A Basic Renovation

by Sandra Antonelli

  Lesley sighed and put her hand out, gesturing with her fingers. ‘Give me those. We haven’t paid for them yet.’

  GP made a face. ‘Here I was thinking you were the one in the family who was most like me and you pull a Number Five.’ He shoved the pretzels into her hand. ‘Here you go, Gina.’

  The bag crinkled in her grip. She watched GP’s scowl melt into a big grin when he noticed she had two rods sticking out of her mouth like walrus fangs.

  ‘They’re good, aren’t they?’

  She nodded and pushed the shopping cart further down the snack food aisle. Of course she had to notice the boxes of Orville Redenbacher, Jiffy Pop and Jolly Time popcorn. In the last few hours, she’d managed to get her mind off how she’d thrown herself at the biggest Brennan. Now the grinning face on the box of Newman’s Own Butter Boom morphed into Dominic, square jaw and all, completely erasing Paul Newman’s little smile.

  She tore her eyes from that morphed face and thought of long fingers tickling over her breast. Then a lot of other sensations popped into her head, tiny kernels like corn bursting and dropping onto her skin. Irritated, she crunched though the pretzel rods, eating them both at the same time. Crumbs spilled into her shirt and showered the linoleum flooring. She left a messy pretzel trail all the way into the next aisle.

  GP dug another rod out of the package. ‘I wonder if Eilish would like these.’

  ‘Ask her tomorrow, when I meet with Mike Witteveen.’

  ‘You waited long enough!’ he said with pretzel between his teeth.

  ‘Your gratitude is overwhelming.’

  He waggled the pretzel and his eyebrows like he was Groucho Marx. ‘What’s your plan? How long do I have?’

  ‘I’m taking him to lunch at the Dixie Girl, so I guess as long as it takes him to eat.’

  ‘Oh goody. You’ll get to hear him natter about food getting stuck in his bridgework. How much you want to bet he mentions his dentist and Val Kilmer?’

  ‘Does Mrs. Flanagan have all her teeth?’

  ‘Why are you trying to ruin this for me?’

  ‘Well, does she?’

  ‘It’s a question you don’t ask a lady, just like you don’t ask her age.’

  ‘Since when have you ever refrained from asking anyone those hard-hitting questions?’

  ‘Here have another one of these.’ He held the pretzels out to her.

  ‘What if she doesn’t have her teeth? Would you still be ga-ga for her if she wore a full set of dentures?’

  ‘She doesn’t.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I can tell. A man can work out what’s real. A man can always work out the truth.’

  Lesley snorted. ‘So then you know she dyes her hair?’

  ‘You know how I said you’re like me?’ GP dropped a box of Raisin Bran into the shopping cart, ‘Well, quit picking a fight.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  GP crossed his arms and looked at her flatly. ‘Che palle.’

  Lesley mirrored his expression. ‘I’m not.’

  ‘OK, Fine. Then tell me about that love bite on your neck. When did you get it? It looks fresh.’

  While she may have been able to keep her face frozen, blood rushed in to colour her cheeks.

  Fantastic.

  Dominic had left her with a hickey. She couldn’t be sure if it was the power of her grandfather’s suggestion, but right then she was very aware of a small, rather sensitive spot about two inches below her left ear. It pulsated. ‘Oh, shit.’

  GP grinned. ‘Are you playing kissy-face with Brennan or Officer Tilbrook? I’ve seen you with both of them.’

  ‘I’m not playing kissy-face with anyone.’

  ‘Maybe you should. It’ll crack that walnut you got shoved up your culo. Now that reminds me. Where are the rubbers in this place? Do I have to ask the pharmacist for ’em or can I find them in the grocery aisle?’

  Lesley laughed so hard she nearly choked when she finally took a breath. ‘Does Mrs. Flanagan know about the plans you’re making?’

  GP stood there, arms still crossed, and he was pissed. ‘Disgraziato!’ he hissed. His eyes took on a maniacal gleam, which made him look like an elderly mobster.

  She wiped the smile from her face and said, ‘Forgive me, but unless you’re actually after something to keep your golf shoes dry, people call rubbers condoms now.’

  ‘The show was called I Love Lucy not I Love Lesley. Lucy Ball was good at screwball comedy. You? You’re just screwball,’ he said, and jerked his insulated bag out of the cart. ‘I’ll meet you at the front.’

  Lesley watched her grandfather disappear into the music and DVD section at the back of the store. On the way down to Española, he said he was on a quest to find some old movie starring John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara. He’d been going on about Maureen O’Hara for weeks now. Apparently Eilish Flanagan sounded just like her. He had it so bad it was funny.

  It was also amusing to know GP was making plans to bed the widow Flanagan, amusing and a little strange. Lesley knew, since her mother mentioned it on a regular basis, her nearly seventy-year old parents still did the deed. Clearly GP did too. It felt kind of odd to think about the sex life of her parents, let alone grandfather, yet she couldn’t help but wonder how long it had been since he’d know carnal delights.

  Did he know the exact date like she did?

  At that moment, right in front of the boxes of All Bran and Grape Nuts, she felt a pang of jealousy. Her ninety-two year old grandpa was gettin’ some and her dry spell had turned into a full blown drought.

  It was her fault for being so discerning, for having scruples. While she wouldn’t say she had anything shoved up her backside, she knew she’d acted out of desperation. Or at least that’s how she decided to justify her behaviour with Dominic.

  For the fifth or sixth time that day, as she wheeled the metal basket around other shoppers, she shrugged off a feeling of worthlessness. She squashed down her irritation, her sexual frustration, her desire to lash out. And finally, she tried to smother the urge to jump into her Bronco, drive to Trujillo’s hardware store, and apologise for misleading Dominic, for leading him on.

  It was hard to believe she’d thrown herself at him. Kissing him, feeling his hard penis under her palm and liking it, was reckless and hormonal. She’d made an ass of herself by jumping him then having a temper tantrum that tracked paint all over the floor. She wasn’t sure what was more embarrassing and thinking about it again made her face burn. She was among complete strangers in a discount store and her cheeks were bright red.

  She didn’t think men blushed once they were over twenty-five, but Dominic’s face had flushed just before he left the house. The colour made his tan deeper. At the time she thought he was angry. Now she considered he might have been ashamed for his actions because he’d started it all. Why the hell should she feel embarrassed or responsible when he’d initiated the incident? He’d kissed her first. He’d shoved her hand on his crotch. He’d ruined her favourite t-shirt. He’d called her names.

  OK, to be fair, she’d called him names too, but not hurtful ones. What was it he’d called her? Ah, that’s right, she thought, Miss Junior Prick Tease.

  Why was she even considering being contrite? If anyone needed to apologise it was Dominic, the textbook example of the human male’s inability to listen.

  Pissed off all over again, Lesley shoved the cart around the corner and slammed into a pyramid display of canned chiles. Hundreds of small cans clattered down and spun across the floor, rolling under shelves, landing in front of store patrons like a shower of yellow-labelled hailstones.

  Lesley stared at the carnage her petulant recklessness had caused. First the paint footprints, now the avalanche of canned goods. Temper tantrums made her messy. The obscenity that bubbled at her lips turned into a cackle. She clapped a hand over her mouth.

  Gritting her teeth, Lesley corralled the chiles. Ten minutes later, she found GP waiting for her like he said he would. He stood on the ot
her side of her checkout lane, near the exit, sucking on a soft drink he’d bought at the snack bar. The silver insulated bag at his feet bulged. He had a shopping bag hanging off his left wrist.

  An outline of a DVD and box of Trojans was clear through the thin plastic.

  The zipper had started to slide open when Lesley dragged the insulated bag off the back seat of his Taurus. Martino was sure the big box of ice-cream sandwiches would poke out of the top and expose the carton of Dr Pepper hidden at the bottom of the silver sack. ‘Gimme that, Miss Puny-verse,’ he yanked the thick plastic pack from his granddaughter’s arms, ‘I’m not a weakling like you.’

  ‘What do you have in there, bricks?’

  ‘None of your beeswax, nibby-nose. You want to be useful? Grab that other bag.’

  Lesley reached back into the car. Plastic crinkled in her hand. ‘Can I have one?’

  ‘Can you have one what?’

  ‘One of the Fifth Avenue candy bars you’ve hidden under the socks and condoms on the bottom.’

  ‘Never you mind what’s in there. Just take it inside.’

  Those clunking cowboy boots of hers stopped clunking just a few feet from the front door. Martino looked over his shoulder to see Lesley smirking. ‘I think I need something to guarantee my silence,’ she said.

  ‘Extortion is a crime, just ask Eilish’s nephew.’

  ‘I will. I’m going out with him tonight.’

  ‘Well, I’m not giving you any of my rubbers.’

  ‘I want chocolate and peanut butter, not sex and condoms.’

  ‘Ha! You want both, but you’re not getting any.’

  ‘You really think you will?’

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘One. You can have one, merdinucchia.’

  ‘Why, thank you.’

  ‘So are you going to open the door or is my icecream going to melt while we stand out here in this heat and discuss what a wretched human being you are?’

  ‘Wretched? And to think I was going to say you could keep your candy…’ She pushed open the front door and went inside.

  Martino followed her into Number Five’s kitchen. ‘You’re not wretched, goia mia.’

  ‘That’s better,’ she said, putting his plastic bag on the countertop.

  ‘You’re evil.’

  Lesley snickered. ‘Just for that, I’ll take two.’

  Martino paused by the door that led out to the garage. He set the insulated bag by his feet and turned. He held both hands, cupped, down near his crotch. ‘Non mi rombi baddi!’

  She laughed at him again and waved her hand. ‘OK, OK. I’ll leave the ball-breaking to Mom and Mrs. Flanagan, GP.’

  He made a rude Italian gesture and went into the garage, making sure to slam the door as he did. God, he loved that smart-assed little brat. Why she wasn’t married to some nice Italian kid he’d never understand. She deserved to be happy.

  He deserved to be happy too. Jesus knew he felt happy with that little bobbling redheaded Mick. He hardly knew her, but he’d lived long enough to understand what was important. When something like love came your way, in whatever form, at whatever age, you didn’t let it pass you by. When it happened, when it conked you over the head, you didn’t fight back. No, you grabbed that love by the balls and held on. You pissed off your family and alienated friends, and clawed and screamed and kept your grip on love until you died and they put you in the ground – in that big oven at the crematorium, which was how he wanted his body dealt with.

  Yes indeedy-doo, when his ride was over, Martino was going to be in a silver urn on Number Five’s dining room hutch, right next to her gold-edged Moser glasses. She’d bitch about having to dust him, just like she bitched about soaking coffee stains from his shirts and vacuuming BBQ potato chip crumbs from between the recliner cushions.

  Grinning to himself, he headed for the big chest freezer in the far corner and made his way around Paddy’s boat. The crappy tin thing only saw water once a year, but season after season, it sat parked in the garage next to a big German car, while his Taurus had to live under the carport on the side of the house – as if that was enough protection from the elements.

  Martino set the insulated bag on the hood of his son-in-law’s shiny red Audi. He yanked the zipper and started to take out the items he’d bought. Carefully, he unfolded a sheet of chilly tin foil he’d left in the freezer earlier in the morning. He wrapped the box of ice-cream sandwiches with it and placed it into the opened freezer. Then he packed some frozen chicken fillets and foil-wrapped steaks on top. Number Five kept a tidy freezer. Everything inside was covered in foil. The ice cream sandwich box with its shiny disguise blended right in.

  Satisfied with his work, Martino closed the big door with a bang and returned to the Audi to pull the twelve pack of Dr Pepper out of the silver bag. A second later he nearly dropped the cans.

  The space on the other side of the freezer was reserved for the snow blower, lawn mower, and a green Rubbermaid chest full of gardening equipment Paddy never used and kept covered with an old blanket printed with cabbage roses. Alone, and naked except for the dried up grass along one edge, the lawn mower was still there, but the snow blower and green crate had been moved.

  Martino blasphemed in Italian. Then he swore in English, which wasn’t nearly as satisfying as cursing in Sicilian, so he did that too.

  In the nine years he’d lived in Los Alamos with his daughter and her husband, he’d learned Paddy was a man who had a set place for everything. For nearly a decade, the snow blower, lawn mower and Rubbermaid box sat in the same place under the grubby, rose-printed cover. Now the blower was in the opposite corner of the garage, behind two old louver doors that had been set up against the wall, lean-to style, the blanket tented over the top. Fortunately, he could see the machine’s red-tipped handles peeking out the open side of the slatted doors. The bottom of the green crate was just visible too. It sat on the floor in front of the snow blower, woven flannel cabbage roses trailing up from the lid.

  Martino had been hiding his pop in that emerald container for the last seven years. He’d left four bottles on the bottom of the plastic case, buried under two old hoses and gardener’s apron. He hoped to hell they were still there. If not, odds were Paddy had reported his findings back to Number Five.

  The last thing Martino wanted was a lecture from Number Five. He had more significant things to do than listen to a sermon about soft drink consumption and the increased risk of heart attacks. Ever since that story hit the news she’d been hounding him, sniffing his breath for a whiff of Dr Pepper as if he were an alcoholic.

  With his arms around the twelve-pack, he marched over to the lean-to. Annoyed, he grabbed the edge of the flowery flannel and lifted it away from the top of his plastic box. Something sat on top of the lid. It was wrapped in an old orange beach towel. He set the pop on the floor, took hold of the towel, and began to unwind the material.

  The object he uncovered was round, but not very heavy. As he turned it over in his hands, and the cloth fell away, light bounced off gleaming black. Martino pursed his lips, not quite believing what he held, or what it meant.

  He reached out with one hand, lifted the blanket higher, and started to laugh because there, behind the old doors, snuggled up to the snow blower, half concealed by a sleeping bag that had a rusted zipper, Patrick Samuels had hidden a dirty little red secret.

  A number of cars crowded the cul-de-sac, but Lesley found a spot up the street and parked the Bronco. She left the windows down, that way, when she climbed back into the Ford later, the interior wouldn’t feel like the inside of a pottery kiln. Heat rose from the pavement in visible waves that bent the air. She stuffed the keys in her pocket and headed for Dominic’s driveway where a metallic blue BMW Z4 convertible was parked behind his Cherokee. She transferred the shopping bag to her shoulder when she passed in between the bumpers of both vehicles.

  Squeezing through the space, she reminded herself she was trying to be a decent human being who could rise above petty
arguments and awkward behaviour. While she felt didn’t need really need to apologise for anything the plain fact was, if she didn’t make an apology, the guilt, or shame or whatever the hell it was that made her drive over here would excavate a pit in her conscience. Then she’d wind up in the same kind of bitter hole as Peggy Brennan.

  Kyle was out front, sitting in the grass, playing with his puppy. There was no need to drag the kid into the fray. It was her own damn fault for thinking Dominic had changed, for believing he was unlike than the rest of his family, but Kyle was different. He didn’t deserve to be lumped in with the others simply because they shared blood.

  Lesley’s throat felt tight, as if she was holding back tears; only that wasn’t the case. Exasperation, disappointment, resignation, sexual frustration, whatever name she gave to the clutter of feelings, had simply travelled up from her stomach to stick in her gullet.

  She took a breath and quietly blew it out. ‘Hi, Kyle,’ she said, ‘how’s that arm?’

  Kyle looked up, startled. ‘Um, hi.’ He shot a quick glance over his shoulder, looking back at the house. His voice cracked slightly, ‘I’m good. It doesn’t hurt anymore. It just…itches.’

  ‘I swear the dog’s bigger already.’ She smiled when he nestled the puppy into the crook of his neck and stood. Originally orange, Kyle’s cast had been painted black, white, and tan in all the right places. ‘Your cast looks just like Clementine,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, it’d be cute if I was like, five, but you don’t exactly tell grandma, no.’

  ‘She does nice work.’ Too bad she’s such a cow. ‘Is your dad home?’ Lesley shifted her feet, half-ready to hurry back to the Bronco.

  ‘My dad?’

  ‘Yes, your dad.’

  The teenager seemed jumpy, uncomfortable. Maybe he was thinking about the dad can’t date a lesbian joke-fest the last time she’d been there. She watched his eyes shoot to the front of the house again. ‘Well, he’s…’ he hesitated, ‘We’ve got…My…I…uh…I…he might be in the shower. I’ll go see.’

  Lesley made a small sound of disgust. Obviously the boy knew about the morning’s events. She watched him hurry along the flower-lined pathway to the front door and wondered just how much detail his father had gone into.