There's Something Very Strange About My New Neighbors

A man sits across from his wife at their round kitchen table, a table he knows well enough after eight years in the same house to recognize every mark in its surface. But this morning something is off. His wife is tapping her fingers, stopping, starting again. When he asks about the new neighbors who moved in thirteen months ago, she says they're "wonderful" — but she sounds like she's trying to convince herself. She can't explain why. "They seemed too perfect," she finally says. "Like they're playing a part in a play." He doesn't see it. The couple next door has always been pleasant. He invites them to dinner.

The dinner that changes everything

The neighbors arrive. The woman has blonde hair and green eyes, a bright smile. The man is quieter, arms crossed, smiling. The narrator's wife is uneasy at first, but as the evening goes on, something shifts. She laughs with the woman. She talks easily. By the time the neighbors leave — the man hugs the narrator, the woman hugs his wife — she says she thinks they're "lovely." The narrator is relieved. He'd been worried for nothing.