“Are you horribly disappointed? Does the eviction give you an empty feeling inside like you lost your best friend, or …”
“Rosie, what happened? Did you and Mirabelle have a fight?”
Rosie stares at her. “I’m going to take a shower. It’s so damn hot.”
The loud, determined knock at the front door sends Rosie to the vestibule instead. “Mom! It’s Dory and Stu,” she calls.
She hoists herself off the couch. The last thing she wants is to be sociable.
“Hi,” Dory says. “We brought food.” Dory’s carrying a pizza box, Stu, a six-pack.
“Dory, you should’ve called first,” she chides quietly, following her into the kitchen.
“We’re not company,” Dory says.
She leans close to whisper. “I’m not ready to have our lives laid out like that pie.”
“Have you and Zack discussed the eviction with the children?” Dory whispers back.
“Of course.”
“We’ve come here with a solution. Rosie, find your father and get Casey to the table, too.” Dory, who knows where everything is, sets out paper plates, utensils, glasses. Her take-charge personality and innate optimism is what Lena usually counts on, but right now it grates.
Stu hands Zack a beer as he comes up from the basement.
“I should go change into something …” she begins.
“Hey, you’re fine, covered in silk,” Stu remarks.
“Lena, it’s okay.” Dory fishes in her bag for a bottle of aspirin, and pops two in her mouth. “Headache, awful nuisance.”
Casey shuffles in, shyly nods to no one in particular, and sits.
“Thanks for this,” Rosie says, as if she’s the mistress of the house, and why not? Her mother’s missing in action.
Stu places a slice of pizza on each plate. “Ladies, join me in a beer?”
“Mom, can I?” Rosie looks at her.
“No.”
Stu twists open the cap, places the beer in front of Lena. She takes a long pull. It’s cold, bitter, sharp, just right. She wouldn’t mind several more. Pizza, however; that’s hopeless. Zack’s expression of satisfaction on biting into a slice irritates her.
Rosie, for whom silence is doom, says, “Why are you here? I mean, is this a charity visit? You know, bring food to the needy family?”
“That’s not why we came. Stu, it’s your idea, you explain.”
“It’s simple, no problem. You can move in with us. The guest room for Rosie and Casey, the basement for you two. Zack and I can build a little bathroom down there.” Stu speaks directly and only to Zack, then takes a long swig of the beer, nearly emptying the contents. Lena wonders if he’s embarrassed about making the offer, or worried they’ll accept.
“I wouldn’t have my own room?” Rosie’s voice rises in alarm.
“Does your house have Wi-Fi?”
“Of course,” Dory assures Casey.
“The problem will be crowding. You’ll have six people living in close quarters,” Rosie explains, as if that should be enough to put an end to the conversation.
Her daughter’s not only reading her mind but also sizing up the situation correctly. A momentary fantasy of dropping the entire eviction problem in her feisty daughter’s lap leaves her slightly light-headed.
“Besides,” Rosie continues, “I can’t share a room with Casey, not simply because he’s a boy, but because we have very different lifestyles. Right, Casey?”
“Better than a shelter,” Casey says.
“Dad, you haven’t said anything yet,” Rosie scolds.
“The decision is up to your mother,” Zack replies and all eyes turn to her, but she has nothing to add.
An uncomfortable hour filled with small talk later, no decision made, she stands at the rain-streaked window watching the silver Honda drive off. Zack disappears upstairs. Rosie leaves for Mirabelle’s. Casey is somewhere. Dory’s parting whisper replays in her head. “It could be fun. It could even be helpful.” Helpful? To her and Zack? To Dory and Stu? And what about Dory’s pristine house? Everything always in place. Lovely, yes, but clearly, no children live there. Hers will put their feet up on the couch, insist on watching stupid TV programs, and open the fridge every ten minutes to retrieve food, the debris of which will be found in other rooms.
In truth, though, it’s her reluctance that’s the issue. The offer leaves her restless, anxious, as if she’s being given a present she’s afraid—no, terrified—to open. Growing up, she felt like such an outsider at home, an intruder whose presence caused more trouble than joy. The rooms didn’t recognize or embrace her, as a home should, as her home does her children. She can’t live that way again, as a guest.
There’s no point getting dressed now, but she hikes upstairs and finds Zack on the bed, hands behind his head. A slight smile flits across his face when he sees her. Why isn’t he more upset?
“I’ll have to tell Rosie and Casey that their allowances are suspended until we get jobs. Maybe Rosie can find some babysitting to do.”
“You and I never had allowances,” Zack reminds her.
“So what? I want better for our children, don’t you?”
“They’ll manage. They’re not out on the street, starving. We still have unemployment and some savings.”
“Which will be gone soon enough.”
“Did you give any more thought to Stu’s suggestion?” his tone so matter of fact he could be asking the time.
She drops into the rocking chair. “Dory and Stu are sweet to offer us a place, but it’s not the answer. We have to find jobs and pay the bank.”
“It’s too late.”
“I don’t accept that. I told you I’ll find a job.”
“Where?”
“Where will I work?” The idiocy of the question drives nails through her skin. “What the fuck? What about you? You don’t have to wait for another site.”
“What else can I do?”
“Who cares? Flip papers, hand out flyers, sell fruit.”
“I can’t do those things.”
“Yes, you can, you must. I’ll clean houses, wash dishes, anything that brings in money.” A blue-gray light filters through the blur of rain. She inhales the sachet scent of the bedroom. “I’m not taking four years’ worth of home and piling it into some storage space where it will fade or smell so bad I won’t want any of it anymore.”
“We’ll take a few small pieces with us, and the rest will be stored. It’s only furniture.”
“Only furniture?” rips from her throat. “Don’t you have feelings for this home we’ve made that will be smashed to pieces? For Chrissakes!”
“Even if I find some jerk job, we can’t make enough money soon enough to halt the eviction.” The sudden weariness in Zack’s voice catches her attention, as do his unshaven cheeks. Letting himself go, rolling downhill, how soon will he hit bottom? She stares hard at him.
“What?”
“I don’t want to move,” she says quietly. “I don’t want to break up a home. I don’t want to displace the children or us. I don’t want to be someone’s guest. I want to stay here. That’s what I want.” The last words exhaled on a shaky breath. She clasps her hands tightly, trying to slow her breathing, trying as well not to blame him, though she does.
He slides off the bed. “We’ll stay.”
“Don’t humor me.”
“I’m not. It’s something I’ve been thinking about. The guys on my old site will put their bodies on the line. They like playing hero. They’ll circle the house, construct a barrier. We’ll set up a few tents, call a local TV station, get some PR.” His hands chop the air, his expression intense.
Has he lost it, again?
“My guys won’t let the eviction people cross the line. They won’t get near the house. It’ll be weeks before they try again. By then we could have jobs or find some money somehow. Believe me, all we need is time.”
His eyes are moist and feverish, the way they were at that bash for the
neighbors. He’s imagining putting off the inevitable with another party of beer and food. How crazy is that? Still, where’s her plan? Looking past his eager gaze, she notes the Mexican wall hanging, the women climbing that hill forever, carrying their heavy baskets. It was their honeymoon, for god-sakes, why didn’t they buy something more hopeful?
He takes her hand, squeezes it, urges her to agree, the way he once urged her to marry him. She was eighteen. It was a moment of heart-stopping indecision. Stay in that awful apartment, her mother dead and a father who only wanted her gone? College never an option, her prospects slim. If she turned down his proposal, the future would remain open for anything, every bit of it unknown. So she said yes, and everything became known. Until now.
“Go on, organize a hardhat posse, keep those bastards from our door. Why the fuck not?” Maybe the authorities will go away and it will buy them some time, but the surge of frivolous hope is vanishing as rapidly as it arose. The idea’s ridiculous. The cops will arrive, barge through, rough up and arrest the bunch of them, including her and Zack. And then what?
15.
Rosie strides to her friend’s house through the humid, drizzly streets. Dory and Stu left without a decision. The eviction isn’t far away. She needs to know what her life’s going to be like come September. One thing she does know, moving into Dory’s won’t happen with her aboard. Still, she’s curious. Why didn’t her mother accept Stu’s offer? Her father wanted to but deferred, naturally. She’ll never live with a man who doesn’t have a strong will of his own. It’s why her relationship with Siri couldn’t progress. What kind of love listens first to an aunt or uncle? He should’ve insisted on rescuing her from the possibility of living in a shelter. Sonny would’ve done it, of that she’s certain. His phone call just hours after they met was a surprise. He was assertive, flirtatious, funny, and sweet. They talked for a long time. He wants to see her. Hesitant about making a date so soon, she reminds herself the only way to experience the world is to take risks. Otherwise nothing new and different can happen.
Her mother fears chaos; she doesn’t. No wonder her mother’s youth was spent bar-hopping with her dad, Stu, and Dory, which led to early marriage, kids, a mortgage. Next: get old and die. Not her agenda. By the time she’s her mother’s age, her experiences will fill a trunk. She’ll have traveled to a thousand countries, met too many people to remember. There are so many things she wants to do that sometimes it hurts to think about them.
Mirabelle’s two-story house, white and blue with a back porch and a landscaped lawn, is the last on the road. Unlike her noisy abode, it’s almost deathly quiet. Her mom walks barefoot on wall-to-wall carpeting and speaks in whispery tones, as if someone is sleeping nearby. Her father works at home in the basement. Rosie rarely sees him. Mirabelle prefers Rosie’s house, likes to converse with her mother, which Rosie only allows for brief periods, ever mindful that Mirabelle could inadvertently reveal what her mother shouldn’t know.
The two of them are stretched out on Mirabelle’s full-size bed, propped on loads of pillows, the plaid bedspread bunched on the floor. Her friend’s icy-blue eyes remain on her as she discloses the eviction and that her parents seem completely nonfunctional. Mirabelle doesn’t look moved. “I might have to live in a shelter with the other homeless.”
“Don’t be dramatic. You’ll live in our guest room.”
“It’s compelling,” she agrees, knowing Mirabelle would say exactly this and envisioning that bedroom with its bay window, dressing table, and half-bathroom. “Your parents may not want a long-term guest.”
“My mother has no opinions, at least none she shares with me. And my father won’t even realize you’re here. Not to worry.” Mirabelle’s short, stubby blond dreadlocks frame a pudgy face, but she doesn’t believe in diets. “After you move in, we’ll get tattoos at that shop down in the Village I told you about. I want a swan with a hint of water, just below my belly button.”
“Ouch.”
“It hurts the same no matter where you put it. Having it there is a gift for very special people …” Mirabelle’s voice trails off.
“Tattoos are not on my immediate to-do list.”
“So what is, my sweet girl?”
“It’s finished with Siri. He turned out to be a wimp. I met this handsome dude on the train, strong, manly, the kind you can lean on. He wrote my phone number on his arm.”
“And this hero’s name?”
“Sonny.”
Mirabelle smiles.
“What’s funny?”
“Your utter devotion to these guys, which you should know bores me.”
“Why?”
“I don’t like boys. They’re childish. I don’t like men. They’re crude. They lack a poetic side.”
“Sonny’s a poet, of sorts.”
“What kind?” Mirabelle’s eyes flash interest.
“He’s a professional rapper.”
“Oh, a jingle writer.”
“By the way, swans are vicious.” A sudden downpour outside darkens the room, and she reaches up to switch on the floor lamp.
“No, Rosie, leave it off.”
“Why?”
“In my journal I’m writing about dawn and evening and the way the light between changes. Get it?”
“Not really, but does it matter?”
“Not a whit.” Mirabelle swings her body off the bed to stand at the window.
“What’s the problem?” she asks.
“Nothing.”
“Come on, it’s something.”
“You’re smart and sensitive but you get all gooey around guys. I guess it annoys me.”
“But why?”
“The way you waste time on this crap.”
“Mirabelle, this isn’t a waste. Now is the time we’re supposed to be making and breaking relationships. Exploring. It’s normal.” She likes boys, older ones, though she can’t argue that they aren’t often ridiculous. But she doesn’t believe all men are crude. Her father may be a wimp, but he’s not crude, nor is Stu.
Mirabelle shrugs and perches at the edge of the bed. “Can I interest you in an excellent film that I’d love to see again, just so you can enjoy it, too?”
“That’s sweet,” she says, though it’s not what she wants to do. But if she’s going to move in, Mirabelle needs to want to have her here.
16.
The TV is tuned to one of Dory’s weekend morning talk shows. It doesn’t stop her from prattling on about how stubborn Lena can be, which isn’t what he wants to hear right now. On the screen, well-coiffed ladies sit around a table, sharing things that Don’t Matter. Several million people watch the show to hear stories sadder than their own. Or does the fantasy of TV Land give them hope? His fantasy gives him hope. It’s what he holds on to in this holy-roller country called America, where guys like him are processed out of Dullsville into routine, and where only the fantasies of the rich are realized.
Okay, Lena’s reluctance to accept their offer yesterday was a disappointment. But nothing’s ever over till it’s over. He’ll get Zack alone in a bar. A few beers and he’ll describe in gory detail what happened to the daughter of a made-up friend while living in a shelter. Then he’ll urge Zack to share these indisputable facts with Lena, and wake up the fear she ought to have—that to refuse the refuge of their house is nothing less than negligent.
“Stu, where are you?”
“At your side, lady.”
“Lena in her robe all day … not like her. What else can we do?”
“Nothing,” he says irritably, pissed to have his planning interrupted.
“Why so huffy?”
“I made myself available. Now it’s up to them. End of story.”
“Yourself available? What does that mean?”
“Don’t nitpick.”
Dory takes him in with that flushed expression of wanting to understand that justifies nothing in his book. “Shut off the stupid TV if you’re not watching. I’m sure not.”
She prompt
ly picks up the remote and clicks the TV off, the immediate silence damning. What’s the matter with him? She didn’t do a thing wrong. He’s treating her badly, which feels terrible. Is he really trying to make her leave him? He’s so not in touch with the crap in his head to know. “Honey, we have to let them sort it out. We offered our house, let’s wait and see. That’s all I meant.”
Ever ready to accept a half-assed apology, she nods in agreement.
When the phone rings, Dory answers. “It’s Zack. He wants us over for breakfast, wants to share an idea. Are you up for going?”
“Why not?” he says, as nonchalantly as he can.
Pulling up in front of their house, he takes it in as if for the first time. It’s small, almost a toy. If it didn’t have a basement they could lift it, haul it elsewhere, never to be found. Dory gets out and walks quickly up the front steps in her tie-dyed sundress. Always a skinny girl, she’s still all edges and points, unlike Lena …
“Stu?” Dory calls. Slowly he unfolds himself from the car, everything in him reluctant to hear Zack’s idea. Lena opens the door in fitted jeans and a green tank top that matches her eyes, dazzling, though in her expression he finds no wish to dazzle. She looks downright sullen, tired, maybe tearful, but that’s not Lena. She didn’t cry, even when her mother did the unthinkable. Maybe, alone in the bathroom, but that’s more Dory. How many times has he seen her wide eyes tear up?
He nods to Lena and follows her to the kitchen, where they’re all sitting around the table. French toast, syrup, jam, juice, milk, cereal, and coffee on display, quite a spread for a family that’s about to be homeless. But no one seems to be eating. Isn’t that odd? He glances at the freshly painted yellow walls; a few colorful prints hung here and there, shiny appliances catching the sunlight streaming through the large bay window. To have to give this up should be illegal. Should he show sympathy? “The kitchen’s cozy,” he hears himself say, taking a seat. Lena’s eyes flicker with gratitude. That, too, is odd.
“So, Dad, what’s the secret plan?” It’s Rosie, of course. She’ll be a handful if they move in.
“You and me, Stu, will get some of the guys from the construction site to set up a perimeter around the house and keep the uniforms out. We don’t know exactly when they’ll come to evict us, but waiting won’t be unpleasant. We’ll provide the beer, food, maybe even music.” Wearing an expectant expression, Zack scans their faces. No one speaks. “The hope here, my friends, is that the cops, sheriff or whoever, will go away and not come back for a while, during which period at least one of us gets a job so we can make a handful of back payments.”
Every Body has a Story Page 8
