The Perfect Neighbors Read Online Free

hairdresser who’d banished the strands of gray from Gigi’s auburn locks before trimming off eight inches.
    â€œOh,” she’d murmured, staring in the mirror when he’d spun her around with the flourish of a game show host. She’d always worn her hair down to her bra strap, and it had never bothered her that it got big and frizzy in the humidity. She’d liked the easy, bohemian style. But the hairdresser had applied a horrible-smelling chemical that made it look sleek and shiny and not at all like her.
    Her mother had burst into laughter when she’d seen Gigi. “I’m sorry, honey,” she’d said. “It’s just that you look like a”—Gigi had waited patiently as her mother had succumbed to more giggles—“like a shorn sheep!”
    Two years of therapy, and her mom could still light up her buttons faster than a toddler at an elevator control panel.
    Gigi yawned again and checked the bedside clock. Not even six a.m.
    â€œI wish they all could be California girls,” Joe’s off-key voice warbled over the rush of the shower.
    Careful , she thought. Don’t want to alienate the voters on the East Coast.
    When she and Joe had first met, back in college, he was famous for sleeping through his morning classes. Not missing them, but actually sleeping in the last row, his head bobbing, an occasional snore whistling through his nostrils. Now Joe woke up at five a.m. to run three miles before drinking a green smoothie, standing up, while he read the papers.
    But she’d changed, too. Didn’t everyone say the key to a happy marriage was changing together? Or maybe it was growing together. In any case, she’d begun to match Joe’s runs with her own Zumba and Pilates classes, and now that he eschewed dessert, so did she. So technically, they were shrinking together. Except for the chips and brownies she snuck from the snack drawer reserved for the kids’ lunches, but she gobbled those standing up and buried the evidence in the trash can, so they obviously didn’t count.
    The kids. She climbed out of bed and reached for her robe. She needed to make sure this morning went smoothly, to avoid stepping on any of the emotional bombs her teenaged daughter Melanie loved to lob in her path. Late this afternoon a photographer was coming over to capture a family photo for Joe’s congressional campaign brochure and website. Their twelve-year-old, Julia, would cooperate. Of course she would; Julia had been a happy, gurgling infant whose disposition had never changed. She was an honor roll student and captain of the soccer team. Julia would put on the sundress Gigi had laid out and brush her hair without being asked. But fifteen-year-old Melanie . . . well, the best case was that she’d demandto wear all black and refuse to take out her nose ring. Gigi wouldn’t think about the worst case until she’d fortified herself with coffee.
    She’d make Melanie’s favorite banana-pecan pancakes, the ones her daughter had adored when she was a little girl, Gigi decided.
    She padded into the kitchen, her feet hitting cold tile, wishing she’d put on socks but feeling too tired to go back upstairs for a pair. She stroked the head of their sleepy golden retriever, Felix, before popping a pod of Starbucks Breakfast Blend into the Keurig. While her coffee spurted into a mug, she reached into the pantry for ingredients and began lining them up on the counter: flour, bananas, milk . . . She was dropping a pat of butter into the warm skillet when she sensed a presence behind her.
    â€œYour hair looks ridiculous.”
    â€œGood morning, honey,” Gigi said, trying to block annoyance from her tone. She smoothed down a few spiky bangs that seemed determined to defy gravity. “I’m making pancakes.”
    â€œI’m not hungry,” Melanie said.
    Gigi turned off the burner.
    â€œHow about just a