Easily Amused

by McQuestion, Karen

  He went back to Kelly, that’s what he did. Sure, old Lola was fine for emergencies, but at the first light of day he’d flown back into her fickle arms. Nice. Real nice. Whatever happened to consideration? Whatever happened to loyalty? Whatever happened to leaving a note?

  Just thinking of Kelly made me livid. The red-haired demon. In another life she was probably one of those evil mermaids who lured sailing men to their destruction. Or maybe they weren’t mermaids. Anyway, they were something, and they were bad news, but men, oblivious men, fell for their sweet songs and then crashed their ships on the rocks, which is what should happen to stupid people anyway. I sat down hard on Aunt May’s courting couch and watched as a cloud of dust rose from the cushion. I really should vacuum the furniture more often. Or at all. But who had time to vacuum furniture, what with friends breaking in and then going off without notice? My schedule was pretty full.

  I picked up the phone on the end table and speed-dialed Hubert’s cell phone. When I got his voice mail, I left a message telling him exactly how I felt. I said he was irresponsible and rude and that I thought he owed me an apology. That felt good. But not good enough. I wanted to hear his voice on the other end of the line asking forgiveness.

  I had to look up the number for what I thought of as Kelly’s place. She’d lived there first, and I always called Hubert’s cell rather than deal with the heinous one. But I’d make an exception this time. I pushed the buttons with shaking fingers and listened—one ring—two rings. I leaned forward and rapped my knuckles against the coffee table. Pick up, pick up, pick up. Three rings, and then the machine kicked in with Kelly’s “I’m not home right now.” I almost hung up, but as I was about to set the receiver in the cradle I heard, “If this is Hubert…” I lifted it up to my ear in time to hear the rest: “We’re over and I never want to see you again. You can come and pick up your stuff anytime. It’s in the hallway.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I was still sitting on the courting couch in the living room, the cordless phone in my cupped hand, when a car pulled up in front of my house. I heard voices, one of them Hubert’s, and the sound of a car door slamming shut. Looking out the front window, I saw a rusty junker pulling away from the curb and Hubert coming up the walk carrying a white bakery bag. The driver gave a quick tap of the horn as he drove off. Hubert turned and waved at the sound.

  “Oh, you’re up!” he said when I met him at the door. “Perfect timing. I hope you didn’t eat yet, because I’ve got breakfast.” He swung the bag to show me. “Bagels and cream cheese. Life is good.” Apparently no one had told him I was mad as hell and that he no longer had a girlfriend or a place to live.

  I pushed the door open to allow him entry. “Where have you been?” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized I’d channeled my mother circa my teenage years. Her “Where have you been?” was always followed by “I’ve been worried sick.” But I couldn’t follow that script because I wasn’t worried sick, just really torqued off. “I had no idea where you were. You just up and left.”

  His face fell. “I’m sorry. Didn’t you find my note?”

  “I looked for a note. There was no note.”

  Hubert blinked and then broke into a grin. He set the white bag down on the coffee table and beckoned for me to follow him. One minute later we were in the kitchen, where he triumphantly pointed to a piece of paper located amongst the carryout menus on the front of the refrigerator. “No note, huh, Miss Smarty-pants? What do you call this?”

  I’d call it a note. It said, “Lola, I went out with Ben Cho. I’ll be back soon. Thanks again for taking me in on such short notice. I really appreciate it. Love, Hubert.” Below his name he’d written the time in parentheses. I glanced at the kitchen clock to compare. “You’ve been gone for two hours? Who’s Ben Cho?”

  At the kitchen table over bagels and cream cheese, I got the lowdown. Hubert woke up that morning at six and was reading the paper when there was a tap at my front door. It was Ben Cho, who’d been sent by his mother to give a pair of shoes to my displaced friend. Korean-Americans always rally around the new person to help them get situated, Hubert explained, spreading a thick layer of pineapple cream cheese on his bagel.

  “But you’re not new,” I said. “You’re not even Korean.”

  He licked a stray dollop off his fingertips. “I know that. But it’s the same concept. You see someone in need, and if you can help, you do. Kind of a nice philosophy. If everyone thought that way, the world would be a better place. Did you know Mrs. Cho’s husband owns Tae Kwon Do World? Pretty cool, huh?”

  I didn’t even know Mrs. Cho had a husband.

  Hubert continued. “He came here twenty years ago with nothing and brought the rest of the family over a few years later. Now they have a house and a business and are living the American dream. Pretty impressive.” He raised his eyebrows as a thought hit him. “You know, I should really ask him to come and speak to my class. We’re covering what it means to be an American citizen, and I’m doing a short unit on Ellis Island and immigration. He’d probably have tons of stories. And if he demonstrated some tae kwon do, all the better. The kids would love that.”

  Hubert had a tendency to go off on tangents. “So Ben gave you the shoes,” I prompted.

  “Oh yeah,” Hubert said. He looked down at the sneakers on his feet. “And he waited until I tried them on. They actually fit, sort of. Then we started talking, and he said he was going up to Brother Jasper’s church to set up some chairs for this thing they’re having, and I went along to help. Then we stopped at the bread place. God, it smelled good there. Brioli’s, about three blocks down. You know it?”

  I shook my head.

  “Oh, you really have to go. It’s mostly a bakery, but they’ve got a few café tables, and they sell stuff to drink, too—coffee and juice and cappuccino.” He lifted his mug and took a sip. “And then I came back here. That’s pretty much it.”

  “But how did you pay for the bagels?”

  He made a noise in his throat like he was trying to clear something out. “Well actually, I borrowed a few dollars from the money in the nightstand drawer in my room.” I must have looked disapproving because he added, “I would have asked, but you were sleeping. I’ll pay you back.”

  “You don’t have to pay me back. It’s just…” I tried to picture that particular room. A bed, a nightstand, a dresser with an oval mirror above it. I’d moved in during the winter months and had decided that instead of cleaning the house out one drawer at a time, I’d wait until spring and go through it all at once—every cabinet, drawer, and closet. But unfortunately once spring arrived, I’d lost my motivation. “There’s money in the nightstand?”

  He grinned. “A whole shitload of it. You didn’t know?”

  Apparently there was no end to what I didn’t know. “Define shitload.”

  “The drawer’s crammed full of cash. Mostly singles, but some fives and tens, too. And there’s a bunch of change in the bottom. You didn’t know this?”

  “I keep meaning to go through Aunt May’s stuff, but I haven’t gotten to it yet.”

  Hubert looked incredulous. “You haven’t gotten to it yet? I’d have done that first thing. It’s like a treasure hunt around here. Who knows what else you’d find?”

  Well sure, he could say that—he found money. The drawers I looked in had contained wool socks and tattered tablecloths. “It’s on my list. It’s just been real hectic with work and all.” The words sounded lame, even to me. It made me wonder what I’d done with my free time the last four months. Could watching Netflix DVDs and surfing the Net account for that many hours?

  “I only took twenty, but I’ll pay you back as soon as I get home and get my wallet.”

  Home. The word jarred like a direct hit at Paintball Dave’s. I’d forgotten to tell him that his definition of home was changing fast. “About that…” I paused while the words rearranged themselves in my mind. Better to tell him outright or do the soft-shoe shuffle?

/>   He held up a hand. “Don’t even say it. I insist on paying you back.” There he was again with his lopsided grin. Such a big, happy doofus. How could Kelly be so mean? “It’s the least I can do after you let me stay and everything. Although, nothing personal, I will be glad to sleep in my own bed tonight.”

  The last time I’d felt like this was in fifth grade when I said good-bye to Whiskers right before my dad took him to the vet’s to be put asleep. I took a deep breath. “Hubert, you need to call home.”

  “Kelly called?” His eyes lit up like Christmas.

  “No, I called over there looking for you, and Kelly had a message for you on the answering machine.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “I really don’t want to get in the middle of this. Just call and you’ll hear for yourself.”

  His eyebrows furrowed in puzzlement, but he didn’t push the subject, just picked up the receiver to Aunt May’s old wall phone and pointed a finger. “Hey, a rotary dial! How trippy is that? I haven’t seen one of these in ages.” He turned to me with a smile, and I nodded. Then I gave a halfhearted wave and left the room. I didn’t need a front-row seat to watch him get his heart torn out. Behind me I heard the chut, chut, chut of the dial rotating back to its original place. I kept going until I couldn’t hear it anymore. To put even more distance between us, I went out to the front porch, shutting the front door behind me. If he started crying, I wouldn’t be able to stand it. If it were me, I’d want some privacy and time to pull myself together.

  I leaned against the porch railing so that my face was in the light and took a deep breath. It was the kind of warm spring day I’d yearned for all winter long as I shoveled my front walk and brushed snow from my windshield. The air had the after-rain smell I’d always associated with worms when I was a kid. Across the street a delivery truck pulled up in front of the mystery man’s house; the driver hopped out and left a package on the front stoop. Next door to my right, Crazy Myra arranged wicker furniture on her porch and muttered to herself. Down the block I heard a chorus of dogs yapping.

  Just as Myra headed inside, my outside door opened and Hubert appeared at my side. He stood next to me for a second and then leaned over and rested his elbows on the railing.

  I couldn’t read his face, but I could imagine his misery. “Hubert, I’m really, really sorry this happened. I know I wasn’t always that supportive of you and Kelly, but I know you love her. This has to be really painful.” I gave his arm a reassuring squeeze, but he didn’t speak, just threaded his fingers together and kept his gaze downward. I continued. “I know it’s devastating, but maybe it’s for the best. Honestly, I never thought you two were a good match. A clean break will give you a chance to move on.”

  Hubert turned to face me and gave me a wide grin, the kind I always secretly thought of as his “happy monkey” look.

  “Are you quite done?” he asked. “So much drama, Lola. You have totally misconstrued this whole thing. Kelly and I aren’t breaking up. That’s not going to happen.”

  “Didn’t you hear her message?”

  “Yeah, I heard it, but you have to know Kelly. She goes through these things and then gets over it. She’s probably forgotten about it already.”

  “So this is a regular thing? She’s done this before?” Who would put up with such lunacy?

  “Not this exact scenario, no. But she’s creative that way.” He unlinked his fingers and ran a hand through his hair. “You really don’t know her, Lola. I wish you could see her like I do. Most of the time she’s the most caring, charming person you’d ever want to meet.”

  I’d have to take his word for it.

  “She just has this other side. It looks like meanness, but it really stems from insecurity. Kelly just acts out. She’s getting better, though. Relationships aren’t always easy, you know.”

  I didn’t know, actually, having had only two serious boyfriends, one in middle school and one in college. Jon had moved away in seventh grade, and Danny, the guy I’d been with for two years and thought I’d be with forever, had moved on to a different girl. Since then my love life had consisted of a string of unrequited crushes and a few dates that never panned out. My mother insisted I was too picky; my father chalked it up to shyness; my sister Mindy said I was a social retard. They all had a point, but I tried not to think about it too much. “So what are you going to do now?”

  Hubert sighed. “We’ll work it out. We always do. And then things will be great for a while.” He smiled again, this time without showing his teeth. “On the bright side, we seem to go longer and longer between episodes.” He tented his fingers into a church and steeple.

  I filled the awkward silence by saying, “Good luck, I guess.”

  “Thanks.” He exhaled and then gripped the railing as if he were standing on the deck of a cruise ship. The Titanic, maybe. “I hate asking, but would you mind driving me home now?”

  “Sure,” I said. “If that’s what you want.”

  “It’ll be the last favor I ask of you. Promise.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Kelly’s place was a first-floor apartment in a brick building. Two units up, two units down. Because Kelly’s father was the landlord, she and Hubert had a choice apartment with window views of a seedy courtyard ringed with plastic benches and the kind of stand-up ashtrays usually only seen outside retail outlets. Kelly’s dad owned the whole complex, as far as the eye could see from the middle of the parking lot. Charmingly known as Vista View Apartments, the property was comprised of several once-grand apartments, a freestanding party room building, and a separate little house labeled “The Laundry Hut.”

  As we drove through the complex’s winding roads, Hubert directed me. All the buildings looked the same. I thought back to the housewarming party and how I’d wandered about in the dark after parking on the street. If it weren’t for Hubert’s balloons, I never would have found the place.

  “You can drop me off at the door,” Hubert said, indicating an entrance topped by a green and white striped awning.

  But that didn’t feel right to me. Leave a guy with no wallet, no cell phone, and borrowed shoes in hostile territory?

  “I think I’ll just tag along and make sure you can get in.” I pulled the car up behind Hubert’s yellow VW beetle, blocking him in, which was unavoidable since every other space had apartment numbers on them. I guess Kelly’s dad never heard of having guests.

  “Suit yourself,” Hubert said cheerfully.

  Crossing through the parking lot we passed several people: an older woman coming out of the Laundry Hut with a basket of towels, a couple getting into an SUV, and a young woman struggling with a stroller. Hubert bounded ahead to help. I heard her say his name in greeting, and then he folded the stroller and hefted it into her open trunk. She thanked him, and he returned to my side. “Amber Sorenson,” he said, by way of explanation. “She has the cutest baby.” As we approached the apartment, he waited for the woman with the towels; she used a key card to open the door while Hubert held the basket for her.

  “Thanks, Hubert,” she said, taking back the basket. “Sorry to hear about you and Kelly. You’ll be missed around here.” She trudged off without waiting for a response.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Hubert called out after her, but she either didn’t hear or didn’t want to argue about it because she headed up the stairs without breaking stride.

  “News travels fast in these here parts,” I said.

  “That’s Mrs. Debrowsky. She lives right above us.”

  Between the thin walls and Kelly’s loud, dramatic voice, I was willing to bet Mrs. Debrowsky had heard plenty.

  We rounded the corner to find each side of the hallway lined floor to ceiling with boxes. I gave one a gentle nudge with the side of my foot. “This must be your stuff, don’t you think?”

  Hubert sighed. “It’s going to take me all day to unpack this and put it back where it belongs.” He gave a half smile. “Kelly sure has been busy.”

 
“Should we start looking through the boxes for your keys?”

  “Nah, Kelly’s home. Her car is here. She’ll let me in.”

  A few minutes later he didn’t look so confident. I leaned against the tower of boxes and watched as my friend repeatedly knocked and called out Kelly’s name. When he started with the begging, I put out a hand to stop him. “I don’t think she’s going to open up. Time for plan B.”

  “Maybe she’s still sleeping,” he said. “That would be good news, bad news. Man, she gets really crabby when people wake her up, but she gets over it pretty quick.” He held a fist to his chin like Rodin’s Thinker. “Maybe I should go outside and try knocking on our bedroom window.”

  “You don’t have a secret key hidden somewhere? Or an extra with a neighbor?”

  He shook his head. Great, keys to my house were scattered throughout the greater metropolitan area, but his apartment was locked as tight as a casino vault.

  Our move to plan B was facilitated by the reappearance of Mrs. Debrowsky, who plodded toward us with an underwear load. “Kelly’s not home,” she said, resting her bosoms on the top of the basket. “So there’s no point in you banging and yelling and disturbing the whole building. She said if I saw you to tell you your car keys and wallet are in this box and you should just take your stuff and go.” She jerked her head toward a box on the top of the stack.

  “Sorry about the noise,” Hubert said.

  “It’s OK,” she said gruffly. As she walked away she called out, almost as if to herself, “Like I said, Hubert, I’m real sorry to see you go. When I saw that crew from the moving company stacking your stuff in the hallway, I couldn’t help but think you didn’t deserve that. You’re a nice boy.”

  As I watched her turn the corner to the stairwell, her words sank in. So Kelly had actually hired a moving crew? She’d planned this for some time, that was certain. I waited for Hubert to have the breakdown he deserved—a little anger would have been appropriate. Shock or despair would have worked too. Instead, he stood there straight-faced, arms at his side like a kid competing at a spelling bee.