1
AUGUST 31âMORNING
Allison Miller lay in bed in the dim light of early morning thinking about sex. It was the hammering on the new house being built next door that was responsible, the rhythmic pound, pound, pounding that ought to have chipped away at any nascent amorous thoughts instead of inspiring them. She slid her hand across the sheet, touching her husband Tedâs thigh, but it was clear from the set of his mouth that sex was not in the offing this morning.
âDo you know what time it is, Al?â
The question was rhetorical. Their digital clock was of the large-numeral variety, designed for people like them, in their forties, eyes just beginning to go.
âWe hardly need the alarm clock anymore, Cox is so loud,â Ted said. The revving of a chain saw made him leap out of bed as if stung. He opened the windowâwith effort. The Millersâ house was old and its parts had settled.
Theyâd lost the battle for the trees. Ted couldnât accept it. Nick Cox, neighbor and builder, had been given the go-ahead to cut down more trees on the property next door. The town only had jurisdiction over trees that were twenty inches in diameter or more. There were a surprising number of these junior, cut-down-able-size trees on Coxâs property, a small forest that had sprung up over the yearsâtrees not strong enough for climbing or genetically programmed to offer fruit or flowers, but still welcome for providing a little buffer of green between the Millers and the adjacent property.
Allison watched Ted with fond familiarity, the gentle curve of his rear end and the rush of red in his neck from the effort of opening the window. She waited for him to yell, to open his mouth and to really let loose. Heâd threatened so many times.
She imagined Nick Cox in his jeans and hard hat, his blue eyes sparking as he yelled back. She pictured the two of them engaging in a twenty-first-century duel, fought across the yards, a battle of words over the fortress Nick was building to their left, a four-story monolith complete with battlements and a double front door that begged for attending knights in armor. It was even bigger than the faux stone castle heâd built to the right, with its many turrets and spires, where Nick, his wife, Kaye, and their two pretty blond children lived. One half-expected to see fireworks shooting into the sky above the houseâif one could see the sky above from inside the Millersâ, which one no longer could. Allison and Tedâs little house was wedged between the two, a pebble amid boulders.
In the meantime Tunlaw Place was in disarray, the air tinged with the stench of diesel. A construction truck and a dumpster were parked along the curb, along with Nickâs little yellow bulldozer, which looked like a brightly painted toy.
Allison closed her eyes and stretched her arms and legs toward all four corners of the bed imagining that sheânot the neighborhoodâwas the one at stake, she the damsel in distress, she the one for whom Ted would slay Nick Cox. Or vice versa. The winner would bed her. She was ready to make the sacrifice.
Ted stood at the window, on the verge of shouting. Allison waited, excited at the prospect. Today, it was finally going to happen. Today, blood would be spilled. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs, waiting, waitingâbut Ted seemed to think better of it. He slammed the window shut and stomped off to the shower.
The alarm beeped then, an unrelenting tone that increased in volume until Allison silenced it with the flat of her palm. She set off to face the last day of August. A day that was neither summer nor fall. A day neither here nor there. A day that promised to be nothing more than betwixt and betweenâjust like she was, Allison thought. Just like her.
JILLIAN MILLER SLOGGED HER WAY THROUGH HER CEREAL, HOPING sheâd finish before her dull stomachache went full-blown. She chewed dutifully, her eyes on the leprechaun on the cereal box. Sheâd slipped the box into the cart on a recent trip to the supermarket. Her mother preferred organic productsâbrown rice, brown eggs, thin brown paper towels that dissolved in your hands.
Jillian had hoped there would be a good-luck charm inside the cereal box, but after digging around she came up with nothing more than a powdery hand and arm. No prize to put in the shoe box under her bed amid the other tokens sheâd collected over the years: fortunes from fortune cookies, found pennies, rabbitsâ feetâuntil she realized they were the real feet of real rabbits. They hadnât helped so far, but you never knew when good luck might kick in.
Jillian was about to give the rest of her cereal to their dog Candy, a shaggy dachshund mix, when her mother came downstairs singing a cowboy love song. Her mother had been cast as the lead in the town production of Annie Get Your Gun. The thought of her skipping around in a little skirt and cowboy boots in front of everyone made Jillian want to die.
âThe hammering wake you, hon?â her mother said. âItâs like living in a war zone.â
Jillian shrugged. Who knew if she even really slept at night? She always woke up tired, her worries buzzing around her head like the moons of Jupiter: homework, grades, Mark Strauss, bad hair, terrorism, school shooters, racial profiling, global warming, college, police brutality, boobs, sex, death. She hoisted up her backpack, so heavy she had to walk bent over. All the kids did. They were like overworked elves, crushed by the loads they had to carry.
âSure I canât get you one with wheels? They have some awfully cute ones.â
âMom. Please.â She shook her head, hot with embarrassment.
âDonât forget the soccer game this afternoon. Do you have your uniform and shin guards?â
âIâm not three!â Jillian dumped her backpack to the floor with a thud, and ran upstairs to get them. She stuffed them into her backpack and took off out the back door.
Once upon a timeâlast year, when she was in sixth gradeâshe and her best friend, Sofia, walked to school together with their matching purple backpacks. Now she was nearly thirteen and purple was a stupid color, but her parents wouldnât buy her a new one because her old one wasnât worn out. And worse even than that: Sofia had moved to Paris, leaving Jillian all alone with the idiots at the middle school. Jillian skirted the dumpster and the guy with the yellow hard hat who always greeted her with a creepy, âGood morning, young lady,â and headed down the street.
She distracted herself by naming the Sears houses she could see: the Glyndon, the Hazelton. If she named all of the house models correctly on her way to school, she would have an okay day. Sheâd learned the names last spring, when she made a model of the town for her final social studies project. Sheâd stuck to the houses built before World War II. It was weird to think that in olden times you could order a house as a kit from a catalog. She imagined what would happen if you could order a house online. It would probably arrive by drone two days later, possibly crushing an evil witch or two when it landed.
It wasnât even September yet, but her school supplies had already lost their new-school-year smell. If she ran the world, sheâd make it illegal to start classes before Labor Day. It was so hot. Was it hotter this year? Was it global warming? Why didnât anyone care?
The Coxesâ SUV idled in the driveway next door, Mr. Cox behind the wheel, eyes on his phone. Lindy sat in the passenger seat, her blond mane glowing through the window. She looked at Jillian with no expression at all, as though Jillian were a fence post.
Jillian had had hopes at the end of fifth grade, when she learned that a girl her age was moving in next door, but it was obvious right away that she and Lindy would never be friends. Lindy liked popular girls. It was like she waved a magic wand at someoneâKatie Brown, who had a pool; or Liz Godwin, who wore mascaraâand suddenly theyâd be best friends. Theyâd walk down the hall laughing loudly together and eat lunch side by side. Then, just as suddenly, the magic would wear off. Lindy would roll her eyes when anyone mentioned the girlâs name. âShe sleeps with a night-light,â sheâd say, or more famously, âShe has sex fantasies about the janitor.â Lindy was tall for seventh grade. There were rumors sheâd been held back.
The Starlight, the Katonah. Jillian named houses while she waited for Mr. Cox to back out. The Rodessa.
Why didnât they just go? Were they secretly laughing at her? At her yellow pharmacy flip-flops? At her stupid hair? If they ran over her, her parents would probably move away so they wouldnât have to live with the memories. Then Mr. Cox would buy their house, knock it down, and build another big one on their block.
She was about to close her eyes and just make a run for it when Mr. Cox backed into the road and sped away, spraying construction dirt on her. Jillian pressed her teeth into her lower lip, the tears pricking at her eyes. The Arcadia. The Hollywood.
TED MILLER SAT AT HIS DESK AT THE FOGGY BOTTOM UNIVERSITY alumni magazine office editing an article about the championship-winning basketball team of 1962.
âOnce they called him âHoops.â Now they call him âPops.â These days, youâre more likely to see him at the food court than on the basketball court.â
It was impossible to concentrate on a guy called Hoops or Pops when Tedâs head kept filling with images of Nick Cox grinning at him through the leaves of their red maple. Ted had planted the tree for Jillian soon after she was born. Heâd chosen it for the color its leaves would turn in fall, imagining the sun shining through the rednessâa soft, rosy light under which his little daughter would play, followed, years later, by her own children. Ted would be the grandfather then, the old man puttering around the garden. He had been telling Jillian about that tree from the time she was little. She was bored with the story now, but Tedâs brother, Terrance, still liked to hear it.
âOnce they called him âHoops.ââ
Ted skipped to the âclass notesâ section, where alums wrote in to brag about their lives: âCarlton and I and our seven children (You heard that right, kidsânumber seven appeared on the scene in February!) spent the summer in Bellagio . . .â âWin just sold his biotech firm and retired at the ripe old age of thirty-three . . .â âCaroline, whose candidacy for governor . . .â He mangled a paper clip as he read.
Ted had never sent in a class note, not even to announce that he and fellow Foggy Bott-iam Allison Cole were engaged to be married, which was the kind of thing that gave alums heart palpitations.
Ted had only had one girlfriend before he met Allison: Margie Kastanienbaum, from Pittsburgh, a pert biology major heâd met in his Philosophy and Religion class freshman year. When he told Margie he loved her after they had sex for the first time, she laughed out loud, thus squelching his plans to give her a pre-engagement ring, to be replaced by a real diamond upon graduation.
There was no further sex for Ted the rest of freshman year. Nor sophomore or junior. He didnât really mind. Sex, in Tedâs mind, was equivalent with pressure. Pressure to perform. Pressure to please. Heâd grown all but indifferent to it in recent years, which was normal as you got older, he supposed. He made a better older man than a younger one, always hadâopting to go home weekends to do laundry instead of attending frat parties, choosing the spot on the bunk bed with his brother instead of the sliver of a twin bed in a girlâs dorm room.
Then, senior year, he moved to the group house on 39th Street and everything changed. His room was on the first floor, and Allisonâs directly above. She was not just the only girl in the house, but his dream girl. She was petite, with curly auburn hair, and eyes that went from green to gray to blueâsometimes during a single conversation. Allison always had time to talk, and sometimes invited Ted along when she roamed the city, taking photographs. She took in strays, from dogs, to cats, to humans, offering them all a home and warm meals, and, for the humans, symptom-tailored herbal teas when they were under the weather. She was like Wendy in Peter Pan. All five of the guys in the house were in love with her.
Unfortunately so was her boyfriend, Gary Hollowayâwhy, the name alone! It sounded like the name of a used-car salesman, and he acted like one, offering what he seemed to think was a charming smile and smooth remarks, and little else by way of compensation for living in Allisonâs room. Gary Holloway was always there. Was he even a student? What did he do except screw Allison? Which he did a lot. The wooden floors were squeaky at the house on 39th Street, which meant Ted heard everything that happened upstairs. This was a torment the first few monthsâbut it gave him the advantage the night Gary Holloway dumped Allison after a loud and ugly fight. Ted suffered through several hours of her unrelenting sobs before he knocked on Allisonâs door, opting to console his pretty housemate over getting the sleep he needed for a history test. Heâd failed the test, but heâd gotten the girl. He still couldnât believe it. It was a feat worthy of his fictional brother, Thomasâa third, more confident Miller sibling whom he and his twin, Terrance, had invented as children. Thomas was the charismatic one, the success. Thomas was the brother with balls.
What would Thomas do? he and Terrance sometimes asked each other, still. He asked himself the question now.
Thomas wouldnât put up with Nick Coxâs wanton destruction of Willard Park. He would have seen to it that the White Elephant was never built. At four stories, Nick Coxâs latest abomination rose high above all the other houses in Willard Park, casting a shadow over the Millersâ home. It was painted bright white and had been sitting on the market for monthsâhence the nickname, which Ted had come up with himself. It had caught on, heâd been pleased to learn, but that was the only thing about it that pleased him. Ted threw the paper clip, his mood having slipped from brown to black. It pinged off the door frame and landed with a tap on the floor. The tower bell gonged the half hour. Eleven thirty. Close enough. He took the stairs two at a time.
Ted unlocked his bicycle, donned his yellow helmet and vest, and rode through the iron campus g...