Carousel Court

by Joe McGinniss

  “Okay,” she said resolutely. “Does he have sunscreen on?”

  “Yes.”

  She unfolded her cloth napkin and placed it on her lap. “Okay.” She exhaled. “We go.”

  Nick tried for her hand. This time she let him. His palm was wet. His grip awkward and uncertain, a hand wrapped around hers when their fingers should have been interlaced.

  “We’re okay.”

  “I know.” She sipped her ice water.

  In the bathroom, the text message Phoebe sent was to JW. The SOS he responded to so many months later.

  Come save me in L.A.

  • •

  In the morning, Nick is awake before seven and walks outside. He turns off the power to the filtration system, shuts off the water-fill valve. It takes him twenty minutes of kicking through brush and dead mice to find the clean-out port. He connects one end of a cracked rubber hose to it, the other to a submersible pump that looks like a dirty bomb. He drops it in the deep end of the pool, and the splash is cool against his legs, the shadows stretching across the backyard.

  Slowly, the water drains. It’ll take a day at most.

  “Why?” Phoebe asks him as he leaves the house with Jackson, on his way to Mai’s, then on to three houses to collect cashier’s checks.

  “Because you’re not paying attention.”

  47

  Nick is climbing the wall again. Blackjack is in his crate, in the corner of the living room, watching Nick ascend.

  At the front door, Phoebe runs her hand along the black iron bars and wire that give the new security door the feel of something from a medieval castle. “It doesn’t mean anything,” she calls up to him from the front door. “Do you think this does anything?”

  He laughs too loud, mostly because of the exertion, clutching hard rubber, tendons and muscle fibers straining. “You know how many homes I’ve put people in?” he says, looking up, grasping the next red rubber rock. “How many families are sleeping tonight because of me? You’re welcome, by the way. Who’s looking out for your ass?”

  “I thought you were leaving me,” she says with mock disappointment.

  “And I thought you were gaming your benefactor. Isn’t he staking you?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “Not if we leave you,” Nick says.

  • •

  He’s on his fourth or fifth ascent on the wall. He watches Phoebe pace, transform, a beautifully vicious caged animal. Disappearing for three days! His mind is this choked freeway of half-thoughts as he nears the top of the climbing wall, his last attempt at the silver and gold rubber rocks that mark the top. He’ll do it without them, no witnesses, but he’ll know. And he’s shirtless and sweating and the seventh Corona didn’t put him over the edge and there’s too much anger, agitation, coursing through him when what’s required is poise, calm, clarity in thinking.

  He’s racing, but there’s no clock. His breath is shallow and he feels vibrations, his pulse. Is the water running? It’s one o’clock in the morning and she’s taking a goddamn bath. Beads of perspiration drop from the bridge of his nose and chin. “She’s gone. One foot out the fucking—” The slip is quick, the moment a flash of white, like black ice. The distance between the ceiling, where he was within arm’s reach, and the ground, is twenty-two feet. A single thought, an instinct he picked up from soccer, basketball, all the camps and teams and drills: Don’t reach out to break the fall. That’s how your wrists snap, compound fractures, bloody shards of bone that require multiple surgeries, pins, rehab. So he does one thing: keeps his arms at his sides and braces. They’re turning on each other. His throat tightens and he gags, the convulsion like a seizure, dry-heaves until he’s coughing, hacking up bloody mucous. He bit his tongue. It may have come off. He’s running his hands across the thick cool carpet feeling for his tongue, which he’s not sure is still in his mouth. He looks up. From where he lies, he can see her shadow. She’s in the hallway, around the corner, just out of sight. And he’s convinced he can hear her saying to herself, “Fall, Daddy, fall.”

  48

  Go to your mother’s,” he says to her in the morning. His mouth feels like it’s stuffed with cotton, and his tongue burns. He may need stitches. His movement is slowed despite the eight hundred milligrams of Advil he took an hour ago. He can’t draw a deep breath.

  Phoebe wasn’t supposed to be here this morning and wouldn’t have been if he hadn’t fallen. They agreed to avoid each other until further notice.

  She’s nude and so thin, and without makeup or her hair done, she manages to look at once like a teenager and an old woman, depending on the angle and shadows. It isn’t healthy, Nick thinks.

  “Take a week. Take as long as you need. I mean it. Go. Please.”

  She steps into the shower. Nick walks to the bedroom window, twists the blinds. Metzger’s orange tent has collapsed in the winds, coyote blood still smeared, fainter now, on the asphalt.

  Nick pisses and spits into the bowl, doesn’t flush. Phoebe would usually remind him but doesn’t this morning. The water shuts off. She slides the glass door open, steam floods the room. “Go somewhere,” he says. “Go suck him off again.”

  Maybe it’s the transformative effect of water and steam on a woman’s body, or maybe it’s because he swallowed two Vicodin on an empty stomach, but Nick is caught off guard by the raw beauty of his wife: the angular physique, the dark eyes, the cheekbones, and that jaw, and he wonders if they’ll ever fuck again. But as the steam clears, he sees how skinny she is, the collarbones as sharp as her hips. “You should eat,” he says. “Go somewhere. Get some room service and figure it out.”

  “There’s nothing to figure out.”

  “Decide if you want to come back and why.”

  She’s bending over, brushing her hair. “Let’s drive somewhere this weekend,” she says. “Maybe the beach.”

  He punches the bathroom mirror. An instant spiderweb of split glass. His eyes are closed and he grips the vanity, deep-breathing, riding her out. She’s prodding him, sticking him, until he snaps and gets it over with.

  “So what?” she says, staring at Nick’s red face in the shattered glass. “It means nothing. There are opportunities and he can help me, which helps us. But I’m not going to explain it to you like you’re fourteen. You understand. So get over it. Someone needs to man up and save this fucking thing.”

  • •

  He’s in the kitchen. Harsh sunlight pours through the windows. It’s too hot. His head throbs from the fall. Even with the thermostat lowered to sixty-seven, the house can’t get cool enough. Phoebe perches on a stool, thumbs through her phone while she talks.

  “I’d have more respect for you if you were afraid. Fear can be noble. Fear shows maturity. Fear would show you’re thinking, maybe even about someone else, your son, what’s best for him. About us, what’s best for your family.”

  “You need to stop.”

  “Then again, if you were fearless, you’d show some confidence,” she says.

  The knife he removes from the sink is for show. He’s looking for something to slice.

  “Do I scare you?” she says.

  He finds an apple.

  “There’s no fear in you at all. But there’s so little confidence. So what is it?” she asks.

  The apples have been sitting on the windowsill since yesterday. They’re hard and green, crisp.

  “It’s not stupidity. You’re not an idiot. You have a heart.”

  “You do realize I’m not participating? This is just you pushing me, and I’m not taking the bait, Phoebe.”

  He brings the blade down with force. The apple splits. Juice spills onto the knife handle, blade, and counter. He cuts faster, with more force, at first to intimidate, then without forethought, simply reactive.

  “Failure, Nick. Some people have special skill sets, talents, gifts. Most don’t, tho
ugh. Maybe that’s it. You’re a worker. You’re a bill-payer. If you apply yourself, and push, and really put your balls on the line, you’ll meet expectations. Maybe a pat on the head for effort. Nick will show up, do the job, clock out at five thirty, catch the bus, home by six to surf the net. Watch SportsCenter.”

  The apple is all wedges now. Juice and pulpy bits spray the granite countertop. He stabs one of the larger pieces, turns to Phoebe, pops the wedge in his mouth, and chews. He turns away, gathers up the apple wedges. Does she want him to drive the knife into her thigh? Her shoulder or chest?

  “You won’t defend yourself? I could be wrong about you. It’s possible you have secret talents or some as-yet-to-be-displayed heroic abilities, and you’re just waiting for the last possible moment to save the day.”

  He slides the wedges into a plastic container and seals it. When he opens the refrigerator door, she pops up off the stool, squeezes in front of him. She won’t relent. He looks past her. The coolest spot in the house right now is here, in front of the open refrigerator. It doesn’t help. The knife is on the counter.

  “But I don’t think that’s it. Am I wrong about you? Tell me I’ve got it wrong.” She is inches from his face. She has new lines and dark swatches under her eyes.

  His hand is open when it narrowly misses her jaw, connects with the refrigerator door instead. The force with which the blow lands rocks the stainless steel appliance; a shelf dislodges, a container of sliced mango, a gallon of fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice, and a bottle of sparking apple cider crash to the tile floor, the fruit and juice spill, the bottle shatters, Phoebe slips, falls awkwardly to the ground, lands on broken glass. She is bleeding from the back of her thigh where the shard stuck her.

  They’ll kill each other. He realizes this. He used to see the stories, familiar cable news fillers about middle-class people stabbing each other to death, blunt objects, making up elaborate stories about home invasions or abductions when the body was actually rolled up in an Oriental rug and dumped in a nearby ravine or pond. They’re not twenty-four, he thinks. They could have played this game when they were younger, had insane high-volume battles that spilled out into hallways or in bars and not worry about how it looked or long-term consequences because they’d be eating brunch two days later and have no recollection why they’d fought. Not now. Tonight he has no answer to the question: What separates him and Phoebe from cable-­news killers?

  49

  The text comes from JW at two o’clock on the Wednesday before Halloween. Phoebe, between appointments, races through light traffic from El Monte to West Covina. She finishes her second caramel macchiato and sucks on an ice cube. Her eyes burn from dry air and lack of sleep. Last night she made two phone calls to her mother in Florida. The first ended badly, her mother hanging up when Phoebe asked her to turn down the volume on the television and her mother snapped, “It’s my goddamn volume.” When Phoebe called back, she didn’t speak when her mother picked up on the first ring. The television volume was softer. Neither one spoke. Finally, her mother told her she would come to Boston to see her grandson. “We’re not in Boston anymore, Mother.”

  Phoebe changes lanes without signaling, needs to pull over: The exchange requires her full attention. She will not let him go without an answer, something concrete. The parking lot of a Del Taco. A painfully thin woman in cutoff shorts and a dirty white tank top is accosting customers, demanding money or food, spitting at them as they pass.

  She reads the message from JW: Well, well

  ??

  Someone made quite an impression

  And . . .

  Stellar

  That’s only round one

  You’re fine.

  Second round in couple weeks

  You’re good

  The skinny woman, who has the sunken, sallow visage of a meth addict, is going from car to car, pulling on door handles. She’s three parking spaces from Phoebe’s idling Explorer.

  This has to happen. Okay? I know there may be nothing more you can do at this point. Is there?

  De Bent’s a friend. He knows how high on you I am. It’s a good fit for you.

  Phoebe bites hard on her lower lip, stares through the smudged windshield at the five lanes of traffic and the hazy sky, and she’s shaking, trembling. This can happen?

  This is happening.

  She considers Jackson, what he’s doing right now: finished with lunch, in Mai’s living room, drawing with those fat scented markers. She’ll get him early. She’ll skip the drop-in in West Covina and the sit-down with the general practice in Hacienda Heights at four.

  The pounding startles her. The woman is smacking the driver’s-­side window with an open hand, screaming “Rich bitch” over and over. Stringy hair and open sores on her face and neck. She calls Phoebe a vampire and a bloodsucking cunt and then plants her open mouth against the window. A dirty mist appears. From her Coach bag, Phoebe removes a sterling-silver pillbox, drops eight yellow Klonopin tablets on a Starbucks napkin and a twenty-dollar bill under it, folds it carefully two times. She opens her window. This startles the woman, who doesn’t know what to do, so she just kind of staggers back. Phoebe hands the napkin to the confused woman, who grabs it and walks wildly away.

  How can I ever ever ever repay you ;)

  JW’s response: rolling eyes

  I know what I said. Let me.

  Congratulations.

  Think of something.

  Not necessary.

  She presses: Please. I can handle my shit.

  I’ll be in touch.

  50

  Nick is drunk. He’s been drinking since noon. He does this lately. When there’s no work, when all the jobs are solo or with Arik, initials or rent collection, he’ll have the day to himself, and after he cleans, tends the lawn, secures the house, climbs the wall, he drinks.

  Jackson is spending the night at the nanny’s because Nick simply didn’t have the energy to avoid fighting with Phoebe and knew he’d need to sleep it off the next morning. It’s nine thirty and dark and Phoebe is still not home and the cable is out and the Internet is down so Nick starts to thumb through images of Mallory, recalling the girl from that one afternoon, wearing thin white boxer shorts, lightly scratching her ass as she reached across Nick’s body for the remote control, in the apartment she shares with Arik, lingering, her breast resting on his arm, the sweet smell of her hair in his face.

  Hey is the message he sends to her.

  The response he receives isn’t from Mallory. It’s an email from Phoebe. She’s forwarding a message from Serenos Montessori. In the subject line she writes: Midyear maybe?

  Nick sends her a text: You’re kidding, right?

  We’ll be here. So why not?

  Are you high?

  But it still works. Makes sense.

  They won’t have slots, Nick writes.

  They will. I called.

  Whatever. The school cannot know that now—how many slots they’ll have.

  They usually do. And he’s #4 on wait list.

  He calls her. His shirt is off, tossed on the floor, and his jeans are unzipped. Through the bedroom window, he watches Metzger on a tall ladder, installing a new floodlight.

  “What is this?” he says to Phoebe. “Some game?”

  “You’re so paranoid.”

  “Schools? Plans to be here? Doesn’t sound like Phoebe. You should be planning your escape.”

  “I’m tired of the negative vibes. I’m exhausted from being exhausted all the time.” She laughs. She is high, Nick thinks. This isn’t Klonopin or Percocet talking. Maybe something new.

  “Can’t afford it,” he says.

  “Again with the negativity. News flash: Down-and-out Nick is not nearly as sexy as ‘I got this’ Nick.”

  Silence.

  “Take off your shirt.”

  “Pho
ebe.”

  “Come on. Send me one of your buff bod.”

  “Are you driving? You sound high.”

  “Buzzkill.”

  “I work tonight. So you need to be home to get Jackson in the morning.”

  “Can we have the rest of the night together?”

  “So if you could come home and pick up Jackson tonight so he’s not sleeping over there yet again. It’s not cool to keep doing that.”

  “One dick pic,” she says. “Then I’ll do whatever you tell me.”

  “Just sleep it off wherever you are. And don’t drive.”

  His phone beeps.

  “I adore you, Nickels.”

  “You’re a nightmare,” he says, ends the call. He calls Mallory, then drops it before she picks up.

  The text that arrives isn’t from Mallory, and he’s disappointed. It’s from Phoebe: don’t fret, lovebug. igotthis ;)

  51

  It’s Mischief Night. Nick sits by the pool, legs dangling over the edge of the filthy, empty concrete. He notices one of their floodlights is out. He’ll change the bulb tonight. There’s a man yelling over the music from next door. Phoebe is actually home and putting Jackson to bed. Nick hasn’t spoken more than a couple of sentences to her other than in passing, about Jackson, since she returned from her three nights away. The text that arrives on Nick’s phone is from Boss:

  Angel Duty. Need you. Time and a half.

  Cool

  Empty 5 br in Sunland.

  Fine.

  Couple of break-ins to be perfectly honest. But it’s quiet now. We need a presence in the house. Keep lights on, car in the driveway.

  Of course.

  And you’re on today with Arik @ the house in Chino Hills.

  Roger that.

  And let me know if Sean shows up today or any other day.

  Why?

  He’s no longer with the company.

  Why not?

  Call me if he shows. There was an incident.