“These people think they’re getting the house, or all her money!” I hiss.
Mr. Sharles’ air of boredom is as impermeable as one of our old Aqua-shellacked hair helmets. “Adelaide asked that each of the invited guests be made aware that there shall be a pay-off at the end of the week, but I am not at liberty to discuss any further details with you. However, you should know that I have disclosed exactly the same information, and nothing more, to the other participants named in the will. Adelaide was adamant that the details of her will be carried out exactly as she outlined them, and I am doing my best to fulfill what seemed to be important amendments to her final wishes.”
“Amendments?” I say, standing up on the landing and twisting around so I look out the back door, rather than down the stairs to the black hole of the basement. The familiar forest of the back yard stares at me, Gada’s gardening table standing empty—cleared off for the winter. I turn away. The darkness of the descending staircase is more comforting. “When did she amend the will?”
“Six months ago,” Mr. Sharles says after a furious rustle, as if he’s looking under papers to find the answer.
“Why did she amend it then?”
“It was shortly after she learned of her diagnosis,” he says.
I gape, turning my eyes to the beige wall. “Diagnosis? What diagnosis?”
He clears his throat. “I’m sorry, I thought you were aware. Your grandmother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.”
I can’t speak. I turn in circles then, looking out at the greenery beaten down and weeping in the rain, the beige wall, the stairs that seem to dissolve into shadows.
“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you,” Mr. Sharles says, though his tone never wavers.
I swallow. “It’s alright,” I say, but my own voice cracks. The hospital, although it wasn’t her usual one, only disclosed she’d died suddenly of what appeared to be a heart attack.
My mind reels to all those conversations Gada and I had in the last six months. Not once did she mention that she was battling for her life. Not once. We talked about stupid, useless things like always—the differences in our weather, how a new grocery store was opening up where the sewing shop used to be, what Mrs. Riley’s dog, Walter, was up to in the back yard that he’d inhabited all his life. She never mentioned that she was dying. Not once. I drop down on the landing, cradling my head in one hand and the phone against my ear. I stare at my feet. Not once.
Gada’s watering can sits in the corner, ready to go out the back door.
How could she do this to me? Why didn’t she trust me with this? Not once.
I swallow down a lump of tears and steel myself with my corporate voice, the one I use in hardball business meetings. “I appreciate the information, Mr. Sharles. Thank you for your time.”
“I’m sorry again for your loss,” he says. “I will be in contact with you at the end of the four day period, to disclose the rest of the will, as your grandmother instructed.”
He hangs up.
I pound Gada’s watering can and it flies down the steps, thunk, thunk, thunk, landing with a resonating metallic bang at the bottom
When I open the kitchen door, I find Paul sitting at the kitchen table, his mourning face turned in my direction.
“I was listening. Hope that’s okay,” he says. “I’m sorry Gada never let you know what was going on with her.”
God, he sounds a lot like James, but then I hear James’s voice in the living room and there’s just no comparison.
“Yeah, me too,” I say. I’m numb. Furious. Not with Paul, but with Gada.
Why didn’t she tell me? She knew I’d move her away from here, that’s why. It’s got to be the reason. With all the hours I work, she knew I’d want her close to me, but that I’d have to stick her in a nursing home. I suck as a granddaughter…a daughter…a human being.
Paul stands up, coming at me with arms open wide. So typical of Paul. He’s always been James’s awkward, little brother, long and gangly, with his pant legs an inch shorter than he needed them to be. He wanted so badly to be part of The Band, and he was, but only by default. We all liked Paul, but he was only allowed to hang out with us because there was nowhere else for him to go. James knew he wouldn’t just stay home. Paul would either get involved with a worse crowd (at least we kept an eye on him and kept him out of juvie) or he’d tell Mrs. Stryker everything James was doing. So, Paul became more like a groupie to our band.
Maybe that’s why I sidestep his hug—so this whole thing doesn’t get even more awkward than it already is—or maybe it’s because some part of me remembers that one night when I was drunk and Gada sent him to retrieve me from Vanessa Matelli’s party.
That brainless night, I kissed Paul, and after that, nothing was ever quite the same between us. It was just a drunken kiss I don’t even remember, but I made him swear to never tell James, because, after all, I must’ve thought Paul was his brother. It’s crazy to think otherwise.
My palms get sweaty. I wonder if Paul still thinks back on that kiss. Or the way I blew him off (not literally) afterward.
It’s been seven years. Of course he’s not still thinking of that night. He couldn’t be. But I am. But not in a weird way either. Shit.
Paul has mastered his dimples, but that doesn’t mean anything to me. Forever and ever, Paul is going to be just James’s little brother to me. I pat his shoulder and duck away with a smile of cordial gratitude.
I walk into the living room and James is sitting alone on the couch. Paul leans on the wall separating the living room and kitchen, without a word to his brother. My eyes fall into the carpet.
“Where is everybody?”
“They just went out to get their stuff from their cars,” James says.
“Mr. Sharles said you all have to stay for a week.” God, I’m numb.
“I wonder what Gada was thinking,” James says. “Why a whole week?”
“Because visitors are like fish, they stink after three days,” I say. It’s the only thing I can think of. “I guess she wanted to be sure we weren’t just visiting each other.”
“Oh, yeah.” James chuckles. “I remember her always saying that thing about the fish.”
I take a seat at the opposite end of the couch, facing James. “But why are you doing it? Why are you here?” I ask. “Do you really need money this bad?”
James’s smile freezes. “Did you ever think it might not be about money, Grace? I can’t talk for everybody, but, for me, this is about respecting an old lady’s wishes. Gada believed in me when no one else did.”
“Seriously?” I sneer. “She was never crazy about you, James, you know that. She tolerated you, because of me. Don’t you remember what she said the week before your birthday?”
He shrugs. Of course he remembers. “She was just more protective of you.”
“Protective? Are you kidding? She threatened to call the cops on you and report you for statutory when you turned eighteen.”
“Only once,” he says, as if he wasn’t devastated when it happened. “She was just scared that you were going to end up like your mom.”
That last part had become our mantra after James turned eighteen in April. My birthday wasn’t until August and Gada suddenly started grounding me for stupid stuff, or she’d make plans whenever James asked me out. Gada would tell me it didn’t matter how much she liked James, getting too serious with a boy, especially one of the Highview Strykers, was a dangerous path. We knew it had everything to do with the fact that my mother got pregnant at the end of her senior year in high school with me.
Gada told me how it happened with my mom, that she too had a high school sweetheart, and how Gada should’ve stopped my mom right then. And she said she should’ve stopped James and me a lot earlier. But she didn’t in either case. My mom ended up pregnant, found drugs, and ended up dead. Once James turned eighteen, it was like flipping a switch, and Gada let me know a million times over that she wasn’t going to let what happened to my
mom happen to me.
“Scared or not, she hated you,” I tell James.
“Nah.” He laughs.
He was always so easy, so understanding about Gada, even when he was devastated that she didn’t seem to like him anymore. He became tireless about getting on her good side—bringing me home early from dates, never kissing me in front of her, offering to move heavy items around the back yard or up and down the stairs for her.
And I believe she did grow a very soft spot for him, until the day she came and told me the news of how he’d gone behind my back with Lisa. She seemed as heartbroken as I was, and then, just as angry.
But that was seven years ago. I’m over it. So over it.
Just like always, James reads my mind.
“Bygones should be bygones at this point, Gracie,” he says in that silky, melting tone of his. “You know, your leaving really turned me around. After you went away to school, I got into car repair. I got pretty good at it too and when I realized I could make a good living with it, Gada gave me a loan to open my own garage. Did she ever mention it?”
I shake my head. Never. She knew I didn’t want to know anything about James. Any time I even thought of James for the first couple years, it always ripped open the old wounds. It makes me wonder why she’s doing it to me now.
“I’ve got one of the most popular car repair shops in town. I can’t believe she didn’t tell you.”
My laugh is as flat as Sharles’ monotone, although I’m more than a little shocked that he would think Gada would brag on him to me, of all people.
“Why would she?” I say. I’m shocked she even helped him out. After all that happened, Gada went out of her way to never talk about James with me, even when I brought him up.
His jaw hardens and his eyes go stony.
“Never mind,” he says, but when he gets up and walks off into the den, the room feels colder without him in it.
The phone rings and Lisa answers it in the living room.
“Hello?” Her voice is so loud and the house is so small, the sound of her talking echoes through the rooms like someone yelling “fire!” I drift from the kitchen and take a place against the wall.
“Never mind who I am. Who’s this?” she asks. I used to admire Lisa’s edge; now it makes me wince. She pulls the receiver from her ear and holds it out in my direction. “It’s for you, Jones,” she says. “Elmo somebody.”
“It’s Emilio, my boyfriend,” I say as I shove off the wall. I walk toward Lisa’s outstretched hand, the eyes of all these people who used to mean the world to me, following me —judging—my every move. James’s stare burns at my cheek. Lisa’s is right between my eyes. I look out the front window and say hello into the receiver as nonchalantly as I can, as if I don’t feel as though I’m being sucked down an imaginary drain in Gada’s living room.
“Who was that?” Emilio asks on the other end. My stomach settles with just the sound of his voice—always calm, always a light in my dark tunnels. He might not have the delicious, low treble of James’s voice, but he sounds just as rooted and I need that right now.
“Uh, her name’s Lisa,” I say and her glare intensifies just by my using her name. I’ve never told Emilio about Lisa, so I struggle to think of a way to describe our relationship now. Definitely not best, or even, friends. I turn my back to her as I settle on, “She’s from my old neighborhood. I grew up with her.”
Lisa snorts behind me.
“She sounds…direct,” Emilio says.
“Exactly,” I say with a nervous laugh. No one has left the room. They’re all just standing around listening. I turn back to them, putting my hand over the receiver to mute it a bit. “Could you guys do something else, besides eavesdropping on my conversation?”
“Guys?” Emilio questions from the other end of the line. “Who else is there with you, Grace?”
“If you didn’t notice, this place ain’t Taj Mahal,” Lisa says. “I’m not going to stand on the front porch in the rain just so you can have your privacy.”
“Thanks,” I snap, turning my back on her again.
“Let’s just figure out rooms,” James says. “Who’s sleeping where.”
Emilio bristles in the earpiece, “I hear a man’s voice, Grace. That was a man’s voice, wasn’t it?”
“I’m taking the upstairs,” I say over my shoulder. That was Gada’s room, and the biggest space in the house, besides the basement, but no one argues. Lisa, Paul, James, and Eve begin negotiations of who is sleeping where and, although I try to keep my mind on what Emilio’s saying, I’ve got one ear on what’s going on behind me. I’m curious if James and Lisa will take a room together…no I’m not. It’s been seven years and I’ve got something better: Emilio, my Bronx-bad boy-turned-successful-New-York-professional, who has made the cut with me for the last six months.
“If Jones has the upstairs, then I want the basement,” Paul says. “It’s like an apartment down there.”
“Why do you think you’d get the basement?” James counters, but Lisa stops them both dead.
“Yeah, right,” she says. “I’ve got three kids, and just because I’m here alone at the moment, it doesn’t mean they’re not coming. So, if you two don’t want the baby screaming in your lap all night long, or my kids glued to their TV shows up here, then I get the basement.”
“It’s yours,” James and Paul answer at once.
“My flight is coming into Detroit tomorrow night at eight,” Emilio says. “You’ll be there to pick me up?”
“Mmm hmm,” I answer with the edge of my thumb between my teeth. I’m too busy listening to what’s happening behind me, until his words catch up to me. I drop my hand. “Sorry, sweetie, but you’ll have to get a taxi here. I can’t leave the house for a week.”
Behind me, Paul mocks, sorry sweetie. If it was the old days, I would’ve turned around and booted him as close to the nutsack as I could get. I want to do it now too. Not much has changed after all.
“Why can’t you leave?” Emilio asks.
“Gada wrote it in her will,” I say. “I don’t know why, but it was one of her final requests.”
“It’s not like she’ll know if you left,” Emilio reasons with a short laugh that I don’t return. He coughs, returning to his serious, anchored voice. “Sorry. I was trying to make light of the situation, but that was insensitive and I apologize.”
His formality reminds me of how he handles his clients and it makes the distance between us even farther than the phone line. Behind me, my ex-best friends are still casting lots for sleeping arrangements and discussing how life will progress in the next week when we haven’t spoken to one another in so long.
“I call dibs on Grace’s room,” Eve says.
“I already called it,” James tells her.
“When?”
“Before.”
“Bullshit,” Eve tells him. Whatever James does behind me, Eve’s voice reduces to the old whine I used to know. It’s like she’s playing bagpipes with her vocal cords. “Come on, James Brown, I’m a girl.”
“You used to be a girl,” Paul murmurs.
Eve’s voice snaps from the whine to a serious snarl. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“Sorry…sorry,” Paul says. “Just a joke. Somebody’s a little sensitive about their new lifestyle choice.”
“Somebody’s still an incompetent little fuckwad,” Eve counters.
“There are men there,” Emilio says more sternly now. “Grace, are there—”
“Yes, there are, yes,” I snap into the phone. Emilio pulls in a sharp breath.
“Who?” he demands. “Why are there men there? Who is with you, Grace?”
“I call the couch,” Paul says cheerfully. I groan.
“Are they staying the night?” Emilio shrills.
“Oh no you don’t,” James tells him. “There’s no other place for me but the easy chair or the floor and I’m not—”
“WHO are the men, Grace?” Emilio bellows into the phone.
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I yank it back from my ear as I bark back at him, “My ex-boyfriend, his fucking brother, and a lumberjack that used to be a prom queen!”
The room goes dead silent behind me.
Oh shit.
Dead, dead silent.
“You were never my friend,” Eve growls. I don’t dare turn around now. There’s a rustle as she picks up her luggage and then she stomps out of the living room. She pounds down the hall off the kitchen, past the bathroom, and into my old room. I know she gets there when she slams the door and something crashes to the floor.
“You’re an idiot, Grace,” Lisa says before her footsteps tromp through the kitchen and then down the basement stairs.
“I’ll take the den,” James says softly.
“Whatever,” Paul says. The couch springs screech as if he’s leapt in the air and fallen down on them.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Emilio bristles on the other end of the phone. “I’m going to try to get a red eye out of here tonight.”
The rest of the night is a dance, with all of us trying to avoid each other as we bring in our things. It’s impossible not to run into one another in such a small house. I order a pizza, and Lisa orders Chinese, and Eve orders Mexican. The deliveries all come within five minutes of each other.
The den door doesn’t open when I pass by to answer the front door over and over again, but I see James’s shadow inside. I hope he stays in there for the next week.
The pizza is from Mama’s and it brings back bittersweet memories of sleepovers with Lisa and Eve, when we stayed up all night, making cassette recordings of our favorite songs off the popular radio stations. Lisa would always talk and ruin the recordings, bitching when the DJ did too long of an intro, eating up half the song. Eve had a guilty fixation on disco, while Lisa wanted nothing but punk, and I insisted on head-banging hair bands. Each of us thought only a third of our sleepover mix tapes was any good.
Every sleepover we ever had was always the best one ever, but the sad thing is that I don’t remember the last one.
1985: Careless Whisper (Love in the 80s #6) Page 3
