The Woman Next Door - Softcover

Delinsky, Barbara

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743411250 ISBN 13: 9780743411257

Publisher: Pocket, 2002

Synopsis

A poignant novel of deception, betrayal, love, and faith follows three couples whose lives are thrown into turmoil when their beautiful and much younger neighbor, who has been widowed for a year, announces that she is pregnant, forcing each of the wives to reevaluate their marriages and relationships. Reprint.

About this title

About the Author:

Barbara Delinsky has published more than sixty-seven novels since the 1980s, including, most recently, The Vineyard, Lake News, Coast Road, Three Wishes, A Woman's Place, For My Daughters, and More Than Friends. Published in twenty-five languages worldwide, her books regularly appear on the bestseller lists of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Publishers Weekly. Delinsky is a lifelong New Englander. She and her husband have three sons. Readers can write her c/o P. O. Box 812894, Wellesley, MA 02482-0026, or visit her Web site: www.barbaradelinsky.com

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Chapter One

Graham O'Leary shoveled dirt with a vengeance, pushing himself until his muscles ached, because he needed the exertion. He was filled with nervous energy that had no place to go. This was Tuesday. That made it D-day. Amanda would either get her period or miss it. He hoped desperately that she would miss it, and only in part from wanting a child. The other part had to do with their marriage. They were feeling the strain of failing to conceive. A wall was growing between them. They weren't close the way they used to be. He could feel that she was pulling away.

For Graham, it was déjà vu.

Grunting at the unfairness of that, he heaved an overloaded spadeful of dirt from the hole, but when he lowered the shovel again and pushed in hard, he hit rock. Swearing angrily, he straightened. Sometimes it seemed that rock was all he found. Forget the historic bit about stone walls marking one man's land from the next. He would bet that those walls were built just to get the damn rocks out of the fields! Put 'em over near the other guy's land, he imagined the old-timers saying. Only they'd missed a few.

Annoyed, he bent, worked his shovel under the rock, levered it up, and hauled it out. Clear of that impediment, he tossed spadefuls of dirt after it, one after the other in a steady rhythm.

"Hey."

Oh, yeah, he knew what pulling away looked like. He had seen it in Megan, building slowly, mysteriously, reaching a point where he had no idea what she was thinking. With Amanda, he knew the cause of the problem, but that didn't make it easier to take. They used to be on the same wavelength on everything. Not anymore.

Grunting again as he dug deeper, he remembered the tiff they'd had the week before when he had tossed out the idea that she might be more relaxed, and therefore more apt to conceive, if she cut back on the hours she spent at school. She didn't have to be the head of a dozen different programs, he had said in what he thought was a gentle tone. Others could do their part. That would allow her to come home early one or two afternoons each week; she could read, cook, watch Oprah.

She had gone ballistic over that. He wasn't suggesting it again.

"Gray."

Gritting his teeth, he hauled out another rock. Okay, so he was working longer hours, too. But he wasn't the one whose body had to provide a hospitable environment for a child to take root. Not that he would even breathe that thought. She would take it as criticism. Lately, she misinterpreted lots of what he said.

"Hey, you."

She'd actually had the gall to accuse him of being absent for the second artificial insemination -- like the thing could have been done without his sperm. Okay, so he'd gone back to work after producing it. Hell, she had told him to leave. Of course, now she was claiming that what she'd said was that he didn't have to stay if he was uncomfortable.

"Graham!"

His head flew up. His brother Will was squatting at the edge of the hole. "Hey. I thought you left." The crew worked from seven to three. It was nearly five.

"I came back. What are you doing?"

Planting his shovel in the dirt, Graham brushed spikes of wet hair back with an arm. "Providing a hospitable environment for this tree," he said with a glance at the monster in question. It was a thirty-foot paper birch that would be the focal point of the patio he'd designed. Not just any tree would do. It had taken him a while to find the right one. "The hole is crucial. It has to be plenty wide and plenty deep."

"I know," Will replied. "That's why I have a backhoe coming tomorrow morning."

"Yeah, well, I felt like getting the exercise," Graham said offhandedly and went back to it.

"Heard from Amanda yet?"

"Nah."

"You said she'd call as soon as she knew."

"Well then, I guess she doesn't know yet," Graham said, but he was pissed. They hadn't talked since he had left the house early that morning. If she'd gotten her period, she was keeping it to herself. His phone was right there in his pocket, silent as stone.

"Did you call her?" Will asked.

"No," Graham said, pedantic now. "I called yesterday afternoon. She said I was pressuring her."

"Moody, huh?"

He sputtered out a laugh and tossed up another shovelful of dirt. "They say it's the Clomid. But hey, it's not easy for me either, and I'm not taking the stuff." Under his breath, he muttered, "Talk about feeling like a eunuch."

"No cause for that," Will said. "You haven't lost it. You have an audience, y'know."

Graham paused, pushed his arm over his brow again, shot his brother a wry look. "Yup." He went back to digging.

"Pretty lady."

"Her husband's an Internet wizard. They're barely thirty and have more money than they know what to do with. So he plays with computers, and she watches the men who work on her lawn. It's pretty pathetic, if you ask me."

"I'd call it flattering."

Graham shot him another look. "You talk with her, then."

"Can't do. I gotta get home. Mikey and Jake have Little League. I'm coach for the day." He pushed himself up. "Don't stay much longer, okay? Leave something for the machine."

Still Graham dug for a while more, if only to bury the idea of Little League under another big mound of dirt. By then his muscles were shot. Tossing the shovel out first, he hoisted himself out of the hole and made for his truck, a dark green pickup with the company logo in white on the side. He took a long drink of water from a jug in back, doused the end of a towel, and did what he could to mop sweat and clean up. A short time later, he pushed his arms into a chambray shirt and set off for home.

* * *

"Your move," said Jordie Cotter from the edge of the deepest armchair in the office. He was fifteen and as sandy-haired as his three younger siblings, which Amanda knew not because she kept detailed files on every student, but because the Cotters lived two doors away from Graham and her. In fact, she had no file on Jordie at all. He wouldn't be in her office playing checkers with her if he thought he was being counseled. For the record, he was here to discuss his community service requirement, since she headed the program. This was the third time he'd come, though. There was a message in that.

Grateful to be distracted from thinking about the baby that was or wasn't, Amanda studied the checkerboard. There were five black pieces, four of them kinged, and three reds, all single. The reds were hers, which meant she was definitely losing.

"I don't have many choices," she said.

"Make your move."

Picking the lesser of the evils, Amanda moved in a way that she figured would sacrifice only one piece. When Jordie jumped two, she sucked in a breath. "I didn't see that coming."

He didn't smile, didn't pump a fist in the air. He simply said again, "Your turn."

She studied her options. When she looked up at the boy, he was somber.

"Do it," he challenged. When she did, he jumped her last checker to win the game and sat back in his chair. Still, though, there was no sense of victory. Rather, he asked, "Did you let me win on purpose?"

"Why would I do that?"

He shrugged and looked away. He was a handsome boy, despite the gangliness that said he was still growing into his limbs. But his T-shirt and jeans were several notches above sloppy, his hair was clean and trimmed, and he didn't have acne, not that many students here did. In affluent towns like Woodley, dermatologists did as well as orthodontists.

"You want to be liked," he answered without looking at her. "It helps if you lose."

Amanda drew in a deep breath. "Well, I do know how that is. I used to do it in school sometimes -- you know, deliberately blow an exam so that I wouldn't look like a geek."

"I wouldn't do that," Jordie said.

Amanda didn't believe him. Oh, maybe it wasn't the geek factor. With Jordie, there were other possibilities, not the least of which was the tension she knew existed at home. But something was definitely going on with the boy. His grades had taken a dive at midterm, and the expression he had taken to wearing around school was the sullen one he wore now.

His eyes met hers. They were dark and wary. "Did my mom say anything to you?"

"About the grades? No. And she doesn't know we've talked."

"We haven't talked. Not like, talked." He glanced at the checkerboard. "This isn't talking. It's just better than doing homework."

Amanda touched her heart. "Ach. That hurts."

"Isn't that why you have things to do here? To make kids want to come?"

"They're called icebreakers."

He snorted. "Like Harry Potter?" he said with a glance at the book on her desk.

"I think Harry's cool."

"So do the twins." His twin brothers were eight. "I tell them Harry flies through our woods on his broomstick. That keeps them from following me in there. Our woods are cool. They're real. Harry's not." Sitting forward, he began resetting the checkers on the board. "About the CS requirement? I'd do peer counseling if I thought I could, but I can't."

"Why not?"

"I'm not good at talking."

"Seems to me you talk with your friends."

"They talk. I listen."

"Well, there you go," Amanda said in encouragement. "That's what peer counseling's about. Kids need to vent, and you're a good listener."

"Yeah, but sometimes I want to say things."

"Like what?"

He raised unhappy eyes. "Like school sucks, like home sucks, like baseball sucks."

"Baseball. I thought you liked baseball." He had just come from practice. It must have been a rough one.

"I'd like it if I played, but I don't. I sit on the bench all the time. Know how embarrassing that is? With all the kids watching? With my parents watching? Why do they have to come to games? They could miss one or two. I mean, my mom is always at school. Julie loves it, but what does she know? She's only six."

"Your mom does good stuff for the schools."

"Know how embarrassing that is?"

"Actually," Amanda said, taking a calculated risk, "I don't. My parents were too busy fighting with each other to have the time or energy for either my school or me."

Jordie lifted a shoulder. "Mine fight. They just do it when they think we can't hear."

Amanda made a noncommittal sound, but didn't speak. Taking the moment's space to gather his thoughts, Jordie went off in a direction that was slightly different, but clearly upmost in his mind.

"And even if we can't hear, we can see," he said. "Mom hardly ever smiles anymore. She doesn't plan fun things like she used to. Like sleepovers for all our friends." He caught himself. "I mean, it's not like I want those anymore, I'm too old, but Julie and the twins aren't. Mom used to have twenty of us over at once with popcorn and pizza and videos, and I didn't even care if the little kids were bugging me and my friends, because that was all part of it, y'know?"

His enthusiasm gave way to a somber silence, then anger. "Now she just pokes her head in my room asking nosy questions."

"Fuck it," came a high, nasal voice.

Amanda frowned at the neon green parrot in a cage at the end of the room. "Hush up, Maddie."

Jordie stared at the bird. "She's always saying that. How come they let you keep her?"

"She only swears for kids. She knows better when it comes to Mr. Edlin or any of the teachers. She's perfectly polite when they're in here."

Like checkers, Maddie was an icebreaker. Some students stopped by daily for a month to give the bird treats before they felt comfortable enough to talk with Amanda.

"She's a good bird," Amanda cooed in the direction of the cage.

"I love you," Maddie replied.

"She flips?" Jordie asked. "Just like that? Is she a good guy or a bad guy?"

"A good guy. Definitely. Good guys can say bad things when they're upset. Maddie learned to swear from someone who used to chase her with a broom, which was how I came to adopt her. She knows what anger sounds like. She gets upset when kids get upset, like you just did about baseball."

"I wasn't talking about baseball when she swore," Jordie said.

No. He had been talking about his mother. But, of course, he knew that, which was why he was on his feet now, hoisting the backpack to his shoulder. Talking about parents was hard for kids like Jordie. Talking about feelings was even harder.

Jordie needed an outside therapist, someone who didn't know his family. For that to happen, though, either he or one of his parents had to take the initiative. None of them was doing it, yet. So Amanda went out of her way to be there when Jordie came by. Unfortunately, she couldn't make him stay. Before she could utter a word, he was out the door and tromping down the empty hall, lost again in whatever dark thoughts were haunting him.

Wait, she wanted to say. We can talk about it. We can talk about moms fighting with dads, how you feel about it, what you're doing when you're supposed to be studying, what you're thinking when you're blue. I'm free. I can talk. I can talk as long as you want. I have to keep my mind busy.

But he was gone, and as they had been doing all day, her eyes went to the desk and Graham's picture. It was in a neat slate frame, his smile beaming at her through his trim beard. It was a face that many a female entering this room had remarked upon. Graham O'Leary was an icebreaker, too.

She had to call him. He would be waiting to hear. But she didn't know anything yet, and she might not for hours.

Besides, lately it seemed that the only thing she and Graham were about was having a baby -- and, oh, did she feel the pressure of that. He had done his part successfully, and more than once. Her body was the problem. Of course, he didn't say that in as many words, but he didn't need to. She felt his impatience.

But what more could she do? She had followed Emily's instructions to the letter -- had eaten well, rested well, exercised in the most healthy and normal of ways, except for today. Loath to do anything that might bring on her period, she was moving as little as possible.

It was nonsense, of course. Normal physical movement wouldn't wreck a normal pregnancy. At this point, though, she was desperate. She hadn't left her office since lunch, and though she might have liked to use the bathroom, she quelled the urge. As a diversionary measure, she sat back in the sofa, checked her watch, and thought about Quinn Davis. It was five-thirty. She had told the boy she would be in her office until six, and so she would be.

His notes unsettled her. They had come by e-mail, the first sent early that morning saying, "I need to talk to you, but it's private. Is that okay?"

"Private is definitely okay," Amanda had written back. "What you say is between you and me. That's the law. I'm free third period. Would that work?"

He hadn't shown up during third period, but another e-mail arrived during fourth. "Would my parent...

About this edition

• Publisher: Pocket
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0743411250
• ISBN 13: 9780743411257
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400