by Jill Malone
“All done,” Simon shouted, and ran to the stove.
Bailey opened the oven door, and forked a potato. “Tender,” she said, nodding. “Good call, Simon. Everyone to the table.”
Drake passed marmalade, eggs, the coffee pot. They ate as though for the last time, and to avoid speaking. Simon hummed and licked whipped cream from his waffle.
A snow day, Claire thought. Light blazed through the windows; from the table, they could hear the fire in the great room. Liv, distraught, with a knife, carving constellations; this body broken for you, take you all of it. They were poles, Claire and Liv. Claire more likely to puncture someone with scissors than take a knife to her own arm. Around the table the plates emptied, and they ate without looking at one another, except for Simon, who watched face by face, puzzling them like another set of tracks.
Thirty
On parents
Liv used birch for the cabinets in the apartment building. The harried landlord, Kyle, met her on the second floor to let her into the apartment. Since her last visit, he’d taken down the old cabinets, painted the entire apartment, and laid new carpet.
“I like birch,” he said, when she showed him the wood. “Thought I’d save you some time dismantling the old shit.”
“I appreciate that. This job should go quickly.”
“Just come across the hall if you need anything. I’m painting in 2F today.”
She’d precut and stained the wood in Claire’s garage, having taken measurements when he’d walked her through the place, so today was just an assembly job. A tarp to protect the carpet, another for the counter, she had the job finished by two o’clock.
Kyle came across with her to inspect them. He opened the doors to each cabinet, moved them back and forth on their hinges, admiring them.
“A simple thing,” he said. “You know, good work is simple and functional. That’s all people need. I like this. This is good work.”
“I’m ready for the next one,” Liv said.
He grinned at her. “How long’d it take for prep?”
“A good day.”
“Steve’s never pointed me wrong,” he said. “Never once.”
She finished the second set before seven, and Kyle took her out for dinner. They ate pork soft tacos, and ordered a pitcher of Manny’s Pale Ale at The Elk. Still in their gear, reeking of paint and stain, they devoured their food, threw their voices above the din of the large, bustling room.
“Am I allowed to ask how you bought apartment buildings?” she asked.
“Settlement money. I used to work at Costco. One of the palettes fell on me. Thought I’d never walk again. Big, big fucking money.”
“You don’t mind the hassle—maintenance, and tenants, and all those rentals?”
“Nah, it keeps me busy. What the fuck else would I do? I got a good plumber. I never touch plumbing. I just paint and do the grunt stuff. I like it; five years now.” He sipped at his beer. “What about you? You like independent?”
“I do. Good luck with clients so far. No shirkers or assholes.” Their table was below the portrait of the white hart that Simon called a reindeer. When their waiter—a serene guy in a baseball cap and leather cuffs—passed, they ordered another pitcher.
“And you like Spokane?” Kyle asked. “Not too provincial for you?”
“It’s not so bad.”
“I used to hate this fucking place. Wanted to burn it down. Felt like a chump living in this no-place town. Then I had kids. You got kids?”
“A boy.”
“How old?” he asked. Kyle had paint in his radical hair, and on the backs of his arms.
“Three.”
“Shit, just a baby. Mine live on the mountains all winter—snowboarding—and the lake all summer waterskiing. It’s a cush life for them. Made me appreciate this place, showing it to them. We camp and kayak all the time. It feels good, growing old here. I’m settled in. What about your boy? What does he like?”
“Trains.”
“He like dump trucks? I got a bunch of dump trucks from when mine were little. I’ll dig them out for you. Mine spent hours trucking dirt from one hole to another. They wore capes when they were his age, with cowboy boots, talked about being super heroes. Love that shit.” He grinned again, pulled at his hair, knocked his unlit cigarette against the tabletop.
Three staff up front, two in the kitchen, a dozen customers in line, and the tables full; Claire pulled the coffee while the girls took orders, plated pastries, and bused tables. Bailey expedited crepes to the tables. Claire had just called a triple macchiato when a berry scone smacked her in the shoulder. Bewildered, she looked at Sophia, who stood nearest her behind the counter, but Sophia’s gaze was fixed across the counter at a girl.
“Fuck you!” the girl screamed. The café went still, and Claire took in the girl’s blackened eyes, her pink-streaked blond hair, her fury. “Look at you in your fucking lip gloss, trying to be respectable.” She pitched half a lemon bar at Claire, but missed, hitting a carafe instead with a sickening splat. “My girlfriend got nine stitches, you fucking bitch!” Claire had not moved, had not processed even the berry scone, when Bailey and Drew came running from the kitchen. The girl pointed at Bailey, and flung the rest of the lemon bar. “That’s right, Amazon. I’ve found you fuckers, and I’ll make you pay. Smashing glasses into people’s heads! You sick cunts! You twisted—” Then Bailey and Drew had her, and sailed through the door with her, leaving a strangled, defiant bitches! in their wake.
When Claire saw Simon in the kitchen doorway, she began to move. She approached the tables and murmured apologies, offered everyone a free coffee from the bar. Sophia came round to clean up the smear of lemon bar, and Miss Jenkins suggested, in her powerful stage whisper, that perhaps they should wear raincoats behind the counter because you never knew when deranged girls were going to be slinging lemon bars at you, and you never could be too careful, and almost at once, Claire felt the strained scene from minutes before morph into a kind of rowdy misadventure they’d all enjoyed. The most unexpected performance anyone had seen in ages. Claire brought their free coffee, and Drew and Bailey returned to much applause.
It almost felt like a promotional gimmick, as though they’d staged the entire thing. On her way to the kitchen, Bailey winked at a two-top of regulars, and told them it was now safe to eat their lunch. Claire slung more free coffee, refused to let herself consider the fact that the girl had recognized Bailey—had looked right at her, and called her an Amazon—had mentioned a glass smashed into a head, had commented on her lip gloss being a disguise.
After Sophia punched out, she asked Bailey and Claire if they were going out later, maybe to smash some glasses into some people’s heads. She laughed and left before either of them could respond. Claire finished counting the till, and looked at Bailey.
“When did it happen?”
Bailey told her the story.
“A bar fight,” Claire said, watching Simon eat goldfish from the back of a dump truck. “My god. And now this girl’s come to the restaurant.”
“And the police have a report on her, and she’d be insane to come back.”
“Because this morning she wasn’t crazy enough? Oh, Bailey. In front of the customers and the staff. Right in the middle of the lunch rush.” Claire stood, rolled her neck, and pressed her fingers into her temples. “When does it stop? I thought I only had to worry about strange girls in bathrooms.”
Bailey looked drawn, haggard. Claire had noticed this previously, but hadn’t commented. For herself, the same could be said. It wore them down, this business, successful, relentless, consuming. Could one screaming girl spoil the entire endeavor?
She stared about her. Initially, she’d planned to paint this tiny office something funky, like polka dots. Something to enliven the place: a cell, more than a room, with one thin, high window, two 3-drawer file cabinets, a squat wooden desk, a loveseat, and two corkboards full of notes, recipes, magazine articles, and employee schedules. But she ha
dn’t had the drive to empty the space, even for a couple of days. She had the drive now. Field guide to your relationship: start by tidying the office.
Claire put the bank deposit into her bag with her laptop. Nobody could have predicted this, and she hadn’t been exactly forthcoming about her own indiscretions, not even with Liv. Claire sat down beside Bailey on the sofa, and punched her in the thigh. “If pink-girl comes back, I hope it happens while I’m in Portland.”
“Yeah, I’ll see if I can arrange that,” Bailey said. “When do you leave?”
“Thursday afternoon.”
“You worried?”
“Of course.”
“You’ll be fine. Simon’s the perfect ice-breaker.”
“He’s in bed by eight.”
“They might be too.”
“There’s nobody like Dee,” Claire said. “It makes meeting people harder. They all suffer from comparison.”
“My grandmother did that for me.”
“It’s such a stupid thing to miss, but it’s what I think of most. I miss that she was alive.”
“Sophia’s mom was at the house last night, yapping at her about gaining too much weight. And this thing with the crib—on and on about why isn’t the crib assembled, and why hasn’t Sophia bought bedding, and what kind of mother doesn’t have the nursery ready and waiting, and, I swear to you, I nearly bounced her. She was just so mean about everything.”
“I called my mom to tell her what the publisher said, about this being the best field guide he’d read, and she said, ‘Wouldn’t Denise be pleased?’ like I was a traitor.” Claire laughed.
“What would Denise say?”
“She’d say,‘Now we’re ruined.’ And pour me a shot.”
They gave Simon gummi bears for the plane ride; he ate them four at a time. He’d never flown on a plane before. The attendant gave him extra pretzels.
His mother had let him pack his bag—he’d been allowed to take seven trains—and his favorite red pajamas, and his shark t-shirt, and both Curious Georges.
“Do you see the mountains?” Liv asked.
He pressed his face against the window. “Clouds,” he said, wondrously. “They’re right there. Look. There they are.”
When he climbed back into his mother’s lap, reclined against her chest, and pulled her arm across his belly, he told her again about all the presents of trains Santa had left under the tree for Simon. Because Santa knew all about this adventure, the clouds, and gummi bears, and luggage, and Santa thought Simon had maybe not brought enough trains with him, and would need more.
On the ground again, more surprises still: they didn’t have snow here, and he didn’t have to wear his heavy coat, and this green car rumbled as they drove across the long Steel Bridge. People on bicycles zipped past the rental car at stoplights, and the cranes were as high in the air as the plane had been. Liv’s mom had promised to make a special dessert in Simon’s honor, Angel food cake. He said this over as they drove, Angel food cake.
When they pulled into the drive, Liv’s parents came out to greet them. Bundled in coats, hats, gloves, and scarves. The mother was small, like Liv and his own mother. The father had a beard, and a voice full of money. Simon hugged them, took Liv’s mother’s hand, and led her back toward the house. “Simon’s special treat,” he told her. “Angel food cake.”
The father helped Liv and Claire carry the luggage in; he’d patted Claire’s back when he’d hugged her as though she were a child. Comforting, she thought. Steady, and kind, and comforting. She followed behind his plaid wool coat, and paused in the entryway of the house, as he did, to set the luggage down. A two-story, with leaded windows, green shutters, white exterior paint, a gabled roof, an apple pie and baseball home.
He hung their coats with the rest, and pointed to the shelves where they could leave their boots. Indoors he wore a blue cardigan, slippers, a frank and untroubled oldness. Upstairs then, to separate rooms, their luggage and themselves left to be idle until supper. Supper, Claire smiled. Her parents still celebrated cocktail hour, knew only rubes used words like supper, and rube.
She left her bags by the bed, and wandered down the hallway, to the room the father had indicated would be Simon’s. Liv’s old room, Claire recognized. Maple bookcases, a navy bedspread, plain curtains, a desk and lamp, all rough and sturdy, like the girl herself. On the bedspread, a bedraggled teddy bear, and a hand-carved racing car lay against the pillow.
“Homespun,” Claire said, when Liv stood behind her.
“Yes, ma’am.” Liv took her hand, led her downstairs to the kitchen. Simon stood on a chair at the counter, and licked the remainder of the frosting from the bowl. At the oven, Liv’s mother tested the pork chops.
“You girls go sit,” she said. “The table’s set, and now we’re ready to eat.”
Claire rinsed a cloth to clean Simon’s hands and face. She couldn’t remember if she’d been told their names, the mom and dad, The Tannens. She almost laughed. Nerves, she knew. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d desired approval so deeply. She’d wanted Liv’s this much, and Denise’s. A rare thing though, in her experience: to feel assailable.
The mother wore a knitted cap. Her face looked pouchy and yellow, though her eyes were bright with pleasure, and she moved nimbly. A formidable woman, Claire thought, one to intimidate teenagers.
They passed green beans, salad with artichoke hearts and candied walnuts, and warm brown bread round the table. On the walls hung prints of Japanese characters. Marinated in a spicy barbeque sauce, the pork chops had a sharp tang.
“Good flight?” the father asked.
Liv nodded. “Simon’s first.”
“That right, Simon?” he said. “How’d you like flying?”
“It’s a great adventure.”
“What’d he say?” the dad asked.
“He said, ‘It’s a great adventure.’”
“Did he?” The father inspected Simon.
Simon had macaroni and cheese with diced ham, and a side of raw carrots. He ate happily.
“Your father baked the pork chops,” Liv’s mother said.
“They’re tender,” Claire said, “with a kick.”
The father inspected her. “Yes,” he said, and dabbed at his mouth with his napkin.
“We’ll have a tour after dinner,” the mother said. “Give Simon a chance at the tree.”
“What are you working on, Liv?” the father asked.
Liv told him, and then they discussed the café, and Claire’s field guide, and Simon’s swim lessons, and as the mother served Angel food cake with coffee for the adults, and chocolate milk for Simon (she’d scouted his preferences in a phone conversation earlier in the week) the father pointed his fork at Claire and asked, “So, do you want to hear Liv stories? And, if so, would you like the emergency room escapades, or the detention dramas?”
“Yes,” Claire said. “And both.”
“Enlighten me, if you’ve heard another version of any of these,” the dad began. “Well, the first trip to the emergency room, Liv was four, and she’d come down the slide and cracked her head open on the playground cement. Second time, she was nine—”
“Seven,” the mother said.
“Right, forgot that one. She was seven when she fell from the tree and broke her right elbow. Nine when she had two teeth knocked out fighting at school. Twelve when she broke her leg. We never did know how exactly, had something to do with that Lewis boy.” He scowled at Liv, then winked.
“Sixteen, she got a concussion in a car wreck. Seventeen—god, we went three times that year: two broken fingers, stitches along her left elbow, and, I’ve forgotten the last one.”
“Appendicitis,” Liv said.
“Right, appendicitis.”
Claire had been taken once, with a fever so high that her parents had convinced themselves she had a critical infection. She’d been given Tylenol, and sent home.
“The breaks to the fingers, and the stitches?” Claire asked.<
br />
“Fighting,” the mother said.
Liv shrugged, finished her cake. The frosting had cream cheese in it. Simon had already devoured two pieces, and drunk his milk.
“Detention for fighting as well?” Claire asked.
“In high school,” the father said. “For fighting and skipping. In junior high, she was suspended for building a bomb in the girls’ locker room.”
“It wasn’t a bomb,” Liv said, wearily. “Fire crackers, and silly putty, with a long fuse, so they’d blow after everybody left.”
“Instead?” Claire grinned.
“The putty smothered the fuse, and the smell of burnt plastic brought the gym teacher running.”
“Did the fire crackers ignite?”
“Nope.”
Claire laughed.
“Tell them about your time in detention,” Liv said. “They tell these stories like I’m the only kid that got in trouble in school.”
“Smoking,” Claire said. “A couple of times for smoking; once for cutting; several times for mouthing off in class; and most frequently for tardiness. I was always late.”
“See,” Liv said.
“As a parent,” the father said to Claire, “has your opinion about your behavior changed?”
She put a brown sugar cube into her coffee, and stirred. “Not yet. I have a lot of affection for that girl I was, and pity too. But I’m relieved that I have a boy.”
Liv’s parents laughed. “Oh, my dear,” said the mother, “it’s just another kind of trouble.”
“Another kind of worry,” the father added.
“An other,” Claire said, “still keeps it from being like mine.”
The mother turned to Liv when Claire said this, but the father regarded her, his fingers rubbing at his beard as though it were unexpected.
Liv and Claire cleared the dishes, filled the dishwasher, while the parents entertained Simon. Delighted with them, Simon filled the house with squeals and giggles.