by Lydia Millet
“They look like parrots,” she said uncertainly.
“They are parrots,” said Casey. “It’s a whole flock of them. Look!”
A flash of red on their heads, yellow beaks, beady eyes. Susan wished one would alight nearby so she could see it closer up. Get a good look. But they blurred. Why did they have to fly the whole time?
“Parrots,” she repeated.
They watched the parrots, which made a racket with their squawking. People spoke of the beauty of birdsong, but not when it came to parrots. They were the exception that proved the rule.
“They give me the weirdest feeling,” said Casey dreamily. “It’s like they remind me of something I never saw.”
“My whole life I never knew we had wild parrots in L.A. County,” said Susan.
“Did they escape from somewhere?”
“So many?”
“I’m pretty sure they’re not supposed to be here,” said Casey. “When I see nature shows, typically, they don’t feature parrots in Southern California.”
“This is the first time I’ve seen them,” said Susan.
“Huh. I should ask T. He has this animal hobby,” said Casey.
“I meant to ask you about that,” said Susan. “The turnaround, the whole charity thing. So you don’t think he’s—unstable?”
“I don’t know about stable. But he’s less of an asshole now.”
“High praise,” said Susan.
The parrots flapped and squawked, raucous screeches fading. Presently there was silence and the high branches stopped trembling and were still.
“So now,” said Casey. “About that car.”
4
The koi was hanging beneath lily pads, long and bulbous and graceful—like a zeppelin, she thought. Orange and black fins flicked back and forth, barely moving. She knelt beside the pond and gazed.
A man’s voice interrupted.
“I hear people pay two thousand bucks for those things.”
She jumped to her feet, squinting and brushing dirt from her bare knees. It was her cousin Steven, the computer guy, dressed for leisure in khaki Bermuda shorts and a polo shirt; he wore highly reflective sunglasses in a giant wraparound visor, so the whole upper half of his face was missing in action. He was futuristic, a man who came with his own windshield.
She had to get the gate fixed, she realized. Then she could keep it locked.
“Yeah, there’s breeders and shit, all these fancy Japanese, like, fish farms,” said Steven, nodding sagely. “Big one outside Fresno, they sell the things to Chinese restaurants or whatever. For atmosphere. Not, like, for food. I know. I set up their network.”
“Mine was twenty dollars at the pet store,” said Susan.
“The things are what, obese goldfish?”
“Obese seems, I don’t know, judgmental.”
“OK then. Fucking fat.”
“They’re distant goldfish relatives, I think. A kind of carp.”
“So they’re like, goldfish on roids. Do they get roid rage?”
She found herself gazing at him.
“Hey!” he went on. “You should do mandatory drug testing.”
“Ha,” said Susan wanly. She looked down to the pool at her feet, the gold patches gleaming beneath the surface.
“Well, here we are, huh? Uncle Al left the whole dog-and-pony show to dear little Susan,” said Steven, with a quick sting of anger that took her by surprise.
He looked around, head bobbing in what seemed to be an ongoing skeptical nod. At least, she assumed he was looking around: his head swiveled slowly as it bobbed and sunlight flashed on his metallic lenses.
“Not so little,” she said, still taken aback and stalling. It had never occurred to her that he might feel entitled. Not once. She never had, herself.
She blundered on. “Middle-aged Susan, more like.”
“Nah, really. You don’t look a day over thirty.”
“Aw. Can I get you a cup of coffee?”
“Gimme the private tour.”
“Come on in.”
Inside the music room, which opened to the pool and backyard and was full of sheep and goat mounts, he looked around and whistled. Except for a faded, wine-colored velour couch the room was almost empty, only a stand with some colorful guitars in a corner and a dusty double bass with no strings.
“Old guy was crazier than I thought,” he said.
“I didn’t know him well,” said Susan.
“So why’d he pick you?”
“Honestly, I have no idea. Were you two still in touch?”
“We did a couple Turkey Day meals. That kind of shit. Mostly at our place, though, when we lived over in Reseda. He would come in from out of town with a pile of gifts for the kids. So they kinda liked him. Deb didn’t. She thought he was an old lech.”
“Oh yeah?”
“As far as invitations, he didn’t return the favor. Last time I was in this place I was a kid myself.”
“He had a player piano, remember? I haven’t found it yet, though. Maybe he got rid of it. The kitchen’s over here,” she said.
“Building’s massive. Jesus.”
“It’s large.”
“Guy musta had a full-time taxidermist on the payroll.”
“Was he a hunter? Do you know?”
“Well it’s sure as shit not roadkill.”
“Do you remember what he did? For a living?”
“It was like, commodities trading maybe? He was abroad a lot. He was traveling all the time.”
“What can I get you? I have coffee, tea, sparkling water—”
“No beer?”
“Oh. At ten-thirty … ?”
“Gimme a Bud, if you got one.”
She opened the refrigerator as he paced the room peering at the stuffed fish.
“Dos Equis OK?”
“Mexican pisswater? Enh, sure. I’m not picky.”
She almost decided not to hand it over, then reached for the bottle opener.
“What is that, a marlin?”
“I’m still learning. Whatever the label says.”
To occupy herself she reached into the freezer for the bag of coffee.
“So. What brings you by? Wanting to check out the place?”
“Yeah, you know. Though we probably won’t make a claim.”
“What claim?”
“Against the estate. You know.”
She gaped at him. The sunglasses were propped up on his head now, but his eyes didn’t tell her much either. He raised his beer bottle and drank.
A wave of illness moved through her.
“No—what?”
“Like I say, we probably won’t. Tommy’s giving me some pressure. He says it’s the principle of the thing. But listen. I’m like, she’s had a bad year already. That woman has nothing. Zip. Nada. She needed something like this. I go, She needs it more than we do, Tomboy.”
She was unsteady.
“Well. Thanks for that, Steve.”
“Yeah. Well. You know.”
“It was pretty clear in the will, wasn’t it? I mean what do I know.”
“See, though,” and he shook his head, taking a swig from the bottle, “the non compos thing. Not of sound mind.”
“Was he under care or something? In an institution?”
“He lived here by himself.”
“So what makes you think he was—?”
“Shit, woman. I mean the guy was a hermit. There’s no one to say if he was crazy or not.”
She might be having a panic attack. Her breath felt constricted. Spite, she thought. Spite and malice. She wouldn’t be surprised if the old man had left her the house expressly to make sure it wasn’t given to Steven. Possibly when he saw the guy, on holidays, the guy had irritated him. Possibly she was projecting, but possibly Steve’s poor character had been the source of her own good luck.
She fumbled with the coffee grinder as her breathing evened out. It was an excuse to turn away; she’d already drunk her coffee quota. As s
he pressed down on the lid and the grinder spun and shrieked she raised her eyes to the wall above her, which featured a mako shark. She felt reassured by it. She was a murderer, after all. For once it was a comfort to think so. Being a murderer made her equal to Steven.
She lifted her hands from the grinder and waited till it wound down, then pulled off the top and tipped the grounds into a filter.
“Well, I’m glad you convinced Tommy I wasn’t worth suing,” she said humbly.
A murderer, like a shark, must have rows of hidden sharp teeth behind the ones at the front.
What he said was true, of course, though his whole bearing filled her with resentment. Resentment and unease. Of course she didn’t deserve the house. No one deserved a house like this. She didn’t deserve anything, she knew that. But he deserved even less, she suspected. All she could think of to do was flatter him. She would show him some gratitude, presume a kindness in him and will it into existence. Maybe he would follow a rare generous impulse and leave her alone.
“You liquidated this property, we’re talking megamillions,” he said.
A month ago, T. might have bought it himself. Made her his partner, bulldozed the big house and converted the lot to rows of houses like cupcakes on a tray.
“I would hate to sell it,” she said softly. “They’d tear it down and build a subdivision.”
“Ee-yup.”
“But it’s beautiful,” she said, in a subdued tone. Needing somewhere else to look, she opened the refrigerator with a preoccupied air.
“Spacious accommodations for a single lady,” he badgered.
“I rattle around in here,” she said, though this was not at all the way she felt. In truth she glided through chains of rooms streamlined, perfectly graceful in the long halls. Perfect not in and of herself, but in and of the house.
“Yeah, no kidding.”
“I’m not sure what to do with the house yet. I admit. But I will do something.”
“Do something?” said Steven, and drained his beer. “Like what?”
“You know there are parrots that live wild in the neighborhood?” she asked brightly. “Whole flocks of wild parrots!”
•
When she was ushering him toward the front door, two beers later, he stopped to pick through a box of odds and ends on a tabletop—she had it ready to go out to Goodwill—and lifted an old keychain. A dusty bronze ornament dangled.
“Oh yeah,” he mused. “Shit yeah. You know about this?”
“About what?”
“Some club. It’s the logo of that old club he was so into. You don’t remember? Only thing I remember from when I was over here as a kid. Those fuckers were already ancient. They used to hang around the place with walkers and oxygen tanks.”
She held it up to the light: gold and red, with a lion. There had once been words, but they were too worn to read.
“Drive safe,” she said, as he got into his car. “And I really appreciate you respecting the spirit of the will. Going easy on me. It means a lot, Steve.”
Maybe her self-effacing tone would ring in his ears when he thought about litigation. She crossed her fingers behind her back like a schoolgirl and hoped hard, into the bare air, that he would not return—that he and his son Tommy, of high principle, would leave well enough alone.
He backed up in a spurt of pebbles and rolled out the gate; she watched through the holes in the hedge as his car flashed away. She clutched the medallion.
•
Later she stood out on the poolside terrace drinking wine with Jim the lawyer and listening to the fountain at the end of the pool, where water flowed over jumping marble porpoises. He came over once or twice a week in the early evening, when his wife worked late or had made other plans. There were no children.
“Look at me. Already I’m jealously guarding my property,” she said. “As though I earned it or something.”
“You don’t want your asshole cousin coming in and trashing the place,” said Jim. “It’s hardly irrational.”
“Because it’s mine,” she said, shaking her head. “My personal Club Med.”
“Club Med is pathetic,” said Jim.
“You know what I mean.”
“What I think is, you’ve had the rug pulled out from under you twice in your life. This house is the first good thing that’s happened to you in a long time. Naturally you want to keep it. You’re human.”
“But you’re not,” she said, turning to press herself on him, holding her wineglass out to the side. “You’re a lawyer.”
“Your best bet is just to play defense. Wait and see. See if he bothers to make a claim.”
She looked up at his face, its gray, heavy-lidded eyes. He never seemed to open them as far as he could. His lassitude was calming.
Reading in bed, she put down her book and reached for the old letter from Hanoi. She held the yellow paper carefully and reread the looping, faded script: The Emperor is a very sophisticated gent, about 40 or 43, and looks much like what you’d expect of a modern Rajah. It bore an embossment at the top, Charles Adams Sumter III. She flipped the papers over: his signature said Chip.
Chip had known the old man, she thought. The old man had known him. Long dead, no doubt.
A plane crossed the sky, blinking, and she lay back on the pillow. But then she woke up and it was early morning. She remembered the plane as though it should still be there; she had the sense that only a second had passed. It was so early the outside was still almost silent, and through her wide window she saw the yellow streaks of dawn. She reached out for her telephone. 411.
She said his name and the operator asked for an address.
“I don’t have one,” she said.
“Three listings in the metro area,” said the operator briskly, and rattled them off as Susan reached for a pen.
At the first number a woman answered, groggy, and mumbled something in Spanish. She sounded young. Susan apologized for waking her but didn’t regret it. The second number was out of service, and the third was an answering machine that seemed to belong to a young family.
She went downstairs to forage for breakfast but a stubbornness nudged at her so that midway through her bowl of cereal she got up and left the cornflakes soaking to call Information again. This time she asked for more listings, listings for the whole state. She had no evidence he was here, if he was even living, but it was her only lead. There were eight numbers in all, not too many, and she sat with her coffee at the kitchen table, the list in front of her, and dialed methodically. One man had an English accent, which gave her hope at first—maybe because it imbued him fleetingly with age or stature. But he hung up when she asked more. The next number gave her a voicemail with a generic message, so she left her own. The third rang for some time until she heard a distant voice at the other end: the name of a business, and she was disappointed. Then the words came again. Sunset Villas.
“Are you—I’m sorry. What are you?”
“We’re a residential community. For seniors.”
She stretched out the coils of the phone cord on a finger, then released.
“I’m looking for a Mr. Sumter. A Mr. Charles Sumter.”
There was the buzz of static, then nothing. She’d been cut off. But no—a click and someone else picked up.
“Switchboard. Mr. Sumter is away from his room,” said a second voice.
She asked if he went by Chip, but the woman didn’t know. She asked how old he was, and the woman didn’t know that either. It was an 805 area code, Santa Barbara.
•
The villas were condos that overlooked the sea, a blocky off-white complex built around a pool. It was a gray day, with a cold wind whipping down the coast, and the concrete paths that led between the buildings were mostly deserted. Here and there a palm tree with dry fronds scraped and flapped or a square bed of bright geraniums was laid flat by the wind. There were no signs on the paths so it was hard to know where the lobby might be. After a while she came up behind a woman with
a walker, who was proceeding slowly enough to be caught easily. The woman pointed.
Stepping through the automatic doors into the reception area, with its turquoise carpet and framed posters of old musicals, she was surprised; it seemed low-rent for oceanside real estate. To her right was a wall that blared OKLAHOMA! and CATS, and to her left was a glass wall into a small cardio room, where elderly figures looked haggard but determined on StairMasters and treadmills. Their legs pumped doggedly beneath them and they were looking straight forward, looking right at her. She had to turn away quickly lest one of them suddenly collapse.
The woman at the desk gave her a photocopied floor plan of the kind they handed out at motels, with an apartment number circled, and then she was up a long ramp to the second floor, along a catwalk and at the room, ringing the doorbell. A nurse opened the door, a nurse in a baby-blue dress and sneakers, or maybe she was a cleaning person. Susan followed her down a white-walled hallway, their footfalls noiseless on the off-white carpet.
Chip sat on a floral couch in front of a large window. He was a dark form with the light behind him, but she could tell he was very old and thin, with white hair. He wore an argyle sweater. He must be in his nineties. Wind chimes hung behind him in multitudes: glass butterflies, aluminum pipes, hummingbirds dangling beneath bells.
But there couldn’t be wind; it was a picture window and did not open.
He struggled to rise, but she shook her head.
“Oh no, please. Mr. Sumter,” she said, and bent down to hold out her hand. His own was very soft. Behind him the fuzzy, blue-gray ocean was visible: he had been given a good room. Not all the residents could have so clear a view.
After she sat down across the wicker coffee table the cleaning woman brought them tea and poured the contents of two pink packets into his cup for him—or maybe not a cleaning woman, given the tea service. Her role remained unclear.
Susan told him who she was and asked if he had known her uncle, and when she said her great-uncle’s name a smile broke on the old guy’s face.
“Good old Bud,” he said fondly, and picked up his cup of tea.
“So how did you know him?” she asked. She was prepared to explain herself but Chip did not need an explanation. He was happy to talk and spoke slowly and carefully: they had known each other through the State Department, where Chip had been in service. But her great-uncle had not been in the department because he’d failed some kind of Foreign Service test, though Chip did not use the word fail. So Albert had not been a diplomat but because of his line of work, which was import-export, he had been a fixture in various expat communities during a certain era.