A Job You Mostly Won't Know How to Do

by Pete Fromm

  The two of them, he thinks, sitting alone in the dark.

  He settles her into the crib and sneaks into the bathroom to brush his teeth. Uses the tweezers to pull the day’s sole sliver. Does not look at himself in the mirror. Reaches under the sink, lifts out another handful of diapers. Stacks them beside the folded towel. Everything ready.

  He shuts off the last light at nine. Climbs into the little bed, exhausted. The turtles swimming around him. Her breathing. “What more could we need?” he says, whispering.

  DAY 162

  He wakes at five. As if a klaxon’s gone off. Jolts upright.

  She was with him. Only an instant ago. Her skin.

  Slowly the room fills in around him. The gray, gauzy light. Just his sitting up tripping the nightlight’s hair trigger.

  He puts his hands behind him, leans back. Locks his elbow. Breathes.

  Midge snores gently. He wonders about a cold.

  He slides his feet over the side of the bed. Touches the floor.

  He finds his shirt. Socks. Stands.

  After the bathroom, he’s halfway to the kitchen, the gas under the water, when someone says, “Well, there he is. In the fricking flesh.”

  Taz leaps sideways. Knocks into one of the giant table’s chairs.

  Without knowing it, he’s spun one eighty. Stands crouched, facing the swivel rocker. “Rudy?” he says.

  “Bingo, bright boy,” he says. His voice deep, graveled with drinking.

  “Couldn’t find your way home?” Taz asks, easing upright again.

  “No, I just, you know, wanted to see if you were still alive. Still,” he raises his hands, waves them at the room. “You know, sooo busy.”

  “Damn, Rude,” he says, still catching his breath. “Must have been a hell of a party.”

  “Oh, you got that. Shoulda been there.”

  “Where were you?”

  “My house, asshole,” he says. “I invited you myself.” He snorts. “Me, inviting you. Like some kind of stranger.”

  Taz looks at him there in the dark. Glad he can’t see any more than a shape. He waits a few, says, “I’ll start some coffee.”

  It’s only a few steps. He twists on the burner. No need for a light.

  He hasn’t gotten back to the living room before Rudy says, “You know what Hards said?”

  Taz stops. The going-away party. “Rude,” he says. “I hung doors all day. I forgot.”

  “She was crying. Couldn’t believe you wouldn’t come. Alaska, man. It’s not like around the corner.”

  “I know. I’ll get over there first thing.”

  “First thing? They’re gone, man. Hours ago.”

  Taz slumps against the table.

  Rudy stays slouched deep in the chair, watching him. “She said it’s like you think you’re the only one who loved her.”

  “Rudy,” he says.

  “Which is bullshit, you know. Total bullshit.”

  “I know, Rude.”

  “She says it’s like you died, too. That maybe Marnie got out luckier than you.”

  “Rudy,” he says. “I think maybe it’s time I take you home.”

  Rudy snorts.

  “Did you drive here?”

  “Wow,” Rudy says. “The dead man is, like, concerned?”

  Taz walks to the window, sees Rudy’s truck parked on his lawn. Tire tracks in the snow, climbing the curb.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “The fuck would I know?”

  “There’s a bed.”

  “A bed? Man, you got everything don’t you?”

  “Or you can sleep in the snow.”

  “Even Elmo asked about you.”

  “She was there?”

  “I brought her, let her know you used to actually have friends.”

  “Rudy, I’d drive you home, but Midge—”

  “Her take’s a little different than Hards’s,” he says. “She thinks you wish you’d died instead.”

  “The bed or the snow. Your choice.”

  In the bedroom, Midge stirs. It’s like the mattress springs are strung into his nervous system. He’s on his way before she starts her morning call of Ba ba ba, or Da da da.

  He comes back with her, her hair, as always, flying every which way. She’s got her chimp grip locked into a fistful of his, steering him, saying, “Da da da,” maybe changes it to, “Du, Du,” when she spots Rudy in the chair, lunges for him. Taz holds on, goes for the fridge. Her bottle. He pours a cup of coffee, carries it out to Rudy, flips on the light.

  He’s asleep in the chair. Mouth pitched open. Passed out.

  Midge says, “Da, da, da.”

  DAY 175

  He knows his name must come up on her phone. She doesn’t say hello. Just, “When?”

  “When?” he says back.

  “When do you want me to start?”

  He swallows. Can feel his heart beat. “What’s your schedule look like?”

  “Today?”

  Taz turns to Midge, barely daring to breathe. “That would be cool,” he says.

  “Be there in drive time.”

  “Great. It’s a shop day.”

  “What this time?”

  “Just more cabinets.”

  “Cherry again?”

  “No, oak.”

  “How does that smell?”

  “You can come out. Smell for yourself.”

  “Okay.”

  He can’t think of another thing to say. He carries Midge over to the window.

  “All right then.” She draws a big breath. “I’ll see you in about ten. Maybe fifteen.”

  “El,” he says, fingering the big thumb push on the sash lock.

  “Yeah?”

  “I didn’t want to die instead.”

  She’s silent for a beat, then says, “Rudy talks too much.”

  “I mean, I did,” Taz says. “But more too than instead. I mean, I would’ve done anything right then. I would have traded Midge for her in a second.”

  He waits, but there’s only her breathing.

  “You know? Midge was, she was just this thing then. I didn’t know the first thing about her. About anything.”

  Not even breathing. He says, “I just wanted you to know. It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like anything. It just, was. I didn’t know which end was up.”

  “Taz?” she says, hardly a whisper. “I don’t know, but I’m not sure this is the kind of thing you tell your babysitter.”

  Surprised, he smiles, as if they’re face-to-face. “Yeah, probably not.”

  “See you in five,” she says.

  DAY 195

  They figure it out. He works around her, not fleeing the way he did from Lauren, but getting as much work done as he can. Midge goes with him on some installs, but mostly they fall on school days, and if he needs help, he gets Rudy. He pays her every week. Extra if she cooks. Extra every time he catches her cleaning. Which, she says, isn’t often enough. They even come to a bookkeeping arrangement, after she watches him lose another fight with the checkbook. “I can do that for you,” she says. “A math whiz.” She lines out the bills, prioritizes, lists out the checks he has to write, keeps an eye on the account. Time and a half. Every time she sits down to work over the money stuff, he’s afraid she’ll see he can’t afford her. Though, really, the work’s been steady, maybe even getting ahead.

  On installs, he finds that if the customers come up to inspect, to imagine themselves already moved in, so close, find him working with Midge, he’ll sometimes get a little bonus. He guesses they talk to Marko, get told about Marnie. Hating himself for it, he starts trying to take Midge up days he guesses he’ll get a walk-through. On purpose.

  She crawls, not exactly speed-of-sound stuff, but fast enough. The walker saves his bacon. Mobile, but restrained. He won’t work in a house with naked wires poking from junction boxes. Wire nuts or not. Trust an electrician to have the breaker thrown? He’s watched them wire boom boxes straight into live wires.

 
; Midge sails by as he’s shutting things down, coiling the air hose, folding his extension ladder. He pays no attention to the front door opening until he hears the timid “Hello?” echo down the hall, then the walker’s pause, and then Midge kicking into high, the swish-slap of her traction-soled feet pajamas. No heat up here yet. He slips through the bedroom door, angling the ladder through.

  “Why, hello there, beautiful.” A woman’s voice. The hello, he thinks, was a man’s.

  “Hello?” Taz calls, loud, before they can think abduction.

  Down the hallway into the entryway. A man and woman barely older than he is. Dressed up. Flash suit. Black cocktail dress. Heels. He has a bottle of champagne, and, rolled in the other hand, a giant air mattress, the inflator pinched under his arm. She holds a carry-out bag. Another full of what looks like candles. Marn says, Oh, spare me.

  She blushes, and they reintroduce themselves. The owners.

  “We know you’re not done, but we cleared it with Marko. Day off tomorrow. For everyone.”

  Taz pulls Midge out of the walker, reversing his usual breakdown order. “I’ll be out of here by noon,” he says. “Almost there.”

  “Not tomorrow,” the owner says, chewing back a smile.

  “It’s Valentine’s Day,” she says. “We couldn’t wait.”

  And neither can Taz. To get out. Away from them. He says, “I can clean up in there. Pack away the tools.” But they’re already rubbed against each other. She whispers something in his ear, and he smiles at Taz and says, “No. Thanks. We’re fine.” After that first hello they haven’t even glanced at Midge.

  “All right.” Taz collapses the walker, pitches it over the side of his truck, in with the last of the trim boards, some cords. He opens the door, works Midge into her car seat, says, “Wave, bye-bye.” She waves like her hand’s on fire, but when he backs out the drive, the front of the house is already closed. All candlelight and champagne, the mattress inflating in the master bedroom he’d just trimmed out. The mountain view. City lights.

  Valentine’s Day. It’d made Marnie gag. But they celebrated every year. Like fools.

  DAY 196

  Elmo hasn’t knocked in weeks. Just walks in, calls hello, sees Taz at the kitchen table.

  “Hidy ho, neighbor,” she says, and lobs something at him. It bounces. Skids across the table. Stops against his forearm. A little box. Candy hearts. With the lame sayings. BE MINE. BE TRUE. FOREVER. The same he’d scattered all over their bed. What, last year? The year before?

  Taz looks at the box, like he’s never seen such a thing before.

  “Settle down,” she says. “They’re for Midge. But I thought I’d get the okay from you first.”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “Looks pretty choke-inducing. Even without the words.”

  “I kind of thought so, too. But, you know, all my admirers, this is just like recycling.”

  Elmo starts into the bedroom for Midge, who squawks, has slept late. A first. She says, clear as a bell, “Ma, ma, ma.”

  Candies still in his hand, Taz leaps for the shop before she can come out of the bedroom. Minimizing Midge’s separation problems, he tells himself.

  He opens the stove doors, pushes in the first crumpled paper, the sticks, short ends of moldings, scraps. Lights the match. When he’s added the dimensional, the final log, he slips his hand into his pocket, throws the candies in before he can read one KISS ME. Closes the door as fast as he can.

  He goes and sits at his bench. Turns the chair so he faces the stove. Waits for the first trace of warmth.

  They’d thought they’d cleared all the hearts off the bed, but later, afterward, he found one stuck to Marn’s hip, laughed, pulled it off, the FOREVER transferred to her skin, a sweet, crimson tattoo he’d licked away.

  DAY 224

  “It could have started with a cold,” the doctor says. “But it’s an ear infection now.”

  Taz looks at her. “What do I do?”

  She writes, asks for their pharmacy. He tells her he doesn’t have one. “Not really pharmacy people,” he says.

  “Well, you are now,” she says. “You’re a parent. Albertsons?” she asks.

  “Eastgate, I suppose.”

  He goes and picks up the antibiotics, staggered by the price. The baby Tylenol. The baby Advil.

  The night starts. Shrieking like he’s never heard. Clawing at her ear, the whole side of her head. He sleeps, he thinks, an hour. Maybe not that much. None of it in a row.

  He calls Elmo so early he’s afraid he’ll wake her. If he does, she lies.

  “She’s sick,” he says. “Ear infection. We’ve been up all night.”

  “That blows.”

  “Huge,” he says. “So, day off for you. I couldn’t work on a dare.”

  She drops soup off on her way to school. Wakes them both on the couch. She swears. Apologizes. Tiptoes away.

  Taz drifts off, seeing her going. Up on her toes.

  The next morning he can barely get up. The doctor. Again. A sinus infection. “Probably not related, but . . .”

  More antibiotics.

  Elmo texts. Asks him to let her know when she won’t be waking anyone up.

  The room swims with his fever. He floats above it, in the rocker, the baby in his lap. The lines in the corner, wall meeting wall meeting ceiling, won’t line up. Drift apart. She screams, pulls at her ear, wearing down, eventually, to whimpering exhaustion. He keeps up the Advil-Tylenol rotation, keeps her fever down. Does the same for himself. He writes it all out. Who. Which. When. No way he’d remember any other way.

  Getting up the next time she wakes, he walks right out of the bedroom. Takes the wrong turn getting out of bed. Stands floating in the living room, wondering why. Hears her cry ratcheting up. Follows after it.

  When Elmo comes over, she leads him straight to the bed she thinks is his. The big one. His and Marnie’s. She pulls up the sheet, pushes him down. “I’ve got her,” she says. “She’ll be fine. You, though. You look like you’re on your way out.”

  He’s on fire. Burning up. She gets a wet cloth for his head. Double-doses him with ibuprofens.

  As she leaves the bedroom, he calls her Marnie.

  DAY 226

  Taz is only just back up on his feet—sweats and a tee, the fever gone, but his head still wobbly, light—when Rudy and El show up at his door, worse shape than he’d ever been. He stands staring as they giggle, Rudy in a lime-green plastic bowler, the rim still mostly attached, El with a shamrock painted on each cheek. Her smile straight leprechaun. Lucky Charms. He should have known. The hair. The freckles. Too cliché not to be true.

  Rudy holds her up in the doorway. His arm around her shoulders. Hers around his waist. “Happy St. Patrick’s Day,” Rudy says. “I brung you a pot of gold.”

  “Hey, Rudy,” he says. “El.”

  “Kiss her,” Rudy says, “She’s Irish.” The Irish one mushed syllable.

  Elmo leans away from Taz, out toward the door, driving an elbow into Rudy he’s well beyond feeling, but Rudy swings her back, bumping her into Taz, where she plants a kiss on Midge’s head.

  Midge turns, takes it on the temple, rubs there with the back of her hand.

  “Thanks,” Taz says.

  She looks at him. Less than a foot away. “This was not my idea,” she says.

  “I see that,” he starts, but Rudy has to haul her in before she goes down. They both stagger, and Rudy laughs, then pushes her at Taz, deposits her, weaving, for Taz to hold up.

  “Rudy,” he says. But Rudy is backing away, already half out the door, winking.

  “Rudy!”

  The door closes.

  “Shit,” she says. “There goes my ride.”

  “You’d be safer with flying monkeys.”

  She flops down on the couch. About three-quarters to straight up. The way Midge sits. “How you feeling, boss?” she says. “Any better?”

  “Better than you’re going to,” he says. “How about some water?”

>   “Be fab.”

  He puts her to bed in their room. Throws the spread over her. Leaves a bucket. Midge cries when he closes the door, tells her she has to be alone for a while.

  “Hush,” he says. “Hush. She’ll be here in the morning.”

  He rocks her to sleep in his lap. Stays that way for hours. Eyes wide open in the dark.

  DAY 227

  He sits with coffee. Midge in the Jump-Up, bouncing like a bean.

  When he hears her, the swish-shut of the bathroom door, he doesn’t know if he should turn his chair toward the bathroom, or away. He’s still trying to decide when she comes out.

  She looks like she’s been through the spin cycle. Left wet in the washer. Nothing left of her shamrocks but green smears. Her hair every which way, like her head’s on fire. She paws at it, waves him away with the back of her hand. “Don’t look,” she says, her voice raspy.

  But he turns toward her anyway. She says, “You want to turn to stone?”

  Taz smiles, though he feels like he might blow away. The house so normal around them. “Juice?” he says.

  “Seriously?”

  “Coffee?”

  “God. I’m not even sure about water.” But she finds a glass, tries the tap, lets it run, stands there with her back to him, braced against the sink.

  Marnie says, Class act.

  He can see her shoulder blades, flared, pushing against her T-shirt like wings. They’d both, he and Marn, been there before, though it seems like another life now.

  Elmo lifts the glass. Sips, he guesses, though it’s hidden behind the hair. “Phew,” she says. “So far, so good.”

  “You and Rudy together all day?” he asks.

  “Um. I don’t think so. I started with some friends from school. I think. Ran into Rudy later. There were shots involved.”

  She lifts the glass again. Puts it down. Goes back to bracing herself against the sink.

  “You okay?”