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The Empty Chest

by Adam Bruns

My breath was hot and my chest was tight, I could feel the effort behind every breath behind my lungs and in my heart. The sweat dripped from my head in a constant stream and stopped for no one, and neither would I. Reese said I should take a break, I didn’t have to push myself to keep up with him. He knew my condition but never complained when I dragged myself to the gym with him every day. The weights felt heavier by the second, but I told myself I am not weak as I struggle under the same weight that Reese lifts as if it’s hollow. I strain my body to push past the limits my brain gave me. Then that familiar feeling struck me again, that weightlessness behind my eyes as they roll back as my body goes limp from head to toe.

It’s hard to tell when they’re coming on, maybe a little tingling but by then it is already too late and my head snaps back and the world goes dark. Then I wake up and someone tells me what happened, as if I don’t know already the distinct soreness across my whole body like I just got hit by a semi-truck. I know exactly what happened another one of my “episodes”, the medicine helps sometimes and some days are better than others but nothing can be done when they come along. It’s impossible to fight your own dysfunctional brain, if it says its blackout time then your body just goes along for the ride.

The sunlight creeps in through my windows as I crack open my eyes and the memories from the night before coming in as a flood of embarrassment and agony, I glanced down and yet again that slivery band wrapped my wrist. No one ever tells you what their thinking, behind that thin veneer of false encouragement and pretentious support. Here I lay building up the courage to set my foot to the tile and hope for a better day. Across the room Reese’s head rolled back in the awfully uncomfortable way he usually falls asleep, he looked like he fell asleep mid-sentence and started snoring right away.

The floor felt like ice under my feet and I stepped across my room and threw on some clothes and flung the curtains open to let the sunshine in. Reese jumped awake and looked around, he resembled a house cat if you woke it from a nap he was just missing the hissing.
“I’m glad you decided to wake up some time today.” I said.

“Sorry I don’t get to take random naps like certain people.” He said back. Reese ran his fingers through his mussed hair and rubbed his groggy eyes.

“Why are you even here, you know I can handle myself. I don’t need you as a guardian angel.”

To which he just looked at me with that condescending look. “Who said anything about protecting you, I just didn’t feel like going home.”

Even though Reese is my best friend his incessant nagging and his stubborn will get pretty annoying, but he’s my best friend for the same reason and I would trust him with anything. While the doctors tell me what I should and shouldn’t do in life because of my “tender condition”, Reese lets me live the way I want and he doesn’t treat me with any pity either. When everyone else dances around me and acts like they’re walking on eggshells, Reese never falters and treats me just as damaged as I am and doesn’t pull his punches. That’s why he’s like a brother to me and I don’t need any blood to prove that.

I wandered into the hallways and stumbled over to the nurse’s station and Reese strode out the door and stretched his arms over himself in his way that made people think he owned the place. I hated the way he did that, his whole attitude made him seem like that confident guy who pities the frail sick best friend. It was a great façade, but in reality I was his only real friend too I was the frail one because I was sick. Then he meandered over to me and stood behind me towering over me and the tiny nurses as I asked for my discharge papers.

Reese and I stepped out into the frigid afternoon and walked his car. “Good lord Man, did your car actually get even older recently?” I said as we neared an Oldsmobile that was more “old” than “mobile”. The Green paint was chipping off and parts rusted away and the interior smelled like an ashtray, but the car was Reese’s pride and joy which meant I was the only person on earth who could mess with him about it. “I really don’t get it man, how does this thing even run still? Do you put miracles in the gas tank instead of fuel?” I said.

“Hey, you wanna walk home instead?” He jabbed right back.

“Oh no please don’t threaten me with THAT one again. Eventually were going to have to put our feet through the floor and Flintstone it back.” I smiled as he struggled to come back with something.

He gave in easy though. “Just shut up and get in the car Chris.” He said.

The road back was as bumpy as always, since our trips are pretty regular to the hospital, my doctor is on speed dial in Reese’s phone as well as mine. Life is good with Reese around, the things I can’t handle myself still get done and all the things I enjoy involve him too. The trips home were pretty fun too, the beat up CD player in his car who he insisted I call Bartholomew, or Bart for short, blared our favorite tracks. Usually on repeat.

The sounds of gravel crunching under the tires filled my ears as we pulled into my driveway. My mother waited outside the door and stepped down into our manicured lawn and walked to us as we got out of the car. “Thank you so much for bringing him home again Reese.” My mother said.

“It’s no problem Mrs. Ridder, you know he’s useless without me.” Reese said.

“Not cool man.” I said to him. “And to think, I was just about to invite you in to play some Zombie Warfare 3.”

“Rain check dude, I’ll catch you another time.” Reese ducked back into Backed out of the drive.

Later that day I pulled out my phone and shot Reese a text, maybe he’d want to come around later and play some and then I waited for a while. Only to receive complete radio silence from Reese. As unusual as it was, I decided to shrug it off since he was probably working on some more entrance essays to his university choices. Out of the blue he suddenly decided it was time to start applying, even though he hates all sorts of school and basically any type of structured learning. I guess everyone has to grow up eventually even Reese.

The rest of my day consisted of the usual suspects, some Netflix and an unhealthy amount of Xbox, and a very late evening of this repeated cycle. The doctors say that certain games should give me strong attacks, and that I should avoid those ones with rapid scenes and flashing lights. I just can’t resist though, I crave the action of a nice first-person-shooter, because this sprawling suburban reality is too boring to handle. Escaping into the fast paced, flashing-light filled world of Virtual reality is one of few solaces.

The next few days went by as a blur, the same cyclical pattern with one exception. There was no Reese. He hadn’t said anything to me since he left after the hospital trip, and that wasn’t normal. Deep in my gut I felt like something was off, and I didn’t like now knowing where my best friend was. We had each other’s backs, no matter what.

“Hey ma! I’m going to head over to Reese’s for a while. I’ll be back later.” I shouted down the hall.

“No problem hun, call me if you need anything!” She shouted right back.

I grabbed my hat and sunglasses off my dresser, and got ready to go out into the bright afternoon. I threw on my jacket and stepped out of my room. I walked through my house and made my way into the garage to grab my bike.

The frigid wind passed through my hair as I rode down the street, only a block between my house and Reese’s. No problem really, a few minutes walking and even shorter on wheels. Reese and I became friends because we always took the same bus to school, from elementary through high school. At least until Reese got his hands on Bart, then we started rolling around in the lap of luxury and we made a habit out of watching our classmates all walk off of their buses from the student parking spaces near the building. Even so, we hardly drive between houses, since it’s almost around the corner and it doesn’t exactly save anyone any time.

I drew near Reese’s house and skidded to a stop on the sidewalk. I walked my bike up the drive and walked between Bart and Reese’s father’s car. I parked my bike near the garage door. The kickstand creaked out and I leaned the bike over. I left it there and strode over to the front door. I reached the front steps and reached my hand out to knock on the door, right before I did Reese’s Father opened it from the other side. He had a large bag of clinking bottles that looked ready for the recycle bin.

“Hey Mr. Hayward. Is Reese around?” I asked.

He frowned down at me and shook his head, “I haven’t seen him all day.”

***

I turned to point at Bart who rested in the drive. “But Reese never leaves without B-.”. Before all of the words left my mouth however I noticed the slashes in the tires.

“Actually, never-mind. I’ll just call him later. Thanks anyways.” I said to him.

“Oh it’s no trouble Chris.” He showed a slight smile, but there was something hidden behind that expression.

It was then that I noticed the deep circles under his eyes. As if sleep had been evading him for days. I considered the option that Mr. Hayward had gone off his medication again. He had a nasty track record and got pretty scary if he didn’t take it. I slowly backed off the steps. I quickened my pace when I reached my bike. I walked it out of the driveway and threw my leg over. My eyes lingered on Bart’s tires.

Reese would never let that happen. Something is wrong. I thought to myself.

I raced back down the road again. My blood pumped hard, every sense on high alert. Reese was in trouble, an emptiness filled my chest as the worst case scenarios rolled through my mind. The wind whipped through my hair. I remembered the last time that Mr. Hayward stopped his treatments. Reese was shaky for weeks when he talked about his dad after that. Maybe this time was even worse.

I pulled up to my house again and dropped my bike in the garage, not bothering to put it neatly. I rushed inside to look for my parents. Neither of which were home. I considered calling the police, but what would I tell them? My best friend is missing and I am pretty sure his father is the kidnapper? No of course I couldn’t tell them that. What would I have as proof, my own good word? Instead I clambered up the stairs to my room in order to figure out what was happening. I threw the door open and walked in. I began to pace back and forth, hoping for a solution to come to mind. Nothing came to me though, I replayed the whole scene in my head and hoped to think of something. My mind had gone blank and I couldn’t think of a single way to save Reese.
In a panicked effort I tried his cell again. “Hey you’ve reached Reese Hayward, you know what to do.” His voicemail said back.

I quickly hung up and thought about how truly terrible an idea that really was. The possibility that a call might put Reese in even more danger scared the hell out of me and I tried to think of a way to contact him. I can’t IM him, and calling and texting are both out. Smoke signals will get me in jail for arson so that’s out. What can I do? I thought through the ideas. I had to hurry though, time could be running out.

I paced so much I could have sworn I burned a hole in the carpet, the sun had even started to dip below the horizon. Then the biggest wave of ideas flooded my mind. I considered everything from clandestine 007 to Rambo style rescue operations. I couldn’t decide on a plan, but the dark was necessary. I would have to be fast and quiet too. I changed into some black sweatpants and sat on my bed and took off my shoes and traded them out for my running sneakers. Nice and brand new, freshly bought for my gym routines with Reese. I laced them up and walked over to my closet and grabbed the black hoodie hanging inside.

I sat down again and thought over my operation from start to finish as the sun dropped and the sky went pitch black. I gathered up my courage and thought about what I was about to do. The clock hit midnight and the thought began to cross my mind that if Reese really was in trouble then I could possibly be getting myself into the same problem. Before I left I grabbed my pocket knife and stuck it in my pocket, just in case.

I tromped back down the stairs into my living room. Both of my parents were asleep on the couch, feet up on the coffee table with the TV still running. Now that the sun was long gone I needed to go find Reese. I stepped out the front door, I decided that walking was better that biking. I would attract less attention if I snuck through the hedges of our neighbors than if I rode nonchalantly down the road. I stepped off my front porch and dipped around the side of the house. The bushes are tight next to our garage so I had to squeeze through. I hopped the fence in the back yard.

I broke into a sprint across the next yard. Their motion light flicked on and it looked like the North Star was right in front of me. I was blinded and I tripped over the little kid tractor sitting among the mess of children’s toys that littered the yard. I fell flat to my face and sprawled out scorpion style so that my feet practically touched the back of my head. In a daze I shook myself off and picked up and ran again. Before I would have to explain that horribly embarrassing scene to anyone who would come to check on that god awful noise.

I stepped into the shadows again and tried to survey the damage. There was one broken tractor to be replaced and possibly a few broken bones, but neither of those were my concerns right now. I am supposed to be quiet dammit! Now it was time to start being careful. Reese needed sneaky Christian, not the uncoordinated housecat that knocks over any standing option. I took a deep breath and calmed myself down. Focus was key, otherwise I would end up getting caught.

The wind picked up as I left my hiding spot and walked out across the road to Reese’s house across the street. I kept low to the ground as best I could and walked fast. The trek across probably took less than a few moments, but it felt like every second of an eternity. I made my way across the lawn and watched out for any stray lawn ornaments that might get the better of me. Once I hit the driveway I stopped by Bart in order to confirm my suspicions.

Oh yeah, those tires look pretty bad. He isn’t going to let Reese go easy.

I pressed my hand to the cool metal, trying to gather up the last bit of courage I needed to take the last few steps. Then it dawned on me that I hadn’t thought of how I was going to get in. Reese’s room was on the second floor just like mine. The quickest way in would be to go around the back and in the sliding glass doors. Those were locked from the inside though, and they kept a piece of wood in the door track in case the lock itself doesn’t keep someone out.

I got to the back of the house and hugged tight to the wall, so I wouldn’t trip this motion sensor too. Right then is when I remembered the window in their family room. That one wouldn’t be hard to get into, and they didn’t lock that one all the time. There was my entry point. The cold air bit through my hoodie and I did my best to ignore the sensation of my fingers going numb. I inched back to where I came from. The family room was the opposite side of the house, but passing the motion sensor was too risky at this point. I got back to the driveway and got down on my stomach to crawl past their front hedge. Anyone looking out from inside wouldn’t see me there. The grass had begun to gather dew, and it soaked the front of my body.

I reached the other side and rose to a low crouch. The window was higher than I had hoped it would be from here. Just low enough for me to peer over the edge from the tips of my toes. I got as high as I could to look in and try to spot anyone inside. As far as I could tell it was all quiet, so I pried off the outer screen and left it leaning on the side of the house. Then I slid the window open. Thank goodness. I wrapped my fingers around the window sill and attempted to lift my body up through the opening. After a few tries I actually managed to do it.

Yeah, note to self. The gym is NOT working very well. I’d tell Reese if I ever found him.

Once my torso was through the window the rest of me came tumbling after in a not so graceful way. Not too quiet either. I lay there on my back and listened as hard as I could to hear anyone move. Nothing. The rest of the house was dead quiet. So I rose to my feet and looked around, trying to get my bearings in the dark house. I knew where Reese’s room was so I began to walk as softly as I could to the base of the stairs across the room. That was when the tingly started at the base of my skull. Oh god not now. Please. As I fell to the floor my arms flailed out and took the nearby lamp down with me. My mind went dark.

“Chris, Chris! Wake up!” I was being shaken by my chest. I opened my eyes and my brain was still foggy. Trying to take in the situation around me. After a second or two of trying to make heads or tails of what happened I remembered it all. I scrambled back, trying to put some distance between Reese’s father and I. My back hit a wall and I pulled out my pocket knife and started waving it at him.

“Stay back! I WILL stab you!” I threatened him.

“Boy, what in the hell are you on? Quit you’re shouting. You’re going to wake up my wife with all that racket. Now why are you breaking into my house?”

“Where is Reese?” I said, only a little quieter.

“He’s up in his room. I’ll let you go see him if you put that knife away.” He said.

I reluctantly folded the blade and put it in my pocket. He spread his hand to the staircase and I walked over, but didn’t take my eyes off of him for even a second.

“Easy there Chris, be careful when you go in there.” He said in a soft tone.

“What are you talking about?” I asked

“Well, it’s better if you just find out I guess. Just know that I am sorry.” He said again. Sincerely.

I walked down the hall, Reese’s light was on still. I pushed open the door. On the bed, Reese was sprawled across his sheets. I took a deep breath and relaxed, Reese was safe.

“Hey Reese” I said quietly.

His head lifted lazily off of his pillow and he looked like he was trying to put together a puzzle in his head. He started to say something, then stopped himself. Instead he began with, “What are you doing here? You know what time it is right?”

“Yeah man, I know the time. I thought you were in trouble so I came to find out.” I shrugged and looked down at my feet. “I’m glad you’re ok.”

“What would have been wrong?” He asked.

“I thought your dad was like, holding you hostage or something, and that was why you weren’t returning my calls. That and Bart’s tires are all messed up.” I said.

“Everything is fine.” He said back.

“Then why did you disappear on me? Everything was fine and then just nothing. You completely dropped off of the radar. What’s your deal?” I asked him. I tried to get him to look me in the eye from across the room.

“You wouldn’t understand anyways.” He said.

“After everything we’ve been through you really think I wouldn’t understand?” I replied.

“You could try, but you could never handle your own condition. Let alone mine-.” He stopped himself, but it was already too late.

“What are you talking about? You never told me you were sick!” I shouted.

“You wouldn’t have been able to take it.” He replied even quieter. “It was too serious when they found it anyways. I thought it would be better if you didn’t know.”

“What is it? Is it cancer? Where? You know you can tell me anything and I’d always be there. Why do you think you couldn’t tell me?” I said. “You may be sick too, but its time you start giving me some answers.”

“It isn’t cancer. It’s my heart. It’s not going to keep beating forever.” He said.

“No of course it won’t. No one’s heart is going to keep going forever.” I laughed and shook my head.

“I mean I don’t have much longer. I need a new one but it’s a long list, and I’m at the bottom of it. I didn’t want you to know so I never told you.” He said.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The fact that Reese had never told me he had a messed up heart was beyond me. “You should have told me. Maybe I could have done something for you.”

“You mean before I die?” His eyes looked darker than ever. As if all the light had gone out of them and took the hope with it.

“You won’t die Reese. You can’t.” I said. My palms were sweaty, and I couldn’t control my breathing. It came in short, rapid rasps.

“There wasn’t anything you could do. I didn’t want you to know. So I hid it from you. The doctors said I didn’t have much longer so I just wanted to go out quietly. I didn’t want to have this talk before I went.” He said.

“But you do still have time. We can do something still right?” I pleaded.

“No Chris. Just go home, get some sleep. We can hang out tomorrow. Just don’t talk about this. It’s not something I want to keep thinking about.” He leaned back on his bed and rested on the pillows.

I couldn’t speak. The words wouldn’t come out. My chest felt like a pit, growing wider and deeper with every passing moment. I stepped backward to the door and turned to show myself out silently. My feet were heavy and my head filled with fog, clouding my thoughts and ideas. I passed by Mr. and Mrs. Hayward in the hall. I had accidentally woken her it seemed, I shouldn’t have been shouting.

“I’m sorry to have woken you.” I said softly. My voice barely above a whisper.

“Just get home safe ok Chris?” Mrs. Hayward said.

Together they looked like they were already prepared for the funeral procession. I couldn’t handle that. I had been too greedy with Reese’s time. I would do it over if I could go back with what I know now. The emptiness in my chest grew even further. I was still being selfish about Reese. Even through this I was wanting to re-spend my time with him. I couldn’t even imagine how they felt. My throat was dry, like I had tried to eat saw dust. I didn’t know how to feel. Should I mourn, or should I be happy for the time I had.

“Hey jerk, you didn’t even say goodnight.”

I whirled around and saw Reese standing at the top of the staircase. He was smiling down at me. My eyes felt hot and my throat got tight.

I managed to choke on the words, “Yeah man, night. I’ll uh, catch you tomorrow I guess.”

He laughed at me, and said, “Come on man, you can do better than that. It’s not the end of the world. I said there is a list didn’t I? I AM on it, so there is hope.”

I tried my best to smile. “Yeah of course there is. It’s time for you to be the frail friend. Let me be the strong one for a change.”

“You wish you could. Keep it up champ. I’m going to need a strong friend.” He said.

“Sure thing man, I can do that. I’ll see you later.” I said. “Oh and sorry for breaking in.”

THE END

Joan Carlyle’s New Neighbor

by Norbert Kovacs

For Joan Waters, the best part of teaching her third grade class was helping the more challenged children succeed. She believed it right that none of them be left behind, for often she had found a young person needed only a little extra care to become as able and skilled as his peers. In that mind, she sat with the slower children in her class and took turns totaling sums and reading stories with them until they came to the magic moment when the students found they could do it alone. She encouraged her shy students by affirming them before their classmates. “Right answer, again. Way to go Amy!” she said and “I like how you moved those chairs, Mike.” Her praise helped give more than one child gain the confidence to make his own friends. And she coached the students who always messed up at kickball and other recess games how they should watch the ball, catch and throw it. The children listened and she smiled when she saw they got better playing and that their classmates had come to respect them.

Outside class, Joan found it easy to transition from her role as nurturer of children to social and energetic friend to her fellow teachers. She enjoyed good talks with her fellow teachers Jane Hudson and Mary Sutton about their private lives. Mary spoke eagerly of trips to Kent to see the falls with her husband; Jane told about gatherings with neighbors in her cul-de-sac colonial; Joan herself went into the exercise group that motivated her to stay thin and shapely. Among the older teachers, the ones over thirty, Joan had lesser but still decent friends; she chatted with them over their students, both the troubled and the stand outs. She prided herself on telling them of Rita Alvarez and Ben Markovic, stand-out students of hers who once counted as troubled. She found her teacher friends a comfort and a joy the better they knew each other and she hoped their ties would grow while she worked with them in Easton Public Schools.

In her second year teaching, Joan went to a dinner party of one of her teacher friends and met Joe Carlyle, a handsome, confident thirty-two year old with dark hair and expressive brown eyes. An up-and-coming man at a corporation, he excited Joan with his humor and ambition. As she listened to him talk of lunches with corporate climbers and meetings with managers quoted in business journals, she thought he had some key to a secure and happy life. She continued to see Joe after the party and their relationship deepened; she became happily used to thinking of his attitude of strength, his success and his promise. His attentions to her increased with their each new visit to a fine restaurant and ride in his impressive car. When Joe proposed a year into their tie, Joan accepted, believing she had secured the greatest achievement of her life. They married and moved into a wonderful house in a neighborhood of Easton where many nicely positioned people lived. Joan was enthusiastic over her new home, its huge, handsome bedroom, the living room that she pictured full of friends come to visit. However, she admitted the house was not perfect. The kitchen proved small for anyone who liked to indulge as a cook as Joan did. The expensive chandelier in the dining room, which seemed impossible to adjust, hung low from the ceiling, threatening collision with anyone near it. Joan knew these problems needed attention but took it as an opportunity for improvement rather than complaint.

In her first week in the new house, Joan received visits from a number of the well-to-do people of the neighborhood. She shared afternoon coffee with Emily Patton, a smart homemaker with a lawyer husband who lived two houses down. She hosted Pam Giraldi, a sociable administrative manager married to an engineer who lived kitty corner from her across the street. Joan found them the interesting set she had hoped to meet in the neighborhood. Among the people she did not encounter, however, was her neighbor in the house to the right of hers. This unknown person’s home with its blue siding, green shutters and slender build was very like a detached row house; it appeared much older than the colonial half-mansions of the neighborhood. The strange abode sat on a small, narrow plot of very green land, well kept by a hired service that came to mow the grass and clip the bushes the third day after she had moved into her own home. On the side of her neighbor’s home was a short driveway where Joan had seen no car since her arrival; neither had anyone emerged from or been dropped at the house as far as she knew. However, it was certain someone lived there for she had seen lights on in the windows at night.

Joan's first glimpse of her elusive neighbor came her second week in her new home while she was dusting a handsome rubber plant in the downstairs. To get at some of the leaves high in the back, she had to maneuver by a curtain-less window that faced toward the light blue house next door. As she did, she noticed the venetian blinds almost directly across the way were parted by the fingers of a thick, pale hand, and that a man with dark, brown eyes and wavy hair had pressed his face to the gap peeking at her. On discovering she had noticed him, the man opened the blinds wide, stuck through his other hand and waved at her rapidly, more like a child would than an adult. The gesture immediately struck Joan as awkward, even strange, but she ventured a slight smile and gentle, single wave of her hand in reply. He must be thinking to be friendly, even if he's a bit over-doing it, she reasoned. The fellow across the way stood and noted her waving a moment before he let his blinds drop closed.

Joan saw the fellow a second time three days later when she was again by the window, now with her husband Joe deciding whether they should put a new rug in that end of the corridor. In the middle of giving reasons for doing so, she discovered the blinds to the neighbor’s window had been raised and that the tall, pudgy man of earlier, dressed in a red and green striped shirt and khakis, was walking down his hallway toward her. His brown eyes lit on Joan and Joe through the glass and he lifted a hand spontaneously in greeting. Joe looked through the window after Joan and they both raised hands in reply. Joan felt it amusing to wave this second time and was not self-conscious signaling her hello; in fact she smiled. The pudgy man across the way smiled back as he turned toward some room in his home and disappeared.

On a Saturday afternoon not long after this silent exchange, Joan was explaining to her spouse in their living room how they might light the dining room without its chandelier. "A pair of tall lamps is what I imagine," she had said, and was about to suggest a retailer with good ones when the doorbell rang. Joan answered it, and discovered her neighbor, the tall, pudgy man. His brown eyes met hers with a kindly if somewhat unsure expression, and his roundish face showed a shy friendliness to her. He had come wearing a gray shirt with thin green stripes, belted blue jeans, and flat, worn, brown sneakers, an outfit that reminded Joan vaguely of the clothes Tommy Hatchins, one of her third graders, liked to wear.

“Hello, there, I’m your neighbor, Chris Hammond,” the tall, pudgy fellow said in an amicable voice. “We saw each other through the window, you might remember.”

Joan smiled. “Yes, I remember. How good to meet you in person. I’m Joan Carlyle.” Joe came from behind now and she introduced them both.

“I saw you moved in recently,” Chris went on. “I guess you’re still settling in?”

“We’re trying.” Joan looked knowingly at Joe. “This seems our first easy weekend in this house and we’ve been enjoying it with a nice, long chat in the living room.”

Chris held quiet as if unsure whether to continue. “So you are sort of free right now?” he broke out finally. “I thought to invite you both over for lunch and a talk at my place. We might get to know each other since we are neighbors, I think.”

Joan liked the idea at once and found Joe open enough on the question. “Sure, we can come over,” she said.

“Ok, then. Let’s go.” Chris made a half circle with his arm to beckon them to follow. The gesture to Joan seemed a bit juvenile, not unlike how he had first waved to her through the window. She wondered over it and quickly turned a questioning glance to her husband who returned one as puzzled. However, the two had said yes to going, so politely followed their new neighbor down the short stretch of sidewalk up the path to the front door of his home.

Chris showed them inside, saying, “Welcome to my living room!” Joan was struck dumb as soon as she stepped in and looked around. The room before her was less a living room than a children’s play space. On the wall were huge framed posters of a cartoon mouse and pig; the picture of a duck strumming on a banjo; further over, a turquoise guitar, its base horned at the head and bottom. In mid-room stood two love seats, one under a throe printed with the figure of a snarling, magenta, cartoon bird; the other draped in a blanket that featured a smiling, blue, cartoon cat. The floor between the seats had a hard plastic mat, printed with four red and blue circles and the picture of a boy in mid-leap. Mounted on the wall by the stairs was a wide, plasma TV screen; beneath it, a desktop PC with a black, worn joystick on the floor.

“Pretty nice space isn’t it?” Chris said, beaming at his visitors.

Joan was beside herself; the room did not seem it should belong to a forty something man’s home. She turned about her voicelessly; she looked toward her husband and detected his concern. However, she decided she must be polite as Chris's guest. She did not mean to create unease with her neighbor the first time in his home. “It is impressive,” she said.

“But I should explain the things in the room so you know about them,” Chris answered, encouraged. “I like to think a person feels more at home when he knows a place.” He stepped toward the framed posters and raising a hand toward the cartoon pig that wore a red and green striped shirt. He said with a smile to match the one in the frame, “This is Piggledy, my favorite cartoon character. He’s a really nice guy and pretty smart too. In the poster next to him is Melvin the Mouse.” Melvin was a bluish gray mouse with a mouth of an artificial peach color. Melvin like Piggledy smiled hugely in some everlasting good mood. “He’s about the silliest, funnest mouse ever. Always pulling pranks. I don’t know if you’ve seen their cartoons or heard about them. Lots of adults wouldn’t, I think.”

“I definitely haven’t,” Joe said. Joan knew Joe said this to upset Chris. Chris did not pick up on it though.

“I think I have,” she answered hoping to seem polite. She recalled images of cartoon pigs and mice from the pencil cases and book bags of her third graders. “They’re popular still, aren’t they?”

“They are. I’m so glad to have prints of them.” Chris turned smiling back to the wall. “Well, next to them is a guitar like the one used by a favorite band of mine called The Menders.” The guitar’s strings were white and clean, and the name of its maker printed in a mid-century font near the neck. “They’re from the ‘70s, the decade I was born. I haven’t tried it but I think it plays.”

“It looks decent,” Joan said.

“Maybe expensive too,” Joe said lowering his voice. He meant too expensive Joan recognized. She wondered a moment how Chris might have afforded it.

“Beneath it,” Chris went on, “is a still of Dipsy Duck from his cartoon, Strum the Way to Mandalay.” The green duck was pictured singing in a hammock. “In that cartoon, he gets chased by a jungle bear and snake while playing his banjo. He actually charms the bear with his music then escapes through the mountains.”

“Wow!” Joan said as if impressed.

“Then beneath Dipsy,” Chris said happily, “is a vinyl record by Roll, another band from the ‘70s that I still like. Over here are my big seats. Buzzy Bird is on the blanket on this seat. He gets upset a lot so flies around buzzing his wings in people’s faces. That’s how he got his name, Buzzy. Kurtz the Cat is on the other blanket. He’s a superhero; always sure of himself and after adventures. I think Kurtz the Cat is just great!” He smiled at Joan and she, feeling he meant to see a smile back, gave it, if weakly.

“Here on the floor,” he continued, “is the hard mat and in the corner the truck I like to play with.”

“You play with a truck?” Joe shot out. He turned first in disbelief to Chris then Joan.

“Yes, sometimes.”

“Of course,” Joan said. She gave her husband a face that asked he try and be encouraging.

“And over here,” Chris said, rolling on, “is my plasma TV. The reception on it is crystal clear, so it’s great for watching shows. It’s also good for playing video games with my computer, right down there. Are either of you into video games?”

Joan shook her head. “We happen not to be.”

“If you ever are, come to me and I’ll connect you with some great games. Plus you can play on my system if you like.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Great. Let me show you my book and movie library.” Chris stepped across the hard mat and the blue carpeting, his forearms swinging and made the adjacent room. Behind him, Joe turned to Joan. “What the heck…” he started in a whisper coming close to her. Joan showed she shared his thought with a bewildered droop of the eyes. Her neighbor was coming across like juvenile regressive unlike she had ever seen.

In the library, Chris pointed out the room rug printed over with cartoon characters he liked "sometimes": Goat Shorn, Coily, Foxster. He turned next to the bookshelf and showed the pair DVDs of several of his favorite movies: Suzy Lightning, the tale of a fast flying girl who punches bullies in the mouth; Flip Flyer, the story of a hero who combats terrorists. Joan nodded throughout the speech, especially when Chris seemed to ask her attention; however she tensed over his unnatural glee that came across as more than childlike. Once Joe looked at her with a mean, amused, all too adult glint in his eye; she made not to respond to it. Chris lead them then to the kitchen. The room appeared normal enough with its L-shaped countertop and white oven range. There seemed little for comment here. However, Chris brought them to the fridge, opened its door, and elaborated on the food inside to them. He pointed to his two gallons of McBreyer's Choco-licious Milk, apple and cherry Squirt Juice Paks, and a tray of coldcuts and lettuce leaves for making sandwiches. "If you ever are low on food," he said, "feel free to come over and take some from here. We are neighbors after all.”

Joan knew his proposal was misplaced but raised a smile anyway. “I’ll keep your offer in mind.”

“Great. So now that I’ve shown you a little about the place, let me make us lunch. What do you each like for a sandwich?” Chris faced from Joan to Joe, ready to be of service.

Joan saw the opportunity now for a graceful exit. “This is nice of you Chris, but, as I think of it, I’m late starting dinner. We’ll have to say no.”

Chris smiled as he closed his refrigerator door. “That’s too bad. But maybe tomorrow?”

“We’ll let you know when we’d be available.”

With a friendly motion, Chris led the pair to his door and showed them out. The husband and wife, keeping silent, walked nonchalantly up the sidewalk before Chris’s home and reached theirs. Inside and in private, their restraint fell away at once.

“Wow!” Joan said for them both.

“What kind of guy is that?” Joe’s brow was all furrows. “He’s got a living room like a kindergarten! He plays video games as a favorite hobby! And he’s middle-aged!”

“I know-- bizarre!”

“I can’t figure how someone like him is in this neighborhood. Did he say he even works?”

“He didn’t.”

“Do you know what this means? We’ve just moved into a high-end, expensive house next to a neighbor who acts and lives like a child. What will that sound like to our friends?”

Joan sulked as if to admit Joe’s point. However, she tried to be positive as she considered Chris had meant to be kind. Hadn't she worked with enough awkward third graders not to mind it?, she asked herself. Kindly girls who froze up when asked to read aloud. Smart boys who fell silent in Show and Tell. “He at least was friendly introducing himself. He was nice.”

“Nice or not, I hope you won’t go invite him over for anything.”

Joan raised her brows. “Probably not.”

The next Saturday was sunny, pleasant, and warm, and Joan, with no thought of her neighbor Chris, went outside to take a short, idle walk around her new home to survey it self-indulgently. Her pride in the place was quite high. She started her tour at the back door from the rec room on the lower level. Her new, red deck loomed above; she imagined her friends impressed with its white table and large shade umbrella when she would have them visit come the summer. As she went going around the left side of the lawn, the vinyl windows offered inner glimpses of the house between their handsome, black shutters. The inside with its many furnishings appeared very neat in the window outlines. The grass she walked passing the windows was a rich, lush green, pleasant to tread. In the front of the house, the mosaic-like stucco path hooked from the door to the neat, unbroken driveway. The front door was a perfect cerulean blue carrying a polished, gilded knocker; the step boasted a neat mauve and russet doormat. Joan swelled with the idea of her home as she rounded the corner onto the right of the lawn.

Her mood imploded as she discovered her neighbor Chris by the border of the lawn. Chris was lugging a pine tree of five feet high, bottomed in a burlap root bag that straddled his thighs, across the grass toward her. He grasped the tree at mid-trunk, not under the roots like most people would, and heaved it as he stepped forward to keep it from sinking past his knees. He spotted Joan as he peered awkwardly around the tree's branches to tell where he went. He let the pine plunk to the ground and waved to her. “Hello again, Joan. Nice to see you!”

The discomfort of her last week’s visit returned to clench Joan's face and limbs. “Nice to see you,” she made herself say.

“Sorry you couldn’t come over a second time last week. You and Joe still could if you like. Don’t even worry about asking ahead. Just stop by either of you.”

The kind tone of the man caught Joan but she felt he spoke with a child’s over-eagerness, his offer not suited to an adult like her. “I will definitely consider it," she said to deflect him.

“So, what are you up to?”

She considered the self-congratulatory survey she had been making and decided it would not sound smart to admit to her neighbor. In fact she would look conceited for it. She answered instead, “I was checking my gutters and roof. I’d like to be sure they’re okay for when the next storm hits.”

“Oh.” Chris smiled and though he did it kindly, Joan felt somehow mocked for her white lie.

“So you’re planting a tree?” she went on.

“Yes, my new pine tree, right at the edge of my lawn and yours. Isn’t it nice?” It was a white pine with long, green, soft needles and a smooth, gray bark.

“It does look nice.” Joan studied the tree as if to convince him of her opinion. “A good tree. Well, I have to get checking my gutters. Have fun planting.” She smiled and took a step toward her lawn to cut the conversation short.

“Thank you,” Chris said before she faced away. “I think we’ll both like having the tree.”

Re-crossing to her lawn, Joan fell to surveying her home again though with more modest, quiet interest than earlier. She worried if Chris should observe her: despite her unease with the man, she did not want to come across as overly proud even to him. She drew out her survey, finding no fault in the roof nor the gutters, until she tired of it. She turned then to go inside. As she went, she passed by Chris. She discovered he had brought the pine to a newly dug hole by the yard’s edge and was pushing the tree’s root bag down into it with his foot, first on one side, then the other. The hole, Joan could tell, was too small, but Chris seemed not to recognize this as he struggled to make the tree go inside. He went on urging it, not giving up for all his difficulty. Joan felt she should not let him continue at it. It reminded her of when one of her third graders, Jimmy Ilardi, challenged by a page of basic arithmetic, penciled and erased the assignment, over and over, without arriving at a single answer he liked. To help Chris out of his trouble, she crossed the lawn to him and said, “Here, maybe you ought to deepen the hole to get it to fit.” Chris stared at her as if in disbelief, but she reached for the shovel that had been left lying on the grass by the hole and told him, “Let me do the hole, then you set in the tree.”

Chris shuffled aside with the pine, smiling over this sudden turn of events, and Joan dug a few shovelfuls. “It’s alright now,” she said, and Chris moved forward with the tree and plunked it in the hole, where it fit easily. “So let’s cover the roots with this dirt,” she said, continuing to guide them. She shoveled back the dirt she had moved and her neighbor knelt and pressed it over the pine’s roots, careful not to return any stones.

“It’s really nice of you to do this,” Chris said, burying his hands in the earth. “I never gardened until today, and I don’t know much about how. The workers who come each week to my house always have mown the grass and tended the flowers, so I’ve never tried. However, I thought to since meeting you and Joe. I haven’t made too many friends here in the neighborhood, but now that you and your husband have become mine, I thought to do something because of it. And since you know it, whenever we see the tree, we’ll remember we are neighbors and friends.”

Joan stopped moving with the shovel as she weighed her neighbor’s new words. He is being considerate isn't he?, she thought despite her edginess over him. “I hope we will too,” she said, giving Chris a polite tone. Chris smiled, picked up some of the dirt by their knees, and hurriedly fisted thick clumps of it in the gaps of the dug hole. Joan saw the awkwardness of the act but quelled making any sign of contempt over it.

The difference between Chris’s speech about the tree and the introduction to his house was on Joan’s mind still when she had afternoon coffee with Denise Prue a couple of days later. On a walk around the neighborhood, Joan had introduced herself to Denise whom she encountered watering the bushes of her front yard. Denise came across as a polite, thoughtful woman, both personable and charming. Joan learned that Denise managed a gift shop in town popular for its glassware; Joan actually had driven past the place several times it turned out. The two women hit it off so had arranged to meet the next day in Denise’s dinette over a fresh pot of espresso. They talked; Denise brought up her shop, Joan her new home and Joe. Then the discussion veered to their neighbors and Denise’s friends among them. Joan quieted as she thought again of Chris. She let her eyes drop more often toward the tablecloth until Denise stopped carrying the conversation and asked, “Is something wrong? You don’t seem alright of a sudden.”

“I’ve been thinking of my neighbor, the man who lives on the right of me. He seems the most unlikely person to find in a neighborhood like ours.”

“You mean Chris Hammond? The grown man who's like a child?”

“You’ve met him?”

“I’ve seen him plenty of times when he runs to get his mail from the box and dashes back inside all frightened. The other neighbors have too. We talk sometimes about how strange he is."

"Hasn't anyone in the neighborhood ever tried to make his acquaintance?"

"When people try at his door, he hasn’t answered. If someone goes to question him when he's outside, he yells like a kid and bolts in the other direction. It's not too inviting.”

“He seems more social with me for some reason.” Joan told Denise about her visit to his home and their later meeting on the lawn.

“Well, sometimes he must take a random like to people.”

“Perhaps. I only wish I knew why he acts so strangely.”

“I can tell you that. You’ll be surprised how I heard the explanation too.”

Joan raised her head. “How did you?”

“Well then—You have to know I’d had my groceries delivered each week from the Trumbull Stop & Shop, just a town over. One day, I told Will, the young man who brought them, that I had seen your neighbor, Mr. Hammond, pull a toy wagon in circles around his driveway. ‘How can a grown man do it?’ I said. Will let me know then he knew the man I meant. Chris is his uncle; his father, Will’s, is Chris’s brother. Part of why Will had his job delivering groceries to this neighborhood was so he could check on your neighbor. When he told me, I asked whether there was some reason his uncle acts so curiously. He explained there was…

"When Chris was ten years old, he had been a normal enough child: he played with toys, at games, ran around, and so on. One day, he made friends with a new student at school. Dan I believe was his name. Both Dan and Chris it seems were really into cartoons and action adventure shows. Chris came home over-excited for it. During that time, Chris’s father had been struggling to sell the family home and have enough for a much better one across town. For weeks, it had put him in a dark mood. The man took things awfully hard. When Chris came bubbling over his new friend to him, his father found it one distraction too many and told Chris to be quiet. But Chris was super excited so he kept on going, telling how Dan was funny and how Dan knew a lot about TV. It was like he meant to cheer his father out of his bad mood by saying it. Unfortunately, his father lost patience for it. He got up and smacked Chris across the face. He hit the boy very hard, more than he had figured to, and Chris collapsed on the floor. While the blow was bad, it didn’t damage the boy on the outside that much it seems, only left a mark that went away after an hour. His father apologized for it at once, too, said he 'shouldn't have'. But Chris wasn’t the same going forward. He lost his eagerness for people. He kept from his friend Dan who liked TV. He forgot all his friends. He stayed from his father and when he did get near, always was nervous, halting. He said sometimes he was glad he did.

"And as he kept apart, Chris seemed to reach some resolve that nobody picked up on until he was a teenager. He developed physically like other boys, grew taller, stronger, yes, but mentally he stayed a ten-year-old. In high school, he played with stuffed animals in his room rather than get to know his classmates. He read children’s books rather than do homework. His parents were concerned, of course, and tried everything to get him normal again. They sent him to a psychiatrist, bribed him with promises of vacations and a new car. But it made no difference. Once Chris graduated high school, his parents realized he couldn’t go lead a normal life by himself. However, they no longer wanted him home; he would embarrass them in the new higher circles they kept. His father had succeeded by then as a real estate mogul and had a good chunk of money. He took some of it, built that house next to yours and moved his son in it. Since then, he has paid all Chris’s expenses: for Will, for the lawn service to keep the yard respectable, even I suppose for the posters, videos, and cartoon decorations you saw in his house. And Chris stays home; from what Will had gathered, the man plays computer games and watches cartoons all day. I’ve never spotted a car in his driveway to suggest he goes anywhere.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Joan replied quietly. She sat and wondered now over Chris. She could feel that it was no longer right to dismiss him as an immature adult she should avoid. He had been made into the strange person he was more than chosen it. And yet it seemed tremendous to her. He was her neighbor. The difficulty to fathom the idea held her mind and she failed to hear when Denise stood to fetch them some more coffee.

Chris was far from Joan's mind the following Tuesday when her husband’s friend Martin Niedermeier visited. Martin was a corporate climber at an even wealthier corporation than Joe’s. A tall, decently figured man, he was balding through his dark hair despite his early age; his attractive, roundish face, Joan was glad to find, more than made up for it. He was a three-year platinum paying member at the pricey, local gym where Joe, a new, gold paying member, had made his acquaintance in a randomly matched squash-game two months ago. Martin had wide-ranging connections, including several people high in the local business circles, and Joe believed that it would pay to become closer friends with him. Joan, all for furthering her husband’s end, eagerly received Martin at their home and, after a first drink, the three were chatting comfortably in the living room. Martin showed a wit early in their conversation. He made several dry remarks about how business managed—or did not manage—to get done at his workplace. He said, “Hank, our marketing all-star, calls everyone from his desk to talk about anything. In fact, he hasn’t made an in-person sale in years. My colleagues and I wonder if we took away his phone whether he would figure how to contact anyone in the next cubicle.” Joe and Joan laughed. They found many of Martin's further remarks funny as well. Martin smiled at this good reception. He expounded to Joe on a sales director they both knew, clearly enjoying how he held forth with his privy information.

Soon, Martin brought the conversation around to the Carlyles’ new home and Joan told of her fondness for the place, while taking care not to speak of the problems with the undersized kitchen and the treacherous chandelier. Martin asked then, “How are you liking your new neighbors? I passed all these fine houses on my way to visit. You must have some really respectable people living around here.”

“There is a good number,” Joe said, sounding impressed by the fact too. “Since moving in, I met a doctor down the street and two lawyers. Joan’s met some professionals too. All the neighbors are pretty top flight.” Then considering himself, he added with a condescending tone, “Except maybe Chris.”

“Chris? Who’s Chris?”

Joan braced in her seat and stared at her husband. Why was he mentioning Chris now?, she thought.

“The guy who lives in the house on our right.”

“The blue row-style house, so much smaller than the rest? What’s with him?”

Joe leaned over and told Martin about their visit to Chris’s home. Joan held silent through it, feeling, as she heard Joe’s eager voice, that he was keen on telling Martin the story his own way. She thought it strange until, when Joe had ended, Martin threw back his head and laughed. “What a freak this guy must be!”

Joan appreciated how Martin might think it after all Joe had said. Chris did act a bit bizarre. But remembering what Denise Prue had told her, she felt she should defend her neighbor. She realized doing so might be hard. The three of them had worked up a pleasant mood all evening and nobody aimed to derail it. She decided not to mention anything of Chris’s childhood when she spoke. The topic would be too serious, require too much to explain that their humor might not tolerate.

“He’s not that bad," she said. "Really he’s a nice guy."

“He’s a nice retard,” Martin said.

“He’s not a retard. He just has issues.”

“Like being out of his mind.”

“He is in his mind.”

“Have his parents tried to help him—if he has any?”

Martin’s persistence on Chris struck Joan suddenly. How he harps on the fellow, she thought and warmed. “A neighbor told me his parents bought him that house and support him. They want him to live as normally as possible.”

Martin smirked. “How can he be normal when he skulks at home watching cartoons all day? Like a little kid on an endless weekend.”

“He watches movies too, you forget,” Joe said. He spoke with his friend’s jocular tone.

“Does he ever pretend he’s a superhero from the movies he watches?” Martin asked. “Or does he prefer modeling the fine characters in comic books?”

“He reads comic books, I think.”

“But does he appear in any?”

Joan found this idea amusing despite herself but would not laugh since she had sided with her neighbor. “He isn’t a comic book character,” she said. “He’s just happy—being like he is.”

“Delusions can be happy events,” Martin said. "Many a child indulges in them."

“Would he believe he’s deluded, do you think?” Joe said, making it sound a heavy question even as he smiled irreverently.

“Perhaps a psychiatrist would have to persuade him.” Martin grinned. “In any case, it doesn’t sound like you should invite your neighbor Chris to any house party.”

“He doesn’t sound the type.” Joe smiled a little more and turned to Joan. She smiled back formally as she saw her husband wished.

The evening seemed a success as Martin asked Joe to lunch later that week. Joan thought happily of it as she tended her new flower garden in the backyard that weekend. The garden that lay near the border of her house and Chris Hammond’s was a small square plot that she had planted by a short corral-style fence. The garden featured a handsome rose bush set to bloom and several purple foxgloves that had grown nearly knee high. She thought the flowers complemented her large house well as she knelt in the garden to tend it. Standing up once to change position, she spotted her neighbor Chris on his deck. He was in a chair with his back to her, holding a guitar, the neck and top of which showed over his shoulder. He had bowed forward as if inspecting something and shifted his head a little from side to side. The motion made him seem like a boy reading a book on his desk at school. Not having heard him come, Joan could not guess if Chris had been there before she arrived or had come after and not seen or heard her. She felt guilty now as she remembered Martin’s jokes over Chris and her amusement in them. I should not have felt so, even a little, when I know about him, she thought. She considered whether to call out a hello or to let him be when she heard her husband Joe come from behind and say, “How’s the garden doing?” They had no chance to say much else as Chris quickly called to them from his deck, “Hello there, Joan and Joe.” The husband and wife saw Chris standing by the deck rail, waving. His guitar strapped about his neck, he descended the deck stairs to the lawn, careful not to trip on his untied sneaker laces.

“How much are we to tolerate?” Joe quietly asked his wife as Chris approached them.

Joan waved toward her neighbor. “Just let him talk and be polite for his sake. He means to be friends.”

Chris, now before them, appeared larger than they knew with the tan guitar hanging over his stout torso. A kind, youthful ruddiness darted from his cheeks. “So what are you guys up to?” he asked.

“Joe came down to help me with my gardening.”

Chris peeked toward the rose bush and the purple foxgloves. “Looks like a nice garden. Is that a rose bush you have?”

“It is. Ready to bloom next month.”

Chris nodded a little more than seemed right and smiled. “Cool. My tree is doing okay, you should know.”

“Great to hear it.” To Joe, she said, “He means the short pine up the yard over there.”

Joe lifted his face toward it and said, “Oh,” disinterestedly.

“It's very green,” Chris said. “Well—I came to practice on my deck when I heard you two talking. Isn’t it a neat guitar?” He stroked the side of its polished neck and body. “I got it a while ago to play some music I heard on TV. I’ve kept at it, learning pieces.”

“A nice hobby to pursue,” Joan said. "Practicing music can be fun. A nice way to pass the time, I'm sure."

“It can. But how would you like me to play for you?”

Joan was very surprised. She meant to make chitchat not receive a serenade. However she hoped not to disappoint him. She faced her husband who gave her a quick shrug of the shoulder, so she said brightly to Chris, “We’d be happy to hear you."

“Okay.” Chris surveyed the guitar, brought his large hands to ready, and performed. The piece started as ridiculously as Joan feared. The first measures galloped at all too quick tempo as if set to a cartoon. Beside her, Joe narrowed his eyes to communicate his contempt for the piece. However, the music became slower and more even, just when Joan came to think it too absurd to hear any more. Its lines grew more regular, melodic; they showed the energy and playfulness of the first part but without its wildness. Chris had made the fast beginning move on to something gentler. As he played, he delivered carefully and attended to his finger work. The piece turned quieter, more serious. One well struck chord followed the next. Chris proceeded through the measures deliberately. This all impressed Joan, and, as her neighbor launched into a new section of the piece, she said, “You’ve practiced a lot to play so well.”

Chris smiled shyly as he strummed. “Maybe I do like to," he said. "I’ve never had anyone say it. In fact, I’ve never played for anyone except you both.”

He continued to perform without speaking. However, Joan hung on his words, feeling something in them. Chris had practiced with much diligence she sensed. She realized he he really must love performing. Joan felt few musicians would have followed their passion to the extent he did without some kind of recognition. She felt a kind of respect over it for Chris as she studied his down-turned, youthful face intent on the guitar through the rest of the piece.

The next Saturday afternoon, Joan and Joe entertained Martin Niedermeier for the second time in their home. The three met over light snacks in the Carlyles’ living room. Joan felt more than happy to receive Martin as Joe had told her of his now frequent talks with the man related to business. Martin seemed equally encouraged to see her as he took a comfortable seat on the sofa and they opened court. Joe and Martin updated each other on the doings of their key connections. Joe mentioned Will Sanders, his "high rising" friend, and Martin, Ken Robbins, "connected with more people between us than I'll ever figure." Joan managed to join in when they named an associate who was married to a teacher at her school. "I know his wife," she piped. They briefly discussed the woman and agreed in their general good opinion about her. Then Martin turned the talk to Ben White, a member of the gym he went to with Joe. When Martin announced that the fellow aimed to join one of the gym’s intramural basketball teams, Joe erupted in laughter. “Can you imagine Ben on a basketball team?” Martin asked, smiling irrepressibly. For Joan’s enlightenment, Martin explained that Ben failed royally at basketball. "He lets the ball bounce from him as he dribbles. He trips over his feet when running. Sometimes, he even shoots at the wrong basket." Bright-eyed, Joe added that Ben enjoyed going out of bounds on the court. The two men concluded with whole-hearted consent that Ben was no athlete. Joe switched them then to the subject of Mae Wendmore, “some woman with a title”, whom they had encountered at a day function. "She whined," Joe remarked, which made Martin laugh. Martin went on to critique how Mae had interrupted people talking to their friends “to, of course, show she was friendly”, complained the punch was too sugary while inhaling a cupcake, and done everything else to prove she was an unlikeable hypocrite. Joan laughed at the remarks on Mae Wendmore as she had on Ben White; these all had hit the mark. She had a first, unalloyed feeling that Martin might be an enjoyable companion for both her husband and herself. The mirth over Mae quieted in less acerbic remarks until it was spent.

Calm and more composed, Martin capped their conversation with a smile at Joe and shared that he believed Max Simmons, another good friend of his, would be hosting a get-together with many eminent people expected. “I’ll find out if I can’t get us both invited,” he said, addressing Joe with new seriousness. The three got up now, for Martin had to go, and Joe and Joan, thanking him warmly for the visit, escorted him outside to his car.

As they walked up the driveway, Joan happened to hear a sound like metal knocking on metal from her neighbor Chris's home. She turned toward the noise and discovered Chris on his front step in a grey sweat jacket and blue sweatpants dabbing a brush in a can of blue paint that he held. To her horror, she saw that he was painting an oversized version of the blue, spike-furred cat she had seen on his love seat throe right on the side of his house. The cat’s head loomed big as a barbecue grill there beside the house door, eyes wide, its mouth pressed in a confident, thin smile. Chris had painted the cartoon’s left arm in a short sleeve, a hallucinatory, bright green. The cat’s other arm that he had yet to complete extended outward as if reaching toward whoever might be at the door. Joan faced away quickly, afraid of drawing Martin’s attention or her husband’s. She stood quiet, trying to seem calm as the two men shook hands and asked each other when they might meet next. However, the sound of their voices attracted Chris and he called brightly from his front step, “Hello, Joan and Joe!” The three of them in the driveway fell silent and turned toward Chris, who waved his blued paintbrush at them.

“So is he the Chris who you told me about?” Martin asked Joan. But before she replied, he was grinning broadly, already knowing he was right.

Chris, unbidden, came running, brush and can in hand, up the sidewalk saying even before he reached them, “I’m painting Kurtz the Cat on my house. Doesn’t he look great?” He drew up by Martin’s luxury car and smiled bigly on the three companions there. Joan, feeling her husband’s hard work at cultivating Martin shot, stood staring silently at their neighbor. For his part, Joe scowled by Martin as if to state his disdain for the intrusion. However, Martin smirked and raised his head higher than it had.

“Here, why not paint Rufus the Dog on your house too?” he said. “Or do you have a thing for Sam the Snake?” Joan had not heard of these cartoons and suspected Martin did not either. He spoke of them however as if he had known them to be real.

Chris seemed to lose some of his good humor. He seemed as Joan had seen her student Jill Fineman be, giving a history report to the class. “I just want to paint Kurtz the Cat,” he said.

“But he needs a friend.” Martin turned knowingly toward Joan and Joe as if to have them in on his joke. “Doesn’t Kurtz need a friend?” Then to Chris, he added, “Or do you think you’re it?”

A hard silence fell through the group and Joan, with the blood rising in her head, studied the confused face of her neighbor. The man who had planted a pine tree and performed on the guitar for her and Joe, was here being attacked because he had come in a friendly spirit to them. As his considerate, lost eyes seemed to ask Martin for clarity as to why, Joan pitied her kind neighbor suddenly. When he tried to answer Martin in a frozen tone, “I li-, li-,” she interrupted. “Martin, leave him alone.”

“…I like Kurtz,” Chris finished. “I’d be his friend if I met him for real.”

Martin smiled worse than earlier. “Sure, isn’t he great? His whole gang.”

Joe chuckled so that his forehead colored.

“How is Kurtz doing in his cartoons nowadays?” Martin continued, drawing very close to Chris. “What happened in his latest? Do you remember?”

Chris seemed to have caught on to Martin’s point; his eyes sank before the man and his lips turned fat and red.

“Martin, it’s not right for you to talk to him so,” Joan said, her voice very serious. She added, feeling it a defense of her neighbor, “He can’t help how he is.”

But this suggestion broke Chris and he stormed crying toward his house.

Martin took a couple of steps after him and called, “Hey, I asked you a question! Why are you walking off?”

“Martin, don’t!” Joan cried.

Without turning around, Chris made his front door where he chucked his paint can and brush, so that the paint spilled onto the steps. He hurried into his house and quickly shut the door behind him.

Martin howled with laughter. “Oh, he was too much!”

“It wasn’t right to do,” Joan said and shook her head. “He came to be friendly.”

Martin stared, half-amused, at her. “Joan, types like your neighbor have been the butt of a lot of humor. They’re used to hearing things like I said. I wouldn’t worry over it. No guy who stays home gaping at cartoons all day is worth the trouble.” He turned to Joe whose smile approved all he had said.

The two men resumed their parting remarks. Joan was stunned by Martin’s insensitivity. He has no feeling, she thought, heating. She remembered that Joe was keen to be friends with this well-connected man, however; she held calm and returned Martin’s goodbye when he made to get into his car. When Martin had left, Joe motioned to Joan to return with him inside. However, she said, “You go in without me. I’m going to talk to Chris about what just happened.”

Joe frowned. “Now Joan, you don’t suppose talking to some child like him will make any difference? He’ll console himself with some adventure movie of his and not even remember Martin by tomorrow.”

“Martin hurt Chris. I can’t walk away as if we pulled a gag and ditched him. How could I face him again?”

“Is that very important?”

“He’s our neighbor and I talk to him.”

“And just what do you believe you’ll achieve talking to him about this?”

“I don’t know. But go in without me.”

His face puzzled, Joe walked up the driveway alone. After he was inside, Joan went next door, sidestepped the blue paint spilt on the front step, and rang Chris’s bell. When Chris opened the door, she saw he was sulking; his rounded face sagged and his eyes were swollen. He held the door half open, as if ready to shut it at her first ill remark. “What is it?” he asked.

“I’ve come to apologize for what just happened. My husband’s friend and Joe should not have treated you like they did.”

“Why did he make fun of me like that?”

Joan braced for she knew very well. She thought, however, she must answer carefully. He is delicate, she told herself. “Martin isn’t the kindest person. He is really Joe’s friend and comes to see him.”

“But what for?”

“Martin knows people Joe would like to know.”

“What sort of people would Martin know?”

Joan felt half in doubt because of Chris’s innocent tone but answered, “Important ones. I’ve had to be nice to him for Joe’s sake. I don’t like all Martin does myself, including what he did to you today.”

“Is he coming over again?”

“He might, but I will see to it he doesn’t humiliate you again. I promise.”

Chris studied the blue splattered edge of his front step. “Okay,” he said with a slow lift of his head. His face still showed the hurt of when he had opened the door.

“I know it wasn’t good for him to say those things,” Joan pursued, “and you don’t want to think about them. So, I’m going to be more of a friend to you to make up for it.”

Chris gazed at her blankly without answering.

“To start, I hope you would come join Joe and me for dinner,” she continued. “It would be just the three of us, and we’d be happy to have you. We eat at six.”

“I’ll see if I can.”

Chris did not show at six, however, and Joan, sitting down to her meal with Joe, imagined uneasily the dark mood and thoughts that might be troubling her neighbor over that day's fracas.

Chris emerged little from his house over the next two weeks. When Joan went out and discovered him on the other side of the lawn from her, he waved cautiously, lifting his hand, but walked back into his house. In the times he was out, unseen by her, Joan discovered he was taking care of his lawn, a thing he had never done himself except in planting the pine. Driving from the house one day, Joan spotted marigolds newly planted in a good-sized bed on the left side of his house. The flowers were arranged in uneven tufts, the earth around them shaped in an untidy but attractive mound. It was the work of a hard-working but unpracticed hand. Chris had to have planted them, she knew, since the hired gardener had not been at his house that week.

Soon after she had observed the marigolds, Chris came over to her while she was out on the lawn pulling some weeds. He walked to her confidently, his head high with a boyish lilt, clearly in a better mood than when they last spoke. She saw he was carrying a pair of large hedge clippers. When he waved and called out, “Hello, there,” Joan drew up smiling.

“It’s good to see you again,” she started. “I was worried you might not come to talk anymore.”

“I would have earlier, but I’ve been busy,” he said importantly. He held up the clippers as if they were some newfangled toy. “I got these to take care of my bushes. I’m starting to care for my lawn, just like Joe and you take care of yours.”

Joan opened her eyes wide. “Well, I never thought I’d inspire someone with my lawn care.”

Chris smiled, shyly, and said, “Here, would you like to see me clip my bushes? I can do a pretty mean job on them.”

Joan was more than eager to encourage her friend after the episode with Martin and agreed, so followed Chris to a bush by his front door. The bush had grown high, its snaky shoots in need of cutting, Joan could tell. As she stood right at his side, Chris positioned the clippers over the bush’s top. He sized up the greenery once, twice and cut. Joan watched him go at it vigorously, his clippers rising and falling. Before she knew it, he had lobbed off the corner of the bush and gauged a huge hole in the side of the next. He hurried on once he had done it, removing inches from the bush's front with one lop of his clippers. Joan looked in fright on the growing damage. She turned to Chris, as bits of leaves fell thickly over his hands and his feet and twigs exploded everywhere, and saw he bent a smile over the clippers. He was confident, incredible to say, that he was doing a good job. Joan knew he would eradicate the bush if she did not act.

“Chris, stop!," she said. "You’re not doing it the right way.” Chris halted, his face pressed with sudden worry. Joan took the clippers from him and said, "Let me show how to do this." Modeling with the shears, she demonstrated how to make small cuts that would trim the bush neatly while leaving it otherwise in shape. She handed the clippers back when done and said, “Now you try as I showed you.” Grasping the clippers, Chris took a few cuts at the bush before him, trimming twigs on one side, removing a stray leaf on another. He went at it squaring his eyes hard on the patch of bush before him, his hands just controlling the short snips and snaps of the blades.

“There, you seem to be getting better,” Joan said encouragingly. “With practice, you’ll do well.”

Chris raised his head, his round face lit. “I bet I could. Here, how about if I practice on your bushes? I could get so that I’d do a good, fast job on them. I’d be happy to do it for a friend like you.”

Joan knew she could not let him. Not when he does them so, she thought. She saw she would have to let him down gently from the idea. “I know and I’d let you," she said carefully, "but you have to become good at clipping your own first.”

“How come? I could learn by clipping yours just as well as mine.”

Joan was put in a corner. She saw that he would not figure her point on his own. So she told Chris the answer he seemed to need. “Let me be honest. I’m worried what you might do to my bushes. I don’t want to risk their turning out like you did these.”

Chris stared. He dropped the clippers, took a few steps away, and said pouting, “You said that to embarrass me.”

Joan braced. She did not mean to flinch because Chris got into a mood. “No, I said that so I wouldn’t be embarrassed," she said reasoning quickly. "Think of it like this: pretend you forgot for whatever reason how I taught you to clip the bushes or decide it's not worth it and cut mine like you did these here. My friends would wonder how half my bushes got sliced away instead of just trimmed. They'd suppose I can’t handle of pair of clippers. Of course, I wouldn’t say you did the work because I’d be more embarrassed I let someone do it who wasn’t good at it. I would take the blame on me. Then my friends would think worse of me than I really am but I wouldn't deserve it. You wouldn’t wish me to go through that, I hope?”

Chris bowed his head. He considered with the quiet face she had seen more than one of her third graders don when she cautioned them for yelling in class. “No,” he said finally.

“On the other hand, you can practice cutting in back of the bush here where nobody will see. Then you can ask me to look over how you do it without embarrassing yourself. And once I think you do your own really well, maybe you can do mine.”

“Okay, I’ll practice on my own bushes.” Chris lifted his face to Joan and she realized he had accepted her advice. His somber eyes showed he did it with reluctance. However, he had made a serious-minded adjustment for her. It had to be his first since they had become acquainted, she thought. The idea brought a small smile to her face.

The following Wednesday, Joan laid out in a beach chair on her newly mowed lawn savoring the sun and warmth of the mid-June day. She had finished teaching school for the summer and hoped to enjoy her new free time. She aimed especially to develop her tan. Won't it draw compliments from Mary and Jane when I see them over the summer, she told herself. In the kitchen she had made a pitcher of lemonade with fresh lemons and sugar and had it in a blue bucket of ice by her seat. She poured herself a glass of it as Chris came around the front corner of his house carrying a clunky radio by the handle and greeted her.

“I saw you outside through my window, so thought to come,” he said. “I brought my radio so we could have music. You didn’t seem to have anything to entertain you lying out here. You wouldn’t mind if I played it?”

“No, go ahead,” Joan said, glad for a new chance to accommodate her neighbor. She still felt the guilt from their encounter with Martin.

His round face cheering, Chris flipped the ON switch and turned a dial. An electric pulsing dance number poured from the radio. “Isn’t this great music?”

“It sounds pretty good.”

“What would you say if we dance to it here on the lawn? I bet it would be fun.”

Joan sighed inwardly. She saw she must explain for the fellow. “It might seem fun,” she said gently, “but it wouldn’t be appropriate. People don’t dance on their lawns."

"Even if they don't damage the grass?"

"It's not a question of the grass. If you ask people, they’d feel like they shouldn’t do it.”

Chris crinkled his forehead and considered. “Then we won’t dance. But let’s listen to the radio. We can do that.”

“As long as it’s not loud enough to disturb the other neighbors.”

With a smile, Chris brought the radio beside Joan’s chair, sat cross-legged next to it, and turned the dial to a new station. They heard a young man’s smooth voice joined by guitar and drums.

“This is Two Man Band, if you don’t know,” he said. “I like them because their lyrics rhyme but still make sense. Lots of other bands have lyrics that rhyme but they make no sense.”

The two listened to the song silently. The next song they heard had a female singer with a strong, clear voice.

“This is Lucy Law,” Chris explained. “I like her because she sings about important stuff like violence, but sings slowly so I understand her.”

“You have a lot of nice things to say about the music.”

“I think a lot about what I hear on the radio. Makes it more interesting than plain listening to it.” As additional songs followed and Chris commented on them, Joan considered that few people would go out of their way to explain their point of view as he did. He realized, it seemed, she did not know how he thought and meant for her to understand. She found she liked discovering this consideration in him and listened seriously to his comments on the music into the afternoon.

More than settled in her home and having improved the dining room by removing the chandelier, Joan was eager and ready to plan the first serious party in her new home for early in the summer. When she discussed the party with Joe, the question highest in her mind and that she raised first was whom to invite. Joe suggested Martin immediately. In the last couple of weeks, the two had shared more lunches and squash games and become definitely close friends. Joe’s idea was to ask Martin to bring quality people from his circle to their event.

“It’d be a great way to show we’re serious about connecting,” Joe said. “I’d have his choice of guests just as well as any I’d pick I’m sure.”

At first Joan did not like this idea as she recalled Martin’s attack on their neighbor. But she knew that her spouse had ambitions for his friendship that made more sense to him than to her. She did, to an extent, also like Martin’s better placed humor. She agreed therefore that they could discuss the guest list with him.

The three gathered for the third time in the Carlyles’ living room on a humid, uncomfortable night later that week. They quickly launched into the party theme, asking Martin to suggest potential guests. Martin, sunk into the plush chair by the couch, seemed much flattered and considered aloud some possibilities. “Adam Lindsen is an outgoing, personable guy you both might like. He’s being named to a top position…Sarah Kim is fun to talk to. She’s gaining notice with influential folks.” But soon, Martin elaborated with keener interest on people he definitely would not invite to the party. “If you were thinking of inviting Don Avery from your marketing department, don’t,” he cautioned, leaning familiarly toward Joe. “He rambles so much after a drink that he’ll keep going even when there’s nobody there. I’d also forget Mary Standett from your operating division. She always gets into these confused tangles when she describes anything. If she talked about herself, she’d need a name tag to set herself straight.” Joan laughed with Joe as Martin made one remark after another on everyone else’s foibles. Then Martin said, “Since we’re talking of misfits, what ever became of Chris next door?”

Joan stopped laughing. She knew she would not put up with another tirade against Chris after the work she had done patching affairs with him. “Chris is my neighbor, not a misfit.”

“And how is it you’re particular on him suddenly?” Martin replied, taken aback.

“I talk to him since he’s next door.”

“Have you? Even after I skewered him?”

“Yes, in fact, I went to him right after you left to apologize for all you said.”

Martin faced Joe as if to ask whether she were telling the truth. Joe nodded. Martin recovered himself, sat up, and smirked. “And how is the adult child?” he asked Joan.

“Chris only seems a child to you—”

“—and me,” Joe inserted.

“But he is an adult. He wants mature relationships with people. He’s made friends with me and wants to with Joe.”

“He’s only being nice.”

“He's more than nice. He’s intelligent. He performed on the guitar for Joe and me once on the lawn and did it like a professional. He did it that well you would have liked it yourself.”

“I would have spared my ears. But seriously, do you think any guy who runs screaming up the sidewalk like we saw can be an adult? He doesn’t know how to act around folks.”

“I’ve seen he can actually. He listens when I’ve disagreed with him.” She explained about his cutting the bushes. “He agreed I was right, that he’d have to get better rather than risk me any damage. He understood how I thought.”

“All you’ve shown me is that you can convince an imbecile not to cut your bushes. In any case, you can’t expect to talk with the guy like we would to each other.”

“He w as very interesting the other week discussing music on the radio. He said some musicians have understandable lyrics rather than just good sounding ones. How many other adults do you know who’d say that much when they say they like or dislike some piece of music?”

Martin crinkled his forehead. “Are you trying to embarrass me?”

“I’m defending my neighbor because you doubted he was an adult.”

“Well, you have the imagination to see some good in him. I’m not as indulgent.” He faced Joe as if forgetting about Chris and brought up the outing they planned for next week, which they discussed for the rest of his visit. But talk as they did, Joan did not regret what she had said.

As the time for her big party neared, Joan ordered a set of furniture to improve her living room. Chief among the items was a red velvet couch with gilt border cushions; Joan had the delivery people install it by the living room's white wall. She found it showed handsomely across from her TV. At either end of the couch, she had a matching love seat and armchair put facing each other. The chairs were nicely compact with S-shaped pine legs. To accent the new furnishings, she set a rich, navy carpet lined by blue tassels on the floor. On this she placed the new mahogany coffee table whose lacquered top reflected the room light well beside the couch. Once the furnishings were set, the living room became a favorite distraction for Joan. She took breaks from cooking and cleaning to go and admire the spot. She imagined how the new furniture would impress people at the party, the women, slightly jealous, asking where she had gotten the fine things.

Joan again was admiring her new living room one afternoon when the doorbell rang. She opened the door to Chris who smiled greeting her. “If you’re not busy,” he said, “I hoped to show you what I did to my living room.”

“To your living room?” she asked, still thinking of her own.

“Yes. Would you like to see?”

Joan recollected herself. “Sure, I’d like to.” She said it even as she considered what a great coincidence it should be that he did something to his living room when she only had re-done hers. She followed Chris up the sidewalk to his door. When he let her inside to the living room, everything was as it had been, that is like a play space, except that in the place of the love seat with the bird throe there now was a green velvet armchair that had a dark trim back and stained pine legs.

“I got it after watching those men deliver all the new furniture to your house last week,” Chris explained. “I thought if you were into really nice furniture, I could be too, since we’re friends. But how do you like it?”

Joan uneasily surveyed the stately chair and its amusement park-style surroundings. Chris had thought of her definitely in getting it. Not to touch his feelings too closely, she answered him carefully. “I think the chair is good in itself. It’s very handsome with that trim all around the back. However, it doesn’t work with your things. Your posters and your guitar on the wall have a fun and happy feel, the chair, a fine and formal one. They clash.”

“Would it be better if I changed my other love seat for another chair like it?”

“Then you’d have two chairs clashing with everything else. You couldn’t maybe get the old love seat back?”

“Can’t. I sold it to help pay for the new chair.”

Joan saw now there was no good in urging him anymore. She only would threaten their sense of friendship. “Then I’m ok with the chair,” she said surrendering to his good will and smiled despite herself. Chris smiled back as if she had rewarded him.

Joan had little chance to dwell on Chris after that day as she arranged the last details for her party. She placed orders with the caterer, decided on use of tables and decorations, and phoned friends and guests. When the late afternoon came for the party, she watched everything for the event come neatly together in the downstairs of her house. First, she came down the stairs, after having dressed in her best white blouse and tan slacks, her official hostess outfit, and found Joe in a well-cut blue polo shirt and khakis arranging the velvet cushions in a handsome line on their new couch. Then the caterer arrived and set halved sandwich wraps and stuffed hors d’oeuvres on long tables in the front foyer; after this, he put slices of marbled chocolate cake on small, printed plates and mixed a red fruit punch in a decorated bowl. Then Joan turned on the soft, smooth instrumental music she had chosen to play on the surround sound system. She closed the window blinds on the afternoon sun diffusing a pleasant orange light in all the rooms where her guests would move. The first of them arrived, and Joe and Joan greeted them at the door. There came the Girardis from across the street, both very glad to see them. Pam complimented Joan on the great change she had worked setting up for the party. Next to arrive was Jay Granby, one of Joe’s friends; the two men shook hands and went into a corner talking over Jay’s new business appointment. Adam Lindsen showed, the up-and-comer Martin had recommended; Joe perched on him quickly after leading Jay to the punch. There followed Mary Sutton, Joan’s thirty-year-old teacher companion, very excited to encounter Joan in her big, new house for the first time. After Mary came other teachers, neighborhood people, and more of Joe’s colleagues. Martin Niedermeier arrived with several friends and Joe received all with handshakes signaling that he was grateful to have them. As they arrived, the many guests spread throughout the downstairs rooms. Joan watched them take to her sandwiches and hors d’oeuvres, the trays going half, then three-quarters empty beside the punch that sank ever lower in its bowl. Kind comments issued on the easy, quality music. As the party continued, the people mingled, their conversations quiet at first, then easier and more confident, filling the rooms with a pleasant din. Guests who were not acquianted came together and exchanged words comfortably all around Joan and Joe. Joan stopped and watched the people talking in their ebb and flow through her rooms, and felt that the many who had come had formed a whole, flowing and mixing freely, enjoying their own movements, each person finding only faces that reminded them of happiness. Joan was exhilarated. Her party appeared a success.

The doorbell rang about half an hour after Joan admitted whom she believed was the last of the guests. Being closer to the door than Joe, she answered it and found Chris Hammond on the front step. He had combed and made his wavy, brown hair neat, and dressed in a newly ironed, blue, red, and white striped T-shirt and blue jeans.

“Hello there, Joan,” he said in his cheerful voice and waved.

“Hello, how is it you’ve come?” Worried, Joan drew the door half closed behind her.

“I saw all the people coming over here and figured you must be throwing a party.”

“Yes, I am actually.”

“Well, I know you must have friends you know a lot better than me, but I thought since I’m your friend and your neighbor, I could come over too—that is if you liked. May I?”

Joan did not know what to say. Right behind her was the party that moved busily with wonderful, successful people whom she and Joe had been connecting with all evening. She had come to know June Woods, wife of Joe's associate, Dan, Rebecca Smith, wife of his associate Jason, who seemed interested to invite her to an evening party next week. Mark Jackson, Martin’s connection, had shown Joe signs of respect as they had chatted in the living room. Chris, childlike, awkward, out of place, would undo all she and Joe had achieved with them and the whole party, she thought. She imagined it too clearly: when her well-positioned guests discovered him boyish among them, they would say she had marred their good afternoon and evening on a whim. But she felt at the same time that she could not tell Chris no. She had come to respect the man for his kindness and consideration, his sweetness, however childlike, and his attempts to be mature for her sake. She would discount that in telling him she could not let him in. What excuse could she possibly make him if she did? “Sorry, we can’t have anymore guests.” “Sorry, I can’t let you in. This is a private event.” Would she possibly be right to say no after showing him all the patient understanding that she had? He had supposed she was his friend to have come asking to join the party and she felt very well that he was one. If she said no now, he would think he was less than he believed with her. She knew he was too intelligent not to. The kind, well meaning man knew her and would sense the truth with his weak, but very adult sense. Dimly perhaps but he would. And then she feared he would mistrust and doubt her for who knew how long. So what was she to do?, she thought, holding onto the door as she looked dumbly at her neighbor now much too long.

“Who is it at the door?” came Joe’s voice behind Joan. Joe had left Mark Jackson by the punch and was drawing near in quick steps to check what had held her up. She knew that in a moment Joe would see Chris at the door. As matter of course, Joe would be upset and try to dismiss the fellow more painfully than she would. She knew she immediately had to make her choice. Joan opened the door wide and answered her husband, “Our latest guest. Chris, please come in.” She made a small, half-circle motion with her forearm, and Chris stepped eagerly across the threshold. As her husband gaped, Joan leaned confidently towards Chris and said, “I’d like to introduce you to our guests if that is ok.”

“You’d show me to them? I mean I’d like it but I might not be that good around this many people for a first time.”

“Just let me do most of the talking. If they ask you anything, try to keep the answers short. They like people who are sort of to the point.”

Chris smiled ear to ear. “I could do that, I think.”

Very glad, Joan ushered Chris toward her guests. She re-made herself into Chris’s advocate on the instant, ready to impress everyone with the interesting, remarkable sides of his personality; in her new mood, she was prepared even to exaggerate for him. They went to Mary Sutton, her friend who taught fourth grade. Joan told her that Chris was interested both in children’s literature—“what a good collection he has of it”—and education, especially learning through games and songs. "He knows a library of songs," she bragged. When she had heard Joan through, Mary said that Chris sounded "something like a scholar". She suggested, as a polite overture, that she might borrow a book from him through Joan to read to her class in the fall. From Mary, Joan and Chris went to Kate Andrews, her very well-off neighbor from up the block. Joan told Kate that Chris was developing talents as an arborist. "He planted the very handsome pine tree that you can see through the hall window," she said. Kate asked if he liked to landscape; Joan answered he was on a project "to re-do the appearance of his front bushes." As if impressed, Kate confided that she had a landscaping hobby and spoke to Chris of pruning her own trees as if he were a fellow in arms. After Kate, Joan brought Chris to Joe’s colleagues, Tim Akaro and Peter Kowalski. "If you guys ever sought a guide to adventure and action films Chris is it," she said. She made the claim since she had heard one of them liked those species of movie. She asked Chris name a few of his DVD titles and he named Rescue Mission: Skyscraper and Freedom Brigade. “Both of them are so cool. And their effects are unreal,” he said, much satisfying Tim, an action fan. After getting a chummy “Nice to have met you” from Joe's two friends, Joan and Chris went to Michael Fritz, an executive Martin had brought. To this man known for his pricey tastes, she raved about Chris’s “eye” for furniture. "You should see his new green velvet chair," she said launching into a verbal essay on it. Fritz went into his own furnishings at home, and Chris said the man’s “sounded as good as Joan’s in the living room.” Thanking him, Mr. Fritz mentioned a project to outfit his vacation home, then gave Chris his card. After parting with the executive, Joan and Chris met with a pair of ambitious up-and-comers, Zoe Thompson and Paul Rivers, Joe had told her as concertgoers. Joan told them that Chris had a great talent for guitar. “He can give you a wonderful performance,” she said and described his solo on the lawn. Zoe and Paul, excited, asked about the music he did. “Everything guitar," he said to which Joan added, “He’s very versatile. He picks up music like a sponge does water.” Soon after announcing this, Joan brought Chris away, leaving the two up-and-comers in awe.

As Joan and Chris circled elsewhere, she revealed to different guests that Chris had an excellent knowledge of popular music that “could” qualify him someday to be a radio host; what was more, he had made studies of animation and animated movies equal to any film critic's they might encounter. These talents very much impressed her guests, and Joan, as if half-believing her high praises of her neighbor, went with him confidently to all corners of the downstairs rooms, to single strangers and intimate pairs, and introduced him fearlessly. She even led her companion past Martin on their way to one of her friends, giving him a pointed “Excuse us.” The rounds with Chris worked, she discovered. Everyone they met made signs that they thought him sociable, smart and talented, in essence, a person they would be glad to know as a friend and equal. The decision was clear: Joan had made a good choice to connect the partygoers with her neighbor.

Joan kept Chris protectively at her side as she circulated the party into the evening. But the hour grew late and, as the guests departed, a few at a time, she recognized she would have to part with Chris for the night. She felt that after showing him the special courtesy of her companionship through the party, it was meet she not simply let him go alone to his home next door as if he were just “one of the other” guests. So, she asked if she might walk him to his door and he said yes. The two left behind the last few guests and went up the sidewalk beside one another, quietly in the warm, summer night. In the back of her mind, Joan knew that after her return home, she would have to face Joe’s questions over what she had meant by admitting Chris and introducing him in her bizarre way to all the guests. She knew also that Martin Niedermeier, if he ever made another visit, would belittle her for promoting her neighbor as a normal, intelligent man. But right now, as she made her neighbor’s door, her one thought was to bid her friend Chris goodnight.

THE END