14
She picked Jackson up early today. She had no appointments after twelve and got home at one and spent an hour online instead of napping or doing laundry, still overly caffeinated and anxious from driving. She decided, instead of being alone, she’d walk three houses down and take Jackson from Mai for the rest of the day. Whole Foods had everything she needed. Now she’s in the kitchen, marinating three lamb chops in a blue ceramic bowl. Nick will be home by seven. They’ll have dinner as a family, she told him on the phone. “You’re cooking dinner?” he said skeptically. “Are you planning to poison me?” She slices a lemon in half. She chops garlic cloves with a long knife and adds fresh rosemary. Over the Harry Connick Jr. on the Bose box, she narrates for Jackson while she works, sprinkles Cheerios on his tray. The tablespoon of butter and canola oil sizzle on high heat, splatter, so she lowers the setting and the next song comes on and Jackson cries out and Phoebe drops a few more Cheerios on his tray and through the kitchen window glimpses the orange light off the surface of the pool.
The bubbles of blood splatter and signal the inch-thick fillets are ready to flip.
Nick messages that he’ll be home early. She texts back that it’s good timing because dinner is ready.
She mixes the Whole Foods–prepared asparagus salad and heats garlic mashed potatoes. She places two bottles of wine, white and red, on the dining room table. He’s home.
Nick eats slowly, picks at the meal. He eats around the chop. After finishing his potatoes, he’s unsure what to eat next.
“What is it?” she asks.
The music still plays. He says that it’s a nice touch, they should do it more, play music during their time at home together.
“You don’t like the lamb?”
“It’s fine.”
“Then why aren’t you eating it?”
He hesitates, studies her plate. “Red meat makes me sick,” he says finally.
“Since when?”
“I don’t know. Recently.”
“All red meat?”
“Can’t eat it.”
“At all?”
“At all.”
“It was this or lobster ravioli. I wish you’d told me.”
“You could have asked.”
“Well, this is a huge fucking waste then,” she snaps.
15
The calls start the morning after he posts the signs. The houses Nick selected are from Boss’s list of bank-owned properties that have been trashed out and sitting vacant the longest. The voices from the calls that pour in all have the same inflection: hushed, urgent, joyless. Nick adopts the same tone of voice as the physician who explained to Phoebe and Nick what would happen, what to expect, when Phoebe had an abortion just after college. Neither Nick nor the people calling want to be on the phone any longer than they have to be. So they cover the essentials: times and locations for meeting, first at the house, then, if they want it, a Starbucks or Panera for the contracts and cashier’s checks and keys.
Nick figured out the logistics days ago. The signs needed to pop, the lettering clean and bold, the message simple. He chose burnt yellow with black letters and candy-apple red with white lettering. The two versions he came up with:
NEED HELP? NEED A HOME?
LOW RENT, NO QUESTIONS ASKED
And the other:
There IS a Way OUT
RENT: Month-to-Month
NO Questions Asked
The signs were laminated plastic and started at thirty dollars apiece but lasted for six months to a year, he was told by the middle-aged black man behind the counter at Kinko’s. Nick said thick paper, something durable, maybe laminated, asked about prices for twelve-by-eighteen and decided on a hundred, then changed his mind, ordered two hundred laminated plastic burnt yellow and red signs. Each sign had a phone number in stark black lettering with a 909 area code underneath the words. The numbers were different from each other and didn’t belong to Nick, were disposable phones that he’d use to get started. With the stack in the passenger seat and a staple gun and clear packing tape, Nick spent two hours posting fifty of the signs on telephone poles and traffic lights at intersections. He circled a block, stopped at a red light, snapped a few pictures with his iPhone, decided the phone number was in fact large enough and the sign did pop, the white against red.
This morning he sits alone in a booth at a diner off the Foothill Freeway, staring out at traffic, waiting on new tenants—a young lesbian couple—for a house in Pomona. He’s nervous. He orders only decaf and swallows one of Phoebe’s Klonopins. He considers leaving. He can’t rent a house he doesn’t own. What is he even thinking? But when they appear, the couple looks as tired as the waitress refilling his coffee. And there’s no turning back. He feels something bordering on sympathy for this couple: They wear their fear on their faces. He’s putting them in a safer place, however temporary. He’ll treat them well, offer help, be responsive to their needs. There’s about a ten-second silence filled with the sounds of some familiar pop song playing on a jukebox in another booth and Spanish coming from behind the counter as tables are bused and orders are called back to the kitchen.
The women perk up. They’re thorough, ask so many questions:
Why a cashier’s check?
Why couldn’t you meet at the house again?
Why no pet deposit?
For the first time he fears getting caught. They’re on to him.
“Do you guys want the house or not?” Nick says. “It’s not complicated. If you have reservations, forget it. No hard feelings.” He removes a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet and places it on the table. “That should cover your tea.”
They stop him, ask him to wait for a moment. They glance at each other. The heavier of the two sighs audibly. They look exhausted. They sign and date the one-page rental agreement that covers the first six months and which neither party has any intention of following. Nick keeps both copies and they don’t even notice. They hand Nick a cashier’s check for twenty-four hundred dollars, which covers first and last (he waived the deposit). He slides the check back to them. “After you get your keys.”
16
All the neighbors wear brave faces. No panic in their eyes. No tight grins or faraway looks or awkward gaps in conversation. The mood is pleasant, if not festive. Marina’s daiquiris help. The only flaws in Kostya’s backyard design: mismatched western red cedar planks haphazardly nailed to the pressure-treated pine fence that surrounds his backyard, giving it a cheap two-tone look, and the single string of white lights hung from the branches of a dried-up eucalyptus tree nearest the pool. “Fly Me to the Moon” drifts from speakers Phoebe can’t see. JW used to play the Harry Connick Jr. version in his Boston office.
It’s the first week of September. Back here, behind the biggest, nicest house on Carousel Court, the neighbors are celebrating the end of summer, though they all know the heat won’t end anytime soon. And an orange tent on a front lawn with a loaded pump-action Mossberg within thirty-five feet of the children is less of a concern than it should be.
Phoebe closes her eyes against the sun. Propranolol kick-starts the Klonopin. She’s noticed the difference lately, how quickly things slow down for her. Phoebe sips her daiquiri from a blue plastic cup, and when her eyes adjust to the light, she is further reassured by the sight of Mai holding Jackson, sitting next to her husband. Nick sips his beer from a blue plastic cup next to Phoebe on a chaise longue, shirtless and tan, more muscular than he’s ever been. And it’s all from the job and climbing the living room wall, because he never did get a gym membership out here, too expensive.
“She was a teacher in Vietnam,” Marina is telling Phoebe, just out of earshot from Mai. Marina is smoking a long, thin cigarette. “She was best nanny for us. Clean. Good core.” Marina taps her breastbone. “She work weekend, too, for you?”
“Monday through Friday.”
“She cook, too,” Marina adds. “Better than me.”
“She steams broccoli and this Vietnamese soup and sticky rice.”
“It’s called pfo.”
Nick says, “I see her jogging down the street, pushing that monster stroller and singing.”
“And the notes,” Phoebe says. “I love the notes.” The daily handwritten reports of their activities by the hour. “A godsend,” she adds, her eyelids heavy.
Phoebe watches Mai apply sunscreen to Jackson’s shirtless little body. Mai and her husband are in their fifties and say very little, but she smiles a lot and wears white sneakers and khakis. Phoebe closes her eyes; Nick is talking, but she’s not listening. She wonders how much better off she’d be if Mai had been around when she was nine and thirteen and seventeen. How many rough edges smoothed over with that kind of nurturing. Jackson deserves that much. She wants to bring Mai home with her tonight and keep her there and make everything better.
She finishes her drink. Nick is smiling stupidly at her or the kids launching themselves into the pool, and now he has Jackson, is stroking his head, and says something about next weekend and a trip to the beach and Phoebe closes her eyes again and everything around her spins so violently that she’s forced to open them and when she does Nick and Jackson are gone.
• •
Kostya hoists his son over his head and roars. The child screams with laughter. Kostya throws him into the pool. The child comes up laughing. Kostya grabs his other son, tosses him in, then his daughter, leaps in after them.
“They’re zoo people,” Marina says. “Belong in zoos to hump in public.” She lies back and takes a drag off her cigarette. She’s complaining about the men at the car wash, who are always staring at her tits.
“At least there’s something worth looking at,” Phoebe says, and her eyes close as she massages her temples.
“You too skinny, bitch. Still have your boobs.”
Phoebe is lounging next to Marina by the pool, still saying yes every time she’s offered another daiquiri. Phoebe reaches for Marina’s cigarette, takes a drag, and surveys the property. The blue wooden playhouse with white shutters; the thick oleander bushes that obscure the eight-foot pine fencing surrounding the entire perimeter. A rectangular sandbox, a bar with stools, tiki torches, and a cabana, and still a generous amount of open space, a thick green lawn for the kids and dogs to roll around on.
“I like your house,” Phoebe says flatly.
“I like your ass.” Marina reaches over and smacks Phoebe’s rear end, her short shorts showing off tan, toned thighs. “Fuck you, girl. No cellulites. You got work?”
“We’ll have people over,” Phoebe says, and sighs.
“What we, white woman?” Nick snaps.
“We’ll host next time,” Phoebe says without conviction. Jackson now sits on a blue towel spread out between Nick’s and Phoebe’s chairs.
“Would you like anything, Marina?” Nick stands over the women, stares at Marina’s breasts spilling out of her white bikini top as he finishes off a beer, his third.
“No, darling.” She lights another cigarette. “But if you see my husband, tell him he need to light torches.”
“Gorgeous? Another daiquiri?”
Phoebe doesn’t answer. Marina punches her shoulder.
Nick grins. “She’s cranky. Needs a nap.”
Phoebe’s not smiling, though.
“I blame your daiquiris.” Nick leans in close to Phoebe, his warm breath in her ear. He says nothing. He runs his free hand along the back of her head, then grabs it. His words slow and thick, he says, “It’s all my fault. And it always will be.” He looks down at their son, rubs his head, and walks away.
“Finally, we agree on something,” she calls out.
“Father of the year!” he yells, not looking back.
• •
The only other source of calm here tonight, aside from Mai, the daiquiris, and the benzos, is Kostya, with his thick frame, long black hair, and reassuring voice. Phoebe watches him hoist a keg over his head while explaining to his daughter how to set the DVR to record some movie she doesn’t want to miss and reminding Metzger, who is working both grills, to flip the steaks.
“I wanted smaller,” Kostya says to Phoebe. “Less house. All this is work and more work, more worry.” He hands her a Corona and she sits up, finishes off the last of her daiquiri, then takes a sip from the cold bottle, and Marina laughs. Phoebe makes a sound of approval.
“Strong, no?” Marina asks.
Phoebe smiles. Nick sits down next to her with Jackson. He leans in, his dry lips at her warm ear. “What if we both self-medicate? How would that work?” He’s clenching his jaw.
“Nope,” she says, and resolves to switch back to daiquiris.
“More house, more can go wrong. But she want space and biggest house on block. What have you,” Kostya shrugs and runs a hand through his hair.
“Whatever,” Marina corrects Kostya. “Not what have you.”
“She and kids are home all day, so okay, we get bigger space.”
One of their kids sneaks up, squeezes between Kostya and Marina, and says something softly, shy but urgent. Kostya continues with Nick and Phoebe. “You have fires still next door?”
Nick nods.
“We talk to him.” Kostya nods; his unshaven face is red and acne-scarred. A faded bluish-green tattoo on his neck, unidentifiable characters. “He running scared. Like Metzger in his tent.” He waves and grins at Metzger, who is staring at them from across the yard. “Like this one.” He pinches Marina’s soft, pale waist. She slaps his hand. Their skinny son is speaking fast Russian. Marina brushes him off. Kostya wheels, leans in to his son, stabs the boy’s bare tan chest with a thick finger, says something. The child sulks, doesn’t move.
“This one gets nervous.” Kostya is now affectionately rubbing his son’s head while motioning toward his wife. “She hears things in the night. Sirens and noises from other houses, sounds she doesn’t know what it is.”
“I don’t like the vibrations,” Marina explains.
“Vibes,” Kostya says, eager to correct her for once.
“Last week when all the lights go off,” she continues.
Kostya interrupts, gestures at the sky as he speaks. “All streetlights go off, and ours in the house were flicking on, off, on, off. She bring the kids into bed, all three, and kicks me out and tell me, ‘Go keep watch.’ ”
“As you should,” she says, then, conspiratorially, “because tent man and his guns.”
“You have a gun.”
“I don’t sleep on the yard.”
“You make me sleep on yard.” Kostya laughs.
“So how dangerous is he?” Nick asks, nodding in Metzger’s direction. There’s a pause. Marina looks at her husband, who shakes his head.
“What?” Phoebe asks. Nick looks at Kostya.
“Well,” Marina urges her husband. “They should know.”
“That is not the type of man to go quiet,” Kostya says, rubbing the right side of his face. He meets Nick’s eyes and nods. “He will come to you soon for money. He ask us twice already.”
Nick says nothing.
“He say it’s his duty to defend his home,” Kostya adds.
“How much did he ask for?” Phoebe asks.
Kostya and Marina exchange a quick look as she responds, “Too much.”
“But fate is fate,” Kostya says. “So now this one say it is my job to protect her, us, the house. And it is the primary objective. As I say. Get through this time. This is home. But she has the gun!” He laughs too loudly and everyone else kind of smiles, unsure. “So there I am in living room, holding her pink pistol, watching for zombies. Watching the watchman.”
Nick takes Phoebe’s hand, which surprises her. She checks, but he’s not looking at her. His skin
feels callused, and he has a piece of moleskin wrapped around the meaty part below the pinkie where he cut himself at work. She likes it when he takes her hand at unexpected times. She usually feels tension release. Not tonight, though. Not lately. She has rings on three fingers today and he’s playing with them. He thumbs the sterling silver engagement and wedding bands, the small stone he admitted to spending eight hundred dollars on in a dimly lit shop in New Orleans on their first trip down there. He leans over and says something about wanting to take her home right now, lay her back on the buttercream stairs. “Let’s go.” But she doesn’t budge.
Kostya continues. “So who ends up sitting by window all night?” He slaps his chest. “Because now I freak out.” He shoots a look at Marina, who just shrugs. “You lie,” she says. He laughs.
“Home,” Nick whispers.
“And the dogs, they can’t sleep, so they are pacing round and round because,” Kostya says, “there is so much goddamn tenseness in this house.” He grabs Marina by the waist with both hands and bites her long neck. “I eat her up.” She can’t suppress her laughter. “She taste like oyster.”
“Phoebe keeps a knife under her side of the mattress,” Nick says loudly. “How scared should I be?” He’s turning on her.
She stands as though leaving.
“It’s a long one, too,” Nick says. “Huge blade.”
“You gave it to me!” Phoebe pantomimes a gun with her fingers and fires a round at Nick.
“Found it in a foreclosed Spanish revival in Yorba Linda . . .” Nick trails off.
Before she slips inside the house through the sliding patio door, Phoebe waits until Nick’s eyes find her, and when they do, she stares, her sunglasses still on, and he blows her a kiss and she stands perfectly still and if he were within earshot she’d tell him what she thinks of him, the first thing that comes to mind as she looks at him sitting on the low chair in the shadows with their son. She’d tell him explicitly, so there was no confusion: He’s failing.
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