“You’re gay.”
“Yup.”
“We’re very proud of Lily. She’s very courageous.” That was Gran. Pride in Lily seemed to be her go-to response to any given stimulus.
“You could say that,” Ms. Rosko said. And people did say it. Like Lily had done it in hopes of receiving a high school medal for valor.
“We’re very proud,” Gran repeated.
“Well. What I do wonder is how she spotted him. I’m grateful, of course, but—”
“I was up on Gran’s roof. Tanning.”
Ms. Rosko made a face. Cue the melanoma’s-no-joking-matter talk.
Instead: “Hmm. Unsupervised minor unattended on the roof. Maybe someone should sic a social worker on you.”
“Gran didn’t know, and I—”
“Joking, joking,” said Ms. Rosko. The shape of her mouth said otherwise. “Besides, they only go after the guardians.”
From his perch at the table, Ty perked up. He set down his spoon. “My mom is in the army.”
“That’s right, puffin.” Ms. Rosko’s posture softened briefly with her tone.
“Is she abroad?” Lily asked, afraid of saying the wrong -ibad or -istan. Her Civics teacher said it was embarrassing how few Americans knew any kind of world geography.
Ms. Rosko looked over at Ty. “Yes.”
Gran said, “That’s hard.”
“Her name is Carrie,” Ty said. “Carrie and she likes carrots.” He laughed because, yeah, to a little kid that would be funny. He hopped down from his chair.
“Afghanistan?” Lily guessed. The capitol was Kabul. She’d only got a B+ on their world geography unit, but she was pretty sure she had that one right. Last year’s senior class had held a pencil drive for girls’ schools over there as their service project.
“Yeah,” said Tyson. “I can show you on my map.” He tore off down the hall.
“Don’t bother, Tyson,” Ms. Rosko called after him. “Our guests are on their way out.”
Something had shifted. Lily felt socially short bus. “I hope she’ll be all right. And I think it’s cool she’s in the army. Being a girl and all.”
“Yes. Well. I can see how you’d be keen about the army.”
“Mona . . .” Gran sounded a lot like Dad before he launched into one of his steely Lily-we-expect-more-of-our-daughter talks.
“That and marriage. All of those—backbones. The things that keep the rest of us standing tall.” Ms. Rosko’s smile was brief and achingly sweet. It dissolved with a derisive snort and what she was actually saying jostled into place.
The world doesn’t operate like Forest Park Day.
Lily had a 3.87 grade-point average. She’d rocked her semester of debate. She should be able to rebut.
But it was Gran who spoke. “That’s unfair. Lily did your family a tremendous service.”
“Let me tell you about unfair. I grew up here. My granddad was one of the original ranch hands. My folks ran a Feed ’n Seed that folded once you people swarmed down here. Then the taxes alone—” Her words catapulted quickly one into the next. “My husband and I stretched to stay and without warning”—she clapped once, a gunshot of a sound—“he’s gone and I’m on my own and underwater for a place that’ll sell for three-fifths of what I put into it and that’s if we’re lucky.” A breathy hiss. “And now you people want to kick me out and go about your happy little lives.” She shrugged. Like nothing in the world could possibly matter.
Lily giggled, like she always did at the worst possible moment. When it came to fight or flight she was (c) none of the above, which would easily make the top five if Health and Human Relations asked for a corresponding list of flaws.
Ms. Rosko shot her a look that could invert nipples.
Gran’s hand came to rest on her shoulder. “I think an apology is in order. It’s hardly Lily’s fault you overextended—”
Ms. Rosko turned her back on them. “You want to know where I was when Ty fell? The papers sure do.” She picked up her grandson’s bowl. She rinsed it out and chased a few errant Os down the drain. “Job interview. I covered the earth with resumes. Hundreds of them. Thirty years I ran medical records down at St. Joe’s and I get the one little nibble.”
“Nevertheless. That sort of talk isn’t called for,” Gran said. “We’re glad your grandson’s well. Goodbye.”
“Have a lovely vacation, Lily.” The word vacation sounded more bitter than anything Ms. Rosko had said before, which meant it probably wasn’t just the lesbian thing. Lily knew what she looked like. She did the math: the cost of her shoes and her highlights alone.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Lily,” Gran said, “do not apologize to this woman.”
Forest Park Day School had celebrated its centennial this year. They’d hung banners all over the place. One Hundred Years of Shaping Students. Sierra made the joke, oh so cynical, oh so Sierra, oh so sophisticated. One Hundred Years of Sheltering Students. Dusty sunlight spilled through the windows and across Mona Rosko’s pristine floors. On the off-chance of prospective buyers, she’d have to wipe them once they left.
Gran let the front door slam behind them. “I had no idea she would be like that.” She wiped her palms on her pants. “If ever a woman was weaned on a pickle.”
Almost a year now since Lily first came out. Cocooned at school, people fell over themselves to accept her. She was overdue for small-mindedness. Everyone and their dogs called her courageous. If she rose above this, she actually would be. “It’s okay,” she said.
“It’s light years from okay.”
“Gran, it’s fine.”
“Look at me. You didn’t deserve any of that.”
“Okay.” True, she hadn’t. But it didn’t follow that she deserved all the good things that had come her way either. Her earlobes itched, heavy with—real—gold hoops, and she felt fluttery-frantic to do something. Gran called her the Angel of the Commons and angels only ever held still and pretty on top of Christmas trees. Angels were terrible and forgiving. They wrestled, they fell, they rebelled and avenged. Angels were all about the verbs.
Hello, Chickie-dolls. Yes, I’m back. Yes, this is the authentic Lillian, not some off-brand cotton-poly blend. Rumors of my demise/new gig as columnist for Teen Vogue/forced enrollment in one of those de-gay-ifying camps are completely and utterly cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. I’d set you all straight (yes, that’s a pun. Yes, you can deal with it) but you seem to be having the time of your collective lives going feral in the comments. Besides, I’ve got something important to say, so put down your nail files and listen up, ladies and Midwestern perverts pretending to be ladies.
We’re attractive, not dumb. We all know there are things that matter more than looks (and no, I haven’t turned into any of your mothers. Believe me, I’ve checked my mirror).
This is one of those things.
LIKELIER THAN BARCELONA
BEN LIKED THE SIMPLE SAMENESS of his Commons mornings. A walk with Sadie, tinkering with his espresso machine, then hunkering down at his computer to do the crossword. Every day, he and his daughter-in-law did the same one online. She’d yet to beat his time but said it didn’t matter. She liked the way it got her mind warmed up.
Today though, Anjali might actually win; it was damned near impossible to concentrate. A news van had parked across the way. Ben watched a reporter, pretty from a distance, ring his neighbor’s bell. A cameraman hovered close, encumbered with technology. Marvin and Ed, Ben’s golf buddies, were parked in his drive and playing looky-loo, never mind their tee time in twenty minutes.
It was the Rosko thing. Of course it had gone big. Ben had guessed it would three lines into the Crier’s first report. Not a sure thing like another pretty housewife evaporating on the eve of a national holiday, but the odds were up there. Young kid, local grandmother getting royally screwed over, and a smug patina of judgment. There you had it. Headline stew.
Ben finished his coffee and crunched a last bite of toast. He watched
Sadie and her granddaughter saunter down the street, armed with tennis rackets. The girl swung hers in a wide, lazy arc, courting the cameras. Someone had taught her a proper grip, but she’d need more than that to land on TV, and oh boy did he know. Years ago, a summer storm had felled a century-old fir on his street in Portland, taking out a hefty percent of the city’s power grid. A news van came for footage and Ben had run into the rain with a picture of Tara. He’d asked the reporter, please, if you could broadcast this for even a second. If you could run our home phone beneath. No dice. The reporter had worn a yellow slicker, Ben remembered, a childish thing that looked like it ought to be paired with bumblebee galoshes. The one across the way was in yellow, too, a bright blouse beneath a somber, nipped-in jacket. No one real ever wore that shade. They must teach you in journalism school that it makes you stand out. The reporter rang again. Her companion did something with his camera. Ben smiled. Evidently, Mona Rosko wasn’t answering the bell.
And good on Mona for that. Making them work for it for once. He didn’t know the lady well, but this morning he sure as hell liked her. There was a gritty brand of dignity to tending to your own troubles. Lord knew that employing professionals (the name of their private detective came to mind here, followed closely by the name of their marriage counselor) got you nowhere.
A moment or two passed. The reporter cottoned on to the fact that Mona wasn’t answering. She had the cameraman set up on the Rosko lawn, which probably was in direct violation of a strident clause or two of the HOA. Marvin and Ed loped over to brownnose. The reporter was gracious with her handshakes. Ben wondered how long it would take for her to do her thing and get gone.
Then the quick glint of light on glass. Mona Rosko, opening her door. She had a large hammer slung over one shoulder and a sign of some sort rucked up under the opposite arm. Long pants and what looked like a denim work shirt, the last thing you’d want in this heat. She moved with a startling, cool fluidity. An Arizona lifer, so who knew. Maybe heat actually worked the way idiots said heartache did: Live with it long enough and whole days can pass without it registering. Mona stood a moment beside her door, gathering herself and their attention. She stepped out to the center of her lawn.
Her stance had him very aware that she was holding a hammer.
Her stance had him wondering what it was for.
She hefted it higher. The camera, he thought. A rush of childlike glee. One hit and it’s a splintered assemblage of wire and casing. But no. Mona busied herself with the sign. A simple, red For Sale sign, the kind you saw in neighborhoods where such departures from our shared Southwestern aesthetic weren’t prohibited by the Flamingo Police. Mona swung hard. There was thunder in her shoulders. Ben thought, for the first time in ages, of those yellowing pinups he’d found taped to the underside of his father’s workbench. Tame things, even back in the day, big-busted dames with toolboxes and lug wrenches, Rosie the Riveters with legs. Those girls were pretty where Mona wasn’t, tarted up where she wasn’t, but as far as specimens went, his neighbor was the more impressive, beautiful in her hardworking context instead of simpering along beside it. She checked the sign over to make sure it was even, stood a grim moment with her hands at her hips, pivoted abruptly, and went back into her house.
She never spoke a word.
Everyone on Mona’s lawn began scurrying at once, as if they’d been wound with a key. Marvin and Ed gestured furiously in his direction, and Ben let himself out into the street.
“Ben! Over here!” Ed Runch waved as though hailing a Manhattan cab. You can take the man out of the city and so on. Ed told the reporter, “Here’s the guy you’ll want to see.”
The reporter had blunt blonde hair and several inches on most of the surrounding men. She walked his way. The cameraman followed as if tethered. Marvin and Ed, too. A bunch of damn ducklings. Ben forced his face into a cracked plate of a smile. Don’t blame the press, Veronica always said. If it weren’t Tara, would you be interested?
And that was Veronica, resolute and practical, except when she wasn’t. Between Olympics, she had a friend over at Nike, someone she knew from the Women in Business Council, collect tapes of figure skating that didn’t air on U.S. television. Whole weekends passed freeze-frame by freeze-frame, Ronnie scanning the faces in the crowd. When she was small, Tara had loved the sport. His wife wore contacts for the workweek and glasses on the weekends. The screen reflected in her lenses, and he wondered if she actually believed they had a chance of spying her, easy as that, cheering from a stadium in Barcelona.
“Did you see that?” Ed asked. “How’s that for drumming up interest? This guy caught it all.” He jerked a thumb toward the cameraman, then ran a hand through his hair. He still had plenty. “House’ll sell now. Like they say. Silence. It’s golden.” He said it like a slogan. Ed used to be in advertising.
“This is Emmy,” said Marvin, his voice cutting high across Ed’s. “You know, like the award? Feel like helping her get one?”
“Emily Rourke.” The woman extended her hand. The coloring was off—too fair—but she had the same careful, Gallic prettiness as Veronica and that caught him right in the throat.
“I know Mona a little, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Would you be willing to talk with me a bit?” Emily Rourke made it sound like she was asking for just that, a chat. No clip-on microphone, no signed releases. None of whatever else media attention entailed. She leaned in, smiling, and he—because you never get over being a sucker, never get over that hindbrain—was glad he was taller than both Marvin and Ed.
“Be sure to film in black and white,” said Marvin. “Get a load of those pants.”
Ben looked down. Your standard-issue garish golf pants, a Christmas gift from Veronica. Every year post-divorce, she sent him a new pair. Because she made a joke of the holiday, Ben did too. He sent umbrellas, knowing damn well that in Portland only out-of-towners used them.
Ed chuckled. “We told you he was a funny guy. Hey, Ben, tell us again what brought you to The Commons.”
Emily Rourke beamed, an on-purpose expression that worked on him despite the fact that he knew it was working on him. “The pants are fine,” she said. “I think that’s the plaid they use for my stepdaughter’s school uniform.”
“I’m not sure I’d be much use to you. Mona’s my neighbor, that’s all.”
“We’ll just talk. Casual as can be, okay?”
Casual as a person could be with a microphone threaded up his back. Ed and Marvin stood off to the side. Ben couldn’t think of a thing to say. Look at me and not the camera, Emily instructed. That should’ve been easy—decades of Ronnie bristling when he looked at pretty women and here was license to do exactly that—but it wasn’t. He saw the camera. He saw the guys. The things his ex would say about the whole scenario. Benji, you do know you’re only going along with this because those two goons wish they could, don’t you? Christ. You’d think with the divorce finalized he could get her voice out of his head. The interview started with him stating and spelling his name.
“Tell me a little about your life here at The Commons.”
Golf and tennis sounded so frivolous in list form. He must have said um twenty times in the space of two sentences. “I used to be a veterinarian,” he added, because he needed gravity from somewhere, “up in Portland. I did a lot of pro bono work with service animals.”
“And what brings you to The Commons?”
If Marvin and Ed hadn’t been right there, beyond the camera he wasn’t supposed to be looking at, it never would have slipped out. That stupid joke they liked so much. “Well, I’m newly divorced. And without my ex, I need the HOA to tell me what to do.”
Emily Rourke would never get far without work on her poker face, but he wasn’t her father and he wasn’t going to lecture. She recovered well, which was something. “Have you found the Homeowners’ Association intrusive?”
“That was a joke. Not even a very good one. I hope you won’t use it.”
“You’re doing fine. Can you talk a bit about the HOA? All those rules . . .”
“Everyone jokes about it.”
“Why?”
“Like you said. All those rules. It’s funny.”
“Funny how?”
“Because it comes down to have a little taste, don’t be stupid, and don’t be rude.”
“Do you think that applies to the Rosko situation?”
“Look, I said I don’t know Mona all that well.”
“You’re doing great,” Emily repeated. The more she said it, the more he knew he wasn’t.
“I’m sorry. I know this isn’t going well.”
“How has Mona Rosko been as a neighbor?” The cameraman stepped back. He at least knew a dud when he saw one.
“Quiet. Nice enough, I suppose. People are always having barbecues and things like that, but she doesn’t show up all that much.” He sounded like every neighbor, ever, describing every serial killer, ever, on the news. At least he knew better than to express that particular thought. “That makes sense now, knowing about her grandson. It’s a pretty big secret to keep.”
“And how do you feel about that?”
“Bad luck all around. For the kid that he doesn’t have anyone else, at least if what you lot are saying is true. For Mona, too, stuck until her place sells. I don’t know what they’re going to do.”
“What about personally? How do you feel about this? As a neighbor or as a—do you have grandchildren?”
“No.” A sore twang beneath his breastbone: the truer answer was none that he knew of. “No,” he said again, because you didn’t admit that you had no earthly idea to a stranger. You didn’t cop to the daydream: Tara and some kindly boy in a shelter—not something crueler, and not something she did to survive—the shock of it waking them to responsibility, to her parents at the ready to help them along.
You Could Be Home by Now Page 5
