Carousel Court

  The vibration is instantaneous. As though he were sitting with his legs crossed in the Virgin Clubhouse at Heathrow, wondering how far she would go. Take it.

  Lots of applications.

  Tough market.

  How should I close this?

  Aggressively

  Offer what, 4,200?

  Is it premature? There will be other places.

  This is the place. This is home.

  You don’t have anything yet.

  Amusing

  Have you heard from anyone?

  You told me I nailed it.

  I’m sure.

  Are you?

  As sure as one can be in this environment

  Don’t make me ask

  What?

  It’s a rental. Safer move.

  What do you want?

  Close this for me.

  How?

  First, last, deposit.

  Co-sign??

  Not funny.

  Wait till things solidify. Right? When D&C is final and you can budget, then take the family house hunting. What’s the rush?

  You won’t do it.

  There’s a long pause.

  The agent is at his Audi convertible, on the phone. Phoebe stands on the front walk, unwilling to move.

  Give me the agent’s #.

  Splendid ;)

  There is no response.

  They might need ID or my social, but I don’t know, how do you plan to do it?

  Her iPhone doesn’t vibrate, there is no response from JW. She waits. Ten minutes pass. The Audi is gone. She is alone on the front lawn of the house by the ocean, shadows stretching across the grass. Laughter and shrieking, and a pack of tiny goblins, a zombie and one white ghost pass by, orange plastic bags in hand, adults snapping smartphone pics, trailing close behind. A year from now, she thinks, next Halloween, that will be her and Nick, Jackson in costume, going door-to-door, filling his bag.

  • •

  In the Explorer, idling on the street opposite the yellow house, she makes three phone calls. The first is to Mai to thank her again for all she’s doing and to apologize for the insane schedule and mention a family emergency and Nick’s unconventional hours and ask if Jackson can spend another night there.

  She sends Nick a text: You’re off the hook again. He’s with Mai tonight. And he had fun at the zoo. She said he loves the elephants. I guess you knew that. Anyway, house is yours. Have a blast!

  And you’ll be where exactly?

  She doesn’t have an answer yet. She’s miles from home. It’s almost six. Jackson will be asleep by the time she gets to Serenos. She considers Hotel Bamboo. She considers sleeping on the beach. She doesn’t respond to Nick’s question because she doesn’t know.

  The vibration of her cell is a text from Mai. A picture of Jackson. He’s a Smurf.

  Is ok to trick/treat?

  Jackson wears a fluffy white nightcap and a blue top and a bright white diaper.

  Pants. He needs pants.

  Too hot for the pants.

  She calls Kostya. He answers on the first ring.

  “Boo!” she says. She feels an intimacy with him that may not be real, but her high is gone, so it could be. The days are shorter, darkness comes earlier. All these little kids marching around as Transformers and panda bears and Power Rangers with their parents close behind triggers a surge of loneliness, a longing for something she can’t remember ever having.

  “I know your number. You don’t scare me,” he says.

  “You must not know me very well.”

  “Someone steal our Frankestein. Or he get scared and run off.”

  “Check Metzger’s tent.”

  He laughs. “You a sneaky bitch, but I like.”

  She smiles because she knows he doesn’t mean it the way it sounds; nuance is lost in translation. The connection is breaking up.

  “Our dog is alone in the house,” she says. “Can you take him for the night?”

  “—dog is dead?”

  The connection is lost. The call drops. She calls back but gets voicemail. She knows he didn’t mean it and couldn’t possibly know if something was wrong with Blackjack, who’s in the house and can’t get out. But still she’s scared. Horns blare. She’s parked legally. Headlights blind her through the windshield. She’s blocking a driveway. An SUV’s horn blares. Her cell rings.

  “It is Kostya. Marina tell me to say that for Halloween scaring. It is a good scare, yes?”

  She pushes the car into drive, lurches forward. The driver of the SUV calls her a bitch.

  Costumed kids and their parents witness the exchange. Kostya is still on the line. Embarrassed, she drops the call. She drives home to Serenos. It takes her nearly three hours. She swallows two Klonopins in the kitchen. There is no wine in the house. She pours too much rum in a Spider-Man cup and drinks it all. She taps out a message to JW, the question she doesn’t want to ask, doesn’t want an answer to:

  And what do you mean final? With D&C what’s NOT final?

  When she sleeps, it’s on the sectional in her white cotton dress, waiting for word. She felt playful when the day started, a vague sense of anticipation about better days. Now her jaw aches; cramps are churning her insides. Her throat is dry and hurts when she swallows.

  The vibration wakes her because the iPhone is wedged between her head and the throw pillow. She can’t focus. The words are blurred, a blended mess of black characters. Finally, she makes it out. It’s not JW. It’s Nick: Nice dress. He get that for you?

  56

  The private road that leads to the Sunland house, the location of Nick’s first night of Angel Duty, is unlit and narrow, and when the sun sets, the dry hills that wrap themselves around the house cast uneven shadows that swallow the place whole. Nick is about to text Phoebe again and ask what else she’s blowing his sweaty cash on besides sundresses and yellow underwear when his iPhone vibrates.

  The message is from Mallory: You were in my dream.

  He’s been sitting in his Subaru outside of this completely dark, deserted mansion for an hour. It’s ten o’clock and none of the streetlights work and there’s no one around. Despite the Mossberg, he’s not sure he’s capable or stupid enough to enter the house alone. He may sleep in the car.

  Is it wrong to say that turns me on?

  nope

  Was it interesting?

  It was great, I’m still thinking about it. Definitely not wrong. Now the thought of you turns me on crazy.

  Nick taps out a response: I want to do something with this

  What do you have in mind?

  I want to know what you like. Then I want to facetime or skype or whatever.

  That’s all??

  Nick turns off the ignition on the Subaru, pulls a white latex mask over his head. Mallory continues the exchange: This morning I got off thinking about the dream. You had me over the hood of a car. I love it from behind. And sure lets skype.

  He leans against the warm hood of the car, taps out his response: I came up from behind in my dream . . . you were over a granite countertop. Empty house looking back at me. I could smell you, taste you.

  They’re texting over each other. Buzzing and tapping and sending and the soft hue of the screen and the erection he’s getting from wearing the mask and imagining how this twenty-two-year-old girl tastes almost make him forget about the house he’s about to enter.

  That sounds amazing. I’m wet. With your hand around my throat or holding my hair . . . starting off slow . . .

  Just ease it in . . .

  Super slow. I’d want you to put it in & then pull all the way out again . . . over & over, I’ll feel so tight around you, you’ll love it.

  Let me know when you can connect.

  Now.

  Andwhereyouwantmetoco
me

  A long gap. He’s seeing himself from a distance: wearing a white mask, clutching a pump-gauge shotgun with a case of shells outside of a deserted mansion on Halloween night. The dark hills seem closer somehow. The warm air is thick and soft.

  inmymouthiwanttotasteyou

  Do you know where Sunland is?

  57

  The Spanish revival behemoth is cold inside and smells like bleach. It’s unfurnished. The electricity is still on, as is the air-conditioning. Nick calls out. He doesn’t want to surprise anyone, and he needs to hear a voice, even his own, which echoes through the downstairs and up to the vaulted ceilings.

  All the clean modern lines of the interior only make the arched black-framed windows more ominous. He taps wall switches as he goes, illuminates each room until he’s in the kitchen. Outside, a half-moon pool in the backyard lies empty. The kitchen quickly fills with moths and other insects, drawn to the light through the shattered glass door where entry was gained. A wrought-iron gate surrounds the backyard and pool, presumably to keep mountain lions and coyotes from the property.

  Nick returns to the dual spiral staircase. “Listen to this!” he’s calling out as he climbs the stairs. He places two green shells in the barrel of the Mossberg and pumps it. “That’s the Mossberg. It’s a shotgun.”

  But all of the rooms are empty aside from some balled-up sheets and a few empty paint cans. He calls Papa John’s, and when he tries to give the directions to the house, the kid laughs and says, “Don’t think so, dude. We don’t go out that far,” and hangs up. Nick brought his phone and music and tablet. He has some Dos Equis and an ice gel pack, vitaminwater, cold cuts, and hard-boiled eggs in a giant cooler. He’ll elevate and numb his swollen, bruised left ankle and right knee (the fall did more damage than he’d thought initially). He has an air mattress and a pillow and fifteen of Phoebe’s Klonopins.

  You inside? It’s Boss.

  Nick is limping around the back patio, staring into the hills. Big house

  That’s a $2.6 mil property you’re protecting

  Nick writes back: Was

  Later, Nick finishes the last beer outside as a warm mist settles over everything and the cicadas scream as he holds his phone to the sky and starts to film his surroundings and begins to narrate. “Home sweet home,” he says. A police helicopter passes low overhead. A zigzag of spotlights cuts across the terrain with urgency, pursuing or searching for someone. Nick lies down on one of three chaises left behind, the shotgun on the concrete patio next to him.

  The message he receives is from Phoebe: Are you working tomorrow?

  I work every day.

  Do you have a couple of hours?

  Where?

  It’s a surprise

  No.

  Please.

  No.

  I’ll do all the driving.

  Whatever

  Nick drifts off, fitfully, shifting his weight on the chair outside, the cicadas the last thing he hears.

  • •

  He can’t stay asleep so he goes inside, gets online, tries to focus on the story he downloads about street brawlers in Rio and their animalistic gang rituals. But he can’t keep from hearing strange noises, the cries from animals in the distance, coyotes maybe, and the crickets that seem to be inside the house despite the cardboard he duct-taped over the shattered window, and cicadas, and something scraping against the downstairs windows that are all so sweeping and grand, he is sure at any instant something will crash through, glass exploding everywhere, the assault, the home invasion under way, and all he will be able to do is run the other way, trying to get to his car or disappear into the blackness of the hills.

  The air mattress he brought is positioned on a gleaming hardwood floor in the center of the large living room, exposed dark beams and a massive stone fireplace. It’s late and he’s nearly drunk, lying on the air mattress, picking at a scab on his left elbow and trying to remember how he injured it and if he has enough money to take Jackson back east, start over there, when headlights appear, illuminate the dark living room. A black MINI Cooper convertible comes to a stop and idles in the gravel driveway and the music cuts off and the driver’s-side door opens. It’s Mallory.

  Nick doesn’t bother putting on a shirt and leaves the lights off. The doorbell chimes and echoes through the huge empty foyer and living room, and he runs his hands over his hair, which he cut short, almost shaved. He’s got a warm, nearly empty bottle of Corona in his hand as he pulls the front door open a crack, peeks through.

  “You are not really here,” he says in a sleepy voice.

  “Orange Dream?” She offers a big white cup with a red straw.

  He sucks the straw and the sweet cold citrus slides down his throat as he opens the door for her, keeps the cup.

  “This place is ridiculous,” she says, and sticks a plastic bag of weed in his back pocket. “Arik says you should quit this job.”

  She moves past Nick and toward the stairs, where she turns and sits, leans back, elbows on the stairs. She’s all legs—tan, thin, with a large bruise on her left shin. She’s not wearing shoes.

  “Are you two a couple?” Nick sucks the straw.

  “Would I be here if we were?”

  “I don’t need complications.”

  She laughs. “Says the married father to the girl he invited to the deserted house on Halloween.”

  “Why’d you come?”

  She reaches for the smoothie. He hands her the cup.

  “Thanks again for the house you put me in. It’s perfect. Not all this, but better than Arik’s place.”

  “You owe me rent.”

  “It’s in your pocket.”

  “Stand up.”

  She’s on the third stair, so when she stands and Nick moves closer, she’s taller than he is. He takes her hands. Her chin is at his forehead. He breathes her in. He reaches into his back pocket and removes the plastic bag of marijuana. “Tell me where you want me to put this.”

  She takes his right hand, the one that holds the bag, guides it down the backside of her tight yellow shorts. Nick closes his eyes and rests his head against her chest but only for a moment, never quite stops moving, massaging her breasts through her shirt with his forehead, chin, until he’s pulling at her shorts, which somehow fall to her ankles, and he drops to his knees and urges her back down on the stairs, removing her shirt, and even as he tastes her, he can’t jettison images of Phoebe pressed against a wall, JW’s hand pinning her head against it. In refracted kitchen light, the faded acne scars are visible on Mallory’s chest, as are the red marks from the grip he’s had on her shoulder and neck, and he finishes and collapses next to her on the stairs, reaches for the white cup and tries to take a sip, but it’s empty.

  • •

  Mallory doesn’t ask any questions and doesn’t stay. Nick walks her to the car. They’re both barefoot and he’s still shirtless. The scent of smoke hangs in the air.

  She stops at her car, keys in hand, and turns to him. “So I’m wondering something. You think Arik’s an idiot, don’t you?”

  “I think he’s young.”

  She’s laughing. “He pays the rent. So there’s that.” She slaps Nick’s chest for emphasis.

  Nick puts it together: They’re in some kind of dysfunctional relationship that is all too familiar. They’re working through something and making a mess of things, but they have an advantage that Nick and Phoebe don’t enjoy, and Nick envies them for it. What they have that Nick and Phoebe gave away, so long ago he can’t recall, is some margin for error.

  Low white clouds distract him. “It’s smoke,” he says, more to himself than to her. She kisses Nick quickly on the mouth, hard, then turns from him. She left the Sirius radio on and a familiar pop song blasts from the speakers when she starts the car and she doesn’t bother turning it down, and when the MINI Cooper’s red taillig
hts disappear around a bend in the deserted private road in the gray dawn light, Nick sees for the first time the shattered second-floor window and the illegible black graffiti tags on the right side of the house. He wonders how he missed those details, if maybe they happened since he arrived, while he slept. He wonders what other signs he’s missed. Inside, there is a slow leak in the air mattress and only cold water runs in the shower.

  • •

  The next night, his last in the house, Nick sits shirtless on the edge of the empty pool, lighting long wooden matches he found in the kitchen, tossing one after another into the blackness and watching the dark hills, waiting for the winds to come and the fire with it. The wailing is the cicadas. They’re dying, he thinks. Phoebe hears them, too, wherever she is. The alarm they’ve ignored for too long. He has enough money, nearly sixty thousand in cash, to take Jackson anywhere, back to Boston, somewhere different, some new adventure. Maybe New Orleans. The simplicity of a father and son. At some point the boy will ask questions and Nick will answer them all, honestly and without hesitation. Your mother did what she could to take care of you. Your mother made herself who she is, and everything she gave you and continues to give only happens because she decided it was important. But she was tired, it was work, and there is something in her that needs special attention, and sometimes people can only fix the broken parts of themselves alone. Sometimes it’s safer that way.

  Punk-ass bitch

  The text is from Phoebe.

  Then a winking emoticon.

  Cleaned out the fridge and three loads of laundry and smoked a joint with Marina. Do you still think she’s hot? She thinks you’re hot. She asked if we MUCK around! I think she meant mess. Do you, Nick? Do you MUCK around? Because you can if you want to. It’s not like we ever have sex anymore and I totally understand and wouldn’t be upset because the bottom line is you’re still here and in days, literally, you won’t believe what’s happening. So tomorrow, 8 am? Please don’t be late.

  • •

  Nick drags the air mattress out on the patio but doesn’t sleep. He’s hungry and missing his son and Blackjack, staring at misshapen dark patches where the clouds are thinning and the glimmer of faint stars and wondering if it’s possible that he’ll ever miss Phoebe again because tonight he doesn’t miss her at all.