The Neighbors Are Watching Read Online Free Page B

moment. God, how she hated Joe. And how she hated this daughter of his.
    “I didn’t want to come here, you know,” Diana said. “This wasn’t my idea.”
    Allison’s face was burning and there was a faint ringing in her ears. She couldn’t look at Diana. “It’s been a long day for
everyone,
” Allison said and worked mightily to unclench her jaw. “You should go back to bed. I’m sure you’ll be able to sleep now.”
    Diana got up and walked toward Allison, who turned her head, staring into the eye of the sink’s drain. “Hey,” Diana said softly, the slightest note of pleading in her voice, but Allison was too angry and embarrassed to answer, and after a second, Diana gave up and walked past her. Allison could smell jasmine in the current of air Diana left in her wake. Allison looked up then to make sure the girl was actually headed to her room. It was funny—almost cruel—how you couldn’t tell from behind that she was pregnant at all. The slim tight skin on her café-latte-colored hips and thighsbetrayed nothing. Nor did her skinny behind, and Allison got a good long look at
that
because aside from the too-small T-shirt, all Diana was wearing was a little black thong.
    Allison waited until she heard the click of the guest bedroom door closing before she reached into the freezer again and turned off the kitchen light.
    She took the first drink straight from the bottle.

august 2007

chapter 3
    J oe stared at his reflection in the bedroom mirror as he dressed for work, looping his black and yellow–striped tie around itself to form a knot. His hands fiddling with the fabric, Joe observed his face—the Roman nose, rounded chin, wide-set eyes—as if for the first time. The funny thing, he thought, was not that Diana looked like him but that it had taken him weeks to notice the resemblance.
    He’d seen it this morning and now it was impossible to
un
-see, like one of those black-and-white pattern-recognition pictures where you see either the vase or two profiles but never both simultaneously. It was during breakfast and the two of them were lifting bagels to their mouths in almost perfect synchronicity. His eyes had just happened to land on Diana instead of being glued to the sports section, which was a safer bet these days than looking at either of the women in his house. In that moment, as he and she were both biting into their chive-cream-cheese-laden “everything” bagels, he saw the curve of her eyebrows, the shape and color of her eyes, and felt as if he were looking at a younger, feminized version of himself. The recognition stunned him, stopping him mid-chew.
    “What?” Diana asked, and he realized he was staring. Allison took a long sip from her orange juice (which Joe suspected was spiked with vodka) and banged her glass down on the table loud enough to let him know thatshe’d seen that look he’d given his daughter—not that she had or ever would use the word
daughter
—and wasn’t pleased with it.
    “How’s your bagel?” he asked Diana, a lame cover but all he could come up with.
    Diana rolled her eyes and sighed. “Fine.”
    “You saw I bought orange juice?” He didn’t know why he was continuing the conversation and hated that he felt compelled to.
    “Can’t drink orange juice. Heartburn.”
    “And does coffee help your heartburn?” Allison said, pointing to Diana’s mug.
    “It’s
decaf
, okay?”
    Then it was the two of them staring daggers at each other until Allison got up from the table with her glass and wandered out to the backyard in the unwashed bathrobe she’d taken to wearing every day, all day. Joe watched Diana’s eyes follow her out and saw his own reflection a second time.
    Now, tying his tie for the
third
time, Joe’s mind wandered back to the day Diana had shown up on his doorstep holding a shabby suitcase and a letter from her mother. He certainly hadn’t seen any part of himself in her then, and it wasn’t just the color of her skin, even though