Open House

  I open Travis’s closet door, stare dejectedly at the mess. It’s sort of amazing, the creativity of it. A veritable sculpture of clothes, games, old schoolwork, shoes, hangers, loose felt-tipped markers. Back in the corner is a stack of old children’s books, the ones he’d liked best. I pull one off the top of the pile. Pumpernickel Tickle and Mean Green Cheese. Ah, yes. I open the book, turn to the picture of an elephant and a boy who are playing cards on the boy’s bed. Neither Travis nor I had found anything about that to be unusual. Of course a boy and an elephant are playing cards. What happens next? I close the book, put it back in the closet, shut the door, and go to the phone. “This is Sam Morrow,” I say. “I’d like to cancel an appointment.”

  I AM UP LATE, watching E.T. Couldn’t sleep. Suddenly, between my legs, a warm wetness. I go into the bathroom, pull down my pajama bottoms. A fair amount of blood. I go into the kitchen, call the hospital emergency room, speak in a low voice to the nurse on duty. How old am I, he wants to know. Oh. Well, then. I can come in if I want to. Or I can just wait it out. It will undoubtedly all pass without complication. If cramping gets bad, if I develop a fever, if the bleeding doesn’t stop . . . Yes, I understand, I say.

  I am in my forties. I already have a child. Therefore there is no tragedy here.

  I feel more blood coming and go into the bathroom, sit on the toilet and wait. I feel it pass. I stand, and, holding a towel to myself, try to see it in the bloody water. Then I pull up my bottoms and go to the kitchen for a tablespoon. I want to bury it in my yard. I want it always near. But it won’t stay on the spoon and I’m afraid to touch it with my hands. I flush the toilet, and, quietly weeping, put on a sanitary pad. It’s gone. Everything is gone. I can’t hold anything. Back in bed, I cup my hands over my uterus and begin weeping so loudly I awaken Travis. He opens my door, sticks his head in. “Mom?”

  I stop crying. “Yes?”

  “Are you crying?”

  What to say? What not to say? “Yes, I am.”

  “Oh.” He scratches one foot with the other. “Want me to come in there with you?”

  I smile, feel tears slide into the corners of my mouth.

  “It’s okay, honey. Sometimes you just need to cry, right?”

  “I guess.”

  “It’s just . . . you know, I was watching a sad movie.”

  “What one?”

  “E.T.”

  “Oh. The part where he goes away?”

  “Yeah. Did you think that was sad, too?”

  “Yeah. I guess. Not that sad.”

  “Right. Well, I’m sorry I woke you up. Let’s just go back to sleep, okay? And tomorrow let’s have something special for breakfast.”

  “What?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  “Pancakes with blueberries? And bacon?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay.” He starts down the hall, then comes back into my room. “Mom?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I hope you feel better.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be fine.”

  He hesitates, then comes over to kiss my cheek. Which makes my throat hurt so much I make two fists in order not to cry out.

  32

  “WOULD YOU LIKE TO TRY A SAMPLE OF OUR NEW CHEESE?” I ask.

  The older woman stops her grocery cart, squints at me. “What is it?”

  “Well, it’s a new kind of Swiss cheese. Much lower in fat than the others.”

  “Is it any good?”

  “Would you like to taste it?”

  She frowns. “I don’t think so.”

  I put the foil tray back down on my card table. I’m wearing an apron with a cow on it. I would rather build a header. But this is the only job that was available for me today.

  “Would you like to try a sample of our new cheese?” I ask a middle-aged man.

  “Does it come with a burger?” he asks.

  “No, it’s just cheese.”

  “That was a joke,” the man says. “You don’t have a very good sense of humor, do you?”

  I smile. “Guess not.”

  . . .

  LATE THAT NIGHT, before going to sleep, I call King. “I handed out cheese samples today,” I say. “What did you do?”

  “Painted bedrooms in a new house. Mission white, mission white, and mission white.”

  “I’m tired of working.”

  “Good. Let’s take a day off tomorrow and go to a movie.”

  “Two movies.”

  “Okay.”

  I hang up the phone and hear the sound of voices, whispering. I get out of bed, come out into the hall. It’s Edward and Travis, huddled together downstairs at the front door. “What are you guys doing?” I call down. “It’s midnight!”

  “Shhhh!” Edward motions frantically for me to come down.

  “What is it?” I say, and then, shhhhh!ed again, wait until I am at his side to whisper, “What is it?”

  “I think it’s . . . an intruder,” Edward says, looking meaningfully at Travis. Ah. What he means is, It’s a murderer. Edward is clutching his bathrobe at his neck with one hand, wielding his squash racket in the other.

  I pull Travis toward me. “You go upstairs. Right now.” Tomorrow I’m getting a dog.

  “I’m not going upstairs!” Travis says. “He might come up there!”

  He might. He might be up there now. He might have watched me go down the stairs!

  “When did you last hear him?” I ask Edward.

  “He’s outside. I think he’s in the bushes.”

  “Well, what should we do?” I ask. “Should I call the cops?”

  “That’ll just make him mad,” Edward says. And then, “Oh, this is ridiculous! We need a man in the house!”

  “Mom,” Travis says.

  “What?” I look at his upturned face and immediately calm down.

  “Come with me,” I say. “It’s all right. Let’s go call the police. They’ll be right over.” I dial 911, then use my best speaking voice, as I am being recorded.

  It takes three and a half minutes for the police to arrive. We watch from the window as two overweight men get out of the squad car. The blue flashing lights are a comfort, for once.

  “They should be careful!” Edward says. “What are they doing, just getting out like that!”

  “They have guns,” Travis whispers. “Probably thirty-eights. Or maybe Magnums.”

  “What are you talking about!” I say. “What are you talking about guns! That’s it, you don’t play with Howard Niehauser anymore!”

  “Do you mind?” Edward says. “Do you think this is the time and the place? Why don’t you wait to see if we live? Then you can kill him.”

  “Shhh!” I say. I hear it now, too, the rustling of someone in the bushes. And then the police see him, and put their hands, both of them, to their guns at exactly the same time, in the same way. A little police choreography. A little ballet. I start to laugh.

  Edward stares at me, bug-eyed.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. I always laugh when I’m nervous. I hate this about myself.

  “Come out of there with your hands up,” I hear one of the cops say, and I thrill to the familiarity of the phrase, which, up to now, I’ve only heard in movies, on TV. A slight figure disentangles itself from the bushes. It is Lavender Blue, who, as she explains hysterically to the policemen, just forgot something, that’s all. A statue of Saint Jude she had buried out front when she first moved in. It was just for luck, she tells them as she slides into the car, the muddy patron saint clutched in her hand.

  I open the door. “Excuse me!”

  One cop slams the car door after Lavender, then heads up the walk toward me. The other cop gets in the front seat of the car and turns around to look at her, a weary sorrow in his face.

  “It’s all right,” I tell the cop who is standing on my front porch. “She used to live here. She just moved out.”

  “You don’t want to file a report?”

  “No.”

  “She a
lways visit this late?” the cop asks.

  “She has trouble sleeping.”

  The cop tongues off a tooth, makes a muted smacking sound. “Okay, then. Take care.”

  I close the door, turn to see Edward stashing his racket back in the front hall closet. He combs his hair back with his fingers, tosses his head, tightens his robe belt. “Well,” he says. “Good night.”

  “I’m not tired,” Travis says, exhausted-looking.

  33

  I’VE GOTTEN TOO DRESSED UP. IT’S ONLY A LUNCH. BUT THERE was something in his voice.

  I see David come in the door, and wave at him. He comes over to the table, smiles. Sits. Smiles again.

  The waiter comes over and I order herbal tea. “The same,” David says. “You like tea?” I ask. “You never used to.”

  He shrugs. “It’s so cold out. Seems like a good idea.”

  “It is cold.”

  “Yes. Sam . . .” A long silence.

  I wait. He has circles under his eyes. He’s lost a little weight. The waiter brings our tea, and we both order sandwiches. And then David says, “I don’t know exactly how to say this. But I’ve been thinking. Sam, I made a big mistake. I’m coming home.”

  I sit, frozen.

  “Do you think we should tell Travis together?”

  “Well, David, I—”

  “You don’t need to answer right away. We can think about the best way to do it. But I’m just so relieved.”

  “What about your girlfriend?”

  “Oh, that was . . . She was only—”

  “Did she leave you?”

  He looks into my eyes. “No. It was my decision.”

  He’s telling the truth.

  I try to imagine telling Travis, think of how happy he will be to learn that his dad is coming back. I can have my old life again.

  “I’ve missed you, Sam. I’ve come to understand so much about myself lately, about the way we were together, about what we had that I just . . .” He stares into his teacup, shakes his head.

  “What do you miss, David?”

  He looks up, laughs. “Oh, come on, Sam, I think you must know that. Our routines, Travis, I just—”

  I swallow, touch his arm. “About me, David. What do you miss about me?”

  “Well.” He smiles, leans forward. “I miss . . . everything. The way you’re always there for me. The way you never question me or give me a hard time. Even the meals you make, you—”

  “David?” How about this? The way your shoes are always untied. The way you cry over greeting cards. The way you try to hide your cowlick. The freckle at the side of your right breast.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s too late.” I pick up my purse. “I’m sorry. But I think it will be better if I just go, now.”

  “Sam, wait a minute!”

  “We’ll talk later, David. But not about this. I’m sorry.”

  I am, a little. I walk down the block, thinking of him sitting there. It’s odd; it pains me that his clothes are still so familiar to me. I took the shirt he was wearing to the cleaners many times; I saw the belt and trousers he had on hanging in our closet. I believe I could tell you everything that’s in his pockets. But it will happen soon that I won’t know anymore.

  34

  SPINACH LASAGNA, KING IS MAKING FOR ME, A GRAND SUNDAY luncheon, and I’m bringing the garlic bread. I spent the day attempting to make it from scratch, but now that it’s out of the oven, I regret the time I spent doing it. It looks awful. I break a piece off the end, taste it. Well, if ever I think about baking bread for a living, I’ll remember this. I dump the loaf into the garbage and head for Franco’s Market, home of Pepperidge Farm.

  When I arrive at King’s, he ushers me in with a flourish, bending low at the waist and sweeping a dish towel through the air. He is wearing an apron and, when he stands up straight again, I see that he has drawn on a thin mustache. I smile, reach out to touch it, but he holds his hand up protectively. “Don’t mess it up,” he says. “It took me a long time to get it so realistic-looking.”

  His kitchen table has been covered with a red-and-white-checked tablecloth; there are bread sticks in a glass at the center of the table, an antipasto platter, a candle stuck into a Chianti bottle. “Well, this is wonderful,” I say, laughing.

  “Thank you. Sit down. Would you like some wine?”

  In the afternoon? Well, why not? I nod, pull my chair in close to the table, hold up my glass. He fills it halfway with red wine; then, when I don’t put the glass down, he fills it to the top. This is my favorite restaurant.

  “I’M STUFFED,” I say. “My stomach hurts.” I am lying on King’s sofa, my shoes off, my empty wineglass at my side.

  “Yeah, that’s how I used to feel after every meal,” King says.

  “You didn’t eat half as much as I did.”

  “Sure I did.”

  He’s just being gracious. He’d only had two helpings. “You’re losing quite a bit, aren’t you? I hope you don’t mind my asking. Do you mind my asking?”

  “No, of course not. I’ve lost forty pounds. Another twenty, I’ll have to beat Edward off with a stick.”

  “Is that what you want to do, lose another twenty?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “That’s great,” I say. “Although . . .”

  “What?”

  “Well, I just want you to know that I think you’re fine the way you are.”

  He says nothing, and I look down, feel myself flushing. I shouldn’t have said that. He’s not losing weight for me.

  Finally, to break the silence, I ask, “Do you like having no curtains?”

  “I never thought of it. Do I need them?”

  “I don’t know. No. I like how everything’s so . . . simple here.”

  “I’ve never been much of a decorator. My parents weren’t either. What we did was read. You know, at dinner and everything.”

  “Do your parents live near here?”

  “No, they died, both within the last couple years. My dad was at a bookstore, looking at an atlas. He’d wanted a new one. And my mom had a heart attack exactly a year later.”

  “I’m sorry; I’d thought they were still around.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry, too. Because they would have been really happy. They always wanted me to—”

  The doorbell rings and I sit up, slide into my shoes. I don’t know why. I guess I’m afraid it’s Travis, checking up on me. “Why are your shoes off?” he’d say.

  But of course it’s not Travis. When King opens the door, I see a willowy blond woman, very attractive, smiling.

  “Linda!” King says.

  Oh.

  “I thought I’d surprise you,” she says, and I hear the confident lilt of flirtation in a relationship that is going well. “What’s on your lip?” she says, reaching up to wipe it away. Then, seeing me, “Oh. You’re busy.”

  I stand. “It’s okay. Come on in. I’m Sam. I’m just a friend.” I regret having eaten so much, not having worn mascara.

  King steps aside. “Yes, come in.”

  Linda enters, but stands by the door. “I can’t stay, really. I just wanted to drop a book off.” She hands a small volume to King, and he smiles, thanks her.

  I want a coat like Linda’s. It’s camel-colored, with a collar that you can stand up high. Her boots are a rich brown, high-heeled. Well, that’s just silly. High-heeled boots. Ridiculous. Make up your mind, sexy or safe. Large gold hoop earrings, too, I see, watching Linda push her hair back. Catch something in there and say good-bye to your lobe. I could have blond hair, too, if I wanted. A word to Edward, and voilà. Last week he “tipped” me. Very elegant. Linda’s lipstick color is nice, but her blush is too obvious. Plus the woman is stupid, I can tell just by looking at her. King can do much better than this. I’ll tell him. I owe it to him. As a friend.

  There is a sudden silence, and I realize something has been said to me. “Pardon?” I say, smiling an awful, fake smile. My chest hurts.

&
nbsp; “I just said it was nice to meet you,” Linda says. “I hope I’ll see you again.”

  “Oh! Yes! I hope so, too!”

  After King closes the door, I sit back down. “Well! She’s very nice.”

  “Yeah.”

  “She’s the one you met from the personals, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So, what does she do?”

  “She’s a teacher.”

  Nursery school. Of course, she’s exactly the type. I see Linda in her high-heeled boots, hop-hop-hopping around in a circle with her class, all of them being rabbits. Noses twitching. Bent hands for ears.

  “She teaches at Boston University.”

  Okay, freshman English. “What does she teach?”

  “Quantum mechanics.”

  “Oh, uh-huh. Well, that’s . . . So, what book did she bring you?”

  King hands me a volume of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

  “You like these?” I ask.

  “Sure. Don’t you?”

  “I never understand them.” I clear my throat. Smile.

  I need to go home. In the hamper are about forty loads of wash. And I need to pay the bills. There are many bills. Stacks and stacks of them.

  “Shakespeare’s not so hard,” King says. “You can understand this.” He opens to a page. “Here: ‘Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.’ Nothing hard about that, right?” He sits beside me on the sofa, points to the line, says it again. “See? And they are, aren’t they? Darling? The buds?”

  I stare into my lap. His breath is like licorice. Why is his breath like licorice? Mine is like a garlic factory, I’m sure. Not that there is such a thing. A garlic factory. I think about it anyway, imagine blond-haired girls wearing braids and white uniforms standing on an assembly line, shaping cloves into bulbs.

  Then I look up at him. His breath is like licorice and his apartment is overly warm because he knows that’s how I like it and his hand is under my chin and he is going to kiss me.

  “King.”

  He sits back. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s . . . I mean, aren’t you . . . sort of . . . involved?”