The Guest Room

  “I am a little scared of them,” she answered finally.

  “A little?”

  “A little scared of ghosts.”

  “I would be,” Claudia agreed.

  “Claudia? Seriously? Come on,” Jesse said. “I just told you, there is no such thing as ghosts. Emiko, that doesn’t mean your grandmother was mistaken or crazy. It just means that she was from a…a different generation.”

  Melissa had wanted to speak with her mom yesterday about Claudia’s idea that their house might now be haunted, but there had never been a chance. They had found the rubber and her parents had fought, and then her mom had retreated, sobbing, to the bedroom. It had been awful. And it hadn’t been the bloodstains or the ruined painting or the gross stains on the furniture that had caused her mom to break down. It had been the rubber.

  Her dad had told her mom that he hadn’t had sex with the prostitute, and Melissa wanted to believe him. She couldn’t imagine her dad telling a lie like that. But it was getting harder and harder for her not to be angry with him: the house was a mess, people were doing gross things in her bedroom, and he had made her mom cry. That was the worst part. He had made her mom cry a lot. And now they might have to move, and her parents might even get a divorce. Those were the things that really upset her; those were the things that really frightened her; and those were the things, she realized, that now had her furious with her dad.

  “You haven’t seen the bloodstains,” Melissa said to Jesse. She wished that Claudia hadn’t stirred her Cherry Garcia into goop. Or, maybe, that her friend had ordered a flavor that was less…red.

  “There are bloodstains?” Jesse asked, and then answered the question herself. “Good Lord, of course there are. Holy crap. Of course there are. Is it bad?”

  Melissa nodded. And then, unsure what she was going to say when she opened her mouth, she admitted, “It’s kind of a disaster. The house.” It made her ashamed to admit this, but she couldn’t stop herself. She just couldn’t. She liked Jesse so much, and there was something so hip and charismatic in her animal print leggings and black jacket and perfect red nails—something that made her so different from all the other moms. There was something about her that just made you want to talk to her and accept this great gift of friendship. Of comfort. Of…coolness.

  Suddenly Melissa was sharing everything that she had been keeping inside her: Her fears that her family was going to have to move. The reality that her parents might get a divorce. The fact that she had almost picked up this wet, messy thing called a rubber that a man had put on his penis.

  “It was in your room?” Jesse asked, her eyes widening.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Wait, what?” Claudia was asking. “A rubber what? What was made of rubber? I don’t understand.”

  But Emiko knew. Melissa could tell. The girl was looking into her empty sundae bowl as if the bottom of the dish was a smartphone with a video. She was embarrassed.

  “But the worst part?” Melissa said as she wiped at her eyes.

  “Go on,” Jesse said. “The worst part?”

  “No, wait,” Claudia said, grabbing her mother’s elbow. “What was made of rubber? Tell me!”

  “Later, Claudia, okay? I’ll explain to you what a rubber is later.”

  “I was just asking.”

  Jesse must have regretted bringing any of this up, Melissa decided; she herself was blinking back tears, Claudia wanted to know all about rubbers, and Emiko was clearly uncomfortable. But Melissa was tired of trying hard to be brave for her mom and to be patient with her dad. Her mom and dad were talking to each other—or, more accurately, arguing with each other. But still. Still. Who was she supposed to talk to? Who?

  And so now she took a deep breath and said the first and most honest thing she was feeling: “The worst part? I am so mad at my dad that I almost hope my mom does make him go back to that hotel to live.”

  Jesse seemed to think about this for a moment. Then, once more, she reached across the table. This time she placed both of her hands atop Melissa’s.

  …

  Richard told himself he was overreacting. Yes, he was furious with Spencer. Annoyed by the news vans, with their George Jetson–like satellite dishes, and the way they appeared out of nowhere like elephants, lumbering briefly into view and then disappearing back into the wild. Alarmed by the portrayal of the Russian mob in the tabloids, and the dawning realization that they might be seriously pissed at him, too, since a couple of their own had died at his house. In his living room and front hall. Did this mean he was at risk—or, more importantly, that his wife and daughter might be at risk? He couldn’t say. But he felt vulnerable. Exposed. He was, he realized, on the radar of people with whom he would otherwise never have crossed paths.

  Everything, it seemed, was unraveling. He imagined Spencer Doherty’s anger if, in the end, he refused to pony up the thirty grand. If a month from now he balked at an additional five. Or ten. Or twenty.

  He also wondered if this was all about having too much time on his hands to think.

  Still, he could not believe how—and this was indeed the adjective he heard in his head—fucking difficult it was to get a handgun in New York. A week ago, this discovery would have thrilled him. Would have made all the sense in the world. But now? As he gazed up into the midafternoon autumn sunshine, unexpectedly warm this late in the year, he was furious. He needed to do something—anything—and the old guy with a beer belly the size of a Mini Cooper on the other side of the counter had told him that a pistol permit would take a couple of months. He had droned on about county and state and federal regulations.

  “Do I look like a guy who holds up convenience stores?” Richard had asked, knowing the question was wholly unreasonable. But he couldn’t stop himself. “I just want to be able to look out for my wife and my daughter,” he’d added, hoping that the tone of his voice hadn’t sounded as disagreeably entitled in reality as it had in his head.

  But there was going to be no negotiating here. The laws were the laws. The background check was mandatory. And so he had taken the application with him and left. But character references? Fingerprints? Waiting to hear back from the FBI? This was ridiculous. He was…a banker. An investment banker. He was in mergers and acquisitons at Franklin McCoy. He had always been—with, admittedly, one recent, egregious exception—a good husband and father.

  The dealer had pinched the bulbous wattle beneath his chin and suggested he get a rifle instead. The fellow had said it was less likely there might be an accident with a rifle, but he could still use it to protect his family. All he needed for that was a hunting license from Fish and Wildlife. Not hard, especially now. After all, it was deer season. He—the store owner—would smooth out the paperwork.

  “The paperwork?” Richard had asked.

  “You either need proof of a prior hunting license or proof you’ve taken a hunter education course. I can’t get you the license. That would be illegal. Besides, you get those in White Plains. But I have a friend who teaches hunter education. I can smooth out the education course paperwork—if you pay up front and promise to take the course.”

  “Wouldn’t that be illegal, too?”

  The dealer yawned. “Less so. Kind of a gray area. And there are some things I can get around and some things I can’t.”

  “Like background checks.”

  “Yes. Playing fast and loose with an education course for a hunting rifle—especially for a guy like you? That’s one thing. But an illegal permit? Whole other kettle of fish.”

  Richard sighed, frustrated. He had imagined bringing a pistol with him when he went to tell Spencer to go fuck himself. Just let his jacket fall open so that spineless weasel could see it. Or, in his mind, he’d imagined himself taking a pot shot at the satellite dish atop one of the news vans idling at the end of his driveway. He didn’t believe he would ever actually do such a thing, but the fantasy alone fired him up. But mainly he’d had his heart set on a pistol so that he could keep it inside the t
op drawer of his nightstand, just in case the Russians were as crazy as the newspapers (and, yes, that detective) suggested they were.

  And so he had left the store in a huff.

  He glanced now at the garage and body shop across the street. This was not one of Yonkers’s tonier neighborhoods. In addition to the gun store, there was a tattoo parlor and a pawnshop. A bar with a couple of Harleys outside. He’d been a little nervous when he had parked his Audi out here. But it was fine. Untouched. No one seemed to care.

  For a long moment he watched the wide glass window beside the garage bay. Inside, he saw a couple of guys chatting around the desk, and one was wearing a ball cap. Red, he thought, but he couldn’t be sure from this distance. On the wall behind the desk was a deer head. A buck with a pretty sizable rack of antlers.

  He took a deep breath and gathered himself. Maybe he didn’t need a handgun. Maybe he just needed a gun. The dealer was probably right; a rifle would do just fine—at least right now. A hunting rifle. Maybe he could get a handgun…later. People knew people, right?

  Besides, if a rifle could bring down a buck the size of the one whose head was in that auto body shop office across the street, it sure as hell would stop some lunatic Russian behemoth in his tracks. He recalled how much easier the dealer had said the process was. It was briefer. Less invasive.

  And so Richard almost went back inside. Almost. But he paused at the entrance and then turned around and climbed into his car. He thought of the corpse he had seen in his front hall. Shot once in the chest and once in the head. He thought of the splotches and streams of blood he had seen that awful night. He thought of all the blood still left on the wallpaper, the couch, and the painting in the back of this very car. No, he wasn’t a gun guy. He wasn’t a gun guy at all.

  …

  Kerri-Ann Jennings had not actually fucked the quarterback of the Bronxville High School football team four years ago. The few times she had even embraced him had been the sort of social squeezes that usually accompany an air kiss by the cheek and had occurred in close proximity to one or both of his parents. After football games. At his house for dinner with his whole family. When his uncle was diagnosed with brain cancer. But she liked the boy a lot, and the two had been friends. Good friends. The boy was smart and was applying early decision to Brown. Still, the rumor persisted at the school that the two were fuck buddies. It was the sort of urban legend that made the single, statuesque French teacher wildly popular. The truth was that Kerri-Ann was also friends with the quarterback’s mother and father. She was looking forward to teaching the quarterback’s younger sister next year. She knew about the rumors and happily kept them alive by saying things to her class in French that were unquestionably inappropriate, but not so ribald that she was ever likely to get disciplined. Every year or two, it seemed, there were stories about her just like this. But most of the students loved her. The boys fantasized about her in the shower. The girls vacillated between jealousy and awe. The teacher used her tortoiseshell sunglasses and headband as props when she spoke—some days her wild mane of red hair, too—and with dominatrix-like confidence wielded absolute control over her classroom. She relished who she was. She was probably Kristin’s closest friend at the school.

  “I mean, it’s not like Richard had an affair,” Kerri-Ann was saying to Kristin now. They were sitting in the back corner of the coffee shop just off Pondfield Road after school, speaking softly so no one could hear them. Kristin hoped Melissa was having a good time at the ice-cream parlor before dance. In a perfect world, the combination of her friends and Jesse and ice cream and ballet would take her mind off the nightmare at home. “It’s not like he confessed he had a lover he was meeting lunchtimes at his brother’s hotel.”

  “I used to like that hotel. I sort of hate it now. It’s creepy.”

  “I’ve met Philip. I think he’s creepy.”

  “He is, I know. Sometimes Richard and I try to delude ourselves into believing that he’s just immature.”

  “You’re being kind. He might be in his early thirties—”

  “Actually, he’s thirty-five.”

  “Thirty-five? Incredible. I have boys in my classes—you have boys in your classes—who are more mature. The guy’s thirty-five years old and no doubt subscribes to Maxim. But he’s not unique. How creepy are men? I once heard a comedian do an entire set on guys masturbating in cars. He asked how many women in the audience had seen guys doing that, and I swear three-quarters of the women in the club raised their hands.”

  “God…”

  “It’s hard to believe that he and Richard are brothers. They are just so different.”

  “I thought so. I like to think so. But I just can’t get over the idea that Richard went upstairs with some escort and stripped. And that’s just what he told me. How do I know he didn’t have sex with her? How do I know he’s not having lunchtime quickies at Philip’s hotel? I just feel so violated and betrayed and…like I’m not enough.”

  Kerri-Ann smiled at someone behind Kristin’s shoulder and waggled her immaculately plucked sickle-moon eyebrows. And so Kristin turned around. There she saw two handsome boys who she recognized were seniors. The students waved at Kerri-Ann; the taller of the pair raised one eyebrow back at the French teacher and grinned in a fashion that he probably hoped was seductive. In reality, it looked only mischievous.

  “You’re plenty,” Kerri-Ann was saying when Kristin turned back to her. “Have you ever been to a strip club?”

  “Why? So I could compare myself to some slinky twenty-two-year-old and see I’m plenty?”

  She shook her head. “They’re kind of depressing.”

  “How many have you been to? This is a side of you I didn’t know existed.”

  “I guess I’ve been three times in my life. Once with some girlfriends from college because we were curious and twice with guys who thought it would be kind of hot.”

  “And it wasn’t?”

  She shook her head. “Not for me. You have guys paying women—no, guys paying girls—to show them their junk. That’s kind of demeaning for everyone involved, don’t you think? And, of course, the girls are so not into the guys and the guys sense it. How could they not? Plus there’s this weird undercurrent of self-loathing: the guys know they’re losers for paying, and the girls know they’re slutty—and not in a good way—for peeling. I don’t buy any of that female empowerment bullshit.”

  “Slutty…in a good way?”

  “Oh, I’ve given boyfriends amazing lap dances. In my home. Or his. But it’s because we’re into each other. It’s because it’s fun.”

  “You know, I expected there to be a stripper at the bachelor party. I really didn’t care. I didn’t mind. I kind of figured every guy there would have seen a naked woman. Richard was doing his brother a solid and hosting a party. It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal.”

  “What’s really the source of your pain?” Kerri-Ann asked. “Is it the hurt or the humiliation? I mean, they’re two different things.”

  “I don’t want to intellectualize this. It all makes me sad inside. Besides, it’s all linked.”

  “If Richard were in the newspapers because of some illegal insider trading thing, would you feel this much hurt? Or would you just feel humiliation?”

  “That’s an impossible question to answer. And, just so we’re clear, I feel terrible for him, too. I know he brought this upon himself, but I also know he’s devastated—and a little scared. Who knows what this could do to his career? So, that’s a part of the mix, too.”

  Kerri-Ann tore off a small piece of the scone she was nibbling. “What if the girls hadn’t murdered the guys who had brought them—those Russians? What if there had been no news story, but somehow you found out that the men had been fucking the talent? Would you still feel so much humiliation?”

  “Again, I’ll never know. But that talent? They may have been prisoners. They may have been minors. Sometimes I think I’m so angry at Richard because it’s hard to get pissed off
at some poor girl who’s doing all this because there are guys with guns making her.”

  “I’m not a marriage counselor,” Kerri-Ann said. “Don’t even play one on TV. But this is the sort of stuff I’d try to understand. I mean, if I were you.”

  “I can’t compartmentalize it. It’s still too soon.”

  “Are you thinking of leaving him?”

  She steadied her gaze at her friend. “No.”

  “But the thought crossed your mind, I can tell.”

  The thought had crossed her mind, but she had not really expected ever to verbalize it. She knew this was among Melissa’s biggest worries: her parents were going to get a divorce. But the thing was, she loved Richard. Good Lord, she was furious with him—but she also felt bad for him. Sure, she was embarrassed, but so was he. He was actually disgraced.

  “How could it not?” she told Kerri-Ann. “I’m really pissed at him.” Her eye caught the chalkboard specials on the wall behind a cappuccino machine, and she was struck by the way someone’s penmanship had made all of the lowercase i’s look phallic. “Of course, I wouldn’t be surprised if Philip’s fiancée breaks off the engagement. Cancels the wedding.”

  “Isn’t it soon?”

  “It’s supposed to be a week from Saturday.”

  “But right now it’s still on.”

  “Yes. But if I were Nicole—that’s his fiancée—I’d break it off.”

  “Yeah,” Kerri-Ann said. “I would, too.”

  “And yet if you were me, you wouldn’t leave Richard?”

  “You two have a life together. You’ve got a daughter. But this Nicole? She still has time to get out.”

  “That suggests the only reason I’m not getting out is inertia and Melissa.”

  “I didn’t mean that. I meant you know Richard. Whatever happened, it was a mistake.”

  “We think.”

  “And it only happened because it was a batshit crazy bachelor party and he was drunk.”