*
At the barbecue, Penn remembered what else neighbors can be: entertainers of your children. The Elliotts, two doors down across the street, had twin boys a month older than Rigel and Orion—Harry and Larry—and though Penn and Rosie secretly thought rhyming twins were unnecessarily confusing and the Elliotts secretly thought twins named after stars were unnecessarily abstruse, when Rosie checked on them later, she found all four in old Rigel-knit eye patches, huddled around a neighborhood (treasure) map all but dancing with delight. Cayenne Granderson had her mother’s open face and wide smile but her father’s erratic garrulousness. If Frank came off at first as awkward and off-putting, his daughter read as unpredictable and dangerous. Intriguingly dangerous. She introduced Roo and Ben to some of the older kids, and when Penn went to investigate, he found seven or eight of them piled on a blanket in the corner of the yard, one boy strumming pointlessly at a guitar, Cayenne with her head in Ben’s lap. Ben looked frozen, overcome with good fortune but terrified that if he moved so much as a toe she might realize what she was doing and get up and go away. (Penn, who had more experience with these things, noted that Cayenne didn’t look like she had any desire to go anywhere.) Roo was scowling at the guitarist, realizing for the first time that playing the flute at a neighbor’s barbecue in front of a bunch of new kids was unlikely to earn him the same cachet. (Penn, who had more experience with these things, bet that even though Roo had never touched a guitar in his life, he could still play better than this kid.)
Poppy stood shyly behind her parents’ legs when they first walked in, her parents a little cowed themselves by the magnitude of living in an actual neighborhood. With actual neighbors.
“We’re so glad you could come,” Marginny cooed.
“So Poppy, are you hungry?” Frank bent down to peek at her behind Penn’s knees. Rosie held her breath. “Come meet Aggie.” He offered her a hand, but Poppy shook her head mutely. “Aggie,” he called, and a girl just Poppy’s age tumbled around from the side of the house in pigtails tied up with twist ties and a cape of plastic tablecloth that had lately been on the dessert buffet. She wore one yellow rain boot, one bare foot, and was dripping wet.
“Why are you soaked?” Frank said. The girl smiled sagely as if this were one of the universe’s unknowable mysteries. Frank seemed to change his mind about wanting to know. “This is Poppy. She just moved in next door. She’s going into first grade too.”
Aggie peered at her new neighbor. “Want to see my room?” She ran off at a wobble without waiting for an answer, it being, apparently, obvious, at least to the six-year-old set. Poppy ran off after her, laughing already. It was love at first sight.
Rosie and Penn met two Melissas, two Jennys, a Suzy and a Susan, a Mary, an Anne, and a Maryanne, a Kiki and a Mimi. They met Doug, Erik, Jason, Alex, Baylor, Aiden, Isaac, Gordon, Josh, and Cal. The names went in Penn’s ears and out Rosie’s. There were too many to stick. “Nice to meet you,” they said, over and over again. And “Five,” they answered all night long, and “Madison, Wisconsin,” and “Yes, we like it here so far.” And, pointing, “The turret house next door.” Rosie answered, “The neighborhood school,” which was met with delight, and “For work,” which was sort of true, and “Doctor. Family practice. Right at the top of the hill.” Penn answered, “Struggling writer,” and “No, you probably haven’t read anything I’ve written.” They answered, “Fourteen, thirteen, eleven, eleven, and six.” They answered, “Four boys and a girl.”
Over two red plastic cups of very good sangria, one of the Melissas said to Rosie, “You must have been so glad to finally have a daughter.” She was drinking while rocking in place to keep her own pink-clad infant asleep in the sling on her chest.
Rosie sipped and nodded. “We were thrilled. Just thrilled.” This was mostly true as well.
The older kids stayed late at the party, but Rosie and Penn said their good nights in order to take their youngest home to bed.
“Stories?” Poppy asked hopefully.
“Tomorrow,” Penn promised. “It’s way, way past your bedtime tonight.”
“Did you have fun?” Rosie tucked the sheets in all around the corners of the bed. It was too warm for a blanket.
“So much,” said Poppy, and Penn and Rosie both looked hard at their baby, so fervent was this reply. “No one here knows. They say she and they say her, and it’s like they’re not even pretending, you know?”
“They’re not,” Penn said.
“It’s like I’m not even pretending too.” Poppy’s eyes were closing, sleepy-happy.
“Well, no one here knows who we really are,” said Rosie.