The Show House

by Dan Lopez

  But maybe he expects more from her. Maybe she disappoints him. The thought erases whatever small benefit the stretching provided. Our decision. If she disappoints him, he could tell Steven that he’s worried about her, that she’s not who she used to be, that she’s let herself go, and that, maybe, it’d be best to limit the amount of time she spends with Gertie. It would be in Gertie’s best interest, and couldn’t she understand that? And it wouldn’t be a lie. After all, she hasn’t even washed her face today. But she stops herself. This is irrational thinking. If he were truly concerned, he’d be scrutinizing her instead of lingering by the bookcase.

  He checks his watch, then verifies against the clock on the wall.

  “I should at least swing by the gallery,” he says, swiveling his shallow-set gray eyes at her, as if asking for permission.

  She lifts herself onto an elbow. “Did I ever tell you about Steven’s seventeenth birthday?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Thaddeus got it into his head that he was going to take Steven to a strip club. They’d been fighting about one thing or another for years, but Thaddeus had the notion that a father-son trip to the strip club would miraculously fix everything.”

  “Sure,” he snorts. “I don’t see any way that could’ve failed.”

  “Thaddeus always looks for the easy fix.” Something dry and raspy catches in her windpipe. Sitting up, she tilts her head back and taps her chest, coughing to clear the obstruction, then continues in a husky whisper. “He gets overwhelmed. It’s how he’s always been.”

  “Are you okay? Do you need a pillow or something?”

  She detects fear in his voice. Fear of her? The notion thrills her. It’d be nice if, for once, someone feared her instead of Thaddeus.

  “It’s too hot in here, isn’t it?” he continues. “I can try opening a window.”

  A pillow and maybe a cool breeze would be nice, but while she relishes the idea of being feared, his eagerness to please also embarrasses her. It makes her feel old. And that’s something else working against her with Gertie, isn’t it? Her age.

  “I’ll live,” she says, and takes a sip of Peter’s water, which tastes faintly of chlorine.

  “You’re sure?” he asks, stepping over Gertie’s coloring book on his way to the edge of the coffee table. “That couch isn’t the most comfortable thing in the world. I can get some pillows from upstairs if you like.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

  “It’s no problem. We have plenty of throw pillows.”

  The whole exchange has begun to feel like an Olympiad of virtue, so she cuts him off with a look. “I believe I was in the middle of a story.”

  Cowed, he averts his eyes and nods.

  “Steven had wanted to go see a documentary about some artist or another with his friends. He didn’t want to go to a strip club with his father. It was clear, even then, that that kind of thing... it wasn’t what he was into. But you couldn’t tell Thaddeus no in those days.”

  She leans forward with a wince at the hot pinch in her neck, the legacy of a restless night and a hectic morning. Peter doesn’t catch her reaction—thank God. The story seems to amuse him, however. He smiles and asks why Thaddeus couldn’t be rebuffed.

  “He’d hit him. Hard. That’s how he was back then.” She says it with as little emotion as possible, stating it simply as a fact.

  If he’s shocked, he doesn’t let on, but how could he not be shocked? Nobody hits their children anymore. Certainly Peter and Steven never hit Gertie. Or maybe they do; despite all the time she’s spent in this house over the last few years, there’s still so much she doesn’t know, so much that’s kept from her because of Thaddeus. Perhaps Peter himself was beaten at a young age and that’s something he and Steven bonded over. It’s possible; she knows next to nothing about Peter’s formative years. He never talks about them; he never alludes to his family. All she knows—all Steven has told her—is that he ran away from home when he was a teenager and that he lived on the streets for a while, mostly sleeping on beaches near his hometown of Daytona and working odd jobs. He was working at a bar when Steven met him.

  Peter wipes the dust from a picture frame, then he checks his watch again. “Thaddeus seems to have calmed down a lot in the past three years.”

  “He’s mellowed. He’s been meditating, if you can believe it. He found some videos on YouTube.”

  He rearranges the picture frame. “Do you think people can really change, fundamentally?”

  She doesn’t like to look at the photograph in that frame. In it Peter wears a torn purple T-shirt and orange leather wristbands embossed with white stars, and his blond hair is streaked black to match his nail polish. He leans against a cracked wall, presenting an overly aggressive mien for the camera while Steven leans in, pouting for a kiss. She wonders if it was Peter’s brazen attitude that first attracted her son, who always seemed eager to rebel against conventionality. While she greatly prefers the current incarnation of Peter and doesn’t like to be reminded of what he used to be like, she can’t help but wonder if in her younger days—if it weren’t for Thaddeus—would she have had the courage to date someone who looked like that? Let alone someone like that with Peter’s history, whatever that may be?

  “Maybe,” she says. “Yes, I think so. I think people can change.”

  “Does Thaddeus ever act up like he used to?” He bites his tongue, hinting a snarl. It’s the only mannerism that remains of the boy in the photograph, and there’s something subversive and unnerving about it.

  “He’s mellowed out...” she repeats, trailing off sleepily, wanting to appear aloof under his inquisitive gaze.

  He crosses his arms, narrows his eyes at her, and she thinks it’s that quality exactly that has contributed to his professional success, because, suddenly, she wants to confide in him, and isn’t that the journalist’s most effective trick?

  He breaks off the stare and licks his lips before slouching toward the French doors. He floats her an artful nod. “I can’t get a bead on this weather.”

  “I did want him to leave,” she confesses. “You were right. Earlier. I was trying to get rid of Thaddeus.”

  He scratches his ear. “What happened with the strip club?”

  He missed a spot shaving this morning. His hair could use a trim, too, and is that the faint outline of an anarchy symbol coming through the thin fabric on the chest of his oxford?

  “What’s that?”

  “The strip club. You were telling me a story.”

  “Oh, that.” She shrugs. “Thaddeus got Steven so drunk that he threw up all over the bar and they kicked them both out.”

  She doesn’t feel like talking for a little while and he seems content to sit with her in silence. The diffused light and the heat that it brings swells the room into a pleasant warmth.

  “I got to wonder, though: How’d he even get a seventeen-year-old boy into a place like that? Strip clubs tend to be strict.”

  She combs back her hair and leans into the couch. “To be honest with you, I don’t know how Thaddeus does anything.”

  They share a laugh. A sallow weariness colors the corners of his eyes. Despite it, he looks relaxed for the first time all morning. “Fair enough,” he says.

  “Anyway, don’t listen to me. I’m probably making him sound like a monster.”

  “Not at all. It’s nice to get a different perspective.” He stretches the syllables as he speaks. “Steven, obviously, has his bias.”

  “I know how sensitive he can be. It was never anything that terrible. Thaddeus... he’s just very sure of himself, and he hates being challenged—”

  “You seem to get away with it.”

  She knows that he’s flattering her to get her to talk, and she’s powerless to resist. She likes confiding in him. “It’s different with me. We have a different relationship. But he was a good father. Better than most.”

  Peter nods. “Steven gets like that, too. I was stubborn myself as a kid, but
then my sister beat the crap out of me. I guess that’s what siblings are good for.”

  “It makes you wonder.”

  “What does?”

  She closes her eyes and gestures vaguely. “Oh, just everything.”

  There’s a lot she’s wondered about over the last three years, particularly about the fight and what made this one so much worse than the hundreds that preceded it. On the surface, the fight seemed so simple: Thaddeus wanted to celebrate his birthday with a family vacation in the Caribbean and Steven overreacted. Those are the facts, and, really, was there anything surprising about them? No. Of course, it wasn’t really about the vacation. She knew that much. The two of them had been at each other like flint and steel for years; this was just the latest spark. But in the past they’d have their fights and then move on. This time, however, it was different. What was it about the vacation that finally drove Steven over the edge? He’d said something about not wanting to patronize an island ensconced in homophobia. Certainly that would be a concern for him; nobody wants to spend their vacation in a hostile environment. But Thaddeus can’t even find his way to the grocery store without her help; how could Steven possibly expect him to see beyond the ganja and reggae to Jamaica’s complications? He might as well have expected fish to fly. No, Steven would’ve known better than to expect miracles from Thaddeus. But Peter, with that defiant curl in his lip, wasn’t he the only thing that was different this time? Well, maybe, and maybe not, but the more she thinks about it the more she realizes how negligent she’s been about digging into his past. For instance, just now he mentioned a sister. Why is this the first time she’s heard of her?

  “I think I will open a window,” Peter says.

  Before she can respond, he’s crossed the room and cracked a pane enough to permit any passing breeze the opportunity to rustle the blinds.

  “There,” he says as he takes a seat next to her and crosses his legs. “That should help.”

  He gives her a smile so well suited to the moment that she thinks he must have been practicing it for just such an occasion.

  “I didn’t realize how stuffy it got in here. You and Thaddeus must’ve been sweating bullets yesterday.”

  “It’s just this room. I don’t mind the heat. It’s Thaddeus who has a problem with it.”

  “I should get Steven to check the vents. Maybe there’s something blocking them.” He glances at his phone. “Tomorrow’s supposed to be cooler at least.”

  “That’ll be nice.”

  From outside drifts the sound of a sprinkler spraying against the metal accordion storm shutters. It’s joined by the cry of a bird. Combined, they remind her of the low rumble of that rocket all those winters ago.

  She smoothes a wrinkle in the knee of her slacks, then looks Peter in the eye. “Why do you think Steven shut Thaddeus out? I mean, really.”

  He winces and scratches his neck. “Timing? The best I can figure is that he was on edge because we were finalizing the adoption and buying the house. There was a lot of red tape involved all around. He’d just started at the shelter, too, and I think all of it together was just too much. Something changed with him. Things just got out of hand, I guess. But hey”—he smiles—“why dwell on the past, right? We’re together now.”

  A soft breeze sighs through the room, and overhead the fan clanks in its frame.

  Time. She nods. “We’ve just wasted so much time.”

  “We’ll see each other twice as much to make up for it.”

  “I think we’ll have to see what Steven thinks about that after last night.”

  “Don’t worry, he’ll come around. Last night was just nerves.” He places a hand on her knee. The warmth and weight of his touch differs from Thaddeus’s while remaining familiar. “But let’s forget about it for now. I’ll finish the dishes.”

  She protests that she can finish them herself, but he insists.

  “Then I should really pass by the gallery. Want to come with me?”

  “I should wait for Thaddeus to get back.”

  “Really, three years is nothing. You’ll see”

  Maybe that’s true, but it’s not as easy for her to dismiss. Three years ago her hormones were a mess. She did what she could, and no one blames her. Maybe, she thinks for the hundredth time, she could’ve called Steven after the fight, said that Thaddeus was exhausted and didn’t know what he was saying. He was on all these new pills, she could’ve claimed, and, really, a period of adjustment had to be expected. After Steven agreed to accept an apology it would’ve been easy to sit Thaddeus down by the pool and explain that Steven was upset because he had wanted to take them on a vacation—it didn’t matter what she said. Any story would do. And couldn’t he call to apologize, tell Steven that they’d go on vacation anywhere he liked? Maybe Mexico or Puerto Rico.

  It wasn’t even about the vacation. The vacation was just an excuse for them to fight. Of course she knew that, but she also knew that she could’ve easily taken that excuse away from them. If the fight was the only way they could articulate their animosity, then she still could’ve made them mute. She’d been doing it for so long it was second nature. A thousand possibilities rush through her head. She would’ve come up with something plausible. Maybe if she had they wouldn’t have missed so much already, and she wouldn’t be trying to shake this feeling that it was already too late.

  Regrets solve nothing.

  No, she thinks. They were both adults, and she had herself to worry about because neither one of them was trying to understand what she was experiencing. Neither one of them understood how something like a telephone call could suddenly, inexplicably, make you feel anxious all day even when the caller turned out to be just a telemarketer trying to sell you a new cable plan. Neither one of them had to endure the hot flashes in the middle of a Florida July. And, certainly, neither of them had to reconcile with the fact that at the end of it all the game would be up, she’d be finished in the motherhood department.

  Feeling older by the second, she reaches for the water. It’s still cold as she takes a sip and the glass sweats. Did they really expect her to go on playing interference forever?

  “I was thinking we could all go out for dinner tonight when Steven gets home,” he says, sliding a dish into the dishwasher. “Somewhere downtown. My treat.”

  “Do you ever wonder about the kids down at that shelter?”

  “What’s that?” he asks, raising his voice above the garbage disposal.

  “Those kids at Steven’s shelter; their parents just throw them out like trash.”

  Drawers and cabinets open and close. Silverware clatters.

  “Well,” he grunts, “lucky for them Steven’s always there.”

  It wasn’t so long ago that she could’ve been one of those mothers. Of course, now... well, that ship has sailed.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t mean anything by that...”

  He mentions something about the office and the gallery and how it’s a lot to do on one’s own, that he’s frustrated, but she doesn’t pay attention, not really.

  It’s a strange sensation, envying mothers who abandon their children, and languishing in this heat that coils around her like a noose, she opens herself, as she has a million times before, to the possibility of abandonment, wanting to know what it feels like to give away a child. Could it be worse than never having the child in the first place?

  She was never the gambling type. Not all those years ago after Cocoa Beach when money was so tight, and not as the years passed and things at home between Thaddeus and Steven grew increasingly bitter.

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to unload on you or anything,” Peter says. “For what it’s worth, I think Steven is glad to see Thaddeus.”

  “It’s okay,” she says, managing a wan smile. “Thaddeus is much more relaxed now. That’s just the way it is.”

  He returns her smile. “That’s good news.”

  “I had an abortion years ago.”
The confession surprises him, but she presses on. “I never told Thaddeus about it. The timing wasn’t right, and then...” She shrugs. “Well, things just got more complicated. Maybe it would’ve been different if we had it. Maybe it’s just that Steven and Thaddeus can’t get along. I don’t know. And, anyway, there’s nothing I can do about it now.”

  He looks up from the sink, his long face drawn tight in a strange mix of anger and sadness, a look she recognizes as a cousin to betrayal, and the smallest part of her is glad to inflict this secret on him, to drag him into its conspiracy, because she’s tired of enduring it all alone.

  “I had no—”

  “It’s nothing,” she says, cutting him off. “Really, it isn’t. It’s just something I think about from time to time.” Rising, she brushes back her hair. “Anyway, I’m going to shower. Let’s go out somewhere afterward, okay? I’m tired of being in this house and I feel like taking a drive. Maybe we can pass by that gallery of yours.”

  “AND OF COURSE ALL THE TOWN HOUSES COME EQUIPPED with hurricane shutters.” The realtor, Steven, stood in the model unit’s living room and gestured at the sliding glass doors that led out to the patio. “However, you can upgrade and go fully automatic. Be safe with just a push of a button.”

  There was a wink in his voice. How often had he used that line? Laila wondered. The shutters unfurled, engulfing the bright, well-appointed room in shadow. Silence followed. With only the sterile hum of the air conditioner to give shape to a space that a moment ago had seemed so inviting, Laila felt disoriented. His voice boomed from somewhere nearby: “It’s not just a good idea during hurricane season, but for any time you have to be away from home for a while.”

  He spoke of the ease and the luxury of automatic shutters, his words surrounding her as he crisscrossed the room, rustling drapes, shuffling across carpet. Worried about crashing into furniture in the dark, she clung to the breakfast counter. She focused on the smoothness of the Formica—firm under her elbow and cool to the touch. Something about the way he spoke unnerved her. He seemed to anticipate (hope for even?) the violence of a catastrophic storm. Had she not spent six disheartening months looking at and rejecting a staggering number of properties on the market in Orlando, she might have walked away right then. She’d rejected other houses for lesser reasons than a creepy Realtor. But something felt right about this home. It fit her well—not so small that she felt cramped, as in her current apartment, but not too large to remind her of the husband and children who had failed to materialize in her life. A two-story one-bedroom town house with a screened-in porch in a quiet subdivision near the pharmacy and within budget: it checked all her boxes.