A Basic Renovation

by Sandra Antonelli

  Terry shrugged. ‘So what?’

  ‘So what? You came home, crying that your wife left you for another woman.’

  ‘I never said that.’

  ‘The hell you didn’t!’

  ‘The hell I did.’

  ‘You sat at the table, in the middle of our mother’s birthday party, and blubbered how your wife left you for her partner.’

  ‘I never said she left me. I said she was with her partner, Kelly. And she was. When we split she moved into that interior decorating twinkie’s house. You all filled in the blanks yourself.’

  ‘And you just let us. Jesus. Jesus, you left that woman for her best friend, the best friend you married then divorced because you said she was an abusive alcoholic.’

  ‘Emily drank a lot. And she had a foul temper, she even slapped me a couple of times, but that stuff is ancient history.’

  History. Dominic felt his head swim. It actually felt as if his skull leapt free of his body to dog paddle through boiling water. He’d been hung up on history, but the past was a lie built on a lie, just as Lesley said it was. ‘I don’t know who you are. I haven’t known for the last sixteen years. What did you tell Susannah about yourself and your ex-wives? Does the present Mrs. Terrance Brennan even know she’s wife number five? Or is she number six?’

  Terry shifted the ice pack again. ‘Five. Annulments don’t count. Lesley doesn’t count.’

  ‘Lesley doesn’t count? Is there anything or anyone in your entire miserable adult life you haven’t cheated on or lied about?’

  Like all his brothers, Terry’s teeth were perfectly straight, but it almost seemed as if he had had an extra, shark-like row hidden behind that pearly white smile. ‘I like Kyle. He’s a great kid, a real tribute to his parents.’

  Dominic jerked his little brother from his seat. The ice pack hit the floor with a watery splat when he shoved him against the edge of the table and drew back his fist.

  Terry stared at him, his teeth fixed with a shark-like smile. ‘Well, come on. Why don’t you see if you can make it match the other side.’

  Marcus and Christian had been fair game; they had all beaten each other up, bloodied or broken noses, blackened eyes, but none of them had ever laid a hand on their little brother before. The gleam in Terry’s eye made it plain he knew Dominic wouldn’t hit him now. Shaking, seething, disgusted with himself, he let Terry go, pushed away, and kicked over a chair, swearing.

  He had no idea how he’d ever missed it, but he finally understood something about himself and his baby brother. ‘You were such a sick little kid,’ he said, ‘in and out of the hospital so many times like you were. Worrying about you became a second nature ingrained in all of us. We mollycoddled you, stood up for you, gave you whatever you wanted, let you take whatever you wanted, we spoiled you rotten and let you have your own way because we were scared, terrified, that our baby brother would die without knowing how much we loved him. We were so happy when we found out my bone marrow matched yours. We thanked God you got better. But you know something? I don’t think you did. The leukaemia went into remission, but you’re still sick. You’re one sick, sorry, manipulative, fucker who never learned to keep his hands off what doesn’t belong to him. Well, no more. No more!’

  Terry grinned, shrugging, looking past him. ‘Be grateful you weren’t graced with a sibling, kid.’

  Dominic swung around.

  Kyle was sitting on the countertop, shoving Chips Ahoy into his mouth, the gingerbread house cookie jar that had belonged to his great-grandmother on his lap. His blue eyes were full of curiosity and fascination, as if he were watching a boxing match from a ringside seat.

  He’d seen everything, heard the entire exchange.

  Still shaking, flexing his fingers, Dominic took one last look at his brother, and walked out of the house.

  Kyle hopped down from the counter and set the cookie jar on the table next to his uncle. Then he picked up the chair his father had knocked over. ‘I never knew you had leukaemia.’

  The ice pack came away from his Uncle Terry’s eye. ‘It’s not something anyone in the family likes to mention, especially Mom – Grandma.’

  ‘How old were you?’

  ‘At the beginning? Five.’

  ‘So you almost died?’

  ‘Yeah, but nobody ever told me I was going to. Hey. Tell me. What do you think of Susannah?’

  She’s...uh…she has a nice car.’

  His uncle shifted in his seat and looked at him as incredulously as someone with a swollen eye could. ‘Aw, come on, a nice car? Your Aunt Susannah is built like Jayne Mansfield.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Never mind. Don’t you think she looks like a pin up girl from the Fifties?’

  ‘I guess so.’ All Kyle really remembered about Aunt Susannah were distractingly ginormous breasts. He couldn’t help staring at them when she walked. They were so there, so in-your-face, how could he notice anything else? He was sort of surprised boobs that big didn’t do much for him.

  Clearly his dad’s kid brother had a different point of view. ‘They’re real, in case you’re wondering, one hundred percent gen-u-ine.’ He leaned on his elbows and held the ice back against the swelling.

  Kyle shrugged. ‘What is it she has, a three or two-point-five litre?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Sus—Aunt Susannah’s Z4.’

  ‘Oh. It’s a three litre. You really like the car?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What do you drive? What did your,’ he sniffed, ‘dad get you?’

  ‘I don’t have a car.’

  ‘Are you shitting me? Doctor Moneybags, didn’t get you a car when you turned sixteen? You are sixteen aren’t you?’

  ‘Yeah. I was saving for an old Camaro. I woulda had it by the end of summer too, but I broke my arm. So there went my job and there went my car.’

  ‘What a dickhead.’

  Kyle bristled a little at that remark. ‘He felt bad. He got me Clementine.’

  ‘A dog? He got you a dog? A father should get his sixteen year old son a car. Grandpa got me one. It was a piece of shit, but that’s what fathers do. I guess someone needs to remind my big brother about what it means to be a dad.’

  ‘Better not be you.’

  Uncle Terry snickered. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll play nice. So, you got a girlfriend?’

  ‘Not right now.’

  ‘Lost your cherry yet?’

  The question was right out of left field and Kyle’s laugh came out as a bark. It woke Clementine who’d been asleep on the mat in front of the back door to the deck. Her little head popped up and she yawned, her itty-bitty tongue as pink as Kyle’s face.

  ‘Hey. I’m not ragging you. I remember what it was like and if it makes you feel better, I was nineteen. Up ‘til then it was hand jobs for me too, and I don’t mean,’ Uncle Terry spread his fingers wide, ‘Mrs. Palmer and her lovely daughters. Sure, I did that too. I mean come on, we’re guys, it’s what we do, right? But damn, when Vickie Diaz gave my rod a yank it was even better.’

  Kyle shrugged. He didn’t really want to hear about some girl who tugged his uncle’s dong. He knew a few girls at school who were willing to do things and didn’t mind getting their knees dirty, but he wasn’t interested in them. For a second, he wondered if there was something wrong with him because he didn’t want to have his pole waxed by just anyone, but he realised he was just discerning and not some effeminate sensitive new age guy who cried when he watched The Notebook.

  Which he did.

  But no one needed to know that.

  He looked at Clementine again. She stretched and curled back up into a ball, settling back down to sleep again. Pieces of his family’s history were coiled up the same way. Things peeked out, just like Clementine’s nose poked between her paws. There were tales Grandma told, stories his dad and other uncles repeated. Then there was the hidden side, the soap opera stuff, the stale, musty things no one mentioned.

  Hungry for something other
than cookies, Kyle dug for more buried, age-ripened family truffles. He glanced back at his uncle. ‘Dad told me you had a dog when you were growing up…’

  Lesley hoped if she smiled a lot, gnawed on the barbecued spare ribs John had cooked, and let him do all the talking, his smooth voice, silly laugh and the gentle night wind would blow away the storm clouds that kept gathering in her mind. She’d forget all about Hurricane Dominic and all the little twisters his brother spawned.

  She smiled when John told her about building the beautiful deck where they sat having dinner.

  She smiled when he pointed out the sunset and ponderosa pines fading to deep blue shadows on the Pajarito ski basin.

  She smiled when he passed her the corn.

  All the smiling was making her face hurt.

  Lips spread wide, she speared another slab of ribs.

  ‘You’ve got a good appetite,’ John said. ‘I don’t know the last time I’ve seen a woman strap on the feedbag like you have.’

  Lesley dropped a cleaned bone onto her plate and licked honey mesquite sauce from her fingers. She wiped her mouth and decided to be honest. ‘To be honest, John, I wasn’t very hungry at all.’

  ‘Right. You’ve been so busy inhaling food you’ve hardly said two…’ he frowned for a second, ‘Did you eat all that…Were you just being polite?’

  ‘No, I’m just trying not to scream.’

  He looked at her. He had a big brownish-red smear on his chin and a trace of hurt in his eyes. ‘I don’t think my cooking’s that bad.’

  ‘I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. These,’ Lesley held up a wedge of pork, ‘are fantastic.’

  ‘Yeah, they are. So what’s with the urge to scream? You hate Miller’s Crossing and Robocop?’ He glanced over his shoulder to look at the two DVD’s he’d ordered from Netflix sitting on the kitchen counter inside. ‘I could have sworn you liked those movies.’

  ‘I like the movies. I’ve just had a crappy day and I don’t feel particularly sociable. I’m afraid I might bite your head off.’

  John patted a napkin over his chin, removing the sticky stain. ‘How crappy? Did you have something else stolen?’

  ‘Just my pride.’

  ‘Sorry. There’s no police report for that.’

  ‘You’re a nice man, John, but I’m not in a very nice mood.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell me about it? I’m a trained professional. I can take it. Get it off your chest.’

  She sighed and regarded his offer. An awkward love scene and being reunited with her ex was not something she needed to rehash. Or was it? Normally she’d call Kelly and bitch about life, but he was somewhere in Eastern Europe right now. Lesley picked up the unused butter knife beside her plate, turning it over in her fingers.

  ‘Come on. I’m a good listener.’

  Lesley snorted at the good listener part. ‘Oh, what the hell. I’m trying to figure out what possessed me to buy a place in Los Alamos. I saw the house was for sale and I leapt on it without really thinking. All I saw were dollar signs. Greed made me forget what it was like to live here, with my parents and other things hanging over my head. It’s been one thing after another since I got back. My bike is stolen, my parents want to fix me up with my cousin’s friend because they want me to have a baby and live with them. My grandfather asks me where to find condoms so he can seduce your Aunt, and I find out my ex told everyone in his family we split because I was gay. Then this morning, Dominic…Dominic…Oh, you don’t want to know.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Let’s me just say these past few weeks have culminated into one hell of a day. I’m in a very weird mood.’

  ‘Weird is good. I can do weird. Did Brennan come on to you or something?’ John sounded amused.

  Lesley groaned. She rubbed the heels of her hands against her forehead and nodded.

  ‘Interesting. You’re not at all his type. I usually see him with—’

  ‘Women who look like they belong at the Playboy Mansion?’ she interrupted with a clear memory of Big-boob Sue’s Playmate figure jiggling along Dominic’s front walk.

  ‘Exactly.’ John grinned at her, shrugging. ‘You feel a little better?’

  ‘No. But thanks for letting me unload. I wonder what’s going to happen next. I’d hire a crew to finish the house, just to get me out of here by the end of the month, but I don’t have the money in my budget.’

  John picked the few bits of coleslaw left on his plate and ate them with his fingers. ‘Tell me something. Why do you think it’s so awful here?’

  ‘It’s not awful. It’s pretty. It’s always pretty, whatever season, but outside the weather, and views and the way Christmas always smells just right, there’s not a whole hell of a lot here in Los Alamos.’

  ‘It’s a good place to live.’

  ‘It’s a great place to visit but a boring place to live. It feels…claustrophobic. Chicago’s open twenty-four hours. If I want pancakes at three a.m. I can get them. I can do my grocery shopping at midnight if I feel like it, but this city shuts down at dusk, like a village fearing a vampire invasion. It’s always been this way. There was nothing to do here when I was a teenager and there’s nothing to do here now. Back then, if you wanted to have any fun, you had to go to Santa Fe. That hasn’t changed. Now that Blockbuster’s closed down for good, the kids will have to find someplace new to hang out. Where do you think that’ll be?’

  ‘We’ve got a nice cinema, a great library,—’

  Lesley waved her hand, ‘Please. When you were a teenager did you hang out at the library?’

  A laugh sniff-sniffed from John’s nose. ‘When was the last time you actually lived here anyway? When you were home during semester breaks from college? You were what, twenty? The town’s changed a lot since then. It’s quite a tight-knit community, especially since the Cerro Grande and Las Conchas Fires.’

  ‘The last time I lived here I was in my late twenties and just married. Outside the new houses over at Quemazon and a few new shops, this place hasn’t changed. It’s an enclave of PhDs, science-lab types, crunchy-granola environmentalists and commuters. It was and always will be a bedroom community of Santa Fe.’

  ‘We have a Starbucks now.’

  ‘Everyplace has a Starbucks now. Gas stations have Starbucks now.’

  ‘There’s something else, another reason why you don’t like it here. So just spill it or I’ll use my good cop–bad cop routine on you.’

  She regarded him for a moment and worked a grain of pepper from her back tooth before she spoke. ‘Listen, I enjoy visiting my parents. Their house is familiar, it’s always home, but I choose where I want to vacation, what time I want to come home and where I want to live, and it’s not here.’

  Thoughtful, John reached out for the platter of uneaten ribs. ‘I like it here. I like the history. I like the people and the town. It’s informal, friendly and a lot nicer than you give it credit for. You’ve let a few bad memories spoil it for you. I hope you don’t mind me saying that.’

  She was quiet for a moment and scratched her neck. ‘OK, if I’m really honest, I’d like to live closer to my parents and grandfather, but some of the people in this town have left a bad taste in my mouth. I wanted to try the flavour of someplace else, someplace where I didn’t feel so childish or ugly, even if it is so quiet and pretty here.’

  ‘Pretty? Yeah. Quiet?’ John stood and shrugged. ‘Meh, not as quiet as you think.’

  ‘Oh, you’d know all the town scandal, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  Lesley grinned. It felt good to smile for real. She collected their plates and followed John into the kitchen. They were quiet for a few minutes, cleaning up, ferrying the dinner things from the deck to the sink. While he put the leftover food into Tupperware, she rinsed the dishes and stacked them into a stainless steel dishwasher.

  Being in John’s house was easy, comfortable. Lesley had felt right at home without even thinking about it because being around John was simple and laid-back. Spending time with
Dominic felt effortless as well, but something made him different. There was an edge, a spark that made him exciting.

  Lesley sighed and watched John sponge off slaw dressing that had dripped over the edge of a storage container. His aftershave was subtle and appealing, especially the way it mixed with the manly, smoky scent of outdoor summer barbecue. The shape of his well-defined chest sat just above a stomach she knew would be rippled like a washboard. When he bent over to retrieve an oven mitt he’d dropped on the floor, she noticed his backside was so hard and tight he could probably crack walnuts simply by clenching his buttocks.

  Walnuts. The comment GP made about a walnut shoved up some part of her anatomy flashed into her mind. Lesley had no doubt John would get the job done. The man was attractive, amusing, smart, considerate and interesting. But beyond those good looks, desirable qualities, and a certain guarantee of operatic orgasms, he was just John.

  Why was that? All the right pieces were in place, so why didn’t he spark?

  John and Dominic were like different varieties of apples. John was an all-purpose Golden Delicious; attractive, mellow and good in anything, Dominic a Fuji; crisp, hard, sweet with a superb flavour…and why the hell was she comparing men to fruit? Why was she even thinking about Dominic at all?

  She squeezed the heels of her palms against the sides of her skull. ‘Have you got anything for a headache?’

  John slipped a detergent tablet into the dishwasher. ‘You should have cancelled on me tonight. Renovating a house like yours is a big job for just one person. I would have understood.’

  ‘No, it’s not the house. The house is simple. It’s a family matter for a family I’m not even a part of. I’m a cautionary tale told at Thanksgiving dinner.’ She hoisted herself up onto the counter, pushing aside a half head of cabbage on a cutting board.

  John smirked. ‘But wait, there’s more!’ he said, sounding like he was selling a set of stay-sharp Ginsu knives with a free Ahh Bra.

  ‘Oh, there’s more all right.’ Lesley began to rub her temples.

  John wiped his hands on a dishtowel then threw it on a stool. ‘Here, let me do that,’ he said. His wide fingers sank into her hair to massage her scalp.