She asks if they’re back home on Carousel Court and Nick shakes his head, says there’s some straightening up that needs to be done. “And I think we need a new fridge,” he adds, laughing.
A bell chimes. Phoebe glances at the white hillside cottage with pale blue shutters. Other women, all in white blouses and yoga pants and slippers, make their way up the grassy slope along winding cobblestone pathways to the building.
“This is so good. Okay?” he says, looking around. “See it through.”
“Why don’t you answer my question?”
He says nothing.
“What is your inclination?” She draws out the last word of her question.
“Not now. I don’t know what’s best. Finish this and we’ll figure it out.”
“Oh, fuck that,” she says, her voice rising. She closes her eyes. She stands and kisses Jackson’s forehead and hands him to Nick and walks away.
93
The path to the beach is narrow. She looks over her shoulder once. The lights are bright in the main cottage; her bungalow is dark. She’s alone and burning up. The wind off the water makes the wet cotton gown feel cold as it sticks to her sweaty thighs and chest. She chews her fingernails raw, digs her pulpy fingertips into her abdomen, which is tight and quivering.
She shares a bright-white-and-honeydew room with a stranger. She is sweating through a blue cotton gown because her cells and nerves and vital organs crave chemicals. They’re greedy, expect more of the same if not better, a new high, more, always more.
The staff here helps her with the process of weaning. They try to help with expectations and perspective. Stay in the moment, all that Zen shit. The moment is the reason she may just walk to the end of the driveway instead of the beach, find the main road, and walk until someone picks her up and drives her home or wherever Nick has him now.
Instead she’s barefoot on a stretch of beach staring at the black water, buried up to her chest in cold, wet sand. Let the tide come in, she thinks. Let nature do what it does. Who is she to resist?
94
Three weeks have passed. Nick is holding a Tupperware container of cookies. “Some woman named Lucy gave these to me.” They’re close to a ledge; the ocean wind is cool. Sunlight burns off the last of a thin gray mist. Phoebe leans in to Jackson and says sternly that he cannot eat these. “They’re poison,” she says. “Let’s be superheroes and save the day.” And one by one Phoebe and Jackson start chucking the cookies over the cliff.
Her eyes are fierce, Nick thinks, as she whips the things out over the water. She’s barefoot and, without makeup, looks pale and raw.
“So you delivered,” she says, glancing sidelong at Nick, barely suppressing a half-smile. “The regenerative time you promised when we came out here.” She hands Jackson the last cookie and compliments his throw. She hands the empty container to Nick.
“When you’re done here,” he says, “just come home.”
Her hair has grown back. Nick says he likes it short. With her finger, she twists a long curl in Jackson’s hair. “I like this.”
“He needs a cut,” Nick says as they walk.
“Let it grow,” she says.
“Are you sleeping?”
She holds her hands out in front of her, spreads her fingers. She studies them, says nothing. “I slept for twenty-two hours. Then I was awake for three days.” The fevers, she says, come when she sleeps. In her dreams she throws herself over the cliffs into the crashing surf for relief. One night, she admits, she sneaked down to the beach in her nightgown and stripped naked, buried herself in the sand for relief.
“This is costing a fortune,” she says.
Nick doesn’t respond. They can afford it for now. But not much longer.
There’s a moment when they’re finished throwing cookies into the surf and Phoebe is holding Jackson and they’re all standing too close to the gravelly edge and Nick is tense, the drop at least forty feet, his hands clenched into fists and inching closer to her, wondering if there’s something in her eyes, some distorted fun-house-mirror version of her own purpose in this moment, or some bleak morass of a life she can’t possibly slog through, that might make her consider the edge.
Nick grabs her arm. “Can we walk a little?”
She laughs. “I’m not jumping.”
“That would be a huge waste of money.”
She puts Jackson down and they walk.
• •
Phoebe has moved on from woodworking. She’s gardening now. Growing amaranth, because unlike kale and spinach, it can thrive in the heat. Nick returns his attention to the thing between them, the reason she walked them to the woodworking studio.
“So,” she says. The white Adirondack chair is misshapen and awkward-looking.
“It’s the angle, maybe?” Nick says, and adjusts it, starts to sit down, to test it.
She grabs his arm. “You don’t want to do that. They want it out of here. It’s depressing people.”
“It’s abstract.”
“Like it’s about to collapse,” she says.
“Can we bring it home?” Nick says.
She says only if they can keep it in the backyard.
“Have you thought about the email I sent?”
She nods.
“Can you do it?”
“My bones feel like lead.” She rubs her left arm, then her right.
“Do you want to at least try it?”
She says she does and runs her hand lightly over the edge of the chair. The paint is still drying. She tries to brush the white from her fingertips. She sighs and says she’s more tired than she thought. “Tell me something we can’t handle, right? That’s what I keep saying to myself,” she says.
Nick pulls a small, neatly folded cotton T-shirt from his pocket, hands it to her. It’s Jackson’s. Nick brings one, unwashed, each visit. She brings it to her face, breathes it in.
95
Nick finishes his third beer and studies the dark shadowy hillside beyond the house, where the winds and the beast that devoured Blackjack came from. His gaze falls to the glowing pool and Phoebe’s patch of soil where she’ll try again. Out front, the orange tent is gone from Metzger’s lawn. Folded up and put away, Metzger said, because whatever deterrent effect it may have had is gone, given what happened to Phoebe in their house.
She’s been home for a month. The ninety days reduced by half when Phoebe and Nick decided it was time.
Nick passes the pool, its soothing chlorine scent, and the fresh topsoil Phoebe spread this morning. He slips through a parting in the hedges they recently planted, heading up the hill. He’s been doing this at night. He waits until she’s asleep because she’d tell him not to, that it’s dangerous and there’s no need. They’re fine, she’d say.
He climbs the hillside and gazes down from where it levels off. The homes on Carousel Court and identical tracts of houses stretch out until they become a blurry field of lights. Blazing. Who’s next? he wonders.
Nick throws empty Corona bottles at the moon from the hillside behind their house. Tonight he carries only a small knife. Tomorrow he may be empty-handed. The next night he may not come up here at all. In some of the houses he sees tonight are his former tenants, scared families whose money he took and spent on his own family. He stands on a hill with a small weapon and his family, somehow, intact.
Pieces of Phoebe are gone, ripped away and replaced by something new. He’s not entirely sure what. There is a depth to her eyes that wasn’t there, as though they’ve sunk. He won’t treat her like a patient, a martyr, or some kind of monster. Nick knows she is none of those things.
The secret he shares with no one because they’d never believe him. The reason he comes up here now, tonight, is this: He can hear Phoebe and Jackson. The cicadas have come and gone, their shells ground into dust, the air finally still and free of smoke,
and the helicopters and sirens less frequent, which means for Nick, on nights like this, he’s sure when he closes his eyes and concentrates, he can hear them both as they sleep, his family, breathing.
96
The email that arrives is from JW’s email account. It’s dated April 1. Phoebe is in the new Serenos Whole Foods and staring at her iPhone and checking the day’s date and it’s the same as the one on the message.
And there’s an attachment, a PDF. She clicks the link and opens an invitation to a company retreat in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. The event is next week. You guessed it. Awash in Chilean sea bass and mint juleps. Come! As a wise man once said: all can be forgiven or at least momentarily forgotten.
When she gets home, she shows Nick the message on her phone, then deletes it.
• •
Walking the hillside later that night, he wonders if something was proved. Some grand test passed. Some crucible endured. The fire season is over. The talk on Carousel Court has shifted to the seasons ahead, new threats, rain and flooding and landslides. Someone moved into the house next to Metzger’s. They seem to have kids, a soccer ball on the lawn. As Nick sorts through the avalanche of unopened mail, he stops when he sees a bill from the window-and-door-replacement company addressed to the Maguire Family. For the first time he can recall, the term carries weight, feels significant, sobering and inspired at the same time. They are, for better or worse, the Maguire Family.
97
Phoebe leaves the water on for Nick’s shower. She’s drying off with a clean white towel. Nick is naked and brushes lightly against her when the towel drops. They linger there. He kisses the back of her neck. She reaches back, rests her hands on his legs, and closes her eyes.
“I’m excited,” he says.
“Me too.”
She feeds Jackson. Nick sets the ADT and turns on the sprinklers. She wears a yellow cotton dress; he’s in olive pants and a crisp blue button-down. Her silver bracelets, rings, and turquoise necklace are all new. She did her own nails last night with clear polish, and the reading glasses soften her further. Nick shaved and his haircut is conservative, sideburns trimmed. He has two cups of coffee already made, so no need to stop.
They arrive twenty minutes early, which is their intention. They want a few minutes to walk around, take in the surroundings, the vibe and energy of the place.
They sit in five tiny blue chairs. Nick, Phoebe, and Jackson. Tea and cake are served. They’re asked to talk about Jackson. Neither of them hesitates, but each pauses thoughtfully before responding to questions about Jackson and their priorities for him, their assessment of his personality. Nick and Phoebe each credit the other for Jackson’s most impressive personality traits; each takes responsibility, with self-deprecation, for areas that need work.
Two women sit across from them, jotting things down, asking Jackson gentle questions about stories he likes to be read and favorite foods. One of the women offers her hand and asks Jackson to walk with her around the classroom. The walls burst with color from student art, and sunlight floods the room.
As new parents, they’re asked to describe the greatest challenge they’ve encountered thus far. Something that none of the parenting books or the wise counsel of family prepared them for. Something they never saw coming.
An enormous orange sun is painted on the classroom floor. Jackson circles it. The women watch him. Around and around. Jackson is giggling as he picks up speed. He’s nearly running now. Is this a bad thing? Nick and Phoebe worry that Jackson may be blowing his chance with too much enthusiasm, not responding as he should to direction, lacking control over his instincts, unable to contain his exuberance.
“He’s a runner,” Phoebe says finally, laughing.
Admit him or not, they think. What the women here don’t understand, what no one else knows or could ever fully appreciate, is that wherever the resilience comes from, however perverse, it’s their own. Tell them no, dismiss or reject them, burn their house to the ground. They’ve put themselves through worse. Yet here they sit, perched on little plastic chairs, never more comfortable together, this crisp bright morning the beginning of something.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost I’d like to thank Jennifer Joel of ICM for her support, guidance, infinite patience, and wisdom. I’m not sure where this project would be without her. Jofie Ferrari-Adler of Simon & Schuster has been more than an extraordinary editor and advocate, he’s been a friend. Thank you as well to Julianna Haubner of Simon & Schuster for her responsiveness and kind words throughout. I’m enormously grateful to Jonathan Karp and Marysue Rucci for their support and stellar editorial insights. And enormous gratitude for the tireless work Richard Rhorer, Erin Reback, and Stephen Bedford have done and are doing. I’d also like to thank the following people who offered invaluable help along the way: Beth Thomas and Ciara Robinson of Simon & Schuster; Josie Freedman of ICM; Katharine Cluverius, Gita Kumar, Anna Louisa Yon, Leeya Mehta, Morgan Macgregor, and Eric Reid. And of course, Morgan Entrekin, who gave me a chance and published my first book so well.
And for my family: my mother who reads and appreciates fiction in a way that fills me with so much happiness (I have another Roland Merullo novel for you!); my brother James who inspires me with his decency and talent and his superstar wife Kate Malone, bringing out his best, no doubt. Nancy and Matthew, Suzy and Chrissy: thank you for being so good to me.
Jeanine and Julien, there are likely words that express what you’ve given me and made me, but I can’t find them. You truly are my golden age.
Simon & Schuster Reading Group Guide
By Joe McGinniss Jr.
This reading group guide for Carousel Court includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.
Introduction
In the wake of a terrible accident, Nick and Phoebe Maguire move from Boston to Carousel Court—a brand-new subdivision in Southern California—with big plans: upgrade and flip their house, move to the beach, and live the upper-middle-class lifestyle they’ve always wanted. But when the housing bubble bursts, so do their dreams of a nice car, organic grocery stores, and private school for their son, Jackson. Driven to extreme measures by debt and desperation, Nick and Phoebe reach the brink of self-destruction before they can fight their way back to happiness.
Topics and Questions for Discussion
1. Nick and Phoebe are deeply flawed characters who intentionally hurt each other—and themselves—throughout the course of the novel. Did you see them as relatable or sympathetic in any way? Are they victims or perpetrators? Why or why not?
2. The physical setting in Carousel Court is alternately a breezy, sunny California where “everything pops” and a barren, smoldering landscape of “moaning winds and anguished cries coming from the bone-dry hills”. Discuss the significance of the setting and how it both impacts and reflects Nick and Phoebe’s psyches over the course of the novel.
3. The specter of America’s subprime mortgage crisis looms large in this novel. How does McGinniss’s fictional portrayal support, inform, or contradict your understanding of the real-life housing bubble?
4. How do the gendered expectations of marriage factor into Nick and Phoebe’s relationship? What motivates their individual striving: wealth, prestige, physical comfort, stability, or something else?
5. Phoebe’s body seems to deteriorate over the course of the novel, while Nick appears stronger and more virile than ever. What is the symbolic importance of their physical bodies?
6. Discuss Jackson’s role in Carousel Court. How would the novel differ if Nick and Phoebe were childless?
7. What is your impression of Nick and Phoebe’s neighbors? How does the financial crisis impact their sense of communit
y?
8. Nick finds two abandoned dogs while clearing out foreclosed homes: one long dead and the other, who he adopts and names Blackjack, severely neglected. Why do you think McGinniss includes these two instances in the novel? What do you make of Blackjack’s grisly death?
9. What is Phoebe’s primary motivation for going back to JW again and again? Is she simply attracted to his wealth and power, or is she using him as a means of helping her family?
10. Discuss Nick’s affair with Mallory. Do you think his infidelity is more forgivable than Phoebe’s? Why or why not?
11. Why do you think McGinniss chose to reveal Phoebe’s childhood backstory at the end of the novel? Did these chapters change your opinion of her in any way?
12. In what ways is Carousel Court a cultural critique? Is this a novel about modern-day values, or is it a universal story?
13. Reread the novel’s two epigraphs. Has your interpretation of these quotes changed after finishing the book?
Enhance Your Book Club
1. Watch the film The Big Short with your book club (or read the source material by Michael Lewis). Discuss how the real-life housing crisis compares to Nick and Phoebe’s circumstances in Carousel Court.
2. Cast your own film version of Carousel Court.Which actors would you want to play the main characters and why?
3. Read Joe McGinniss’s first novel, The Delivery Man, and compare it to Carousel Court. Is there any continuity between the two in terms of style, theme, and setting? Which book was your favorite?
4. Find out more about McGinniss by visiting his website (www.joemcginnissjr.com) and following him on Twitter (@joemcginnissjr).
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