lawn. Only, their children were filthy with tar. It covered their hands and cheeks and hair. They appeared anonymous and indistinguishable.
Standing in thresholds, dripping Slip ’N Slide water and sand oil, these children corroborated: Lainee Hestia, Sam Singh, the Ottomanelli twins, and to his chagrin, Charlie Walsh: Yes, Charlie said. She said that stuff. But she lied a lot. Dave Harrison glared, not at the detective, but at his mother, without answering, until Jane Harrison announced that maybe Bianchi ought to come back, as clearly her son had a fever.
After each interview, feeling strange and hypocritical （If it was true that Arlo had done wrong, why were they letting their children play on his Slip ’N Slide? And if it wasn’t true, why were they corroborating a false narrative?）， they cleaned off and kept their children home. At last, the Slip ’N Slide was empty, water streaming along yellow plastic. Looking out their windows, they saw what they’d neglected: propelled by the force of its water, and lacking a handler, the yellow plastic had careened across the Walsh lawn and gotten stuck against the common privets that divided the Wildes from the Schroeders.
Cat Hestia, who’d plugged the hose in to begin with, had left for her silent meditation class by then. The Walsh family was gone, too, having scheduled a lobster dinner at Waterzooi. The water kept spraying, none wanting now to turn it off. All thinking it was someone else’s job. They didn’t dare go near that tainted Wilde house right in front of Detective Bianchi, who would see them. They didn’t want to get caught pulling the yellow plastic from the shrubbery just as the Wildes returned from wherever they’d been, either. The family might get the wrong idea. Arlo might shout. Or worse.
As Detective Bianchi was leaving, Peter Benchley rolled out his door and stopped the man. They spoke for nearly half an hour. Maple Street was surprised—hadn’t known Peter was capable of that level of interaction. This haunted them. What if, all this time that he’d been watching, he’d been seeing, too?