Chapter 1
Alexandra Fox meant to have only a couple of drinks at the block party. Three, tops.
Oh well. Woman plans, God laughs.
But God didn’t have to put this party together. She did. The neighborhood slogan might as well have been: Go ask Alex, I think she’ll know. Basically a lyric from a sixties drug song. Hence the drink in her hand. If Alice from Wonderland needed pills to function properly—well, Alex from Meadowbrook, Massachusetts, could imbibe some wine.
“What happened to the blue tablecloths?” one neighbor asked.
Alex startled at the sound of her voice.
“Those were so pretty.”
Alex eyed the red tablecloths as if she couldn’t believe their horrible aesthetic. “Hundred percent agree,” she said with just the right touch of disgust. If she’d been able to find the blue ones in her basement, she’d have used those instead. But there was a good chance she’d thrown them out by mistake months ago.
“Such a good call,” Alex continued. “I’ll remember them next year.” She almost made an air kiss to seal the deal, but she wasn’t that drunk yet.
Instead of pointing out what’s not working for you, she thought, perhaps you could have helped me send out the eighteen invites … or put out the food or set up the badminton court. But no—shame on the red tablecloths.
“Oh, you must try Emily’s potato salad,” Alex said in hopes of sending this person away. “Utterly to die for.”
She directed the neighbor’s attention to the folding tables piled high with dessert trays and bowls of chips, which offered crumbs that daring birds would occasionally swoop down to snatch. Platters of meat sizzled in the sun.
Off went the neighbor, and finally Alex had a free moment to herself, nobody asking for anything, which meant she could drink from her red Solo cup in peace.
Tomorrow she’d restart her sobriety. Worse things had happened. It wouldn’t be a big problem as long as she could avoid her husband, Nick—at least until she sobered up.
Sounds of children at play filled the air, while their respective parents chatted in clusters or lounged on beach chairs dotting the island of the cul-de-sac. Alex resisted the urge to scoff.
If you all knew what I know, she thought, almost grinning at the idea, you’d be running from this party as fast as you could, not playing cornhole, that’s for sure.
She felt a gentle tug on the back of her shirt. Turning, she set her blurry vision on a young girl who lived four doors down on Alton Road. She knew the face, but for the life of her couldn’t remember this child’s name.
“Are the hot dogs ready yet?” asked the little girl—or was it girls? Was she seeing double?
Damn.
Alex pointed at the distant row of grills manned by a line of sweaty dads. “How am I supposed to know if the hot dogs are done, sweetheart?” she said. “I’m not working the grill, am I?”
The little girl’s eyes went wide. Alex feared the child might burst into tears. She hadn’t meant to be unkind, just factual. The approach worked well with her divorce mediation clients, but was obviously less effective with a kid at a neighborhood barbecue.
“Come with me,” she said, her voice cheerier.
Molly. This girl’s name is Molly Sanders. There. Not drunk.
She took the girl’s hand. The child’s flimsy grip made it easier to stay upright. “We’ll go check on the hot dogs together.”
A blaze of sunshine coaxed beads of sweat onto Alex’s skin. Water. I need water.
The hot dogs on the grill were in fact done. Alex was not. She reached into the kiddie pool and fished about the icy depths, eventually retrieving a pony-size plastic bottle of white wine. She filled her red cup almost to the brim. She also got herself a bottle of water, as if that might even things out.
Alex kept an eye out for Nick. They hadn’t spoken much since their big fight two days ago. As luck would have it, she’d picked the grill farthest from the rattan tiki bar. Behind that bar, Nick Fox mixed the more elaborate cocktails, none of which he’d have permitted Alex to drink. Good thing she’d stocked the bar for him that morning. He had promised to do it but didn’t, leaving her to do the job. She felt more than deserving of the drink she’d helped herself to in the process. Didn’t matter that it was before noon. The freestanding structure, one Nick had bought at a flea market some years back, leaned to one side as if it were about to topple over.
Alex could relate.
This would be her last glass until the evening, she promised herself. Water and coffee from now until then. She was still fully functional. She could carry on a conversation. Nobody was looking at her funny, were they?
The street was quite active now and would stay that way late into the evening. If Alex paced herself—steering clear of Nick, of course—she could party with her neighbors to her heart’s content.
The party was controlled pandemonium, with fifteen families (three no-shows) and thirty-something kids. Classic rock blasted from a pair of speakers purchased exclusively for this annual happening. Yard games abounded, with the lawn of Alex’s sprawling home functioning as the badminton court.
She surveyed the houses along the cul-de-sac’s perimeter. Nick, an architect by trade, had designed their beautiful home. But now she saw these dwellings for what they really were: empty husks, an illusion of normalcy and security. If those walls could talk—oh boy, the secrets and lies they’d share.
How did it all change so much in a single year?
Drink in hand, Alex retreated to the shade of a nearby canopy tent, safely out of the view of prying eyes.
A moment later, a man entered the tent, someone Alex did not wish to see.
She didn’t know his given name, but everyone in town called him Bug Man. Bug Man was a pest control salesman and a neighborhood pest himself. He was tall and lanky, with stooped shoulders and protruding eyes like those of the flies he was hired to exterminate. His uniform, an all-green jumpsuit with a matching green cap adorned with some colorful bug motif logo, said he was here to work. Certainly he hadn’t been invited.
Alex gave him a scowl. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “This is a private party.”
Bug Man offered an awkward grin. “I’m advertising my new business.” He presented Alex with a flyer, which she did not accept. Not that she could have read it, anyway, with her vision going in and out of focus. “I’m working for myself these days,” he said.
“Is that so?” Alex’s tone was cool.
“Yeah, I lost my job after someone on this very street made some unfavorable calls about me,” Bug Man said. “Guess my sales tactics didn’t go over well with your neighbors.”
“I purchased your services once,” Alex said. “But only after you scared me into doing so. Perhaps there’s some truth to those complaints.”
Bug Man shrugged. “I was simply explaining that once I treated your neighbor’s home, the pests most likely would seek shelter in your residence. Pests don’t care who’s paying the mortgage. They go where there’s no poison. I was merely trying to be helpful.”
“In some places, they’d call that kind of help scare tactics,” Alex said. “Look, you weren’t invited, and I don’t want you hounding my neighbors—ringing doorbells like there’s a fire outside, scaring people half to death, papering cars with your flyers, or breaking windows when you don’t get your way.”
Bug Man looked indignant. “What are you talking about?” he asked. “I kill bugs. I don’t break windows.”
Alex’s expression only hardened. “We both know you’re the one who tossed that rock with the note attached through my brother-in-law’s window. If he sees you around here, you won’t be safe. You do remember that he owns a gun? I wouldn’t go knocking on his door if I were you.”
Alex didn’t wait for a reply. She marched out of the canopy tent—right into Nick. They collided with force, enough to spill the wine in Alex’s Solo cup all over her husband.
“Jesus, Alex,” Nick said. He looked down at the massive wet spot on his polo shirt with disgust. “Have you been drinking?” he asked.
“No,” said Alex, using some newly discovered muscles to keep from swaying.
Nick sniffed the air. “I can smell it on your breath,” he snapped. “God, Alex, we talked about this.”
“It’s one party, Nick,” Alex said. “Lighten up, will you? You’re not my mother.”
“Thank God for that,” Nick muttered under his breath.
Alex tried not to let the sting show. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.
“It means you say what you want, do what you want, and damn the consequences. You promised, Alex—you promised, no more drinking.”
“I have some fun for one day…” Alex slurred. In case Nick hadn’t understood, she held up a single finger.
Nick’s eyes, normally a sweet shade of brown, darkened to charcoal. He stepped back to appraise her.
Alex stepped back as well, barely catching herself from rolling an ankle in her wedge heels. She didn’t want to be near him. Nick latched his hands on his hips, with the same look on his face he used to lecture Lettie.
“I’m just having a good time, honey,” Alex said. “Leave it alone, will you? Setting up the party was a lot of work. And Lettie—she’s leaving soon for college, and I’m still pretty upset about our argument. Can’t I blow off some steam without you watching me like a hawk?”
“Not this way you can’t,” Nick answered, his tone clipped.
Alex waved him off. She didn’t need to be lectured. Didn’t want a talking-to. She was a grown-ass woman who could make her own life decisions. “I really don’t appreciate being treated like a child,” she said. “I think I deserve a little gratitude from my damn husband, not a lecture—or do you think the red tablecloths are shit as well?”
Nick looked utterly perplexed. “What on earth do tablecloths have to do with you being blotto at the block party?”
“Whatever,” said Alex angrily. She twisted the David Yurman bracelet Nick had bought for their twelfth anniversary, resisting the urge to rip it off and throw it at him. Too much nuance was in play for Nick to grasp. She’d rather be with her girlfriends, anyway. They’d understand her far better than her husband ever could.
She took one step backward, but it proved to be one step too many. Alex’s foot connected with the side of the kiddie pool full of water, ice, and beverages. One second, she was backing away, and the next she was on her ass, covered in water and ice, with drinks floating all around her.
Heads turned. People stopped talking. All eyes fell on Alex.
She leapt out of the pool as if it were electrified, raising her hands overhead triumphantly to signal that she’d meant to do that. “It was getting hot out here,” Alex shouted at the gawkers. “I’m good. All cool now. Literally and figuratively.”
That was a clever recovery, she thought.
A smattering of applause followed, but it couldn’t overpower the whispered talk and sniggers of laughter.
Nick gripped Alex’s arm. “What the hell, Alex? You are such a disgrace,” he said between his teeth. “Get control over yourself, will you? Go home. Sleep it off before you embarrass yourself further. Lettie shouldn’t have to see you like this. And, Alex, whatever you do—don’t come back.”
Copyright © 2023 by J.D.
