“Hmmm,” Paula said. “Your grandma has always liked making things. Do you like it? What about the smell?”
“It’s okay. I like the smell of dog better,” Rowan said.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Especially the smell of Old Tex.”
On their way out the door, Paula said, “Do I really look like Julia Roberts?”
This was usually Marla’s favourite time of day. The sun was dropping below the horizon and she was finished the shopping, the cooking, the cleaning. She was anticipating baths, books and pyjamas, knowing that in an hour or so the kids would be sound asleep and her time would be all her own.
But tonight there was Coach Crawford.
It had taken her nearly an hour to calm Tim down after practice. He’d huff-huff-huffed, unable to speak, only to be overtaken by more sobs. She got him to bend over and breathe, her hand on the back of his head, then held a cool cloth to his forehead and cheeks. Breathe, honey, and she’d waited for him to do it. When he still wasn’t able to calm down, she had him lie on the sofa with his head in her lap while she rubbed his back.
But he was still upset. It had taken her ages to get him into pyjamas and then into bed, while her poor little Amy stood in the doorway, utterly uncertain about the order of things and needing her order, because Amy was a somewhat unimaginative child.
Is Timmy going to die? she’d asked.
No, honey, of course not. He’s just upset is all. It will be okay. You go climb in your bed, doll.
And she had, of course. She always did what she was told. She was the easy one. She was … malleable. Her little doll.
Marla could still hear the occasional sob coming from Tim’s room. He was crying in his sleep, and she was livid.
Tim hadn’t made the baseball team. He had handed her the note, struggling to get the words out: “Mister … Crawf—Crawf—Crawford …”
She’d read the note while Tim buried his head in her stomach and cried.
Dear Mrs. Riley-Moore:
Tim’s skills are exceptional, but unfortunately he will not be invited to play on the baseball team this year, since he is still too young. We hope that next year he will try out again, when he has reached ten years old. His skills are top-notch and we’ll be glad to see him at that time.
Yours truly,
B. Crawford, Phys. Ed.
Haven Woods Elementary
Asshole.
Marla peeked in on her daughter. Amy was on her back looking like a sleeping princess, her hair spread out over the pillow. Her tiny, perfect face was smooth and serene. She would lie like that all night, never moving. Marla knew this because it was always so.
Amy was only six, but so beautiful people stopped them on their rare ventures out of Haven Woods.
oh my god what a beautiful child
Men, women, other children … it didn’t matter—the girl stopped traffic.
(she was a doll
—but that was no fault of hers)
She closed the door and peeked in again on Timmy. He lay curled on his side, his cheeks still stained with tears, his little nose red. His nightlight was shaped like a baseball, and just seeing it inflamed Marla again.
how dare he Crawford the little prick little bastard prick
She’d met the coach on one of her many trips to the school. She volunteered a lot. It was what a mother did, if she could—and Marla could.
Crawford was a stereotype: short but built, with huge biceps and overworked shoulders. His leg muscles were equally defined (she would suspect implants, except she didn’t think the little troll made enough money). Marla figured such a man taught grade three because he needed to feel superior, and the best way to do that was to boss around the only people he was certain to be both taller and smarter than (although that was only a matter of time). He was probably jealous of Tim, a natural athlete. That was it.
Marla paced her slowly darkening house, undoing the damage of a day with young children, picking up jackets and shoes, carrying dishes back to the sink. She picked up toys. Barbie, pretty in a party dress, shoes missing; a stuffed dog that had no name that Marla knew; a miniature bow and arrow. And—
And a plastic man who was supposed to be on safari. Jungle Jim was his name. He wore a plastic vest with accessories that attached and detached: a canteen, a net and a tiny toy gun. A little jungle truck, like an SUV, came with him.
Hello.
The truck and Jungle Jim went into Marla’s sweater pocket. She started a load of laundry. She turned the lights off in the laundry room, leaving the washer to whoosh and purr.
The kitchen, illuminated by the light over the stove, was dim and tidy. And quiet—the dishwasher cycle was complete. Marla would unload it soon.
She stood the toy safari man at the end of the counter. His feet were broad and flat so that he could pose in his safari village with the little plastic cages for a lion, a zebra and a hippo.
Hippos are dangerous animals. More dangerous than sharks, crocodiles or dogs. She and Tim had looked it up on the Internet. More people are killed every year by hippos than by any other animal on earth. Of course the deadliest animal was still the
cougar
She set the truck at the other end of the counter. She bent to eye level and lined it up with the little toy man. The over-muscled, self-important little man.
With an elegant flick of her finger, the car rolled across the counter until it ran full tilt into Jungle Jim. He toppled over, bounced and fell to the floor. If he’d been flesh and blood, there would have been a satisfying splat.
Marla stared at the little man, and from her other pocket she pulled the note from school. She opened it and scanned it again. Won’t be invited … top-notch skills … Then she dropped it. It floated to the floor, landing on the toy man, covering him completely.
She felt herself relax.
After a moment she looked at her watch. It was just about eight thirty. Doug wouldn’t be home for another two hours. He worked so hard.
She picked up the phone and dialled the Wittmores’ number, something she had not done in
(how many years had her brother been dead?)
years. Why would she? Audra was her mother’s friend. Not so much anymore, of course.
Marla’s expression was hopeful and a little yearning. She wanted to talk, to say
Paula ohmigawd I had such a time with my boy tonight I’m so glad you’re there I have to say—
She wanted it to be like before.
Paula, Danny Sparks said he liked me but I think he just wants to be—
On the other end the phone rang and rang and rang and rang. No machine picked up. Marla hung up after fourteen rings. Even if she’d dozed off in front of the TV, Paula would have heard fourteen rings. Or her daughter would. Rowan. She wondered where they could be.
Outside it was cloudless and clear.
Marla whistled, a low, sweet sound. In a moment she heard a noise behind her and turned to look. Her cat, Troubles, padded into the kitchen unhurriedly. When he was at her feet, she scooped him up. She held him to her breast just like she’d held Tim earlier, stroked his head and ears and rubbed her finger under his chin. He purred. She didn’t much like the cat, but he was her … pet. She carried him to the back door, pushed it open and dropped the cat outside.
“Go see what Old Tex is doing.” The cat wandered (unhurriedly) towards the front of the house. Marla watched until she couldn’t see him anymore.
She was glad Paula was back. It was unfortunate that the circumstances were less than perfect and probably going to get much, much worse. But in time she hoped Paula would come to see that there was no other way. All for one and one for all—that sort of thing.
And Rowan was perfect.
(she knew why too but she didn’t think Izzy did)
She considered for a moment whether her kids were really down for the night. Amy was for sure. And Tim? The little guy was exhausted and not likely to stir now. She decided they were.
&nb
sp; Marla changed her clothes and went for a run.
EIGHT
THE BACKYARD STILL SMELLED A BIT like barbecue sauce and steak, with undernotes of freshly mowed lawn. Through an open window in the house, Paula could hear canned laughter. Rowan had been beside herself with glee when she realized that Sanderson’s big-screen TV came with cable.
Sanderson had baked potatoes in the oven and tossed a green salad. He’d even picked up dessert—obviously going for the kid vote—a dozen brightly coloured monster cookies so sweet Paula could hardly finish one. Rowan had ploughed through three.
If he was trying to make friends and influence people, he was certainly making serious headway with Rowan and Old Tex. Paula wasn’t sure how she was going to peel her daughter away from the cable television and big cookies or Old Tex from the backyard, where he was now lying half a foot from Gusto. Old friends already.
They talked a little about what he had left behind when he moved to Haven Woods, carefully skirting his divorce. Too soon for that kind of talk. When it got close to her own love life, there were steaks to turn, potatoes to poke, a table to be set.
It was lovely. And easy.
After dinner, once Ro was settled in the sparsely furnished living room—a single long, obviously new leather sofa faced the big-screen TV, and that was it. I’m still figuring out what I need,” he told them—she and Sanderson went out into the backyard and collapsed into a couple of folding chairs, the sort you take camping, with a cup holder on the side that fits a beer bottle more easily than a cup of tea.
Sanderson took a long swallow of his beer. “Heaven, on a June day,” he said.
“My dad used to say that.”
“Mine too. My mom says, ‘Fill your boots.’ I’ve never quite figured out what it means. I think it’s sorta do what you want, you know?”
Paula nodded. “My mother never used to tell me anything directly. She quizzes. When I saw her today, all she wanted to know was who I saw, where did I go … when I got to talk to her at all.”
“How is she feeling?”
Paula groaned. “Her symptoms are so vague. When I got home from the park, I called every doctor in the book. From what I can tell, no one is treating her at all. The nurse there …” She trailed off, not wanting to get into a rant.
“My mom doesn’t like that I moved back to the old neighbourhood. She lives over in Lakewood now. Our fierce rivals—remember that? Lakewood Lynxes versus Haven Woods Hitters.” The baseball teams.
“Why doesn’t she like your moving home? You grew up here.”
“I have great memories of Haven Woods, but my mom seems to remember a lot of bad things.”
Paula took a drink of her beer and made a noncommittal sound.
(bad things have happened here)
“Remember the Chapman house?” Sanderson said. “The guy who killed his family?”
“Sure. We girls used to scare ourselves stiff telling tales about it. Wasn’t he supposed to have sacrificed his wife and kid to the devil? Used to give me nightmares. Is that what bothers your mother?”
“I think he just went nuts and killed them. Domestic homicide. But later, the rumour about Satanists practising the dark arts”—he deepened his voice comically—“that bothered her.”
“Did she think it was true?”
He shrugged. “The guy wrote on the walls: ‘He Lives Here’ and ‘Different god, different rules.’ Wasn’t that it? He was batshit crazy. Everybody was into weird stuff in the seventies, weren’t they? And every generation has their bad murder. In the sixties it was the Manson murders. The seventies was that guy who shot up that McDonald’s. What was in the eighties?”
“Glam rock,” she said. “May it burn in heck.”
He laughed and she was pleased.
Paula took another sip of beer. “So why did you move back?”
“You’re going to be sorry you asked.” He leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs out in front of him.
“No, I won’t. Tell me.”
“After college I lived in the city for a long time, got into the scene—you know, the clubs, the music. Girls. Thursday, Friday, Saturday night, all about going out. Hang out with some buddies at Bad Laundry for a beer and a burger. Hit a club or five, crawl home.” He laughed self-consciously. “Well, that’s what I did for about four years. Clubs, bars, drugs, beer, music, babes.”
“It sounds like fun.”
“It was fun. Good times. Then it turned a corner. Suddenly the same faces telling the same jokes, everybody trying to be hipper than the rest, finding a line—it was so substance-less. Is that a word?”
“Sure.”
“And it got to feel a little … Masque of the Red Death–ish. Do you remember that story? When that guy ran from room to room while everyone was at a party?”
“Yeah, I do remember. I’m impressed we both do.”
“It was like that. I kept going into the same room—same faces, same hangover—and after awhile I felt like I was missing everything important. So I married the best candidate: Kelly—my ex-wife now.”
He took a long swallow of beer. “We moved to the suburbs. Next on the agenda was a couple of kids, a fence, dog. I wanted it all, you know. Got Gusto about a month after we moved in. A starter baby.”
“Sounds perfect. What happened?” Paula asked. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me. If you’re not comfortable.”
He raised his hand. “No, I don’t mind. It’s not a secret. It might require a fresh beer, though. How’s yours?” He stood and held his hand out for her bottle.
“You can bring me one, but this is still pretty good.”
Sanderson went inside the house.
It was dark enough that it was a strain to see. There were stacks of flattened boxes just outside the patio doors. In the middle of the yard was a pile of rubble. One side of the old barbecue was still intact and a sledgehammer leaned up against it. It looked as if there might be perennials in the bed along the back fence.
A home in the first stages of rebirth.
Paula was startled when she caught sight of the cat on the fence. It sat very still, the only sign that it was alive at all the steady, rhythmic flipping of its tail. When the patio doors opened, the cat jumped down soundlessly into the yard next door. The dogs hadn’t even noticed.
Sanderson passed her a cold beer, still capped. “We got married and moved to the burbs. And I was expecting”—he held out his hands, gesturing to all of Haven Woods—“a neighbourhood, you know?”
She did.
“The place we moved into, Terra Rija, it was so new there was no community there. We got to know some of the neighbours—over the back fence type of thing—but there was very little socializing, even after we joined the club, started golfing. We didn’t run into anybody except in the parking lot at Safeway. Remember the backyard parties the Rileys used to throw?”
“Sure, every weekend—”
“Our parents hanging out in the back, drinking beer and cocktails, while we did whatever we wanted. I remember riding my bike with David Riley, Pete, Lonnie, in the solid dark—had to be midnight—showing up back at the barbecue and the parents were still at it, laughing. Everybody eating s’mores.”
“Do you remember the night we all slept over in the Rileys’ family room? There had to be ten of us. We watched movies …”
“The original Friday the 13th! I remember it scaring my pants off, so to speak … I don’t think there was any hanky-panky.” In the dark Paula blushed.
c’mon no one will notice no one goes into the spare room
“And there was some song we kept singing … I think it was Bon Jovi.” He tried the chorus. “I cried and I cried / There were nights that I died for you, baby …”
The song played in her head as if she had heard it just that morning. David—all of them, she guessed, but she only remembered him—had sung it in her ear. She’d thought it was the height of romance.
“Our parents just seemed like stealth agents or som
ething, moving behind the scenes, making our lives work but not showing us how to do it ourselves. I was useless for so long in the real world.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Stealth agents.”
“It was like that forever. Right up until David Riley died.”
Paula went blank. She was suddenly keenly aware of the chilly air, the sound of the television inside the house, the feel of the cold beer bottle against her thigh.
“You okay? You cold? We can go inside if you like.”
She shook her head. “No, this is good. I just … haven’t thought about that for a long time.”
“Oh man. Sorry. You were there that day?”
Paula inhaled the night air, closed her eyes. The beer was sweating against her pants. She took a swallow of her beer. “Yeah.”
“So was I.” Sanderson picked at the label on his bottle. “Do you know something?”
She turned to him. In profile he was very solid looking, a Marlboro man. “What?”
A slow smile spread on his face. “I had a big crush on you when we were about fifteen, sixteen. Before you left. But you were always with Riley.”
“You did not.”
“Yeah, I did. You had a red bathing suit with a funny round thing in the middle, and the straps went up around your neck … Whaddya call that?”
“A halter?” She thought back; there was a vague memory
(fighting against more vivid memories I wanna change my top)
of the pool and the wobbling, adult feeling in the pit of her stomach when the boys looked at her, how she drank that up, at the same time wishing she could disappear. “I remember that suit,” she said.
“So do I. That suit gave me dreams.”
Paula cheeks got hot. “Oh, please … It was a long time ago.”
He nodded. “Yup.”
She sighed. “The steaks were great. This was really terrific, but I better get Ro back to the house and to bed.”
“I haven’t chased you away, have I?”
“No.” But she couldn’t stay.
“Good. Let’s do this again, okay?” He smiled broadly at her and she smiled back and the two them got up.
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