by M. M. Mayle
“This afternoon when I asked you to have dinner with me you said ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible.’ That’s what you said. Word for word, and I took it as your mannered way of saying you had another engagement. Don’t you?”
“I have things . . . I have things I need to do tonight.”
“Uh-oh. Am I gettin’ the message there’s some sort of prohibition against your seeing me socially? Some set of rules I don’t know about?”
Laurel shifts her weight on the unyielding floor without finding a more comfortable position; she repositions the phone against her ear without relieving the pressure.
“Is that your own policy or one of the rules of the profession I’ve not run into before?” he continues. “It can’t be the policy of your law firm because David cheered me on this morning when he misunderstood something I said and thought you and I were only gettin’ better acquainted when we went to the Oyster Bar and to the museum.”
“Wait. Are you saying David openly encouraged a social relationship between us? Is that correct?”
“Yes, definitely. That a problem?”
“It doesn’t have to be. Listen, I have to go. I have a lot of things to take care of this evening.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“I’m sorry, what was the question?”
“Is it possible for you to see me socially?”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Whose ethics will I be offending if I make it my mission in life to convince you it is a good idea?”
“There are too many technicalities and . . . and I’m afraid I don’t see the situation the way David apparently does.”
“Shit, you still haven’t answered the question. Whose ethics will I—”
“Colin . . . I really must go.”
“Yeh, yeh, I know, you’ve got things you need to do. What about tomorrow, then? Earlier you said we’d be gettin’ together at your office. That still on?”
“Yes, of course. It may have to be later in the day, though. I need to find a repairman willing to work on the weekend and that could take a good chunk out of my morning.”
“What needs repairing?”
“The garage door opener stopped working,” she blurts without thinking of the probable consequences. They argue for ten minutes before she’s able to convince him his immediate presence is not required.
“Laurel, please hear me out. If you won’t let me help, at least let me send someone. I can have someone there straightaway.”
“So can I if I’m willing to pay what you are to take care of a minor inconvenience!”
“Excuse me! I see a threat to your safety and well-being as a bit more than a minor inconvenience.”
“Since when is my safety and well-being any of your business? I’ve been managing without you for thirty years and I don’t know what makes you think I suddenly need your—”
“Be still a minute, will you? Your safety and well-being became my business the minute you were seen with me in public and assumed to be my love interest. That is what makes me think I should bloody well take responsibility for anything that could harm you.”
“I fail to see how the malfunction of a garage door opener is going to harm me if I don’t have it repaired right this instant.”
“Have you considered the good possibility some fuckbag with a camera has ferreted out your home address and will be trained on you when you back out of the garage and are forced to get out of the car in order to close the goddammed garage door? Do you think I’ll sleep tonight knowing that could happen?”
She’ll fix the goddammed garage door herself before she’ll admit he’s right. And she’ll let the silence between them grow ominous before she says another word.
“Laurel?”
“Are you just pleasing your tongue or have you something to add?”
“Both. You’ll have it repaired first thing, right?”
“Right.”
“And if there are any further problems you’ll let me know.”
“I’ll let you know what time I’m available tomorrow. I’ll leave word. Good night.”
“Wait! I’m not—”
Oh yes you are. Her ear is throbbing when she puts down the phone; her knees are stiff and her butt is numb when she gets up off the floor. For allowing the client to get to her, aggravation weighs her down as she returns to the garage for a final assessment of the overhead door mechanism. She takes pencil and paper along to record the make and model number of the unit in case a repairman should ask.
A stepladder is needed in order to read the model number and the height advantage allows her to see something missed earlier. The electrical plug for the opener is partially dislodged from the outlet in the ceiling, jarred loose, no doubt, by twice-daily quick reversals of the mechanism. As she reseats the plug she can place some of the blame on the receptacle itself; it’s an old one, installed in a time of want by someone more familiar with iambic pentameter than alternating current, and should have been replaced a decade ago.
From the wall switch she tries the door opener and it works smoothly. In deference to the questionable outlet and the potential for jarring the plug loose again, she waits a slow count of ten before reversing the action—a new habit she’ll have to practice until there’s time for a professional fix.
After downing a meager supper of picnic leftovers, she spends an hour at the kitchen desk going over the day’s notes. Closer inspection produces no revelations, nothing that can be expanded upon. Who is she trying to kid? Hers was the only significant biographical information released today, and that was a huge mistake—a mistake made glaringly obvious the minute the client attempted to enter her social life.
An urge to get in touch with David dwindles to nothing while she closes up the house for the night and heads upstairs. Too easy to imagine his amused reaction to this latest complaint. Too easy to imagine him reminding her that familiarity generates familiarity, and intimacy begets intimacy, a lesson she should have leaned by now.
Sprawled on her bed, Laurel squanders an hour turning the pages of a bible on contract law without retaining anything useful. Across the room, the tape of the Institute Awards show is on top of the TV. She pretends it’s not calling to her in a jeering nyah-nyah-gotcha kind of way.
She kills another hour in the bathroom, showering until the water runs cold, slathering on creams and lotions, blow-drying her hair, strand by strand. And it’s still too soon to leave word for the client without seeming overeager to comply with his wishes.
A little past eleven she exchanges a terrycloth robe for bikini briefs and an oversized T-shirt and gives in to the video. She replays the best song award portion over and over until she can no longer stand the sight of Colin Elliot’s commanding stage presence or tolerate the maddening appeal of his singing voice. Thus armed and resistant, leaving nothing to chance, she writes down what she’ll say in the phone message she plans to leave for him no earlier than midnight.
The witching hour comes and goes; she reads and rereads her script without acting on it. At twelve-fifteen it seems like a good idea to check activity on the street. She peeks through the drapes on the front window and is mildly surprised to see three vehicles parked at staggered intervals along the cul-de-sac. If she can believe one of them might contain a fuckbag photographer, she can as easily believe another might contain Colin Elliot himself, there to personally supervise her safety and well-being. Either premise is ridiculous; those cars belong to guests of other residents of the court. It is Friday night after all, and people do entertain.
At half past twelve, she dials The Plaza Hotel and asks for Boris Gudonov’s suite. She might be hoping he’ll answer; on the other hand, she might not.
There is no answer, which serves her right because she doesn’t deserve one. At the prompt, she leaves an unscripted message that includes the condition of the garage door opener and the time she plans to arrive at her office in the morning. The apology she’ll deliver
in person.
TWENTY-NINE
Early morning, April 4, 1987
Hoop wakes a little before sunup, the time he’d stir himself for the job back home at the IGA store or if he was filling in at the abattoir. Unlike yesterday morning, he knows for sure where he is and that he didn’t sleep unmoving like a corpse. All in all he feels quite good other than for the hunger that he ought to be used to by now and the disappointment about Audrey’s condition he’ll never get used to.
The hunger he can do something about, though. While he takes a sponge bath and slicks stray hairs back into his plait, his mouth and stomach remember the breakfast he treated himself to in California and push him to hold out for something at least that good here in New Jersey.
If he weren’t planning to buy all new clothes today, he’d feel ashamed of wearing the same duds the fourth day in a row. Similar could be said about moving his cartload of possessions back to the Jimmy. If he weren’t planning to find a better way to store all this stuff, he’d feel embarrassed about parading it through the lobby every time he comes or goes.
While he’s in the lobby he thinks to ask the desk clerk if they offer a weekly rate, a notion that struck him last night when he realized that with the found money he can sleep in a bed every night and eat real meals if he wants to.
A sickly looking sun is burning through low clouds by the time the truck’s loaded and ready to roll. The first order of the day is finding a decent place to eat. He knows he won’t find one on the first turnoff that presents itself, the big main road that costs money to drive on. But when he tries to turn onto a likelier prospect he misses the entrance and gets shunted onto Route 3—the road that brought him to North Bergen in the first place and the selfsame road that took him to Glen Abbey yesterday.
As he did when the unseen hand steered him off the interstate, he gives over to this guidance without a struggle. At this hour on a Saturday morning there’s little traffic to bother with and although his stomach’s rumbling, it’s not like he’s starving to death. Unquestioning of where he’s being led, he slows for the exit to the gateway he stumbled across yesterday.
Nothing’s open on Holbrook Road when he gets to it and nothing much is moving either. This stays true the rest of the way to Old Quarry Court. Taking another look at the layout and maybe proving beyond a doubt this is where the lawyerwoman lives was always in the back of his mind. He would have wound up here even if the spirit hadn’t moved him, but it would have been after breakfast.
He enters the court at a crawl and hasn’t gone far when something leaps out at him from a tall stand of bushes. He yelps and barely avoids running over whatever it is—a trickster in human form or maybe an ordinary witch because it’s swinging a broom.
It turns out to be an old woman who orders him in a high-pitched voice to halt and get out of the truck or be turned over to the authorities. He’d be a jackassed-fool not to mind her; she can’t be the only early riser in this neighborhood, so he pulls over to the curb and gets out. In the same screechy voice she then orders him to follow her along a narrow sidewalk and into her house where he’s told to have a seat at the kitchen table.
Before he can decide how much trouble he’s in, he’s given a new race and nationality. The old woman has him down for a Cuban, one who understands English. She lets him know that while she’s in sympathy with the need to escape the wickedness of Castro’s communism, he should not expect a free ride here in the US-of-A.
He couldn’t agree more and is about to say so when she explains that as a temporary employee for the Edelweiss Garden Center, certain things are required of him if he intends to work in this neighborhood. No cursing, spitting, or urinating in pubic is allowed and he’s expected to show up clean in mind, clothes, and body.
He says as little as possible to hide his lack of foreign accent because the cover she’s made up for him is better than anything he could invent on short notice.
While cooking something on the stove, she jaws on about how useless it would be for him or for any of his cronies to case and rob the houses they service because immigrant laborers are always prime suspects.
He ought to feel insulted by this dig and he ought to be thinking about how to slip out of here now that she’s not looking. But like she’s read his mind or has eyes in the back of her head, she turns around just as he’s tensing to make a run for it.
“You can wash your hands right here at the sink,” she says.
Again he goes along with her because the smell of whatever she’s cooking is getting to him. So is the smell of the coffee she’s making.
The coffee, when she pours him a cup, is better than anything he’s had in weeks. In months, even. Then she serves him smooth, thin pancakes that are folded into pockets filled with soft, sweetish cheese and spread with sourish cherry jam. These too are better than anything he’s had in weeks if he discounts the Los Angeles breakfast. He nods a yes when she offers him two more of these pancakes and another yes when she asks if he wants powdered sugar sprinkled on top.
He’s fairly sure Cubans talk the same as Mexicans, so he mumbles a “si” when she asks if they understand each other and if he’s willing to abide by the Old Quarry Court rules. Then, as though reminding him he’s not completely out of the woods, she goes to a doorway leading to a darkened room and calls out in her high voice, “Milty, breakfast is ready.”
Milty, whoever he is, doesn’t answer. That doesn’t say he’s not there, though, and hasn’t been all along. Not one to push this weird brand of luck, Hoop mumbles an imitation “gracias” and moves toward the outside door. The old woman comes along, trailing him all the way to the curb where she stops short at the back end of the Jimmy. She takes a gander at the Michigan license plate and decides that he’s a laid-off autoworker. Again, he couldn’t have come up with a better story, so he doesn’t deny it when he climbs into the cab and starts the engine.
He eases away from the curb and moves slow around the circular part of the street watchful for the house at the head of the circle. No amount of wondering will explain the strange workings of the old woman so he doesn’t even try.
At number 13, he cuts his eyes to the lawyerwoman’s house and grounds without noticing anything not drunk in yesterday, completes the circle and funnels out of Old Quarry Court,
On the next street, he finds an out-of-the-way place to park and hunkers down behind the wheel to puzzle over this latest twist of fate.
The fancy pancakes and cherry jam sit like stones in his belly as he tries to decide if anything happened back there that he should worry about—and if so, what.
The fresh, full-flavored coffee rises like gall in his throat before he chooses the old woman’s study of the Michigan license plate as the only weak point and probably not worth worrying about because his name was never asked, his ID was never examined, and his early-morning appearance there was never questioned. To the old woman he’s just another drifter of Cuban background, just another laid-off autoworker.
He feels a lot better with that out of the way, enough better that he’s ready to link up with Holbrook Road and follow wherever it leads.
There’s no one around to mistake him for a yard worker when Hoop pulls into Edelweiss Hardware and Garden Center and drives around back. He parks next to the same pay telephone that gave him Laurel Chandler’s home address. After he’s fed in enough coins to last through being put on hold if that should happen, he fishes the page torn from a homebuyer’s magazine out of his pocket and dials the number for the place advertising rental storage units at convenient locations throughout Central New Jersey.
The guy who answers says there’s only one unit available on short notice and it’s on Route 22 in Union, New Jersey, wherever that is. Wherever it is, he’ll find it. He found Glen Abbey and Old Quarry Court, didn’t he?
THIRTY
Morning, April 4, 1987
An hour into the Saturday-morning household chores, Laurel stops pretending her siblings’ bedrooms need anything mo
re than a light once-over. They haven’t been occupied in weeks and chances are they’ll remain that way for the foreseeable future.
She bypasses her former bedroom altogether. She doesn’t even open the door. If dust bunnies are breeding in the corners, more power to them.
The bedroom she now calls her own—her parents’ former bedroom—can stand some attention. Routine dusting reveals the need for furniture polishing, which in turn reveals the need for maintenance to the built-in bookcases and to the carved cherrywood fireplace façade in particular. Did the bookcases always sag like that? How long has the fireplace mantle been so loose from the chimneypiece that she can practically see into the garage attic on the other side?
“Has the floor always squeaked like this?” she wonders aloud as she moves to the other end of the room to clean window glass.
More scales fall from her eyes as she begins this new task and registers the true condition of the eight-foot bay. Each and every little windowpane needs recaulking and the mullions need hours and hours of painstaking scraping and repainting. These examples speak volubly for the condition of the rest of the house, if she’s willing to listen.
Rather than waste any more elbow grease on this job, she might better compile a list of the areas requiring repair or replacement and allow that list to help determine what to do with the property. But wouldn’t that amount to telling David he’s right, that the property is too far gone to warrant renovation, that the value is in the land?
She nevertheless finishes cleaning the undeserving window, then transfers her attention to the bathroom. Under her newly jaundiced eye, this space is now a glaring monument to the fifties that should have been gutted years ago. Despite her sudden disenchantment, she goes at the fixtures and tiles as though it were still possible to polish them to a high luster.
From there on everything encountered is suspect, including the cedar closet where cleaning supplies are stored along with a few half-filled garment bags. Even the hatchway from the cedar closet into the attic above the garage where she knows without looking that a run of electrical wiring should have been brought up to code a decade ago.