It wasn’t a breakdown, but it was close. Her exhaustion sent her into the back of the idling UPS truck, then spinning helplessly into oncoming cross-traffic, and on that January night thirty minutes south of Medford, Massachusetts, she nearly killed Jackson. But it wasn’t the pastel pink, blue, and yellow pills, it was fatigue. That much she knew. And fucking Nick. It was all on her, Phoebe felt, to run this thing. To keep them going. If they were going to ascend, plateau at a level she could live with, it was all on her. Phoebe knew and resented it. Nick’s grand solution: Move them to a beachfront rental on the West Coast, secure an investment property to upgrade, flip for enough profit to secure their future. All the while giving Phoebe what she desperately needed, if not deserved: a summer off to spend with her son. An undisturbed period of rest and regeneration. Time and space to figure out what she wanted next for herself. Nick, though, can’t deliver on his promise once again. His overreach astounds her. The realization that he’s simply not up to this is too much to contemplate alone on a windy night.
5
Bank-sanctioned home invasions. When Nick and his crew of six from EverythingMustGo! arrive at a location, it’s never a surprise, but it’s always unwelcome. Men hauling and tossing leather sectionals and flat-screens from a home into Dumpsters or the back of a pickup truck makes neighbors uneasy, even suspicious. Nick keeps work stories to himself because there is nothing about his vocation that Phoebe wants to hear.
On a hot Wednesday morning last week on a cul-de-sac in Chino, a gold minivan slowed to a crawl while the men worked. The driver stopped, got out, and without saying a word, started whipping cans of tuna fish and then a full bottle of marinara sauce at Nick’s crew. She missed everyone. As she threw, Nick noticed her diamond engagement ring and wedding band. One of the tuna cans went through the living room window. Out of breath, unsure of her next move, she yelled, “Fuck B of A!,” and the crew laughed, relieved, having learned to expect worse.
The next day, a hot morning, the crew was rushing through a trash-out on Del Torino in Lake Elsinore. On the front lawn of every house on their side of the street was a freshly planted Bank-Owned sign. The car that crept to the house where they worked, turned slowly into the driveway, was a red Dodge Challenger. It idled for too long; the driver leaned sideways into the passenger’s seat. From the airless, empty living room, Nick watched as the crew stood in the shade from a thicket of wilting palms, drinking Red Bull. They all studied the car. A man got out; forty, maybe younger. He was shirtless and walked casually through the open front door of the house. Around his head, like a turban, he’d wrapped a blue towel with white stripes. Nick realized when he saw it that it was from the set of towels that he and Phoebe had at home, purchased when they first arrived, along with emerald-green tumblers and a wicker patio set from Crate & Barrel that they couldn’t afford. It had something to do with the heat, Nick thought. Maybe the towel was soaked in cold water. The man fumbled with his keys, pointed them in the direction of the car, set the alarm, dropped them on the marble foyer floor. He was barefoot, unshaven, and he carried something sharp in his left hand. In the other, a silver revolver. Before the ambulance and police arrived, it was Sean who found the keys to the car, opened the driver’s-side door, pocketed something he pulled from the center console. Loose change? A cell phone? Nick didn’t bother asking.
Nick can’t understand why he froze in the narrow hallway between the kitchen and the man. He should have run. Turned a corner, found the back door, barreled through it, and run. But he did nothing. He watched as the man, who acknowledged none of them, took the sharp object—a small blade—and sliced his pale, hairy chest from the left shoulder to his abdomen. He winced, and the blood distracted Nick until he realized that the man was swallowing the barrel of the gun, and Nick’s hands rushed involuntarily to cover his ears and head and all he heard was the explosion. There was no mess. The towel trapped the skull and bits of brain. Nick gave a statement to the police. Trying to push the image away, the man’s bloodshot eyes, the echo from the single shot, the dull thud of the body collapsing on the dirty marble floor.
All Phoebe wants to hear from Nick these days, all she can handle, is news of a job prospect comparable to the one they came out here for: his production manager position with the boutique Encino firm. The career he trained for. But no one is hiring, he reminds her. His voice will rise when he’s defending himself: “There is no position to pursue!” And when they exhaust the subject yet again, Phoebe moves seamlessly to the next item on her list: reassurance that their own investment experiment on Carousel Court is appreciating well beyond the eighty-seven thousand dollars in upgrades. Because if it’s not, or won’t be soon, what are they doing? The answer is clear: It isn’t and won’t be anytime soon.
• •
Tonight’s work goes quickly. The house in Agoura Hills lies on a deserted street of matching middle-class houses. It’s late and dark, the electricity still flows, and all the lights are turned on inside.
Nick’s not in charge this time, just helping out. This is not his regular crew. He’s never met these guys. None of the four men except Nick speaks English, and even though the men don’t speak, there’s a sense among them that they dodged a bullet tonight. If the house were somewhere else, somewhere harder-hit, with no power, the mood would be tense.
A neighbor in a bathrobe appears with two Weimaraners. The dogs sense something, seem agitated, growling, pulling on their leashes.
“What the hell?” the neighbor says, eyeing the green Dumpster, the furniture, and the rolled-up carpets being carried out of the house. He’s cursing his dogs before Nick can answer. They’re ignoring him. The dogs don’t want Nick but whatever is around the right side of the house, which is all blackness.
“Just tidying up,” Nick tells him.
“They’ve been gone a week,” the neighbor says.
“Two, actually,” Nick corrects him.
The man surveys the items, a stained red leather recliner, a walnut entertainment console, a Dyson vacuum cleaner. “Help yourself,” Nick calls out over the insane barking of the dogs. The man shakes his head, yanks the leashes hard, disappears down the orange-lit street.
The sound coming from behind the house: voices, urgent. Nick finds the other three members of the crew, one directing the beam of a flashlight into the dry brush at the edge of the property. Another man hurls a rock in the same direction. Whatever set the neighbors’ dogs off is back there and has everyone on edge. The third member of the crew, young and skinny, produces a black pistol, points it at the brush. The oldest of the three slaps him.
“Pendejo!”
The gun disappears. A bottle is thrown, shatters against a rock. There’s no sound. The oldest, the crew leader, instructs the others to go inside, finish the job.
When they’re gone and Nick is alone in the backyard, he turns on his own flashlight, approaches the dry brush. Chained to a headstone-sized boulder is a terrified, emaciated black dog. The animal makes itself as small as it can, low to the ground, squirms toward Nick, cowering. Three dirty Tupperware dishes and a porcelain bowl with a trace of brown water surround the animal. Nick cleans caked yellow crust from its eyes. The animal wags its brittle tail, ears tucked back. Pink and festering red skin where the collar was pulled too tight around the neck. Nick loosens the choke chain.
He takes a picture of the neglected thing and sends it to Phoebe with a message:
Owners left it behind.
The image: a sickly dog that is all matted fur and bones with white flecks around his chin and muzzle and his pleading brown eyes.
Nick calls Phoebe. “What do you think?” he asks.
“About what?” she responds.
“He’s sweet. Well-trained.”
She sighs.
“We have plenty of room. Jackson would love it,” he says.
“Where does it come from?” she asks.
“W
hat?”
“A dog, Nick?”
Silence. He lowers his voice. “There are so many of these houses, Phoebe. Deserted.”
“So what?”
“People are scared,” he says. “They’re desperate and have nowhere to go. You know what they need?”
The dog drinks from the hose Nick has turned on.
“A place to collect their thoughts, make a plan,” he continues. Nick directs the hose on the back of the dog, fresh cool water cascading over the infected skin and matted fur.
All someone would have to figure out was the logistics: how to get the houses ready, how to get people in, how to collect and move on. All the homes are new construction. All he has to do is slap on fresh coats of paint, clean the carpets, drain and refill the pools. Where would an anxious family rather plot its next moves: some Motel 6, a friend’s basement, or a three-bedroom house with a pool and Nick as their landlord?
“Houses,” he says to Phoebe. “I know where they are. They’re all sitting empty and clean, and there are too many for the banks to track.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Nick.”
“It’s a disaster out here. No one’s in charge. I can put people in these houses, and we can get something going.”
“Renting vacant houses? Just so we’re clear. That’s your idea?”
“How badly do you want to get off of Carousel Court?”
• •
Nick had called the number from the orange flier the same day he tore it from the wall. EverythingMustGo! was the name of the company, but the voice that picked up just said, “Yeah.” When Nick said why he was calling, the voice started firing questions: Was he in shape? Yes. Did he have his own transportation? Yes. From? Boston. Did he know the area? Not yet. Education level? College graduate. That slowed things down, the answer unexpected, and the rest of the responses led to a half-hour meeting at a diner in Chino Hills, where the questions continued.
“Why do you need this job?” the boss asked him.
Then: “When you stumble on a corpse in some bedroom, will you pull the diamond ring from the finger?”
Nick stared at him. There was nothing to say.
“Messing with you.” The man laughed. “What did you do in Boston?”
“Film production.”
“You can’t find that out here?”
“Had an offer that fell through. And now no one’s hiring.”
“That’s for sure.”
“But you are,” Nick said.
“I am.”
The man, for some reason, studied Nick’s résumé, seemed genuinely interested in if not impressed by Nick’s background, and peppered him with more questions, none of which had anything to do with the job. Nick told the man about his trip to New Orleans after Katrina, when he’d driven down to document the aftermath, pitch to cable networks, piece together a documentary short. As he showed the man his driver’s license and a pay stub from his last job, Nick studied the thin gold chain and shaved fat head of the man his employees called “Boss” and wondered what other angles the man was playing and how soon Nick could find his own. The world around them was sliding into the sea, furnished houses left behind in the dark of night. Everything was folding in on itself, yet Boss wore a soft pink polo shirt with his collar up and Ray-Bans and a fresh cigar he lit only when he started the ignition of his white convertible Lexus and said, “Welcome aboard. Have a hunch you’ll do well here.” It took under three months for Nick to earn the promotion to crew chief.
“You married?” Boss had asked him that warm spring morning in Chino Hills.
“Six years,” Nick said without hesitation. He sipped his coffee, which was cold. The man stabbed a greasy sausage link with a fork and, without looking up, said: “She scared yet?” The question caught Nick off guard. Its precision cut like the sharp edge of the dry palm fronds that scraped Jackson’s bedroom windows at night.
• •
Nick races by a refinery he can’t see, breathes in the warm, oily air that whips through the Subaru. He smells his fingers. It’s not the refinery, it’s him—the Red Devil he used to clean his tools, a task of questionable utility aside from its meditative qualities. It helped him slip into character, readying himself for whatever awaited them inside the dead house in the darkness. Nick keeps the windows down so he can hear whether or not the rattle is getting louder.
Before he left their house on Carousel Court for the overnight job, he shot a look through the foyer window: the orange military-style tent on Metzger’s lawn; the lighting he helped Kostya install along the front of his house; and the feeling that no amount of security devices could undo what was done, or worse, prevent what was to come. Jackson squirmed and giggled between him and Phoebe; a game, Mommy and Daddy closing in around him before Daddy headed out for the night. That was when Nick brushed Phoebe’s strong jaw. He could have squeezed it until it cracked, but what good would that do? He’d rather hold it, marvel at its bold lines and angles, the faded little scar on her chin, the perfect symmetry of her face. Hers is a face people steal when they create fake online profiles. They actually found her face on three social media accounts. (She deactivated, then reactivated, then deactivated her own account when they arrived in Serenos.) Hers is a face that sells Advair to physicians who don’t need it. A face that deserves granite countertops and recessed lighting and the excess of rooms that require designers to come up with new names like “double-bonus room.” Boss likes him. Nick thinks he’ll have this gig as long as he wants. What he can’t wrap his mind around, what he dreads: facing her in the quietest hours of the night when he’s the reason she can’t sleep.
6
Phoebe stands on the hot pavement, drinking a cold Fiji water. The sun is a blistering yolk. Phoebe will be in the San Fernando Valley all day. She looks up when a helicopter roars overhead, too low, giving chase. She finds the sun, which momentarily blinds her. Her eyes adjust as an impossibly thin blond woman in tennis whites and sunglasses pushes two bleached-blond Ethiopian kids effortlessly across the black asphalt in a Bugaboo Cameleon double stroller, two thousand minimum, Phoebe thinks.
Nick bought them a Bugaboo last year, spending money they didn’t have and wouldn’t earn anytime soon, and she was fourteen pounds overweight and spent every weekend in her purple sweatshirt, and the living room was a disaster and this thousand-dollar stroller they didn’t need and couldn’t afford sat there like part of some kind of disdainful Puzzle Time quiz on Nick Jr.: Which of the objects in this room is laughably out of place?
The small Korean woman massaging Phoebe’s feet in warm water is completely silent. The nail salon is nearly empty. Phoebe turns off her iPhone, closes her eyes, and tries to sleep behind her sunglasses.
Back in the car, the air-conditioning dries her French manicure. She’s spent five hundred hours in the company Explorer. The mileage reads 10,303. It read 789 the day in June when Nick drove her to North Hollywood in the dirty Subaru to pick it up. They spoke six words to each other that morning:
“You missed the exit,” she said.
“Fuck me.”
It’s the middle of August now. She inherited all of her clients from a rep whose job she got when the other woman quit to spend more time with her three-year-old daughter. The colleague reminded Phoebe that with so many hours in the car, she should have a second agenda, some other project to fill the hours. In the Notes app on her iPhone, stuck in traffic, the woman wrote a children’s book about a boy who ate his blanket and it turned into a cape, as well as a treatment and three episodes of a TV series about a young professional mother whose daughter was dropped on her head as a newborn and now speaks only Japanese, despite being raised by white people and having a Salvadoran nanny. It’s a comedy, she explained. Phoebe insisted she had enough to keep her busy, but the woman pressed the point: Be damn sure, because five years can slip through your fingers.
More Starbucks and Krispy Kremes for the office staff. Phoebe can do more of what she did back east. More explicit pics for the docs sent from the Bebe dressing room. But she can’t bring herself to drive two more hours to a few more offices to fill bins in sample closets and make nice with moody office managers to get a few minutes in the office of a new doc who simply doesn’t need what she’s selling. A year ago she was Diamond Status: ten-thousand-dollar bonus (over three months’ rent) and a four-day cruise to the Bahamas that she gave to her mother who never did use it. Now she’s slipping. She’s unranked. Her bonus this year if nothing changes: a navy GSK fleece pullover, bathrobe, and slippers.
The email that arrives on Phoebe’s iPhone is from Citibank. A check has cleared. The email is for Serenos Montessori. The amount is a hundred dollars.
She forwards the email to Nick along with: ???
Her cell rings.
“A deposit,” Nick says.
“For what?”
“It’s small and affordable. Ten-minute drive.”
“From where?”
“It’s an option.”
“Not for us. Not here,” she says.
“Come January?”
“We won’t be here, Nick.”
She ends the call.
• •
The tank is nearly empty, but Phoebe doesn’t like to refill it until the end of the day, so it will be as full as possible in the morning. She can get through an entire day on a full tank, not have to refill once, if she stops at the 76 station near the house. To get through one day without having to stop for gas is a challenge she sets for herself every week. But there’s no way to wait that long today, so she pulls in to a Chevron station. The gas card her job gives her still isn’t working.
She sends two texts to her district manager:
Card’s not working again. How many times?
Still haven’t been reimbursed for last two tanks. This makes three
Carousel Court Page 4