Excerpt of The Neighbors by Ania Ahlborn

Creekside had a total of five grocery stores, so after the disaster at Thriftway, he visited the rest of them, minus the Kroger he used to work at less than a week before. He filled out three applications despite two of the managers telling him they weren't hiring, and scored another interview only to be told that they'd call him later. Drew tried to be optimistic, but that "later" felt like a "never."

His frustration started to mount.

He dropped into a couple of video game stores, a bike shop, three coffee places, and a Dairy Queen. Everyone shook their heads. Everyone gave him an apologetic smile, a shrug of the shoulders. It appeared that Creekside was far from immune from the Capitol disease. The economy had gone to shit, even in the heartland.

Despite the work he'd put into Mickey's house, he didn't want to go back there yet, didn't want to face the bitter reality that he was living in a dilapidated house—a blight on an otherwise perfect neighborhood. So he decided to get something to eat instead. But the urgency of his situation hit him full-on while sitting in line at a Burger King drive-through. After numerous fast-food runs, his funds were in the double-digits. The seven dollars he handed to the guy at the window suddenly seemed an extravagant amount for a burger and some fries. He tried to enjoy his sandwich, but was hindered by his inability to stop thinking about how, if he kept going out to eat, he wouldn't last longer than a week.

Parked in front of the house, the aftertaste of french fries still on his tongue, Drew sat in his truck for a long while, staring blankly at the steering wheel. Suddenly overwhelmed by frustration, he grabbed the wheel, clenched his teeth, and tried to shake the damn thing free of the dash. It didn't budge, and eventually Drew simply slumped in his seat, his forehead pressed to the wheel. He had expected this to be easy. His current disillusionment only served as proof that he was an idiot. Because nothing was ever easy. Especially not this.

Throwing his door open, he paced the cracked sidewalk in front of the house, his fingers shoved through his hair. The locusts hummed in the trees, their incessant buzz somehow making the summer heat more brutal. Back and forth along that pavement, he tried to figure out what the hell he was going to do, somehow convinced that remaining outside would help him think. Turning his attention to Mick's house, he couldn't help but wonder if this was honestly better than living at home. Both places were suddenly neck-and-neck on Andrew's scale of disgust. If home was where the heart was, home was neither here nor there. If home was where you wanted to be, Drew's home was next door beneath the shade of a front porch; it was behind a white picket fence, not in front of a patchy, sunburned lawn.

His hands fell to his sides, leaving his hair in stressed-out disarray. He exhaled a sigh and stalked across the crunchy lawn.

Halfway to the house, he heard his name.

"Andy?"

He glanced over his shoulder at the pride of Magnolia Lane. Harlow stood in the front yard, her wide-brimmed sun hat and Jackie O glasses obscuring her face. One arm loaded with cut roses, the other extended over her head in a wave, she looked like a Hollywood starlet—the kind you'd see in a fancy spread about the next big actress: Harlow Ward, home from the studio, pruning her rosebushes and hiring local boys to move heavy furniture.

"You all right, honey?" Her voice chimed in the breeze like a songbird's chirp.

He didn't answer. How hadn't he seen her when he parked? She was damn near impossible to miss. It seemed as though she'd appeared out of thin air, but he hardly cared. She was exactly what he needed—a reminder that he had made the right decision, that moving here wasn't a mistake.

"You look upset," she said. "Is there something wrong?

He determined then and there that Harlow wasn't real. She was a figment of his imagination; the personification of the perfect woman circa 1959. Most neighbors didn't bother to speak to each other anymore, but Harlow—he wouldn't have been surprised if she had been standing there with a sheet of her freshly baked cookies, those gardening gloves replaced by oven mitts. It was nice to know that someone cared enough to ask if he was okay; it was even nicer to know that the person doing the caring was Harlow, and he was the object of her affection.

"Everything's fine," he said.

"Oh good." She crouched down, tucked her flowers into an oversize basket, and straightened her hat before speaking again. "Come have lunch."

Drew cracked a smile. She was relentless. "I just ate," he confessed.

"Oh?" She slid her sunglasses down her nose, giving him a look. "Let me guess, McDonald's?"

He gave her a guilty look, then exhaled a helpless laugh when she shook her head at him with a sly grin of her own.

"Fine," she said. "Some other time, then."

She turned away only to pause a moment later, glancing back to him before stepping back to the picket fence between them. She plucked a rose from her basket and laid it across the length of the top rail. And then she turned again, disappearing inside without a word.