A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself

by William Boyle

  Lucia looks across at Wolfstein, curled up on the floor next to Mo. They’re both asleep. Grandma Rena is asleep, too, leaning back against the wall, her mouth drooping open, looking like a tired old lady on the subway who has slept past her stop. Lucia is amazed that Wolfstein is not more protective of her money. She’s just letting it sit there in front of her. The bag’s not locked. She could go over and take what she wants and add it to what’s in her briefcase.

  The porno stuff is so weird. Seeing those pictures. The clothes they were wearing. Their hair. Their young bodies, which still seemed old to her. What those bodies must have done. They probably even kissed each other. More than that.

  She stands up and stretches, putting her arms over her head and cracking her back. She exhales and picks up the briefcase and walks out of the room. She slept a little, waking up when Grandma Rena came back in from puking, and then she slept a little more. Her dreams were nothing special. Dreams are stupid. Dreams don’t mean shit.

  Exploring the house seems like a good idea. She brings the briefcase with her as she leaves the room. She wonders if she should find a vent to hide it in, like the way Wolfstein had it back at her house. It seems like a better solution than a bus station locker. But a briefcase like this probably wouldn’t fit in a vent. Unless it was a huge vent.

  She closes the door behind her as quietly as she can, hoping not to wake Grandma Rena, Wolfstein, and Mo.

  Stairs to the left of her. She takes the steps slow because they’re creaky. At the top of the stairs is a carpeted room that smells of mildew. The blinds are closed, but she can tell the light is coming up outside. It must be almost six in the morning. She doesn’t remember what day it is. Monday? Monday. She’s thirsty. She wonders if it’s okay to drink water from the tap in the kitchen or bathroom when she gets there. She wonders if the water will even be on.

  She thumbs open the blinds and peers outside. The street is quiet. A red tint to the light of the squat houses across from them. She can see Mo’s front yard and driveway and mailbox. No one is parked there. No one is waiting. This is bullshit. The dumb fucks probably killed each other. That’s what guys like them do.

  She takes off her red Chucks and mismatched socks and rubs her feet in the carpet. It feels kind of gross. She bunches up her socks and stuffs them in her sneakers, leaving them there, and padding barefoot around the top floor. The carpet is full of indentations where there must have been tables and chairs and maybe a china closet.

  In the kitchen, the tile floor is cold. A dusty outline in the far corner where a refrigerator once stood. Lucia sets the briefcase on the counter next to the sink and looks through the cabinets and the drawers. Nothing good. Hair ties, scraps of paper with lists on them, gas station receipts, pennies. She runs the cold water in the sink on low so it doesn’t make too much noise and drinks straight from the tap. She hasn’t even realized how thirsty she is. How dry her mouth is. Her lips have been glued to her teeth. The water is icy and tastes good. She shuts the tap and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.

  Over the stove, she finds a cookbook called Simply Salads. She flips through it. A picture of what she guesses to be the couple who once lived here falls out. They’re standing in front of a sign that reads MADEIRA BEACH. The woman is in a red bikini and a straw hat. The man is in a Speedo. They both have on big sunglasses. She rips the picture in half and lets it flutter to the floor.

  She gazes out the back window. The tarp-covered pool looks disgusting from above. Beyond the pool, at the edge of the yard, is the woods. She hasn’t seen trees like that in a while. Just stretching out. Maybe there’s something on the other side of them or maybe the woods just keep going. It’s hypnotic to watch the morning breeze move the branches.

  She opens the briefcase, gazing down at the money. She touches it. It feels perfect. She takes out one banded stack and thumbs through it as slowly as she can. Hundreds only. She smells it. She’s seen people do that in movies, too. Everything in movies. The money smells clean and inky and new. Not like the crinkled, musty bills she often has in her pocket when she goes to Uncle Pat’s Deli or to grab a slice somewhere. She’s never wanted to smell money like this. Part of her wants to taste it, too. Just run her tongue over it the way she used to run her tongue over blankets as a little kid. It was a weird desire she had, licking blankets. She liked the texture. Now she wants to lick money. Not for the texture. Just because it looks so good. And it’s hers.

  But she doesn’t. She pockets the stack she’s holding. It’s thin enough to fit perfectly in her back pocket. She wants at least that little bit on her. She wants to know it’s real. She wants to picture herself spending it. She puts her head down on the open briefcase, ear to the money, and listens. The money sounds perfect, too. Like holding her ear up to a seashell and hearing waves and distance.

  She closes the briefcase, snapping it shut, and carries it with her out of the kitchen. She touches a thermostat that’s hanging from the wall in front of her, red and green wires dangling around it, and fiddles with the soft gray buttons. Three doors at the end of hallway to her right. She goes ahead to check them out. One opens into a bathroom with a broken toilet and a tub with no shower curtain. The showerhead is fizzy with mold. She checks the drawers of the vanity. Some left-behind mascara. More hair ties. Tampon wrappers.

  One of the other rooms, facing out to the street, must have been an office. She’s not sure why she’s thinking that as she enters. Something about the shape and size. She pictures the husband and the wife sitting in there at a desk, paying bills. More likely, the husband just jerking off to porn while the wife was at the gym. She hates to think of a guy jerking off like that. So sad. She wonders if other women like to think about guys jerking off. She can’t imagine that they do. She wonders if Wolfstein and Mo think about all the guys who have jerked off to their movies. Imagine. She rustles her toes in the carpet.

  It takes her a second to realize that the slats on the blinds are half-open. She can see out to the street, and the street can see into her. A woman in sweats is walking a dog on a long leash. The dog is a mastiff. The woman is throwing her arms up in the air like those really dramatic walkers Lucia sees sometimes on the promenade at Orchard Beach. Lucia rushes over and flits the wand so the slats slap shut quickly and the room darkens, worried that the woman will look up and see her and wonder if she’s a squatter and call the police. Not what they need. Not what she needs.

  She turns and walks out. The other room—on the back side of the house, so there’s no need to worry about windows and who can see in—must’ve been the bedroom. The floor is wood, but it looks tacky, like a carpet has been pulled up, and she keeps stepping on little pinchy things. Now she’s thinking about the strange, sad couple in this room together. She sees them as she knows them. The woman in a red bikini and straw hat. The man in his Speedo. Both wearing sunglasses. They’re arguing. She goes over to the window and looks out at the woods. It’s gotten lighter out.

  She hears something in the hallway. The trudge of anxious feet. She feels nervous. She’s not sure what she’ll do if she ducks her head out there and it’s Richie or Crea. She doesn’t think they could’ve entered the house so silently, though. Certainly they would’ve made a ruckus opening the door or called out to announce their presence.

  Rena comes in, yawning, her hands behind her head, elbows up in the air. “What are you doing up here?” she asks in a whisper.

  “Exploring,” Lucia says.

  “What time is it?”

  “I don’t know. A little after six?”

  “Jeez.”

  “Nobody’s coming. Let’s just go.”

  “I don’t know what to do. I really don’t.” Rena pauses. “You’re sure glued to that money.”

  Lucia looks down at the briefcase.

  “You want to talk?” Rena asks.

  “Not now,” Lucia says.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Let’s go downstairs just
to be safe.”

  “I don’t want to go back down. I’m bored just sitting in that room. And I’m hungry. What are we going to eat? You went outside. I want to go outside. There’s got to be a gas station around. I just want to get a bagel or something.”

  “You’re right. I’ve been so worked up I haven’t even given much thought to eating and drinking. I tried to take a bite of that granola bar from Wolfstein.”

  “I just had some water from the sink.”

  “That’s good. Drinking water’s the best thing for you.”

  “There’s woods behind the house. I could run into the woods and see where I come out on the other side. I’m sure it’ll come out on a road.”

  “That’s not a good idea.”

  “No one’s coming. They don’t know where we are.”

  “Maybe so. Let’s just go down and talk to Wolfstein and Mo about our options.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Lucia. Please. I’m trying here.”

  Lucia walks back into the office room. Rena follows her. Lucia pulls on the string, opening the blinds fully. She’s testing Rena this time. She sees that an SUV with a cracked windshield has pulled up in front of Mo’s house. She can see into the car. Crea’s behind the wheel. She doesn’t see Richie. She closes the blinds and backs away from the window.

  “What is it?” Rena says.

  Lucia lets out a trembling breath. “It’s them. Or just him. I only see Crea.”

  RENA

  Rena rushes downstairs, holding onto Lucia’s arm, practically dragging her along. “They’re out there,” she says to Wolfstein and Mo. “At least one of them is. Lucia saw Crea.”

  “Okay,” Mo says. “Let’s try to stay calm. No way he knows we’re in here. He’ll check out my house, see no one’s there, and probably come to the conclusion that you picked me up and we split.”

  “Right,” Rena says.

  “I give him fifteen minutes. Tops.”

  “Let me get the gun from the trunk,” Lucia says. “I’ll go out there and shoot him.”

  “You’ve never even held a gun,” Wolfstein says.

  “How do you know?”

  “Look at you.”

  “It’s easy.”

  “Kid, calm your jets.”

  “What if he saw me?”

  “What do you mean?” Mo asks.

  “I was looking out the window when he pulled up. What if he saw me?”

  Mo chews on this.

  Rena finds herself thinking of where she was the morning before. In her regular pew over by the tabernacle at St. Mary’s. The church she’s attended her whole life, daily since Vic’s death. This will be the first day she’s missed in a long time, not including the week she had the flu in ’04. She was sitting there with her rosary beads and collection envelope in her lap, listening to Father Ricciardi drone on in his homily about surrendering to Christ. That’s the way, Ricciardi had said in his froggy voice, that we achieve eternal safety and approval, find forgiveness, make peace with what haunts us. The gist of his pep talk being that people get redeemed through restraint, not recklessness. What she thought then—and what she believes even more fully now—is just how much that’s a big line of bullshit. There’s no time for sorry. Make a move. Faith isn’t about restraint and obedience. Can’t be. It’s about force and desire and challenging God. Making things happen. And, for the first time, she’s seen how exactly that works. Cut your path. Tear down what needs tearing down. Put your tongue to the rail. You can do bad things and God can still love you. You can do dirty work that needs doing. One time—this is something she must’ve buried way deep—she said something to Vic about a guy who ogled her, this back in the early days of their marriage, even though the guy didn’t ogle her at all, and Vic smashed his face in with a brick. That had felt good, she remembers. She’s got fight. She’s got power. She knows how to survive.

  “The woods behind the house, Mo, where do they go?” she finally says aloud.

  “You walk through about a quarter-mile, and you come out on Lakes Road,” Mo says.

  “Where’s Lakes Road go?”

  “Make a left when you come out, you go right into the village.”

  “There’s a bus station?”

  “Sure is. Right near Planet Pizza on Millpond Parkway.”

  “Here’s what we do then: the three of you go through the woods and get to the bus station. I’ll stay here and face Crea. This is my fight. What he did to Adrienne and Vic.”

  “No way,” Wolfstein says. “We stick together.”

  “I dragged you into this,” Rena says.

  “Rena, no.”

  “Get out while you can.”

  “Just for the record, this is the most fun I’ve had in years,” Mo says.

  “It’s not gonna be fun when Crea finds us.”

  “We’re four. He’s one.”

  “But he’s evil.”

  “You’ve got the kid now,” Wolfstein says. “The kid’s your priority. Take Richie’s money, and you and Lucia go to the bus station. Buy a ticket to the farthest place you can go. We’ll hold down the fort.”

  “The kid thinks he might’ve seen her, why don’t we all just go?” Mo says. “But we should move fast.”

  Rena nods. No time to think twice. It is her fight, but she likes the idea of sticking together. She likes that there are others to stick together with.

  They move out of the small room where they’ve been holed up. Acting on the assumption that Crea noticed Lucia in the upstairs window is risky. Rena can’t help but wonder if Lucia knows for a fact that there’s no way he could’ve seen her and is just trying to get them to leave the house. She can’t believe her granddaughter would put them all in harm’s way like that. Still, the girl clutches the briefcase hungrily.

  “Where are your sneakers?” Rena asks Lucia.

  “I forgot them upstairs,” Lucia says.

  “You’re going to go barefoot through the woods? Run up and get them.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

  Just another act of defiance on Lucia’s part. They’ve barely spent time together, and she’s already challenging her the way Adrienne used to. Whatever Rena says, Lucia’s going to do the opposite. But going without her socks and sneakers is stupid. “I’ll go get them,” Rena says.

  “Forget it,” Lucia says. “It’s fine. I have tough feet.”

  Mo opens the back door and they move into the yard, staying low. Wolfstein has her bag. Mo has left behind everything she brought with her. Rena isn’t carrying anything, but it feels like she’s carrying Lucia, her eyes on the girl’s back and bare feet.

  The tree line is a short distance away, about fifteen feet beyond the pool. Rena can see now that the woods are not as deep as she’d initially thought. Mo said about a quarter-mile to come out on the other side. Looking hard, Rena can see through the woods some signs of where that road might be, a scatter of white houses on a slope. Lucia’s feet crunch against the ground.

  They duck around the right side of the pool, using it for cover.

  When they hear a voice, they stop moving.

  Rena can’t quite hear what he’s saying, but she recognizes the voice as Crea’s. She can hear him moving over by Mo’s house. She looks around the edge of the pool and sees him circling the house, carrying his sledgehammer. The sledgehammer looks like a fake Halloween prop, painted with blood. Crea, in his bloodstained blue tracksuit, his usually slicked-back hair wild and messy, looks happy to be where he is. He cups his hand over his eyes and looks in through a ground-level window on the side of Mo’s house. “Ladies?” he calls through the glass. “Laaaaaadies? Where are you?”

  So maybe he had no idea they were next door after all. Maybe Lucia lied. Rena thinks of the gun in the trunk of the Eldorado. They were stupid not to grab it. Wolfstein, she can tell, is thinking the same thing.

  Crea loops around to the back of Mo’s house. He picks up a marble gnome and talks to it: “Have you seen the ladies? I
’m looking for the ladies. No? You fucking worthless little gnome.” He throws the gnome against the house, and it doesn’t break. It just falls to the ground with a thud.

  Now he’s doing De Niro as Max Cady in Cape Fear: “‘Come out, come out, wherever you are!’” He pauses. “‘I am like God, and God like me. I am as large as God. He is as small as I. He cannot above me nor I beneath him be. Silesius, seventeenth century.’” Now he’s doing the laugh from the movie theater scene. As if Rena wasn’t scared enough. She saw that movie with Vic at the Loew’s Oriental when it came out. Must’ve been ’91. Or was it the Marboro? Either way, it scared the hell out of her. She didn’t sleep for two nights. Every guy she saw on Eighty-Sixth Street she didn’t know could’ve been Max Cady. Gina Gianfortune’s son—Rob Cap, they called him—he had tattoos on his arms and neck, and it’d make her so nervous when she’d see him outside the Chinese market on Twenty-Fifth Avenue.

  The fear doesn’t seem to be registering in Lucia’s eyes. She’s focusing only on the woods, her brow pinched in reckless defiance of Rena, of everything that’s happening.

  “You ladies are in there, aren’t you?” Crea says to the house at top volume, seemingly not concerned about waking the neighbors. He presses his ear to the aluminum siding as if he’s trying to detect the house’s heartbeat or listen to its closest secrets.