Multiple Listings

by Tracy McMillan

  “That sounds wonderful,” I say, stealing a glance down her shirt. “Why, thank you.”

  She winks and sits back in her seat. “You have a great day, now.”

  “Wait a minute,” Cody says as we walk away. He’s trying to figure out what just happened. “Aren’t you supposed to hide the fact that you’re a grown-up who doesn’t have a license?”

  “Son, here’s the thing,” I say patiently. “Women love it when you show your vulnerabilities. They want you to be strong, and they want you to go after them, but if you’re also real with them—then they are putty in your hands.” I smooth my right hand into my left to show putty. “You gotta bring all three things to the game. Vulnerability, strength, and realness. Very important.”

  “So you took a threat,” Cody says in that nerdy let-me-get-this-straight way guys like him talk, as if he’s doing a math problem out loud, “and figured out how to use it to gain on your opponent. In this case, the opponent is that girl.”

  “Exactly.”

  Damn, the wheels are spinning for Cody. He’s translating this whole women thing into terms he can understand.

  “In Magic: The Gathering, we call that ‘card advantage,’ ” he says, slicing the air with his palms to keep track of his point, “where you handle two of your opponents’ threats with only one of your cards. In this case, you’re trying to ‘kill’ the hot chick, by making yourself seem superconfident and coming clean about what would normally be a liability.”

  “I don’t really know what you just said, boy, but you sound like you got it. Now add some swagger to all that smarts, and you’re gonna have to fight the girls off with a stick!”

  Cody looks pleased with himself as we take a seat on the hard plastic chairs to fill out the forms. There’s a guy next to me who smells like body odor. Cody looks at me and waves his hand in front of his nose. We smirk together silently.

  “Daniels, window three.” Our name comes over the loudspeaker. We’ve only been sitting here about two minutes.

  “Damn, what did you say to her? That’s us,” he says. I give Cody a shove toward window 3. It’s a male clerk this time and I can tell Cody’s disappointed. He wanted more lessons in talking to women.

  “You’re the boy’s father?” the clerk asks.

  “Yes, sir. I am,” I say. I know I’m lying in front of Cody, but life is too short to explain to all these people that I’m the boy’s grandfather, not father. “I’m taking the test, too.”

  “I see that,” the clerk says. “Get your booklet, study it for twenty minutes, then go to that window and get your test.” The guy directs us to the far corner of the room.

  “We already studied,” Cody says. “We are going to crush it.”

  The guy looks at him, bored. “Well, study some more. Because you’re going to be here a minute.”

  Ha! I clap my hands. “Over here, son.” I lead Cody outside to where a bunch of guys are smoking cigarettes to the left of the door. “Hey, you got an extra smoke?”

  “I didn’t know you smoke,” Cody says.

  “I don’t,” I say. “Just sometimes.”

  I get a light off the other guy and inhale. “You got one for my son, here?”

  Cody’s not sure he wants one, but the guy shakes his pack and out pops a brown filter. He pulls it out.

  “Go like this,” I whisper. I demonstrate a proper holding technique. Between thumb and forefinger.

  Cody leans in for a light, like I did. He inhales like a pro.

  “Look at you,” I say. “Guess you’ve been practicing.”

  “From time to time,” Cody says, smiling. I’m starting to get this boy. Underneath all that quietness is a kid who’s thinking a lot, who’s really paying attention to things. He’s a little bit of a punk, but funny as hell and good-hearted, too.

  “It’s nice for men to have a smoke once in a while,” I say. “Just don’t get addicted to this shit.” I give him a stern look. “You promise me that.”

  “I won’t,” he says. Him promising me doesn’t mean he won’t get addicted, but it does mean he’ll feel guilty about it if he does, and if he feels guilty, eventually he’ll quit.

  We sit and smoke and nod at other guys as they walk in and out of the building. Two dudes are talking about the Mariners. I don’t give a shit about baseball, but it feels sort of good to just be here among all men again. Prison is good for that one thing at least. When you’re in a world of all men, you don’t notice any difference between the way you feel inside and what’s going on outside. When women are around, it’s not like that—you have to be aware of what you’re saying and doing at all times. I bet you this is what Cody likes so much about his Magic game, and the card store.

  I stub out my cigarette in the ashtray. “We should go back in. We got a test to pass.”

  We hear our name over the loudspeaker. “Daniels. Window fourteen.”

  As we walk across the crowded room I watch Cody walking ahead of me. He’s got a long stride—my long stride—but you can see all the young-man insecurity right there on the surface. I can see he’s going to shape up into a really fine young man, though. As we make our way through the room, people look at us. They don’t know that a month ago he hardly even knew my name and I was sitting in a jail cell.

  I’m so grateful I get to show him what the world is like and help him grow into a good person. I thought I’d never have the chance to matter to another person ever again. I hope I never take that shit for granted.

  The clerk outside the testing room directs us to a bank of computers lining the walls of the room. “Good luck, bro,” Cody says as he takes his place in front of the computer he’s been assigned.

  “You, too,” I say, slipping into the spot next to his. I have no doubt that Cody’s going to pass. No doubt I’m going to pass, either. “See you in a few.”

  I glance out into the main room and think, as soon as we’re done here, I’m going to try to get that clerk’s phone number.

  15

  * * *

  NICKI

  There’s only one thing I love as much as real estate listings: the New York Times wedding announcements. When you think of it, the two things ­aren’t so different. With the announcements, you click from couple to couple, checking out the pictures. Except instead of bedrooms, bathrooms, and square footage, the copy is all about alma maters, high-profile jobs, and prominent parents. With each one, I imagine what it would be like to be those two people, to be living their lives. I scrutinize their engagement photos, noting the micro-gestures in their faces, predicting where the marriage is going to run into trouble. Sometimes it’s obvious. The girl will have a slight sneer, or the guy will have a cheating look in his eyes. It really makes you wonder—why would people put a picture in the New York Times (of all places) that reveals everything about them for the whole world to see? I guess they don’t know we can see it.

  By résumé alone, though, every couple in there is some form of perfect: high achieving, from good schools and good families. They fascinate me not just because they seem to have it all together—no accidental pregnancies here, folks—but also because if you look deeply you see a lot of patterns. Like: how many women marry a guy who has the same career as their dad. Like: how many men in their late twenties are willing to commit to women they met in their early twenties. Like: how many really pretty women marry guys who aren’t even all that good-looking, but feel lucky as shit to be with such a beautiful girl from such a great family.

  I can’t help but think those are the really smart girls—they’re going to be valued for the rest of their lives. I marvel at such women. The ones with the bouncy hair and nice teeth who grow up in Greenwich or Chappaqua and whose mothers are on the board of the gardening society and whose dads have a private otolaryngology practice in Manhattan. Is it any wonder a girl like that is getting married? No, it is not. She believes she is wor
th committing to, and not surprisingly, so does everyone else. And if you try to tell me that half of these couples will be divorced in ten years, I will cite you a story published elsewhere in the Times that says the divorce rate among the college educated is something like 11 percent. Eleven percent! Messed-up relationships are just one more indignity of being born to the wrong kind of people. Like me.

  Anyway, I can and do kill one hour of my life every seven days reading about these people. I have a special love for the outliers: older couples, interracial couples, the couples who’ve obviously made (at some level) an arrangement—­because don’t try to tell me that the only person that Korean or Indian or Nigerian girl ever fell in love with was also Korean or Indian or Nigerian. I’m fascinated that these girls were able or willing to put the family first, the culture first.

  Fascinated.

  As if my parents could ever be so important that I would only marry someone they approved of. That these women do must mean their parents gave them so much—time, energy, resources—that to lose their approval and support would somehow make their lives less.

  My parents have given me nothing I couldn’t risk losing. Not only have my parents not really given me anything, they actually sort of took from what I already, or might have, had.

  I’m almost done reading this week’s announcements when Ronnie comes into the living room wearing jeans (which rarely happens) and an old T-shirt, which probably means he’s been out in the garden at some point today. “What’s happening, darling daughter?” he says.

  I’m getting less annoyed by all the ways he sweet-talks me. At first I saw it as completely manipulative and irritating. Now I just see it as somewhat manipulative, while also understanding that he’s actually sincere about it. There’s a paradox to a lot of what Ronnie does. In this case, it’s like in a dream, where there are two things going on at once. You know how you’re at someone else’s house, but it’s really your house? Still, I know when he begins like this he’s probably about to ask for something.

  “Not much,” I say. “Going to pick up Cody in a half hour. How are the roses doing?”

  Ronnie has been spending every Sunday—even the rainy ones—out in the yard working on the roses. Apparently he’s a jailhouse botanist on top of his jailhouse therapy practice, because he told me I’ve been doing my vintage climbing roses all wrong and walked all the way to the garden store and back to get what I needed to make it right.

  “I’m bringing ’em back to where they need to be,” he says, clearly disappointed in my gardening skills. “They’ll get there. But it’s a long road ahead.”

  I want to laugh. It’s hard to tell if he’s serious. But since he’s almost always funny and laughing, and very rarely ironic, I’m going to go with yes. He’s dead serious.

  “Speaking of which, I wanted to ask you something,” he says. “It’s a favor.”

  We haven’t been speaking of anything, but this is more of Ronnie’s behavior. If he wants to bring something up, he pretends like you just said something related to what he wants to bring up. Like I said, irritating.

  “You want money?” I say.

  “Well . . .”

  “I was wondering how long it would take you to ask.”

  “I’m not going to lie. Yes, I need money.” Ronnie takes a breath. “You know I wouldn’t ask you unless I absolutely had to.”

  I’ve been waiting for this moment to come since he moved in. It’s one of the main conditions of his release that he find employment. I know because I looked it up on the Internet. But he hasn’t mentioned it once. “Shouldn’t you be getting a job?”

  “I’ve been looking.”

  “Really? Not hard enough, obviously.” That was mean, and I’m sorry I said it. I try to soften it a little. “I mean, I thought you got some money from that woman at the halfway house?”

  It’s always safe to assume Ronnie has a woman doing for him what he won’t or can’t do for himself.

  “That was a onetime deal,” he says. “Listen, Nicki. I was thinking we could work something out.”

  “Oh, you mean I pay you for doing what you’re already doing around the house?” I can read my dad like a book.

  I actually expected this, and I’m surprised it’s taken him this long to ask. So I don’t know why I’m making it seem to him like I’m upset. Because I’m not—upset I mean. I sort of think it’s a good idea.

  “Yeah. That’s what I was thinking.” He pauses. “I don’t need much. Just enough for my cell phone and bus money.”

  “How much is that?” Something makes me feel like if he wants to ask me for money, I’m willing to give it to him, but I don’t want to make it too easy. Because if I do that, he might try to take advantage. “Just give me the ballpark.”

  “A hundred bucks a week?” he says, eager to sell his case. “You know it’s reasonable.”

  He’s right, it’s reasonable. I am the first to admit that Ronnie is doing an exceptional job of making up for lost time in the being-useful department. He’s basically jumped right into the job of house manager—he’s handling everything from laundry, to beds, to breakfast, lunch, dinner, and yard work. It’s making my life so much easier I’m starting to not only enjoy having him here, I’m wondering what I’m going to do when he leaves. So why does the thought of giving him a hundred dollars a week feel like I’m losing something somehow? Maybe if I give it to him, I’ll find out. Ronnie would call it a “contrary action.” In other words, doing the opposite of what I feel like doing. Apparently it’s a “spiritual practice.” Argh.

  “Fine. A hundred dollars a week,” I say. “You can have it.”

  Ronnie stares at me for a good long ten seconds.

  “Wow, look at you!” he says finally, all surprised and delighted about my contrary action. “You made that look easy, baby.”

  “No, don’t look at me,” I say. I’m not really even joking. “Please? It just makes it harder to do the right thing.”

  “Okay, yes, you’re right,” he says. He’s got a sympathetic look on his face that says he knows it’s hard for me to take this baby step toward him. “Thanks, sweetheart. Now,” he says, “pick one, right or left?”

  He wiggles his elbows in my direction and I notice that all this time he’s had both hands behind his back. I roll my eyes. “Is this some sort of game?”

  “Come on now, pick one!” He’s got this big smile on his face—like this is the most fun he’s had in years. I guess it probably is. “Play along, girl. You need to loosen up.”

  I know I need to relax more and go with the flow—I’m so type A, which I hate to admit is really just controlling—but it always feels just slightly infuriating. Like, here’s my dad, of all people, standing in front of me in stupid jeans and a stupid T-shirt having just pruned all the roses outside in the drizzling rain and he wants to play a stupid game and I’m supposed to just goddamn go along with it? I know the answer is yes—I mean, if I want to have a dad. Which actually, I’m not sure I do, but anyway—

  I know, I know—contrary action.

  “You can do it, baby. You can do it!” He’s reading me again; he intuitively knows what my inner struggle is, and he’s trying to cheerlead me along—talking to me like I’m a kid attempting to go off a diving board for the first time, or ride without training wheels. “Pick one. Right or left?” He’s wiggling his elbows so I can’t see what’s behind his back. “Riiiiiiight? Or leeeeeeeffffffft?”

  “Fine!” I give in. “Left.”

  He holds out something polka-dotted. I hold it up at a random angle. “What is this?” As it falls open, I see exactly what it is. It’s from Abercrombie, the shirt he picked out for me.

  “It’s a Nicki Daniels shirt!” He’s beaming at me. “I got it when you went to make your phone call.”

  “Are you serious?” I say. “But you don’t have any money.”

 
“I stole it,” he says with a grin. “Kidding.”

  I hit him on the arm—just pretending, of course. It’s actually really sweet and thoughtful.

  “It’s going to look really cute on you, baby,” he says. “Really cute.”

  He’s right, it is really cute and something I would totally wear. “Thank you, Ronnie.”

  “You’re welcome, daughter,” he says. “Now I gotta go clean up. I’m a mess.” He turns and heads toward his room.

  I hold the shirt up again and smile to myself. I can’t believe he bought me that fucking shirt. I wonder if this is what it feels like to be one of those girls from Chappaqua.

  * * *

  I’m in traffic a couple of days later when I get the call. Stop-and-go traffic, my least favorite kind. This is why I hate the freeway at low speeds. Because if you’re not watching every second, the next thing you know, it’s like—crash! This is sort of what it feels like to see Jake’s number pop up on the car’s computer screen. He’s showing up right when I least expect it—which is to say, after my dad told me what happened. Right when I had finally accepted Jake was gone and had stopped expecting him to call.

  So of course he calls.

  On the other hand, I’ve been waiting for this moment the whole time, rehearsing what I was going to say, and now that it’s here I’m not even sure I want to pick up the phone. He doesn’t deserve you, is the first thing that pops into my mind. Just thinking that makes me so mad that the only way to discharge my anger is to punch yes on the Bluetooth.

  “It’s about time,” I say. I notice that I’m wearing the polka-dotted shirt my dad got me. “Where have you been?”

  “I’m sorry, Nicki.”

  “Well at least you’re not pretending you didn’t fuck up.” I’m seething. I wasn’t seething before, but now I am. Before I was sad. Now I’m seething. “So that’s something.”