Objects of My Affection

by Jill Smolinski

  “Thanks for bringing that back,” I manage to choke out as I join them, seeing no need to claim the role of the bad guy.

  “My pleasure,” Daniel says. He takes a moment to beam at Marva before turning his attention to me. “So if you have time, Lucy, let’s hit the upstairs.”

  “I’d like to. But as you can see, Marva and I are in the middle of something.”

  “Oh, go,” she says. “I’ll be curious to see what this young man has to say. And I am certainly capable of sorting through a stack of clothing on my own.”

  “Great!” Daniel says, rubbing his hands together as if in anticipation of the many treasures he’ll unearth. It’s a gesture not lost on Marva, who smiles her approval. To love her stuff is, apparently, to love her.

  I grab a handful of Post-its and lead Daniel upstairs. Halfway up, we bump into Niko, who is carrying a floor lamp. There’s no getting around introductions. “This is Niko,” I say to Daniel. “He’s in charge of the work crew. And, Niko, this is the collectibles guy.”

  Daniel flashes me an annoyed look as he extends his hand to Niko and says, “Daniel.”

  So I accidentally forgot to say his name. What did he expect—that I’d give his life story? Introduce him as my ex-boyfriend? Suggest he give Niko a few tips on what I do and don’t like in bed?

  Niko shifts the lamp to his left hand so he can shake Daniel’s. “Collectibles, huh?” he says. “Looks like a bunch of junk to me, but you’d know. You’re the expert.”

  “That’s the rumor,” Daniel says.

  Niko continues down the stairs as we walk up, and Daniel suggests we start in the room farthest down the hall so we can talk freely. I hand Daniel a set of hot-pink Post-its and tell him to tag what should go to the warehouse. “Speaking of which,” I say, “what happened there today?”

  He slaps a tag on a boxed Pee-wee Herman doll. “You’re going to love this. I show up, and Kathy is there with her husband, Ed. They’re excited about showing me how they spent the weekend itemizing everything—they did, too. Impressively thorough job. They had to have brought people to work around the clock.”

  “Like on a Friday night,” I say drily.

  He gives me that Daniel smile that’s mostly a crinkling of the eyes. “I gave them plenty of time to fess up to the break-in. The rat bastards never said a word about it.”

  “Figures.”

  “So right before I left, I handed them the Rocky robe. Said, ‘Add this to the pile. And fix the damned window. My client won’t be happy if more of her memorabilia gets stolen.’”

  This is the aspect of Daniel I’ve always marveled at—he seems like the most laid-back guy in the world, so it makes it all the more shocking when he busts your chops. He’s funny that way. It tugs at my memory that it’s not always such an enjoyable trait when you’re on the receiving end, but before I can follow my thought, he says, “What are we going to do about Marva?”

  I update him on my conversation with Nelson, minus the part about the bait used to get him to talk to me. “It seems at any point after I’m done clearing out the house, she could possibly kill herself.”

  “Or before. There was a deadline date, right?”

  “May fifteenth. You’re right, it could happen even if the house is a mess, if she wants to do it on a specific day. And, wait … she told me her birthday is the next day—that she wanted the house cleared out before her birthday. Do you think she plans to do it then?” I flash back on how she reacted so strangely when I asked if she was having a party.

  Daniel pulls out his phone and does a quick online search. “This says she’ll be sixty-five. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “No, other than she’ll get the senior discount at Denny’s.”

  We move on to the next room, which is nearly empty after the weekend’s progress. Daniel pokes around silently and after a while says, “We can’t let her go through with it.”

  “It’s not as if I want her to, but I can’t stop her. You may have noticed, she doesn’t exactly bow to my every command.”

  “I wish I’d had more time to look through that book. I’ll bet there’s all kinds of clues in there.”

  “Like a secret spy code?”

  He catches my sarcasm. “At least a reason. People don’t kill themselves without a reason, at least not with such forethought. If we knew why, that’d give us ammunition to stop her. Remind her of why she’d want to live. Any chance you can sneak the book out for me to look at again?”

  “Possibly. She keeps it in her nightstand. There’s no real reason for me to go in her bedroom anymore since we’ve emptied it, but I’m guessing opportunity will present itself.”

  Daniel strokes his chin thoughtfully. “Or we could create an opportunity.”

  “Daniel, this isn’t a caper. What—do you want to create a diversion, while I get lowered down into her room on cables?”

  “You should create the diversion. All you have to do is wear that blue dress.” He leans back against the wall, hands in pockets. “Believe me, it’s very diverting.”

  I can’t tell if he’s teasing or flirting, but either way, it makes me fidgety. “Can you be serious about this?”

  “I am being serious—at least about the part where we can’t stand back and allow Marva to commit suicide. It would be wrong no matter who she was, but especially because she’s … well, she’s Marva Meier Rios. And, yes, I realize she hasn’t done any painting in a long time, but she could be inspired again and—”

  Hearing footsteps on the stairs, I shush him from saying any more. Seconds later, Niko comes into the room. “We’ve finished loading the truck. That’ll be our last haul for today.”

  “Great, thanks,” I say.

  “So I’ll pick you up at seven then?” Before I realize he’s going to do it, he steps forward and gives me a quick peck, right on the lips. Then he nods to Daniel. “I’ll be seeing you around, I’m sure.”

  “I’m sure,” Daniel says, and while I don’t have the guts to look at his face right now, his voice seems mighty icy.

  Not that it’s anything I should concern myself with—his interest here is in Marva, and her collectibles, and … siiiiigh … maybe a small part of me thought he might be having some regrets about me.

  I look apologetically at him, deciding it’ll be more awkward if I don’t acknowledge what just happened. “About that. He’s just—”

  Daniel holds his hands up, as if in surrender. “Hey, no worries.”

  “No, but I—”

  “You’re free to do whatever you want. It’s okay. Really.” He holds a tag, looking with great concentration around the room, then plunks it on a stuffed dog.

  “That’s a collectible?” I say.

  “I should know, I’m the collectibles guy.”

  “Daniel, I’m sorry about that. I didn’t even—”

  “No need to apologize. Frankly, it’s a grander title than I deserve. I’m more of a hobbiest, but that’ll be our secret, eh?” He slaps another tag on a glass vase.

  He’s acting so much the part of a spurned lover, I have to remind myself that he broke up with me. It’s a pity that his male pride is wounded by my finding someone new, but—and he said it himself—I’m free to do whatever I want.

  Still …

  “I hope you realize how grateful I am for all the help you’ve been giving me.”

  “I want to earn those posters I picked out,” Daniel says perfunctorily. “Cleared a space already on my wall. Don’t want them going to anyone else.”

  “Of course they won’t.”

  “I’d better get to earning them then, huh?” He places several more tags on items in the room, then moves quickly on to the other rooms. When I try to make idle chitchat to warm some of the chill between us, he tells me he’s in a hurry and needs to concentrate. “In fact, I should probably get rolling,” he says, barely glancing in the last room.

  “Thanks,” I say weakly, my head a whir. I let him leave while I stay behind to backtrack and r
emove several of the Post-its—there’s no way that busted TV is a collectible. When I head downstairs, I find Daniel still here, talking to Marva.

  “I was telling Marva,” Daniel says as I walk up, his face not indicating any emotion, “that she might get quite a bit of notoriety if she donated that sled to the Smithsonian.”

  Marva shakes her head. “I’m not looking for notoriety.”

  “Too late, you’re already a name,” Daniel says. “But it never hurts to remind the world every now and again. I hope I’m not out of line saying that.” He starts to go on about some of his favorite movie memorabilia the museum houses. In an attempt to look busy while I stand there, I pull out my phone, figuring I’ll delete those messages from Daniel earlier.

  That’s when I notice they aren’t both from Daniel.

  One is from Florida—specifically, Ash’s rehab.

  In an instant, every nerve ending in me buzzes with anxiety. I’m dialing Dr. Paul back as I remind myself that he could simply be checking in. Everything is peachy keen. Ash wanted to say hello. Tell me how nice the weather is. When the receptionist picks up, I turn away and quietly ask for Dr. Paul, explaining that I’m Ash’s mom and I’m returning his call from the morning. I expect to get his voice mail, which is what always happens, but she says, “He told me to get him if you called. Hold on.”

  I’m frozen in place as I listen to the beep-beep-beeps, and I cover one ear so I can hear over the drone of Daniel’s carrying on to Marva in the background.

  When Dr. Paul answers, I say, “I just now picked up your call.” I realize I didn’t listen to the message—just dialed him the second I saw the call was from him. “Is everything okay?”

  “Lucy, I’d hoped we could have talked earlier.” His voice is even calmer than usual. “I’m sorry to tell you, but this morning, Ash decided to check out of our facility.”

  “He’s … he’s going to leave?”

  “He already has. He left before noon. Ash is a legal adult, and he was here voluntarily, so there’s nothing we can do if he …”

  I try to listen, but Dr. Paul’s voice grows tiny, as does Daniel’s, and some sort of noise swells, perhaps my pulse whooshing through my head. Before I can ask Dr. Paul to speak up, and Daniel to please shut up, I feel my knees buckle, and everything goes black.

  chapter thirteen

  Daniel is slapping together a sandwich for me that I’ll never eat, but he was in need of a job to do. Having already propped me up as I walked back out to the bungalow, settled me on the couch (feet elevated so the blood will flow to my brain), and talked to Dr. Paul on my behalf, he was fresh out of busywork. He thus proclaimed I needed food in my stomach.

  It’s a torment that I have no idea where Ash is, or if he’s safe, or even alive.

  According to Dr. Paul, relayed via Daniel, when Ash walked out, he had on his person the duffel we’d packed for him for rehab, along with roughly $80 in cash. This he’d earned doing extra chores in the kitchen—money most of his fellow rehabbers spent on chocolate or cigarettes, as if it were World War II. Ash refused to give specifics as to where he was going, saying only that he “had a plan.”

  I need to find Ash. The sooner the better, since every second that ticks by, the farther he can get from where he’d last been seen.

  So far, all I can figure out to do is hop in my car, drive to Florida, and go up and down every street in the state until I see him. Which is ridiculous, but at least I’d be doing something, instead of lying here, feeling helpless. It’s funny how I hadn’t realized the small measure of peace that had crept into my bones until—with one phone call—it was gone.

  It makes me recall back to when Ash first went away to the Willows, and at the suggestion of Dr. Paul I attended a local support group for parents affected by a child with a drug problem. The dozen or so of us there all had our own pathetic tales to tell, but the one who struck me most was a man with thinning hair and a cello-shaped face whose twenty-two-year-old daughter was addicted to heroin. “I have good news,” he’d said during the portion where we were going around in a circle to either introduce ourselves or give an update. “I got a call from Sadie two nights ago. She was arrested, and she called me to bail her out of jail.” As he told his story, I kept waiting for the good news, and by the end I realized that was the good news. His daughter was in jail. She wasn’t out selling herself for drugs or getting beaten up or overdosing or dead. While she was incarcerated, she had a clean place to sleep and was forced to stay sober. I clapped along with the others as he said, “I told her, ‘No, I won’t bail you out, stay safe,’” but I never went to another meeting.

  Daniel hands me a turkey sandwich on a folded paper towel. “I did the best I could with what little was in the fridge. I see your grocery-shopping habits haven’t improved any.”

  “Says the man who still had a jar of mustard from college when I met him.”

  “It did come as quite the shock when you told me it was supposed to be yellow.” He sits on the other end of the couch while I tug myself up to sit cross-legged. “So how are you holding up?”

  “I vacillate between wanting to kill Ash and being terrified he’s dead in a ditch somewhere.”

  He gives me a sympathetic look. “You have every right to be angry. Especially after all you’ve done for him.”

  Though Daniel has a point, I have to resist the urge to defend Ash. As I rearrange the turkey and lettuce leaf on my sandwich to stall on a response, there’s a knock on the door.

  “Looks like your date is here. I’m off. Keep me posted.” Daniel’s brows knit together. “On Ash, I mean.”

  As if I’d give him the dirty details on my date? As if there’s still going to be a date? Besides, it’s too early to be Niko picking me up.

  “Come in,” I shout before Daniel has a chance to get up.

  The door pushes open, and it’s Marva. She’s holding a bottle of liquor, and she steps in, gazing around the room, which is heaped with boxes. “I like what you’ve done with the place,” she says.

  “I don’t want to brag,” I say, “but it was my idea to set the couch horizontally instead of vertically.”

  “It’s been years since I’ve been back here. I used this as my studio.”

  “I wondered if you did!” Daniel says, then immediately looks guilty, as if he’d giggled at a funeral. “Please … here,” he says to Marva, standing up. “Have a seat. I’ll leave you two to talk.”

  Marva takes his place on the couch. “You needn’t leave. I won’t be long.” She pulls shot glasses from a pocket in her sweater jacket. Setting them on a crate I’ve been using as a coffee table, she pours three shots.

  “Thanks, Marva, but I don’t know if I can—”

  “This is fifty-year-old Scotch. Of course you can.” She tosses her shot back. Daniel reaches down, grabs one, and does the same. I pick the last one up and—what the heck—down it in one gulp. Although I’d braced myself for the usual burn, this goes down warm and smooth. Guess that’s the difference between half-a-century-old Scotch and Jose Cuervo.

  Marva pours another round but leaves the shot glasses on the table. “So I gather that your boy checked himself out of rehab.”

  “This morning. Apparently he walked out the door like he was running to the 7-Eleven and not in fact throwing away all I’d worked for. And now I have no clue where he might be.”

  “You’re planning to look for him?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why?”

  I stare at her, flummoxed. “Why?”

  “Do you even know the reason he left the rehab center?”

  “No.”

  Daniel leans against the wall, hands in his pockets, and sighs before speaking. “His therapist told me they’d been getting into some tough issues in therapy. That Ash didn’t want to deal with it.”

  “You didn’t tell me that,” I say.

  He shrugs. “Thought I’d wait until you weren’t passing out all over the place.”

  “What ki
nd of issues?” I ask.

  “Don’t know. He wouldn’t elaborate.”

  “I’m not typically one to offer platitudes,” Marva says, shifting about clumsily on the couch so she’s facing me. “But perhaps all of this is meant to be. If your son feels that rehab isn’t for him, maybe it’s not. Some people have to carve their own paths.”

  “That would be fine,” I say. “Except his path was going nowhere but down.”

  She scowls. “This whole war on drugs has gotten entirely out of hand. There’s a reason people take them, and, frankly, it’s because it’s fun. At times even mind-expanding. Are you going to tell me you’ve never done any?”

  Daniel shakes his head. “As much as I admire you, Marva, you’re barking up the wrong tree on that one. Lucy here is the picture of innocence.”

  “I’m not entirely naive,” I say. “I smoked pot here and there in college, but that’s not the point. Ash isn’t a guy who sometimes does drugs. There’s nothing recreational about it. He’s … well, he’s an addict.”

  Though I’m responding to Marva, my eyes lift to meet Daniel’s. He’s staring at me with such surprise you’d think I’d popped naked from a cake. He opens his mouth to say something, but Marva pipes in, “People said that about me, too. What the hell do they know? They want to slap a label on you so they can shove you onto whatever shelf they want. Ridiculous. Yes, I did coke.” Her face takes on a dreamy look. “And, oh, we used to take pills by the handful. They’d be out in bowls at parties. Like candy! I had a particular fondness for these little pink ones. Of course this was the seventies. And the eighties, too, come to think of it. At any rate, I suppose some people need to go to rehab and talk endlessly and join hands and sing ‘Kumbaya’ to move on with their lives. For others, they simply need to decide the party is over.”

  “And that’s what happened with you?” Daniel asks. “You hit rock bottom?”

  “Heavens no. That sounds so ugly. There was no rock bottom. I lost something important to me. That’s what it took to decide enough was enough.”

  In my current state, my usual politeness filters are gone and I bluntly ask, “What did you lose?”