by C. V. Hunt
I interrupted him. “Holly hates them.”
“Yeah. Sorry. This sucks. I mean . . . not you moving in—”
I spoke in a nobleman’s ancient, “Out with it, man.” I mimed slapping him in the face with an imaginary glove.
He spoke slowly as if searching for the least hurtful selection of words. “Holly has expressed her concern about how long you’ll be staying and . . . what kind of influence you’ll be on Makayla.”
I blinked and tried to process the absurdity of his statement. “What kind of influence would I be on Makayla? She’s twelve. I don’t think I can damage a pre-teen girl. I’m sure she’s wrapped up in her own microcosm of problems and peer pressure. Besides, you know me. I’ll be in my room ninety-nine percent of the time working on the computer. No offense to you and your . . .” I rolled my hand to insinuate his house, “thing you have going on here. Believe me, I don’t want to stay here any more than she wants me here. I can only kiss someone’s ass who hates me for so long.”
“There’s two more weeks before school lets out for summer vacation.”
“I would think Holly would be happy to have a free babysitter. I’m only gone a couple of days a week to work at the café. I’m sure I could talk to the manager and move those days to the weekend so I don’t spoil your family time.”
“Makayla won’t be happy. We promised . . . Holly promised to let her stay home alone this summer without a sitter. It’s time she started learning to take care of herself.”
“At twelve?”
“She’s mature enough.”
“All the more reason not to let her stay home alone. Do you remember being twelve? What we wanted to do to twelve-year-old girls?” I waved my hand dismissively. “Forget I said anything. It’s none of my business. Teach her how to shoot a gun and be into right wing politics. What do I care? It’s not my kid.”
“Makayla has changed a lot since you last saw her at Christmas. She’s gotten into some dark shit. Holly’s worried she might take an unhealthy interest in your photos.”
I nodded. “Yeah yeah yeah. Okay. I get it. It’s not the girl who has issues. It’s me living in the house causing her preexisting issues. Whatever makes wifey happy. I forgot. I’m the goddamn devil.” I held my pointer fingers to my forehead, opened my mouth, and flipped my tongue back and forth. I growled, “I’m the fucking devil!” I ran up to him and pretended to hump his leg while growling, “Give me your virgin women so I can corrupt them and fuck them and sacrifice them for the greater good!”
He pushed me away. “Get away from me, psycho! Are you ever going to grow up?”
“No need to,” I said and went back to flipping photos around. “You know I’m only here long enough to save some cash and get a place of my own. Two months tops. And I’m not going to interfere with whatever form of methodical brainwashing you two have scheduled for Makayla. If I wanted to control another human being I would’ve gotten a dog or had a kid myself. And I definitely had the opportunity.” I waved my hand around to insinuate my surroundings. “It’s the reason I’m standing in your dank ass garage having this conversation.”
“Naomi wants kids?”
“Among other things.”
“What things?”
“For me to get a steady job. To get married. A bunch of shit I don’t want.” I flipped another photo and avoided looking at him. Thinking about Naomi made my throat and chest feel tight. I knew my emotions would be readable on my face and I didn’t want Phillip to notice. “Look, I don’t want to talk about it unless you’re a certified psychologist. Taking advice from someone who’s never dealt with the same situation probably isn’t a good idea.”
“Okay. We won’t talk about it.”
He stepped forward to help me flip the remaining frames. When we were finished he lifted the two garbage bags of clothing by the door and I carefully retrieved my computer and bathroom effects.
We entered the kitchen and I was assaulted by an air freshener I didn’t like. The smell stung my sinuses and had a high floral note similar to cat urine. I sniffed and resisted the urge to sneeze. His kitchen was vast with a large stone top island in the middle that doubled as a table. I’d been to their house for holidays and knew the formal dining table was in a separate room but only used for special occasions. The kitchen was open to the living room, creating a great room with high ceilings.
We crossed the kitchen and entered the living room area. I noticed their wide-eyed Siamese cat, Pete, standing by the sectional. He raised his hackles once he spotted me, hissed, and ran off down the hallway, disappearing into the last bedroom on the right.
“Ignore him,” Phillip said. “He hates everyone except Holly. He’ll tolerate me if I’m feeding him but that’s about it.” He led me down the hall toward the bedrooms. With his hands full he tilted his head toward the first open door on the left and said, “Makayla’s room.”
He entered the room directly across from Makayla’s. I remembered Makayla’s room from five years ago when Phillip and Holly first purchased the house. They’d painted it a hideous shade of pink at the girl’s request and filled it with white furniture overflowing with girl things: dolls, clothes, stuffed animals. There was nothing particularly interesting or original about her room and no desire to pay any attention to it any time after seeing it once. I always stopped in briefly for the holidays with Naomi and I couldn’t ever recall looking in the girl’s room any other time when passing it to use the restroom. Phillip’s house was designated as the gathering place for family events because it was spacious and he had an extra bedroom for Mom to stay overnight. Mom had lived three hours away. And a three-hour drive one-way was if the weather was good. Which could be a crapshoot during the winter holidays. And Mom always looked for any excuse to stay a couple of days and spoil her only grandchild by taking her to the mall and buying her whatever she wanted.
I peeked into Makayla’s room and found it had drastically changed from the last time I remembered seeing it. The walls were now painted flat black and covered with posters of bands wearing corpse paint. There was a poster of Anton LaVey above the head of her bed. A large statue of Baphomet sat on a vanity I once knew to be white but had been painted black, poorly. The number 666 was carved into its tabletop. Bottles of black nail polish and make-up paraphernalia were scattered across the vanity and the border of the mirror housed magazine photos of groups of men dressed in black morbid costumes with makeup darkened eyes and long black hair. There was a small section of the mirror exposed in the center which was smudged with fingerprints and had a sloppy pentagram drawn on its surface with what I assumed was black permanent marker.
Phillip emerged from the room across the hall. “Told you she’s changed.”
“I’d say. I guess the devil has already done his job. I don’t know what kind of terrible influence Holly thinks I’ll have on the kid.”
He pointed to the bathroom door down from Makayla’s. “You’ll be sharing a bathroom with her.”
I took a few steps down the hall and inspected the bathroom. It was the same plain, cramped bathroom I’d remembered using a few times before. But now black eyeshadow cases, eyeliners, and lipsticks were scattered across the white countertop, along with black stains of either makeup or hair color dotted around the sink.
“Sorry about the mess,” he said. “I’ll make her clean it up.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I pushed some of the makeup stuff out of the way and set the shoebox with my toothpaste, toothbrush, deodorant, electric clippers, and other odds and ends on the counter. I briefly worried about Dad’s old-fashioned razor and the loose razorblades in the box but assumed if the girl had violent tendencies Phillip would’ve warned me.
“You’ll have to fight her for it in the morning until school is out. She spends an hour and a half in there getting ready in the morning. You could use ours if—”
“I don’t think it’ll be a problem. I take my showers in the evening. I only brush my teeth, take a leak, and put on so
me deodorant in the morning.”
“She sleeps twelve to fourteen hours a day on the weekends. So I don’t think it’ll be much of a problem once school is over.”
I carried my computer to my temporary new room. Phillip followed me. The walls were lavender and the color made me cringe. The queen-size bed and white dresser didn’t leave much space to move around. There was approximately three feet of space surrounding the bed and a tiny closet in the corner. Phillip had set the garbage bags full of clothes on the floor by the bed, which was covered in a floral pattern duvet. I sat my computer on the bed.
“Sorry about the décor,” he said. “It was decorated for Mom.”
An awkward moment of silence passed between us. I knew we were both thinking about her but neither of us wanted to bring her up. The hurt and sorrow and raw emotional state of the wound caused by Mom’s death had healed the best something of that magnitude could. But the scar tissue was translucent and tender and the slightest prodding could cause the wound to burst open and drown both of us.
I tried to lighten the mood. “It’s better than sleeping in my car. I don’t have a lot of options right now.”
Phillip rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “Do you need any help putting things away?”
We both avoided looking at the other.
“I think I’m good,” I said.
“Well, I’ll let you alone. The girls will be home in a couple of hours. Figured we’d order pizza tonight.”
“Sounds good.”
“If you need anything . . .”
He left the statement hanging. He was insinuating he was open to talk but I didn’t think either of us was equipped to deal with the unrestrained emotions. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and fidgeted before crossing his arms over his chest. I could sense he was worried I was about to break down bawling and pour my problems on him. And I wasn’t completely sure if he was implying we should talk about Mom or Naomi. He took my silence as a pass on his offer.
He said, “I’m gonna watch some TV.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
He crept out of the room and closed the door gently behind him. And I was left to make myself as comfortable as possible in a house where I wasn’t wanted and in a room decorated for a dead woman.
3
Holly brought home two pizzas, along with a sulky Makayla. We situated ourselves at the island in the kitchen. Holly and Phillip sat beside one another on one side of the island while Makayla and I sat across from them.
Holly and Phillip’s postures were polar opposites. Phillip slumped and I recognized his demeanor from our childhood. A brooding Phillip as a child was no different than a brooding Phillip as an adult. Holly sat ramrod straight. Everything about Holly was stiff and impeccable and always had been. Her blond hair was sleek and shiny and smoothed into an intricate bun. I used to assume the fancy bun hairstyle she wore took several hours to achieve but I was sure by this point she had perfected it over time and now it only took her a couple of minutes in the morning. She had an air of efficiency and perfection that always left me to wonder if she’d been raised in a military family. I couldn’t remember a time she’d worn her hair any other way, starting a year after her and Phillip were married. And as usual, her makeup looked freshly applied and her pantsuit was wrinkleless. I imagined while the rest of the world slept in beds Holly either submerged herself in a vat of formaldehyde or slept in a coffin. She was always pressed and flawless and wore the expression of a cold marble statue. While the rest of us ate with our hands, Holly used a knife and fork to keep her well-manicured hands clean. She’d cut a small piece, lift each bite daintily, and slide the food from her fork with her teeth to keep from disturbing her lipstick. I’d always had the strong urge to shove her down into a mud puddle.
Makayla didn’t appear to care as much about her makeup which struck me as strange since she wore three times as much as her mother. Her eyebrows were shaved and she either couldn’t be bothered to draw new ones on or didn’t know how. Her eyes were heavily rimmed with smeared black eyeliner and eye shadow and her lips were painted black and in need of a fresh application. Her lipstick had worn in such a way that it looked as if it was actually the remnants of some dark hard candy she’d consumed. Her white foundation was possibly composed of several layers to cover the massive amount of acne she was obviously self-conscious of and was still easily detectable even with the numerous coats she’d spackled it with. She hadn’t bothered blending the makeup beyond her jawline and there was an obvious contrast between her face and the skin of her neck. All of Makayla’s clothing was oversized and black and fought to hide the fact she’d gained a few pounds since the last time I’d seen her. To top off her new makeover she’d colored her long blond hair black. And all of her hair, with the exception of her too short bangs, were wadded and knotted into dreadlocks. She slumped sideways in her chair, her elbow on the counter to keep her in a semi-upright position, and her face inches from her plate. Without her elbow supporting her noncontributing mass and exhausted looking frame I was sure she would slide from her chair and pool on the floor. She pulled pepperoni from her pizza and nibbled on it with fingernails painted with severely chipped black polish. She gave me a look I could only read as disgusted as she ate.
No one spoke and I couldn’t shake the feeling the three of them were miserable. It wasn’t so much a feeling but a giant painting on display. All you had to do was look at them. They appeared as if my presence was the driving reason for this forced family interaction and it was painfully apparent none of them so much as spoke a word to each other on a daily basis let alone sit at a table with each other for more than two minutes. The complete silence, aside from the sounds of us eating, was disturbing. I was used to the sounds of traffic and pedestrians passing on the street at all times of the day and night. I was accustomed to the sounds of the city and they’d become comforting to me. The quiet of the suburbs was eerie and the whole situation made me feel extremely awkward and unwanted.
I took it upon myself to break the silence. “So . . . Makayla, what grade are you in now?”
The girl stopped picking at her food and gave me the most appalled look, as if I’d shat on the island in the middle of dinner. The girl turned her head, still supported by her hand, to her mother with a questioning gaze, as if to ask if it were okay to ignore her intrusive uncle. Holly turned her attention to her daughter for a beat. A silent conversation slipped between the two of them before Holly turned to me and answered for her daughter.
“She’s in seventh grade,” Holly said. She turned her attention back to her plate and stabbed a miniscule piece of pizza she’d cut from her slice.
I reflected on myself in seventh grade while everyone continued to eat in silence. I remembered the sense of confidence I had when I was that age. The recognition my body was changing and maturing and within a few short years I would be a man. I also remembered masturbating like a fiend whenever there was the slightest opportunity to be alone for five minutes and stealing the ten-year-old porno magazines Phillip had acquired from a schoolmate whose father would never miss the magazines from his extensive collection. I bit my tongue to keep from reminiscing about my sleazy pre-teen years to Phillip there on the spot and had to suppress a chuckle.
I addressed Makayla. “I took an afterschool photography class in seventh grade. They taught me how to develop thirty-five millimeter film . . . back before everything went digital.” I nodded toward Phillip. “Your dad took a woodworking class in high school.”
Phillip started when I spoke his name. He was completely enveloped in his own reverie or thoughts or misery or some imaginary land that wasn’t here with his stuck up wife and snotty daughter. He simply said, “Yeah,” and straightened slightly in his seat. He mumbled, “A lot of good it did me.” He took another bite of his food.
I wanted to slap myself in the forehead for sticking my foot in my mouth. I refrained from automatically saying ‘I forgot the bitch made you get rid of most o
f your tools because you spent too much of your free time doing something you loved and not sitting around with your family to stare awkwardly at each other and wonder why the fuck you were being forced into a social interaction with the people who despised you the most.’
I asked the girl, “Do you have any extracurricular activities?”
Makayla’s expression hadn’t shifted from her initial reaction to me. She continued to observe me with disdain, slumped in her chair. In a disgusted tone she said, “How long are you gonna be here?”
Phillip spoke around a bite of food. “Makayla.” He said her name with a reprimanding tone, warning her.
She snapped, “What?”
Holly said, “Don’t be rude.” She leaned forward and smacked the top of her daughter’s hand picking at the pepperoni. “Stopping playing with your food.”
“I’m not hungry . . . Mother.” She said the last word venomously.
I redirected my conversation to Phillip and changed the subject. “How’s Mom’s house going?”
Holly shook her head and made a disgusted sound. It was obvious the subject of Mom’s house was one they’d argued about several times and she hadn’t quite gotten what she wanted. Or she was tired of arguing about it.
Phillip appeared shocked anyone was trying to have a casual dinner conversation with him. He said, “It’s not going. I don’t have the time to put into it right now. The drive. The work. I can only get to it on the weekends.” He side-glanced in Holly’s direction and paused as if waiting for her to retaliate against something he’d said before continuing. “I work all week and hate spending my free time doing physical labor instead of spending it with my family.” His upper lip on the right hand side twitched the tiniest bit the way it always did when he lied.
My brain screamed, Liar! He didn’t want to be near his family and it was excruciatingly apparent. But his acidic family wasn’t the only reason he wasn’t working on Mom’s cabin. He was a sentimentalist. And I knew he would drag his feet when he took on the project because he didn’t want to sell the place even though it wasn’t our childhood home. The home I considered our childhood home was the house our parents lived in when Phillip and I were born. It was also the house our father committed suicide in when I was seven and Phillip was ten. The house our mother abandoned shortly after. When I was in my early twenties I used to drive by it occasionally. I never stopped, only slowed down as I passed to see if anything had changed. The house always appeared to shrink each time I saw it and I almost didn’t recognize it once when the current occupants at the time had taken it upon themselves to cover the worn white paint with a fresh coat of sky blue. The house wasn’t located in the greatest part of the city and, eventually, the owners either gave up on it or fell upon hard times. It was abandoned and quickly fell into disrepair and became a target of vandalism. I drove by once and someone had spray-painted a noose on the front door. A few months later someone had broken out several of the windows. It was then that I realized the house had most likely become the root of haunted urban legends for the local kids due to Dad’s actions. I imagined it became a place for teenagers to hide and smoke pot or drink a few warm beers they’d pilfered from their parents’ refrigerators or for a few lucky bastards to pester their underage girlfriends into losing their virginity on some random stained mattress left behind by a previous tenant. I imagined the inside was worn and battered and littered in cigarette butts and cigarette burns and beer bottles and cans, the place reeking of urine and stale come. A year after the broken windows appeared I drove by and the house was gone. As if it never existed. As if the lives and love and holidays and memories and tragedy that took place under its roof never existed or weren’t important enough to preserve. The house had been demolished.
