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“We’ve told them a hundred times. They won’t take no for an answer. If you turn down an invitation, they send you flowers or candy or homemade cookies. These people are persistent, insistent,unrelenting. I thought you might know ...”
“Know what?”
“How to deal with them.”
“If it bothers you, maybe you should move.”
“We would if we could. But we have a mortgage two points below the current rate. We can’t afford a house at the current interest.”
“What do you do for a living?”
“I code. My wife codes. The company lets us work from home because we write great code and meet deadlines. We used to think working from home was so cool. But the Nelsoneers know we’re here.” He clasped his head in both hands, as if his skull mightcrack open from the pressure he was under. “We’re home, always home,and they know it.”
Bobby wondered if the Nelsoneers were really as intolerable as Weber made them out to be or if he was a drama queen. “I don’t know what to tell you, Warren. I suppose, if I were as distressed as you are, I might sell the house even at a loss and move, maybe get out of town altogether, go someplace where property values are lower.”
Weber lowered his hands from his head and turned them palms up, as if to say,You don’t understand, it’s not that easy, I need some help here.“But we love Maple Grove. It’s so pretty, so clean. We’ve never seen a town so clean, nothing in disrepair. There’s no crime. It’s the safest place in the world.”
“There’s always crime,” Bobby said.
“Not here. I know it sounds crazy, but not here. There hasn’t been a murder in fourteen years, no robbery in almost thirteen. No burglaries. No shoplifting. No speeding. No driving drunk. Not even littering, for God’s sake. The police department is down to four officers, and they don’t carry weapons anymore. They drive around helping people with flat tires and vehicles that won’t start. Help old ladies load groceries in their cars. They spend hours searching for a stray dog. I lost my wallet six months ago. This guy found it and thought it was badly worn. So he bought a new wallet and brought both of them to me. He refused to be reimbursed.”
Bobby had first pegged Warren Weber as quasi-neurotic, for the most part harmless unless overstimulated. Now he realized that the man was something else entirely. Weber was one of those walk-on characters with the limited purpose of providing important information to the lead character. (Bobby was not soegotistical as to think he wasthe one and onlyprotagonist of this Maple Grove story. However, he was sufficiently self-aware to realize that he wasone ofthe leads in an ensemble cast; being remarkably modest for an author of his accomplishments, that role was enough for him.)
“Even if everyone in town has suddenly become saintly,” Bobby said, “criminals must come in from outside, try to peddle drugs, pull a stickup.”
“Yeah, but some feel remorseful before they’ve done anything. Eleven years ago, this guy named Ned Sacker drove in from upstate with thugs named Turpin and Nevison to rob the First National Bank. Ned was, by his own admission, ‘a tough little weasel,’ a young man on his way to a life of crime. Three hours after they checked into a motel using false ID, Ned walked into police headquarters in tears and confessed to their intentions. Turpin and Nevison were long-time professional thieves with outstanding warrants. They were sent to the jurisdictions where they committed crimes, were prosecuted and sent to prison. Ned was put into a diversion program and remained here in Maple Grove. He got a job. Was promoted. Married a local girl. Got into real-estate sales. Bought a house. He sold one to Kate and me. He can’t explain why he did what he did, the confession and all. There’s a lot of that in this town.”
“If this is all true,” Bobby said, “it’s strange.”
Weber agreed. “Strange but, I’ve got to admit, in some ways wonderful. The downside of all this wonderfulness is the Nelsoneers. The problem is that too much wonderfulness can get on your nerves.”
“What does your wife think about all this?”
Warren Weber’s face fell, not completely off his head, but the gravity of his dismay drew his features into a dour expression that suggested he might be close to losing all hope. “At first Katie was creeped out by it, but gradually she’s come around. She plays bridge with the ladies one afternoon a week. She’s joined their book club. She talks about ‘our special neighborhood, our special town, our special life,’ talks that way all the time.” Unshed tears welled in his eyes, and his mouth grew soft. “I’m afraid ... afraid my Kate, my Katie ... I’m afraid she’s changed, lost,gone.”
Bobby said, “Well, I don’t know, but it sounds like she’s just happy.”
“Does it? Is that what it sounds like? I don’t know. Sometimes I think I’m the one with a problem. Then there’s a moment when Katie seems ... not happy, not just content. She seems dazed, robotic.”
“I’m not sure what you mean by that.”
“She seemsdrugged. She’s not. I’ve looked everywhere in the house for illegal drugs. There aren’t any. Eventually I stopped looking because I got embarrassed about snooping on her as if she were some teenager who fell in with a bad crowd. Recently, some days, I don’t think about it that much. It’s too exhausting. There are days the Nelsoneers invite me to make a foursome for golf, and the guys are fun. It all seems so natural. Today, when I heard how Spencer was coming back, I ran out to the bakery, bought two dozen eclairs for the welcome-home party.” He fell silent, blinking in perplexity, as if he only now realized what he had done. “I’d never met Spencer, but I wanted to let him know how happy we all were to have him back. Then Katie and I went across the street with the eclairs, and I saw you. I saw how you were looking at everyone.”
“How was that?”
“Like you thought the whole scene was somewhere between absurd and disturbing. And watching you, I sort of ... began to wake up. I realized I was becoming part of it. Don’t you think this is a lot more than merely strange? Don’t you? Don’t you think so?”
“‘More’ in what sense?”
“Weird, frightening, dangerous. Don’t you think what seems to be happening here has a threatening quality?”
Something had changed about Warren Weber. Being in a walk-on role, he had no obligation to evolve logically, yet his confusion was gone as though it had been pretense. The warm, beseeching quality of his eyes had settled into a hard stare. He no longer projected a nervous and uncertain demeanor but seemed poised to take action of some kind.
“‘Threatening’ is a pretty strong word, Warren.”
Weber said, “Yeah, well, there are times I feel threatened. If that’s how I feel, don’t you think I should go to the authorities? Not here in Maple Grove. Maybe go to the state police?”
A chill creped the skin on the nape of Bobby’s neck. He became convinced that he was being interrogated and that if he endorsed the state police idea, there would be a terrible cost. “Frankly, Warren, I think you’ve got a case of midlife crisis.”