Broken Homes & Gardens

by Rebecca Kelley

  “Well, we don’t have to tackle it all at once. Just pick a room! The kitchen?”

  “Okay,” Joanna said, relieved that someone had made a decision. “So, do you even know how to do all this other stuff?” She flipped through the list again. “Rewiring the whole house? Drywall?”

  Malcolm shrugged. “Sure. How hard can it be?” He laughed at her skeptical expression. “Yeah, I know how to do it. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  A couple days later, Joanna found Malcolm scrubbing the doors of the cabinets. “Looking good,” she said, although actually, the entire kitchen, empty and gutted, was a disaster area.

  Malcolm glanced up. “Where are you going?”

  She was dressed up; she even had lip gloss on. “How do I look?”

  Malcolm studied her for a moment, narrowing his eyes. “Good,” he said at last. “What’s the occasion?”

  “I’m going on a date.”

  “A date? It’s Wednesday.”

  “So?”

  “Are you sure you want to go out on a date in that?”

  “You said it looked good!”

  “That’s before you told me you were going on a date.”

  “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

  “Nothing! Like I said, you look good. But I’m not sure that’s the message you want to be sending out on a first—it is the first, right?—date.”

  “Exactly what kind of message am I sending out?” She looked down at her outfit, a black knitted top with three-quarter length sleeves, a skirt, and boots. She had worn the same ensemble to teach her classes; it hardly qualified as come-hither wear, especially considering how cold it was outside. Once she bundled up for the elements she’d be swaddled in three inches of fabric.

  “That shirt is kind of form-fitting. That’s all,” Malcolm said.

  “Okay. Well, I think I’m going to risk it. I hope he doesn’t dissolve into a frenzy of lust at the sight of me.”

  “So who is this guy, anyway?”

  “His name is Gunther.”

  “Gunther? What kind of name is that?”

  “It’s a German name.”

  “I know … I meant—never mind. Have fun.”

  “Thank you. I will.” She left him standing in the kitchen, a wet rag in his hand, attacking the cabinet doors with renewed vigor.

  13

  like peppermint

  Joanna and James had planned to meet at a new bar for their second date but found it was packed full of loud drunks dressed in tooth fairy and sexy witch costumes. It was the designated evening for the over-twenty-one crowd to celebrate Halloween. They tried another place, a dive bar popular with both hipsters and old men, but it, too, was packed. They sallied forth, the night getting colder, finding sanctuary in a grocery store. They walked up and down the aisles just to warm themselves up, and ended up rifling through costumes on the sales rack. “Check this out,” Joanna said, holding up a barmaid costume.

  James found a pirate costume, which came with a black curly-haired wig, an eye patch, and an oversized ruffled shirt. “I guess you’re on your own for pants,” Joanna said.

  “Pirates can wear jeans, right?”

  “On weekends, maybe.” She pulled the barmaid costume on over the clothes she was wearing. Her plaid skirt hung down about five inches below the frilly skirt, and her black fitted sweater worked hard to negate the sexiness of the low-cut blouse. “How do I look?” she asked, adjusting the blonde wig on top of her head.

  “Lusty,” he said, pulling her towards him. He leaned down and kissed her. It happened so quickly that she didn’t have time to respond. Her arms hung down at her sides. She made a start to move them, to put her arms around him, but then it was over. It was their first kiss. He stepped back and examined the plastic package of the costume. “They’re on sale,” he said.

  Again they headed out in the cold, wearing the costumes over their clothes, under their coats. James flung his arm around her. She looked up at him and smiled, but he was staring straight ahead. He was quite good-looking, Joanna decided. She wasn’t sure if he was her type. He had thick, dark hair and wore black-framed glasses. Both of his arms were covered in tattoos: the left arm with vegetables (they shared a passion for backyard gardening), the right with books (and recreational reading). She decided to take the tattoos as a good sign.

  They walked over the sidewalk, past big buildings closed for the night. During the day these buildings housed mortgage lenders, banks, chain coffee shops. “It’s dead here,” Joanna said.

  Neither of them could remember why they had started out in this direction. They stopped, looking up and down the deserted streets. Joanna hopped up and down, trying to get warm. This sent a dull pain through each of her feet, so she stopped and hugged herself.

  “Where’s your car?” he asked.

  “At home. I took the bus.”

  “Me too.”

  “I think we’re by the Max. Or we could go back to MLK and catch a bus back to my house,” Joanna suggested. “It’s warm there.”

  “What about our costumes?”

  “What about them?”

  “You know. Free cover charges.”

  “Forget it,” Joanna said. She wondered as they sat on the bus, surrounded by costumed revelers, if it was unwise to invite someone over on the second date. Maybe she should have tried to think of somewhere else to go, somewhere public. A wine bar perhaps, one of those places with burgundy walls where rowdy college kids in costumes wouldn’t want to go.

  Inside, her house was warm. She took James’s coat and hung it in the closet next to her own. “Malcolm!” she yelled toward the back of the house. “It’s too hot in here.” She adjusted the thermostat. “Don’t you even care about the environment?”

  “Who’s Malcolm?” James asked, sitting down on the couch.

  “Oh, just a friend of mine. I mean, he lives here. He’s my housemate, I guess you could say.” Now that she was out of the cold, she began to feel the blood circulating inside of her. She felt happy all of a sudden, almost giddy. She sat down on the couch next to James. “Nice wig.” She reached over to pull one of the shiny black ringlets.

  Malcolm walked into the living room and surveyed Joanna and James on the couch. If he was surprised to see her with a blonde wig and a barmaid outfit on over her clothes, seated next to a hipster pirate, he didn’t indicate it. He nodded at James, who gave a half-hearted little salute in exchange. Malcolm turned around to view the thermostat, re-adjusted it, and retreated back to the kitchen. Joanna and James heard boards landing on the ground with a clatter, then the loud, grinding whine of a table saw.

  “He’s remodeling,” Joanna said. She stood up, smoothed down the costume. “Come on—it’s quieter in my room.”

  “Is your housemate always so—”

  “Yeah,” said Joanna.

  They sat on her bed, facing each other. James took her by the wrists and pulled her toward him. He was smiling, about to place his lips on hers when they were interrupted by the screech of a table saw. Joanna pulled away. “I’ll go make us some drinks. Wait here.”

  In the kitchen, Malcolm was busy slicing up some boards.

  When Joanna walked in, Malcolm stopped sawing and lifted his goggles up to his head. He was sweating, dirty, wearing a thin white T-shirt and old jeans with holes in the knees. He wiped his forehead with his arm. “Where’s Captain Hook?” he asked.

  “James? He’s still here. I’m making us some drinks. Want one?”

  “What are you making?”

  “Something appropriate for the holiday.” On the counter she had lined up the results of her fall harvest: five small sugar pumpkins, three butternut squashes, and a Danish acorn squash, now covered in a layer of sawdust. She had just picked them, their leaves shriveled and powdery blue with mildew. Earlier in the day, when Malcolm had been at the hardware store, she had steamed one of the pumpkins according to her sister’s instructions, scraped the orange flesh from
the skin, and pureed it all in the blender. It had taken hours. And after it was all done, she had no real plan for the pumpkin puree. She took out a glass jar of neon orange puree from the fridge, struck with a sudden inspiration.

  “What is that?” Malcolm asked.

  “I think I’ll make pumpkin drops. Or—‘pumpkin pies.’ Like, a new drink,” Joanna said.

  Malcolm’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll pass.”

  Joanna took out two lowball glasses. Now that Malcolm lived with her, she had an entire shelf full of barware. She spooned a dollop of puree in each glass while Malcolm looked on with a fascinated expression. “You don’t have to stand here and watch me,” Joanna said.

  “Oh, but I want to.”

  Joanna shook her head and added some spices, shaking each glass spice jar vigorously into the cup: nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and cardamom. Then about a tablespoon of sugar. “What else?”

  “Milk?” Malcolm suggested. “It’s in pumpkin pie. Either sweetened condensed milk or regular milk.”

  “We don’t have sweetened condensed milk.” She went back to the fridge and filled the glasses halfway with 2%. “Okay, now alcohol. What goes with all this stuff?”

  Malcolm backed away as Joanna searched the cupboards. She pulled out a bottle with a waxy red cap. “Hey, that’s my Maker’s Mark.” He took the bottle from her. “No way are you wasting it on this—ah—recipe.”

  “Fine. How about … brandy. Does that go?”

  “Oh yeah,” Malcolm said. “Totally.” Joanna topped each glass off with brandy, stirred each drink carefully, then took one in each hand. “Aren’t you going to taste it first?” Malcolm asked. She gave a little shrug and headed back into her room.

  “Here you go,” she said grandly, handing James a drink and shutting the door behind her. “It’s a pumpkin pie. I invented it.”

  He eyed the thick, orange drink. “Is there really pumpkin in here?”

  “I grew it myself. In my garden.”

  “Impressive.”

  “I thought you’d like that.” James had caught her eye because of his list of favorite authors: Ann Beattie, Raymond Carver, Amy Hempel. On their first date they’d talked about writers and writing. James had been an English major in college, too. Of course now he was a graphic designer, “Like half of Portland.” He asked if she was an aspiring writer, and she had answered truthfully. No, she didn’t write. This set her apart from almost all the other adjuncts who taught composition. “I just wanted to teach,” she explained to James. “I’m a teacher.”

  Lately, though, she had been wondering where, exactly, her “career” was headed. No one went to graduate school with the distinct ambition to be an adjunct at community colleges. But that’s precisely what Joanna had done. They talked about that, too—the way they saw life while in college, where they ended up, not knowing where they’d be five, ten years from now, but how that was okay. They weren’t their parents. They could be in their thirties, maybe even forties, before figuring it all out.

  She looked into James’s eyes and smiled as she took a sip of her pumpkin cocktail. “Ack!” She shuddered. “This is awful!”

  James laughed, then raised the glass to his lips. “No!” she cried. She reached across the bed, trying to grab the drink from him. He held onto his glass, jerked it in toward his chest. Some thick orange sludge splashed onto his pirate shirt. They both dissolved into laughter. “Seriously, James. It’s terrible. I should have tasted it before I—”

  “I’m going to do it,” James said, holding the glass in one hand and raising a finger with the other. He took a sip, then nodded thoughtfully, licking his lips. “Cardamom?”

  “Among other things,” she said. “I don’t know why it’s bad. It’s homemade pumpkin puree.”

  “It’s not bad.” He took another sip and gazed up thoughtfully, as if he were sampling a fine wine.

  Joanna tried some more. The taste wasn’t so offensive, really. It was the texture—thick and gritty. She could feel a fibrous string of pumpkin between her teeth.

  “We should down them,” James said. “On the count of three.”

  “No way.”

  “Scared?”

  After several false starts, punctuated with laughter, they did it. She finished hers in five gulps. She closed her eyes and grimaced.

  James took their glasses and placed them on the floor. Then he kissed her, coaxing her onto her back. “You taste like pumpkin pie,” he said when he came up for air.

  She pulled the ridiculous wig off of his head. “So do you.”

  The table saw whirred in the background. For a few paranoid minutes, Joanna was sure that the blade of the saw began to spin every time her lips touched James’s. She stopped him and half sat up in the bed.

  “What’s wrong?” James had his hand up her real skirt and her barmaid skirt.

  “I can’t do this,” she said. She tilted her head toward the kitchen. “Not with my housemate chopping up boards in the kitchen.”

  Five minutes later, James was out the door, insisting he’d catch a bus home. Joanna went into the kitchen to make herself some tea. She wasn’t tired at all. She was shaky, keyed-up. She rummaged through the cupboards in search of nourishment, finally settling on cheddar cheese and crackers she didn’t remember buying. Maybe they were Malcolm’s.

  Malcolm walked in. “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey,” she responded. Only then did she notice the change in the kitchen. While she’d been in her room, he’d finished the table and benches he’d been working on for the kitchen nook. She went over to admire his work, running her hands over the smooth, sanded surface of the cherry wood. “It’s beautiful.”

  Malcolm didn’t answer, but he leaned against the wall, watching her.

  She set her plate of crackers and cheese on the table and sat on a bench. She could still smell the varnish, the scent of wood shavings. Malcolm took a seat across from her. Joanna’s mouth was dry, filled with crackers. She pointed to the plate and raised her eyebrows.

  “No thanks.” Malcolm grabbed the edge of the table, examining his work. “Yeah, it works much better this way. It’ll be good to have that table out of the kitchen.” His face sagged. The kitchen was still a mess—curls of sawdust coating the floor, little cans of paint and stains stacked up on the stove, the cupboard doors still off their hinges, stacked up against a wall. “Where’s Captain Hook?”

  “You mean James?”

  “Like James Cook?”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  “He left.”

  “Oh.”

  “Why? Would you care if he stayed?” Joanna asked. She truly wanted to know. Ever since Malcolm had moved in with her, she had imagined what it would be like if he brought a girl over. Would she mind? Joanna decided that she would be fine with it. They were friends now. Whatever had happened in the past was just that—in the past. Eventually each of them would find someone else. They would date other people, stay up late and gossip about it right here in this kitchen nook, under the 1920s-style pendant light. She could start right now! Tell him about the kiss, get some advice, the male perspective—

  Malcolm shrugged. “No,” he said.

  How far they had come! Joanna marveled. Just a few months ago, she would barely speak to Malcolm. She smiled at him, her dear friend. “All right then,” she said. “Well, good night.”

  “Night.”

  Joanna shuffled into the bathroom, brushed her teeth, splashed water on her face. When she focused on her reflection in the mirror, a bleary-eyed barmaid stared back at her. Her fingers struggled to untie the bodice. She had abandoned her boots and the wig hours ago, but now she pulled off her tights, too, and threw them in the hamper. In her room, she pulled on a tank top and some flannel pants. It was still so hot inside the house she could sleep naked on top of the covers. She should turn down the thermostat. Instead she slipped under her sheets and pulled the blankets up to her chin.

  Hours later, she woke up in
a sweat. Grumbling, she flung off the covers and threw her legs over the side of the bed. Without bothering to open her eyes completely or turn on any lights, she stumbled down the hall to the thermostat. She could barely make out the numbers in the dark. Seventy-two degrees! She should make Malcolm pay her utility bills for the entire winter for his profligate ways. She turned the dial all the way to the left. She’d freeze him out!

  As she shuffled back to her room, she bumped into something. She was standing on Malcolm’s foot. “Hey, watch it!” he whispered.

  Her eyes opened and she squinted at him. “Sorry.” She tried to move past him, but he was standing in her way. She put her hands up to push him aside, but he wouldn’t budge. She looked up again and muttered his name, saw through her half-closed eyes that he was looking down at her. Then he took her face in both of his hands, bent down, and kissed her. He smelled like peppermint and sawdust. When he released her she took in a gulp of air, as if she were emerging from underwater. And then he was gone, the bathroom door clicking shut behind him.

  14

  her mind blank, an open sky

  She smelled pancakes. In the kitchen, there was Malcolm, making her breakfast. He was already fully dressed in dark jeans and a white T-shirt, but he looked rumpled. He hadn’t shaved in a few days and his eyes drooped. Joanna filled the kettle with water and put it on the stove to boil. Making the coffee in Malcolm’s French press had become her job, and she did it well, measuring out those spoonsful of coffee with precision. As usual, Malcolm cooked with gusto, using far more gestures than required—whisking the batter, his elbows sticking out, flicking water onto the hot pan to watch it sizzle, pouring the batter from the bowl onto the skillet from three feet in the air.

  He set two plates of pancakes on the new nook table. Joanna pressed down the nozzle of the French press and poured them each a cup. She tucked one piece of butter underneath the top pancake and then nudged it toward Malcolm. With a teaspoon, she drizzled maple syrup over the cakes. Malcolm cleared his throat. “So,” he said, “let me know the next time you want to bring someone over.” He took a bite of pancakes, plain, and chewed them, staring at her without expression.