Broken Homes & Gardens

by Rebecca Kelley

  “How did she get that impression?”

  “She said she saw it with her own eyes.”

  “But it was completely dark out.”

  “I know.”

  “And we weren’t making out.”

  “I know.” Malcolm and Joanna smiled at each other for a moment. “But that wasn’t the only thing we were fighting about,” he said. “Her number one complaint was probably that I never told her I loved her.”

  Joanna was silent for a moment. “Didn’t you?” she asked. “Love her, I mean?”

  Malcolm shrugged. “I told her not to take it personally—I’ve never told anyone.”

  “You’ve never been in love?” When he still didn’t answer, she pressed on. “Not even when you were like fifteen or sixteen—I mean, what about that girl in college—”

  Malcolm shook his head. “I just don’t think it’s something I’m going to go around saying to every girl I date.”

  “Not every girl you date. But the ones you stay with—don’t you think, after a while, it becomes an issue? How long can you stay with someone like that? Six months? A year? What—you’re going to get married, not say it? Fifty years go by and—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Malcolm said.

  “Who’s being ridiculous?”

  And so Malcolm confessed that he would not declare his love to anyone but his future wife. Joanna studied his face, searched for some sort of smirk or glimmer in his eye that would reveal this all to be a joke. But he just leaned back against the wall, his hands clasped around the empty mug. Then he looked up at the ceiling and a little smile appeared on his face. Dreaming, Joanna could only imagine, of his wedding day. Lifting the veil from his bride’s head, looking deep into her eyes, and then, in a deep and steady voice, saying, “I love you.” This image amused Joanna so much that she laughed out loud.

  “You shouldn’t laugh at me,” Malcolm turned to her. “I’m going through a rough time.”

  “I’m sorry. I just never in a million years would have known you were a man of such romantic notions.” She gathered their empty mugs and carried them to the kitchen, leaving them in the sink.

  She showed him to the back room with the inflated camp mattress resting in the middle of the floor. “Did you bring a sleeping bag?” she asked. “Sorry I don’t have any sheets.”

  “It wouldn’t kill you to buy a few things,” he said. “But I came prepared.”

  “You know—” she started, then cut herself off.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No. Go ahead. What?”

  “It’s just … aren’t you potentially sabotaging relationships with this little philosophy of yours? I mean, I think it’s pretty normal to know if you love someone after—I don’t know—a month. Or six weeks. Or surely, if you haven’t said it in six months … well, you see where that got you.”

  Malcolm did not answer. Instead, he left the room and came back with his suitcase. He opened it up and pulled out a complete set of carefully folded sheets. Joanna watched him as he made up the camp bed. “I probably do have an extra blanket around here somewhere,” she said, making no move to look for one. “Or you could use my sleeping bag as a blanket.”

  “Aren’t you the one who doesn’t believe in love, anyway?” Malcolm asked, smoothing the sheets over the mattress.

  “What! I never said that.”

  “Yeah you did.”

  Joanna shook her head.

  “Well, you must have misunderstood,” she said, “because I never said that. It’s just that I know it’s fleeting. I think I’d like to have a series of meaningful relationships, you know? They last a few years, then they’re over. What I don’t get is marrying someone, thinking it will bind you together forever. Most of the time, it won’t work out that way.”

  “But sooner or later, you’re going to want a baby,” Malcolm said, looking up at her. His gaze was so disconcerting that she turned around, started rummaging through the closet, making a show of opening boxes, peering in them, and closing them up again.

  “Where is my sleeping bag?” she wondered out loud. Into a box: “A baby? Who said anything about—”

  “So you just have a kid with whatever guy you ‘love’ at the time, then you move on? Pop out another kid? What kind of life is that?”

  “It happens all the time.” Joanna turned back around and looked back down at Malcolm, who was now lying on the mattress. She had suddenly lost the thread of the conversation. What was she arguing about?

  “Well, of course. But to plan it that way?”

  “You’ve put a lot of thought into this, for someone who never wants to have children.”

  Malcolm looked up at Joanna, squinting at the overhead light. “What makes you say that?”

  “You told me!”

  “I did?”

  “It was practically the first thing you said to me. That you had no desire to sire children. Those were your exact words.”

  Malcolm laughed. “Oh, right.”

  Joanna flipped the light off. “I’m going to bed.” As she was walking back to her room, she heard Malcolm yell for a blanket. She dug her sleeping bag out of the hall closet and threw it back into the room where Malcolm was staying.

  “Hey!” she heard him say when it landed on the floor. “Thanks.”

  The next morning, Joanna awoke to the smell of coffee. Since she didn’t even own a coffee maker, this was an unusual occurrence. She found Malcolm in the kitchen, whisking eggs in a bowl. “How do you want your eggs?” he asked. The circles had disappeared from under his eyes; he was smiling.

  “Over easy.”

  “I’m making scrambled.”

  “Okay.”

  “Coffee?”

  “Please.” Joanna watched Malcolm with curiosity as he poured her coffee from a French press he must have brought over in his suitcase. He tossed butter on the skillet, then poured in the eggs, whistling softly. He made a production out of it—rushing around for the proper utensils, shaking the pan on the burner, then flipping everything in the air and catching it all again for no purpose that Joanna could discern. He scooped some eggs out of the pan and placed them on a plate exactly when the toast popped up from the toaster.

  “Impressive,” she said. “What is this all about?”

  He hopped on the counter next to her, and they ate side by side. “You need a table,” Malcolm said.

  “I know.”

  “I know how you could get a table,” he said.

  “Buy one?”

  “For free.”

  “How?”

  “Let me move in with you. I have furniture.”

  “Move in? You mean, indefinitely?”

  “Sure. Why not? I need a place to stay. You need furniture. Plus—” Malcolm raised his fork in the air, “I can help you fix this place up. We can work out a deal.”

  “I don’t know….”

  “Joanna. Look around you. We’re sitting on a counter. You moved in three months ago, and you’ve done nothing to this place—”

  “That’s not true! I—”

  “Yes, I know. You worked on the yard. But sweetheart, have you ever stopped to notice the inside of this house before?”

  “Well, nothing really needs to be done right away. So there are five layers of wallpaper peeling off in the living room—that’s really just a cosmetic issue. And the floors in the kitchen and bathroom are kind of old and curling up, but I can deal with that.” Joanna stopped, lacking the enthusiasm to enumerate the many projects she didn’t mind leaving undone.

  “The roof,” Malcolm said. “You need to get that done before it starts raining all the time. You should have done that as soon as you moved in.”

  “So you’re saying if I let you move in, you’ll re-roof my house?”

  “No. I’ll take care of it for you, though.”

  “Not that this isn’t a very tempting offer, but do you really think it’s a good idea? A month ago we were barely speaking to each other
. And last night your ex-girlfriend came over and screamed at me. What if you got back together? Don’t you see how completely horrible that would be?”

  Malcolm set his plate down next to him on the counter and turned toward her. “Listen, Joanna. I promise I will never get back together with Nina. And she won’t come by here again.”

  “You can’t guarantee that.”

  “Okay, if she comes over, I won’t let her in.”

  “Nice.”

  “I mean, if she’s desperate to talk to me for some reason, I’ll talk to her. But not in your house. I promise.”

  “So you’d be like my … manservant?”

  “If that’s what you’re into,” Malcolm said.

  Joanna thought about it for a minute, then shrugged. “Okay,” she said, extending her hand for him to shake.

  Malcolm held up both hands, as if fending her off. “Actually, on second thought, I think I prefer to be called the house boy.”

  “Hm. All right.” They shook hands, unsmiling. Then they stopped shaking hands, but Malcolm didn’t loosen his grip.

  Laura was already seated in the corner of the teahouse when Joanna arrived. It was six o’clock and it was already dark outside. Inside, the teahouse was overheated, steamy. It smelled like spices, flowers, and an unfamiliar, earthy aroma. Mung beans, perhaps. Joanna ran her hands over her hair, trying to smooth it down. After darting through the rain to get to the teahouse on time, her hair had morphed into a frizzy halo sparkling with mist.

  Laura had called Joanna to the teahouse after work for an “emergency meeting.” Despite the putative urgency of the meeting, Laura waited patiently as Joanna examined each page of the menu, reading the elaborate descriptions of all the teas. Laura was always prepared for every type of weather. She owned matching umbrellas, hats, and hooded jackets that contributed to her fresh, polished appearance. Her hair was smooth, as if she had just combed it. No one could ever describe her sister as “frazzled,” “disheveled,” or “ill-kempt;” three adjectives that Joanna might use to describe herself at this moment.

  “I never knew the difference between green tea and white tea before,” Joanna said. Laura just poured herself a tiny cup of tea from a blue ceramic pot. “Maybe I’ll just get chai. They have really good chai here.”

  “You always order it,” her sister said.

  “That’s true.” The teahouse was located right next to Laura’s school. It was peaceful inside, surrounded by pots and cups, hanging plants and brown wicker furniture. She ordered the Hundred Mile Chai.

  “Okay, Joanna. You know why I wanted to talk to you, right?”

  “Why?”

  “We heard.”

  “What?” Joanna looked up innocently.

  “You and Malcolm. He’s moving in with you?”

  Joanna nodded. “Yep. That’s right.”

  “Are you sure this is a wise idea?”

  “He said he’d help me fix the place up. I didn’t really notice when I first bought it, but it really needs some work. The roof, for instance, is going to cave in at any moment.”

  “And the only way to prevent this from happening is to have Malcolm move in?”

  “He said he’d take care of it.”

  “Joanna.” Joanna could see Laura searching for the right words. “Need I remind you of what Malcolm put you through just a few short months ago? Alaska? Nina?”

  Joanna’s tea arrived in its own dark blue ceramic teapot, with its own little cup. She poured herself some, then leaned over her cup to smell the cardamom and cinnamon. “That was then. This is now.”

  “Okay. So you’re over him? Or what? You want him back?”

  “No!” Joanna said, flinging her hands out for emphasis, accidentally hitting the wicker table. Laura’s teapot trembled on its tray. “It’s just—different now. We’re sort of … well, it’s hard to explain. “But we’re friends again.”

  “And Malcolm feels the same way?”

  Joanna took a sip of tea before answering. “If Malcolm wanted to be with me, he could have been with me last spring. Instead, he left. Then he came back with someone else. So I think he made his intentions toward me pretty clear.”

  “But maybe there was a reason!”

  “What could possibly explain it? I’ve been over and over it. He wasn’t ready for a commitment? He came back from Alaska with a brand new girlfriend—and he stayed with her for six months!”

  “Well, why don’t you ask him?”

  Joanna poured herself more tea. She didn’t want to ask him; she’d be more likely to ask for a slap in the face. “Anyway,” she said, “I don’t want to be with him, either. Like I said, this is a new phase in our friendship. I don’t want to ruin it again.”

  “So you’re just friends, then.”

  “You say that like it’s nothing!” she burst out. She lowered her voice. “I’ve known Malcolm practically as long as you’ve known Ted. Well, I hate to break it to you, but more than half of marriages end in divorce. There’s no guarantee for you guys. So five, ten, fifty years from now when you and Ted are signing divorce papers, Malcolm and I will still have our friendship.” Immediately, Joanna regretted her outburst. She liked Laura and Ted together; she didn’t want them to get divorced. But Laura just laughed.

  “But I don’t want to be ‘friends’ with Ted! And I don’t believe for a second that you want to be friends with Malcolm—”

  “You don’t know the first thing about it.”

  “All right.” Laura threw up her hands. “Fine. Well, since your friendship with Malcolm is just too special to sully with romance, maybe you should date other guys.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “Are you still doing online dating? You could open your account back up, you know. Find some other guys. You barely even tried it—”

  “I did try it! It was horrible.”

  “But you can’t say that after—what? One bad date?”

  “Why are you so invested in this?” Joanna asked. “Who cares if I go on more anonymous dates? Can’t we just let things happen anymore? Does everything have to be orchestrated by us? Do we have to order our dates now, like we order shoes, or groceries?”

  “We just think—”

  “We? We? So you and Ted have this all planned out?”

  “Fine. I think you should keep your options open.”

  “My options are open. Wide open.”

  Her sister gave her a serious look. “Promise me you’ll go out with other people.”

  Joanna laughed. “I’m not going to promise you anything!” She took a prim sip of her chai. “But I will consider it.”

  She came home from work on a Monday evening and set her bag on the couch. Yes, there was a couch in the living room now. There was also a rug, a coffee table, and a television set. She now spent hours curled up under blankets, staring out the window at the street below. Nothing much happened outside. Every once in a while a car or bike would zoom by, or she would see a mother pushing a stroller or teenagers walking to or from school. People going places, walking in and out of their houses—she had missed all this, simply because she hadn’t had anything to sit on before. How she had underestimated the desirability of furniture!

  She cast a nervous glance around to make sure she was alone, then picked up her laptop and logged on to her online dating account. Five new messages. At first she chalked up her secrecy to embarrassment. Yes, everyone did it—Laura met Ted this way!—but there was still something less than ideal about finding someone to go out with on a computer instead of, say, wandering the streets of Paris or crashing into each other in Central Park.

  Then she wondered if what she felt every time she sneaked around, scrolling down the screen reading various profiles and typing out flirtatious messages, was more guilt than embarrassment. But why should she feel guilty about finding someone suitable for her while Malcolm puttered around the house hammering things? Wasn’t he the one who abandoned her all those months ago, making it pretty clear where he stood on th
e whole matter? She told Allison all about her online dating exploits. She should tell Malcolm, too. Maybe she would get him to jump on the bandwagon as well. They could go out on dates, come home late at night, sit on the couch, and give each other relationship advice. Yes. Their friendship had taken a circuitous route, only to end up at this very place: best friends, the kind of friends who talk about everything, especially their love lives.

  With this new course of their friendship mapped out so clearly in her mind, Joanna typed out three messages to three different guys in quick succession. It was time to meet them in person, get the ball rolling. Who knew? One of them might end up being the love of her life—or one of the loves of her life. He and Malcolm would become fast friends, too. Maybe they’d build things together. Or fix up her house for her, together. The three of them would sit around the kitchen table, celebrating holidays and birthdays.

  Joanna shut down her laptop and snapped it closed, and went to check on Malcolm’s progress. She found him pacing around the kitchen, pen in hand, his notebook open. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Hey.” He jotted something down in the notebook. “I was just going to get you,” he said after a moment. “Now that the roof is taken care of, I’ve made a list of all the things I could work on in here.”

  Joanna took the notebook from him and started reading. She flipped through three pages with growing horror. He had organized the list by room and included the yard, exterior, garage, and “other” as additional categories. Under each category he had listed at least five projects of varying complexity and expense. “‘Bathroom:’” Joanna read from the list. “‘Remove tub, sink, and toilet. Tear down closet. Reconfigure plumbing. Tear out vinyl flooring, install tile floor. Tear out beadboard. New drywall + tile? New ceiling, light fixtures, towel rack, etc. Paint. Install new tub, sink, and toilet.’”

  “I was just trying to be thorough.”

  “I didn’t think the bathroom was that bad!”

  “Well, we don’t have to start with the bathroom,” Malcolm said. “These are just suggestions.”

  Joanna handed him back his notebook. “It’s just … the list is so long.”