by Pete Fromm
“Second time right there. The first time just a few nights ago.”
“Wow,” El says, “check out my big girl.” She looks to Taz. “What are you going to do?”
“Do?”
“Sleep. Where? She’s pushing you out of the nest.”
Taz shrugs. “There’s always the couch.”
“Oh please,” she says.
“Save the big room for guests, you know. Drunk drop-ins.”
“Cute,” she says. “And I think Alisha has got other plans for me, anyway.”
“Such as?”
“Rudy shield.”
Taz gives a little laugh. “Really? Damn, I thought he might be on to something there.”
“He might be, but, you know, we’re old-fashioned girls. We don’t rush into things.”
Taz stands, says, “Come on, Midge, how about some breakfast?”
She slides off of Elmo, but grabs her thumb, tugs her toward the kitchen.
Lauren’s got grocery bags stacked all over the counter, something he hadn’t noticed the night before, something totally unlike her. He pictures her standing here, hearing some truck rumbling up the street, panicking, fleeing the way he used to, afraid to see what might come through the door.
He peeks into a bag, starts shelving turkey broth, stuffing mix. He sets a bag of oranges on the table, another of potatoes. Elmo works Midge into the booster seat clamped to the edge of the table and scatters Cheerios for her to play with. Taz slides a banana across to her. Midge cries, “Nana!” and Taz says, “Half at a time, or she tries to put the whole thing in her mouth.”
“I know.”
“Right,” he says, and hits the gas under the water. “She’s on an oatmeal kick,” he says.
“She has been since July,” Elmo says, and a potato bongs against the side of the stove.
Taz bends down, picks it up. “A throwing kick, too.”
Elmo rolls another potato across to Midge. “Looks like she could use some practice,” she says. “Missed you by a mile.”
Midge rolls the potato back, laughing, a mouth full of banana. Elmo rolls it back and Midge snatches it up and unleashes a pop up that almost lands on her own head.
“You’re not,” El says, “not teaching her to throw, are you? Because she’s a girl?”
“She’ll start for the Mariners.”
“I could start for the Mariners.”
“El,” Taz says, “you know, you could stay here.”
She looks at him. “Here?” she says. “But what about Grandma? My reputation?”
“Your what?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “You mean like, what? Roommates?”
“Makes sense to me,” he says. “If that’s what you want.”
“Yeah,” she says.
“But I’d pay you. For babysitting.”
“Which is where it gets slippery. Like, you know, kept woman kind of thing.”
“Please. I work, I get paid. You work, you get paid.”
Midge throws the potato. A line drive, barely missing Elmo. “There you go, girl,” Elmo says, rolling her another one.
Taz leans in the kitchen doorway, tilting from one shoulder to the other. “You’re not going to talk about this?”
“Well, I’d like to think about it first, if that’s all right with you.”
“So just leave all your stuff in my truck? In my shop? While you think about it?”
The doorbell rings, Lauren being all obvious about being careful, and as soon as he starts for the door, a potato bounces off the casing, just beside his head. He turns, and Elmo points to Midge, and Midge points right back at Elmo, giggling.
Lauren says her hellos, apologizes about leaving the groceries out, says something about being addicted to Downton Abbey. “I just realized the time,” she says, laughing at herself. “I still missed the first few minutes.”
She takes a sip of her Starbucks, looks around, and finally can’t not turn to Elmo, says, “So, you’re all moved back now?”
“Last night,” she says. “But my stuff is still in Taz’s truck. Spent all night talking to my roomie.” She lets that sink in before adding, “I just got here myself.”
“And you’ll be here for Christmas?”
“If I’m invited,” she says, giving Taz a glance.
“Of course you’re invited,” Lauren says, “and your roommate.”
Taz finishes working on the oatmeal, puts a bowl on the table for Midge to paint with, warns Elmo that it’s still a little hot.
She looks at him, like she’d never fed Midge before.
“So, Ted,” Lauren says. “The bathroom?”
“It’s, I’ll get to it, really, but anybody who comes here won’t be surprised it’s unfinished. I mean, look at this place.”
Lauren turns to Elmo. “He insists on not finishing the bathroom. Insists nobody minds stepping into that dark room, all the wiring hanging out. No sink.”
Elmo smiles at Lauren, nodding. “He says he’s going to hire me to help.”
Taz says, “What?”
“Tazmo and Rude,” she says. “Ready when you are, boss.”
“That’s great,” Lauren says. “Finish in time for Christmas?”
“The bathroom?” Taz says. “When’s Christmas?”
“The twenty-fifth,” Elmo says. “Almost always.”
Taz tries to smile.
“Wednesday,” Lauren says.
“Not a chance.”
“Even with the two of you?”
“Even with twenty of us.”
“Call Rudy,” Elmo says. “Get the crew together. We can sure give it a try.”
“All right, then,” Lauren says. “I’ll be on Midge duty. Once she’s ready, she can go shopping with me.”
“But, you just went shopping,” Taz says.
“It’s the holidays, Ted.” She gives a wave toward the groceries. “Tip of the iceberg.”
DAY 508
Christmas Eve Taz and Elmo work side by side, screwing down Durock, every six inches in the field, screw guns whining, door closed, the walls already up, taped, a couple coats of mud. The bathtub sits in the living room, behind the couch, each clawed foot holding down a stack of cardboard, protecting the floor. El had draped it with garland, a last string of lights, Midge helping. Lauren standing shaking her head, unable to hide a smile.
Reaching for another screw, Elmo gives a nod toward the door holding out the living room, the world out there, Lauren and Midge, but not the smell of roasting turkey. “Smells good,” she says.
“It’s some OCD thing she’s got.”
“Cooking?” she says, about to push the trigger, drive in the screw, but she stops, staring at him. “Listen, if you’ve got a problem with cooking, you better say so right now.”
Taz says, “Christmas is tomorrow, right? And she’s cooking a turkey today?”
“She must be planning on a crowd.”
“You. Me. Midge.”
“Her. Rudy. Alisha.” She drives the screw. “You know about them now, right? Finally?”
“Trying my best not to,” Taz says. “That whole African wild dog thing.”
“The what?”
Taz says, “Never mind. It’s a Rudy thing.”
“I don’t want to know,” she says. Then, “Anyway, there’s maybe Marko, too. His wife. What’s her name?”
“Jeannie. But still, two turkeys?”
“You heard her. One to have all ready to cut. Make gravy or something. Leftovers for everyone to take home.”
Taz, laughing with Marnie about it, her food thing, early on, before he was sure laughing about her mother was safe. He says, “She might cook a third, before she’s through.”
“It’s nice,” Elmo says.
“It’s nuts,” he answers.
She does her half-shrug thing. “I think it’s great. Like this big, huge family thing.”
He starts to tape the joints, the corners, and Elmo says, “You ever think of that? That she just wa
nted to be part of something like that? Maybe always has? You know, instead of just her and Marnie, always just the two of them?”
Taz runs another line of the mesh tape. It’s a jolt, hearing her say Marnie.
“And you?” Elmo says. “You ever think that way?”
“What way?”
“That you’d like more. You know, more than just you and Midge.”
“You mean you?” he says.
She smiles, dips her head toward her shoulder. “Well, yeah, that might be cool. But, you know, maybe more? I mean, it’d just have been so different without my brother.”
Taz stops his trowel, the thinset oozing. He realizes his mouth has dropped open, and he closes it. They’d always talked two, maybe even three. Never an only. He and Marnie, the paired onlies. He nods, unable to quite look at her.
Elmo bursts out laughing.
He looks up, fights up a grin, and she points her screw gun at him. “I’m not talking signing up for Lamaze or anything,” she says. “But, sheesh, take a breath or two, nothing to panic about. I was just wondering, you know, if something like that was ever even on your radar. For, like, way out there, future-wise.”
“Always was,” he manages. “Yours?”
“Oh, hell yeah,” she says. “Someday.”
Taz scrapes up the thinset mess, starts spreading again.
“Well, anyway,” Elmo says, stretching it out almost like a gasp. “You know, after the last couple nights, Rudy staying over, having to listen to that rodeo, I’ve been rethinking a few things.”
Taz runs the tape along the vertical seam. Starts the trowel down, glances over. The muscles in her shoulders bunch as she bears down, driving a screw. She fixes another onto the point. “Like?” he says.
“My little place is getting a little crowded.”
“Oh,” Taz says. “Well, the guest room is still open.” Then, before Elmo can say another word, he says, “But, do you, um, think you can finish this taping?”
She looks at what he’s been doing. “Is it somehow harder than it looks?”
He shakes his head.
“Well, then I think a monkey could do it.”
“Perfect,” he says. He’s already setting down his tray, his trowel, the roll of tape. “Once it’s done, we’ve got to lay off, let it dry. So, the rest of the day off. I’ve got to make a run now.”
“The rest of the day off? Like, there-goes-my-paycheck off?”
“The Christmas bonus will cover it.”
“Ha,” she says.
He opens the door. She says, “Where are you going?”
He dips back into the room. “It’s Christmas,” he says. “There might be, you know, surprises?”
He starts to close the door, but she says, “Taz!” sharp enough to stop him. He peeks back in.
“I haven’t scared you off, have I?”
“No, no, I just, there’s something I have to do.”
“Right now? In the middle of this?”
“I should have done it a long time ago.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, no, I mean, no, you haven’t scared me. At all. I just have to do this thing now.”
He smiles at her, eases the door closed between them, already pulling his phone out of his pocket.
She gives it a minute, then another, then just can’t stand it anymore, steps out of the bathroom to investigate and is all but knocked flat as Taz blows out of the big bedroom with an old double mattress. She leaps back into the bath, saying, “What on earth?”
“Sorry,” he says, maneuvering the mattress across the living room, almost taking himself out on the tub before finding the door.
Elmo follows after him, standing in the door. “You’re moving out?” she says. “That, I’d say, is pretty similar to panic.”
Rudy’s backing up the drive, like it’s something they’ve choreographed. He gives her a wave from behind the wheel. Taz, hidden behind the mattress, arcs it up over the side of the pickup.
She stands in the open door, turns back around to see if she’s missed something. Midge sits on the floor, crayons, a coloring book with a riot of scribbles. Lucky she wasn’t trampled. She gives a shiver, says, “Toady,” and El pushes the door nearly shut. Lauren pokes her head out from the kitchen, a giant spatula in her hand. “Where’s he—” she starts, but Elmo just shrugs, and Taz shouts, “Back soon,” and slams the truck door and Rudy takes off.
But he’s not. Hours and hours, the whole day, nearly dinner. And when he crashes back through the door, his entrance is nearly the same as the exit, barging in blind behind a new mattress, the plastic wrap crinkling. “Clear?” he says.
Elmo runs out of the kitchen, swoops Midge up. “Clear,” she says. “Watch the tub.”
Taz staggers across the room, turns through the hallway, to the bedroom. She hears the fall and bounce. The tear of plastic. He comes back out, closes the door behind him, creasing and folding the plastic. “You never saw a thing,” he says.
She follows him into the kitchen, watches him disappear into the broom closet, the Hogwarts entrance to the basement, back a moment later, something hidden behind his back. He edges around her, keeps whatever it is hidden, goes back into the bedroom. Lauren follows them both out of the kitchen, looks at Elmo, gives her what could only be a wtf?, and Elmo says, “Who knows?”
“Men,” Lauren says, and turns back to the safety of her kitchen.
When Taz reappears, Elmo says, “So?”
“So what?”
She waits, then waves toward the big bedroom. “Are you moving back in? Giving Midge her own room? Her own bed?”
He smiles, half his mouth. Zips his lips. Throws away the key.
She peers up at him. “Have you been to a bar?”
He smiles wider. “Rudy made me.”
“Oh boy. The Club?”
“Of course.”
“And this is the plan you two came up with? Buying a mattress? Like that’ll seal the deal? And then you tear off to the Club to celebrate your genius?”
Taz blinks. “He said he’d only help if I bought him a beer.”
She looks at him. “Well, thanks for the invite.”
“You were still working,” he says.
“You got that right,” she says, pointing to the kitchen. “All day long. My top-secret stuffing recipe.”
Taz blinks. “You and Lauren?”
“She knows what she’s doing in there.”
“That’s what Rudy says.”
“Rudy’d say that in front of a pig trough.”
Lauren comes out, says, “Elmo, are you going to use all those onions you chopped?”
“Just got carried away,” she says. “Have at ’em.”
Lauren stands a second, watching them, smiling. “Your babysitter knows her way around a kitchen,” she says.
Taz says, “That’s what I just heard about you.”
As soon as she retreats, Elmo all but skewers Taz on the finger she jabs at him. “Don’t even think this is the way things work,” she says.
“What?”
“You and Rude out tearing it up, the girls in the kitchen.”
Taz blinks. “Are you even close to being serious?”
She squints, studying him. “I don’t know,” she says. “But I am not going back anywhere near pre–glass slipper days.”
“Oh no,” Taz says, “all princess, all the time.” He gives a wave around the room, Marn’s smiley face leering from the kitchen. “Your kingdom.”
DAY 509
Midge is zonked. They’ve cleaned her up, gotten the dishes, if not washed, at least stacked. Lauren’s run off to her motel, Rudy and Alisha off, too, Marko and Jeannie.
Taz and El sit for a while, just watching the Christmas tree lights, Midge sagging between them in her new Santa jammies, until Taz lifts her up, carries her into the bedroom, tells her she’s going to sleep in her big-girl bed.
Midge sings, hardly more than a whisper, “Big gull, big gull,” until she swit
ches to, “Mo, Mo,” and Elmo comes in and sits down with them on the little bed. They sit a while longer, watching her curl in, fight it, go out. They sneak out into the hallway. Elmo turns toward the living room and Taz says, “She thinks you’re her mother.”
Elmo stops. “No,” she says. “Never.”
Taz raises an eyebrow. “You’re the woman she knows. Practically since birth.”
“There’s Grandma.”
“There’s you,” he says. “Just you.”
She looks around, like for exits. “So?”
Taz puts a hand up on the wall. “What’ll she think? When she’s older? Mom in one room. Dad on the couch.”
“You’re making assumptions, bub, but she won’t think I’m her mom. You tell her all those stories about her.”
“She’s not even two. She doesn’t know those stories from any other fairy tale.”
Elmo blinks.
“I don’t mean fairy tale,” he says. But, yes, he does. “They’re just made-up stuff. Her out there traveling. Away. Exploring. Doing bold stuff. On her way back.”
“That’s really what you tell her?”
“She’s a baby. I wasn’t even really talking to her.”
“Well, who were you . . .” She stops, lets it drift away.
“It was nice,” Taz says. “Picturing her that way.”
“Coming back,” Elmo says.
Taz runs a finger along the door casing. “Yeah.”
“And now?”
“She’s talking. It’s going to start sinking in.”
“What? Your mom stories?”
“Everything.”
Elmo eyes him. “That’ll be cool, her thinking her mom is some kind of hero or something.”
“Her thinking her mom just stays out there? Instead of coming home to her? No, El,” he says. “She’s never going to know her. I can’t pretend that away. You can’t.”
“And, you want her to think I’m her mom?”
“I’m just saying it’s what she already thinks.”
“But that’s what you want her to think?”
He whispers, “No,” then, “I just think it’s inevitable.”
“And you’re going to tell her about Marnie.”
“Of course. But right now?”
“It’ll just be one more story,” Elmo says. “The best one. The way it’s always been. ‘I never knew my mom, but there was always Elmo.’”