The Show House

by Dan Lopez

  Despite evidence to the contrary, you can be remarkably adept at evading conflict. You catch the clerk’s eye while he’s still a few yards off. He approaches with caution, gauging the situation. To head him off, you float a subtle nod and flit a finger. He pauses, and a moment later he veers back to his station in the middle of the sales floor, where he attends to a thin woman in a floral print dress examining a vase for imperfections. He glances back and you smile briefly before breaking eye contact. The whole exchange is over in a minute.

  “He was cute.” Alex abandons the crystal wine decanter stopper he’s been handling. “You should’ve let him come over.”

  “Are we cool?”

  He shrugs and heads to the escalators, leaving you to follow. When you catch up, he’s at the food court, scrolling through his phone. “I’m hungry,” he says. For the moment at least it seems he’s ready to forget about the dog.

  You volunteer to scout a suitable table, then hand him a wad of cash—much more than he’ll actually need. “Find the closest approximation to a salad and whatever you’d like for yourself.”

  “Keep this up and I may start thinking I’m just your houseboy.”

  “We wouldn’t want that,” you say drily.

  “Anything to drink?”

  “Surprise me.”

  You find a table by the windows away from all the idle food court chatter and sit.

  This talk of the dog has surfaced an ongoing issue that you’ve ignored for too long. You never fully thought through the implications of removing Alex from the shelter, and now you’re at a loss as to what to do with him long term. You can’t keep putting him up in the show house. Sooner or later someone is bound to find out. But you can’t just let him go either.

  Your fingers fumble as you sweep some trash from the table.

  Alex drifts from concession to concession, carefully considering his options. For a bit it seems like he’ll go for stir-fry, but he ultimately settles on a Latin barbecue stand. It’s no surprise; the boy working the counter—a good-looking kid no more than sixteen by your estimation—wears his uniform in the loose, roguish manner you know Alex prefers. A sprouting of wiry hair dusts his upper lip, and a large zirconium stud clings to his earlobe. They talk. The boy smiles a lot, offers an array of samples on toothpicks. And Alex throws back his head in laughter, tastes everything offered. He alternates between flaring out his chest and shrinking back. There’s a certain serenity in knowing that, if you wanted it, you could spend the rest of your life waiting at this table while he was off flirting, and maybe that’s why you haven’t found a permanent housing solution. You have yet to figure out what you want from him.

  Eventually, Alex orders, and when he’s paid he returns with two plates heaped high with rice and shredded pork and no receipt or change.

  “Did you see that fine-ass boy at the counter?” He slides a plate your way. “Oh, and sorry, no salad.”

  You shift the pork around, then push the plate to the side without taking a bite. “I saw the boy.”

  He smiles while chewing. “He was hot, right? And he was all up on me. I swear I could’ve fucked him right there. Bam! Know what I mean?”

  “We can do that,” you say casually.

  He takes a break from shoveling food into his mouth. “Do what?”

  “Fuck other people together.”

  “Yeah?”

  “We can do that tonight. Surprise!”

  He sips his soda. “That’s the surprise?”

  You nod. “Tonight we’ll go to the club and you pick someone and we’ll take him home. Happy birthday.”

  He wipes some sauce off his lips. “Shit, papi. We didn’t need to come to the mall for you to tell me that.”

  You pick at your cuticles. “You needed new clothes anyway.”

  “No doubt. Hey, you gonna finish that?”

  “It’s all you.”

  He stabs at your plate with his fork.

  “HE HASN’T BEEN BY,” THE WOMAN BEHIND THE DESK says, glancing up from a stack of forms. A flat silver bracelet clinks against the chipped veneer of the desktop as she speaks. Her hair is pulled back in short, tight plaits. An arched brow gives her face a permanent look of skepticism. Cheryl estimates her weight at about four hundred pounds, and even seated she exudes a formidable authority.

  “You’re sure?” Peter asks.

  “Do you see him?” She flips pages at a furious rate, affixing a mark in the lower right-hand corner of each form, pausing long enough to peer over the rim of her glasses at them.

  “I’m sure he was on today,” Peter says, but the woman only sighs.

  They’re standing in the rear of a noisy warren, talking at a woman who is actively ignoring them, and they’re separated from the exit by a volatile group of mostly ragged, gender-muddled kids sharing an intimidating look that hovers somewhere between hunger and misanthropy. Steven is nowhere in sight, and she’s wearing her diamond wedding band and matching earrings. Perhaps coming here was a bad idea. Peter, however, doesn’t seem fazed by the environment, and she wonders if this is the kind of place he was living when Steven met him. She shudders at the thought.

  “Can you check the schedule?” He leans closer to the woman and crosses his arms.

  The woman in turn makes a show of dropping her pen and leaning back in her chair, resting her hands on her ample bosom. She cocks her head back and forth between the two of them in disbelief. Peter returns the stare and smiles.

  Bodies seem to close ranks around them and the desire to flee makes Cheryl light-headed. Her mouth feels dry. Somebody coughs and she flinches. The noisome mix of millet and damp that permeates everything in the shelter clings to her clothes. She’s supposed to be able to think beyond her reactionary aversion to this bare poverty. She understands the larger socioeconomic factors at play, and she sympathizes. It’s something she has always prided herself on, yet at this moment she wants nothing more than to leave, to forget this place and these people even exist. They can find Thaddeus without Steven’s help. Coming here was a mistake.

  “You really think I have nothing better to do,” the woman says. It’s not a question, more like a challenge.

  “Of course, you’re right. We should go—” Cheryl starts to say, but Peter isn’t intimidated. He rests his hands on the desk.

  “This’ll just take a minute, then we’ll go.”

  With a snort, the woman swivels to face a long file cabinet. “Like I ain’t got shit to do,” she says to herself.

  The file cabinet, like the desk, is buried under piles of forms and binders, and as she tears through stacks, her terrifying demeanor becomes something more like bureaucratic frustration. “I had a system,” she says, sliding over beside Cheryl to access even more piles. “Excuse me, sweetie.”

  Cheryl draws closer to Peter. His presence gives her comfort. So this is where her son spends so much of his time. Water stains creep along the ceiling, threatening mold blooms. Windows line the top of the walls; some are taped over with garbage bags—the legacy of Hurricane Natalie this past summer. She had pictured a dark canyon with few creature comforts, yet jangly reggaeton rhythms spew from the too-loud stereo, and the large television in the corner is a barrage of channel surfing. What she imagined, she realizes, was closer to a prison than to a shelter, or at least what she imagines a prison to be like because she’s never been in one of those either.

  The woman slams a drawer shut. “Nothing. Just like I told you.” A steely impatience replaces her fleeting kindness.

  Pans crash in the kitchen followed by hollering. The layout of the shelter is such that from the desk all areas are visible, and the three of them turn in unison, immediately identifying the source of the noise as a shy boy—at least Cheryl thinks he’s a boy—in a pink sweater and heavy makeup. He’s pushing pans around on top of the range while another boy standing off to the side, and looking ill at ease and malnourished, chastises him in a loud whisper.

  “Quit making all that racket,” the woman yel
ls. When the shy boy doesn’t react, the woman plants her hands on the top of the desk. “Sheila, don’t make me get out of my chair. What you doing in the kitchen anyway? You know you’re not supposed to be in there.”

  The boy called Sheila gives her a vacant stare. “Sorry,” she says in a detached voice. Abandoning the range, she walks to the edge of the kitchen, where she leans against a counter.

  “Don’t be sorry,” the woman says, her bracelet clinking against the desk. “Just don’t do what you’re not supposed to be doing, then there’s nothing to be sorry for. Understand?”

  “I guess,” Sheila says in a meek voice.

  There’s something very wrong when such a fragile being is forced into a place like this. Of everybody in the shelter, Sheila is the only one Cheryl feels compelled to comfort. The realization both saddens her and fills her with a bizarre sense of pride. Her thoughts return to her aborted child. All these years she’s always imagined it would’ve been a balancing force in their home, someone who could’ve mediated a little of the animosity that existed between Thaddeus and Steven, but maybe that was just a fantasy. Maybe whatever second child she may have given birth to would’ve been as fragile as Sheila, and their home would’ve been just as toxic as this place.

  “These kids don’t learn,” the woman says, lowering her glasses and talking simultaneously to Cheryl, Peter, and Sheila, who listens from just outside the kitchen like a half-bored waiter eavesdropping on her diners’ spirited conversation. “They don’t know how good they got it. I been through the system. I been on the streets. She don’t appreciate it. I’m telling you I had it a lot harder than them. We didn’t have a place like this, swee-tie. Nobody was looking out for us. But they’ll learn. Soon enough, they’ll learn how good they got it.”

  Shaking her head, she returns her attention to the insurmountable stack of forms on the desk. As soon as she looks away, Sheila ventures back into the kitchen. She grabs a spatula and uses it to push a mixing bowl toward the edge of a shelf, locking eyes with Cheryl as she does so, her vacant expression hypnotizing Cheryl into complacency.

  “Now, as for your man,” the woman tells Peter. “He ain’t been by. If he had I’d be home asleep right now instead of here. Okay?”

  The bowl reaches the inevitable tipping point, and now it’s as if Sheila is challenging her to intercede, but Cheryl fears leaving Peter’s side. Sheila blinks and gives a tiny shrug before pushing the bowl over the edge. Cheryl lunges toward the kitchen, but it’s too late and the distance is too great. The bowl topples onto the industrial-grade countertop with a large crash.

  “Oh, now you done it, girl,” the woman yells. She scrambles to her feet. Turning to Peter, she says, “I got to deal with this. Are we finished?”

  “Yes,” Peter says. “Thanks—”

  In a moment, she’s upon Shelia, shouting about responsibility and rules, privileges and community, but Shelia’s still-vacant gaze never leaves Cheryl. She could’ve been a hero, it seems to say; she could’ve interceded. She had the opportunity and she failed to act.

  The unspoken accusation remains with her on the walk back to Peter’s car and as they drive away from the shelter.

  “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he says. “I know it’s not very pleasant.”

  “It was fine. I’m glad we went. That poor—” It dawns on her that Peter isn’t apologizing for Sheila or for the shelter. He’s apologizing for Steven’s absence. “Maybe he just had the schedule wrong,” she says quickly. “That kind of thing happens all the time. You look at the wrong week...”

  His cheek twitches. “Sure.”

  “I bet he’s back at the house. Maybe you can call him?”

  He presses his thin lips into a tight smile. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to talk about something else now.”

  “Sorry, of course, whatever you like.”

  The labored whirl of the a/c compressor and the smooth progression of city blocks serve as a surrogate to conversation. The lights are in their favor as they leave the vicinity of the shelter and approach Lake Eola. He banks left away from downtown, and she scans the surrounding traffic for Thaddeus’s car. The muted jostling of the road affords her space to think. Disappearing like this is unlike Thaddeus. He could be anywhere. He probably decided to do something stupid like get Steven a boat even though she specifically asked him not to be extravagant, told him that it wasn’t necessary, and, anyway, they don’t have that kind of money anymore. But did he listen? Probably not! She can’t say that she’s surprised. After all these years she’s come to accept that level of selfishness from him. But if he took the car then he must’ve had the keys with him when she suggested a walk, which means he planned to leave. He played her! For all his narcissism and temper, Thaddeus has never manipulated her before. He’s always been open and straightforward about his actions—for all his faults he’s at least had that one virtue. This, though... this is new. For the first time in their marriage she feels outsmarted by Thaddeus and it frightens her.

  She hardly notices that they are miles from downtown, circling the mall, when Peter’s phone rings.

  “Hello?”

  “Who is it?” she whispers. “Is it Steven? Has he found Thaddeus?”

  Peter shakes his head and signals for her to be quiet. He begins to say something but is cut off. He snarls, revealing a crooked bicuspid.

  “I see,” he says.

  Snapping his head back and forth on the lookout for traffic, he abruptly switches lanes and heads away from the mall.

  “And did anybody check... Was there a call? Listen,” he snaps, “what I’m getting at is did anybody even think to call me? Yes, no, I’m aware—look, I’m not going to discuss semantics with you. You know exactly what I mean—”

  “What happened?” she more mimes than asks, but he doesn’t respond. He drives erratically, cutting people off, tailgating. “Peter, slow down. You’re making me nervous.”

  He ignores her. He runs a red light, nearly clipping a pickup making a right-hand turn. Horns bleat from every direction as he barrels down the road in a chaotic zigzag. He wouldn’t drive this way if the call were about the gallery or about Thaddeus, she’s certain about that. A sudden dread seizes her. “Is it Gertie? Is Gertie okay?!”

  “Forget it,” he yells into the phone. His jaw clenches and his ear turns crimson. “I’ll deal with that tomorrow when the director is in. No. Obviously, there’s nothing you can do now. She’s not there now. No. No. You—” He raises a hand as if preparing to pulverize a board.

  They nearly swerve off the road, so she does the only thing she can think to do. She grabs the wheel and steers while he powers the pedals. The tacky feel of the worn leather and the slim diameter of the wheel feel foreign in her hands. Pines slip by like pages in a flipbook, interrupted by garish storefronts and derelict tire yards. She can’t control the speed, only the direction. She hugs the center lane, slipping between fenders when they ride up on traffic.

  “No, don’t even worry about it.” He’s laughing now, spitting at the phone. “You’ve done enough. Good-bye.” He flings the phone into the center console and muscles back control of the wheel. The car swerves a final time, then straightens out.

  “That was the day care,” he says. “Gertie’s gone.”

  LAILA WEAVES THROUGH THE CROWDED ATRIUM AT THE Orlando Museum of Art. Only five minutes late and the café already hums with a thick lunchtime rush. Esther texted that she’d arrived early, and Laila spots her seated by the plate glass window overlooking the atrium. Of course she managed to find a table all the way in the back of the dining room so that now Laila must push past ornery tourists who’d likely much rather be at Disney World than at a museum. Esther’s hair is a shade lighter than the last time they saw each other and it’s pulled back into a tight bun that smoothes the worry lines from her brow. She perches on her chair, looking aloof in a black-and-gray tweed suit with raw edges. Instantly, Laila feels self-conscious about her jeans and sneakers. She should
’ve thought ahead and tossed a pair of ballet flats in the car this morning before her shift and maybe a light blazer. Looking around, at least she’s not the only one dressed casually. Then again, it doesn’t really matter what all these strangers wear, does it? It only matters what Moraleses wears. There’s a reputation to consider.

  “Oof, so much sun at this table,” Laila says, sliding into a chair across from her stepmother.

  “Do you want to switch seats? It’s not as bright on this side.”

  “No, it’s fine. I brought my sunglasses.” She slips them on. She can be aloof, too.

  Esther dons a pair of reading glasses. “I can’t see anything on this menu. Don’t get old. It’s awful. Everything goes downhill.”

  The reading glasses are an affect, the prop of choice for a middle-aged woman of means. She doesn’t doubt that her stepmother’s eyes are in decline, but Esther hardly needs to read the menu. She always orders the same thing: a candied walnut and beet salad with goat cheese and a light vinaigrette on the side. She’s glad for the distraction, though. Pretending to look at the menu affords her a small reprieve from her stepmother’s imperious gaze. Neither of them glances up from her menu until a frazzled waiter arrives with two glasses of water.

  Only after placing their orders are they forced to finally look at each other. Her stepmother’s skin is smooth like a rock polished by a stream, though it pleases Laila to note that Esther’s chest shows signs of sun damage. Esther looks her up and down and clicks her tongue, no doubt silently criticizing her outfit. T-shirt and jeans, and here the museum is hosting a retrospective of your father’s work.