by K. J. Young
“You can dispense with the formalities. Call me Roy, and call my sister Alma.”
“All right then. Roy. I’ve never worked as a home health aide, but I learn quickly and promise you that I would do a good job.” He feels the way their stares bore through him. It makes him so uncomfortable he almost wishes for that beverage after all. It would help to have something to do with his hands.
“I’m sure you’ll be fine.” Roy has a gruff, friendly voice. “I expect the job will probably be different from what you’re imagining, but I think we’re easy to work for, and I know it will be an excellent experience for you.”
“Terrific. I’m always up for a challenge.”
“And the pay will more than compensate you for some of the, shall we say, more unsavory duties?” He chuckles as if he’s made a fine joke.
“I see.” Mark tries not to think about the unsavory duties. The likelihood is that they involve bodily fluids or brushing the old guy’s dentures. If any of these chores go beyond his tolerance level, he’s fairly certain he can foist them off on Lisa. As much as women protest, he finds that if he makes a show of being incompetent, they revel in picking up the slack.
“We’d like to start with a few questions, if you don’t mind, Mark.”
“Sure thing. Fire away.”
Roy leans forward, tenting his fingers. “Beverly says you’re twenty-five-years old, and you live in an apartment on Alcott Avenue.”
“That’s correct.”
“But you don’t live alone?”
“No, I don’t,” Mark says. “I live with my girlfriend, Monica. She runs a catering company.” Technically, Monica is a banquet waitress and bartender, but Mark prefers his version of the truth.
“Are you engaged?”
Mark shifts his feet, uncomfortable, half-annoyed. Living in sin. That’s what this old guy is getting at. “No, we’re not engaged.”
Roy asks, “Do you have any tattoos?”
“Me? No.” He shakes his head. What a weird question. He doesn’t know any guys his age who have tattoos. That’s the mark of old military guys and winos.
“How’s your eyesight?”
“Excellent.”
“Any distinguishing marks on your body?”
“Distinguishing marks? Like what?”
“Scars, moles, anything like that?”
Mark thinks. “A few freckles on my chest. Oh, and the scar from my smallpox vaccination from when I was a kid.” He looks down at his left arm. “Like most people have.”
“So you’ve had all your childhood vaccinations?”
“Yes. I can get a copy of my medical records if it’s required.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Roy says. “Your word is good enough.”
“My health is excellent.”
“Yes, so Beverly said.” Roy nods his head. “Anything else about your physical condition we should know? Are you bowlegged or knock-kneed? Any problems with your spine?”
“No,” Mark assures him. “None of that. The last time I saw the doctor he said I was the picture of health. I’m strong too.”
Roy presses on. “What about the elderly men in your family? Do they go deaf or blind? Lose their hair? Have heart problems?” He raises one quivering finger and taps it to his chest.
“The elderly men in my family?”
“Your grandfathers and great-grandfathers. I’m wondering how long they lived and if they had health problems.”
Mark makes a show of thinking. “I don’t know too much about my great-grandparents, but both of my grandfathers are alive and doing great.” He adds, “All of my grandparents are very religious and go to church every week.” Mark knows this is likely to score points with them. “Otherwise, one of my grandfathers plays golf, and the other is in a card club. Poker.” They appear to be waiting for more, so he adds, “They both wear glasses, but their hearing is perfect.”
“So they’ve retained their mental acuity?” Roy asks. “No signs of senility?”
“Look, I’m not sure what this has to do with the job,” Mark says, perplexed. “Were you thinking you might meet my grandparents at some point? Because I gotta tell you, that’s not going to happen.” He flashes a convincing smile. “I’ll have to be enough.”
“We won’t need to meet anyone in your family, so don’t worry about that,” Roy says smoothly. “I know these are odd questions, but we’re just trying to get a feel for you and your family. You’ll be in our house, so it’s not like working in a store or office. This is a very personal job.”
That makes sense. “Of course. I understand.”
Roy holds up one bony finger and gives him a smile. “To get back to the question—has anyone in your family ever gone senile?”
“No.”
The old man’s expression is hard to read, and Mark wonders if he’s given the right response. Do they want me to have experience with confused old people?
“If you’re wondering about my capability, I’m prepared to handle anything the job entails,” Mark says. Beverly coached him to act confident, and he played along with her instructions, but what she didn’t know was that Mark could have taught a course on confidence. He was born confident. His biggest challenge in life so far has been learning to tone it down. People don’t always appreciate his personality. They say he is cocky, arrogant, full of it. He sees no reason to change. So what if he appears capable? There’s no point in going around doubting yourself.
“I’m sure you can handle anything we’d ask you to do,” Roy says, his tone pleasant. “You seem like a smart and savvy young man.”
“Thank you.” Mark grins; this interview is going well.
The doors to the room open. Lisa is back. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but Dr. Cross is on the telephone. Do you want to take the call?” Mark meets her glance, and she gives him a perfunctory nod. She strikes him as being a little bit guarded. If Mark gets the job, his first order of business will be to crack through that shell.
Roy says, “Please tell the doctor I’ll call him back when we’re done interviewing Mark.”
“I’ll let him know,” she says, backing out of the room and pulling the doors shut behind her.
“She seems nice.” Mark turns back to face them.
“Lisa is nice,” Alma agrees, speaking for the first time.
“This is a gorgeous home. Have you lived here long?” Mark asks, remembering Beverly’s advice about asking questions during interviews. Employers like it when you take an interest. If you can slide in a compliment, all the better. He glances around the room in a show of admiration.
Roy answers, “We’ve been here for many years. Inherited it from a friend.”
Nice friend, Mark thinks. “I see.”
Alma sits forward in her chair and frowns. “Why is your hair so long and shaggy?”
Mark is used to reading between the lines, translating what is really being said, and he knows that old ladies hate long hair on men. They think Hollywood stars like Robert Mitchum and John Wayne are emblematic of true men. Well, times have changed. He gives her a grin. “I’ve been told it looks good this way.”
Her head bobs from side to side. “No,” she says, her eyebrows knitting together in disapproval. “It will not do. I can’t be staring at that all day.”
Mark says, “Most women tell me they like my hair.” Actually, what he hears are compliments from women saying they wished they had his hair. Thick, wavy, healthy hair. They run their hands through it and say it’s wasted on a man. He also hears commentary on his long, dark eyelashes, but it’s the hair they notice first.
Roy says, “Would you consider cutting it? For the job?”
Mark vacillates for a second. If this is a deal breaker, then he’ll break the deal and get a different job. “No. Absolutely not. There’s no way I’m cutting my hair.”
“You won’t cut it?” Alma says.
Mark gives her his sweetest smile. “If I was going to do it for anyone, it would be for you, ma’am, but my hair is part of
who I am. I think it would be easier for you to adjust.” She doesn’t look convinced. He tries again. “What if I combed it differently?”
“What if I gave you two hundred dollars to cut your hair?” Roy asks abruptly.
Incredulous, Mark sucks in a breath. “You’d give me two hundred dollars to cut my hair?”
“Yes, on the condition that you come work for us and commit to staying on for at least six months.”
“Two hundred dollars?”
“Cash. We’d go to the barber shop together, and I’d pay you immediately afterward.”
“Why would you give someone that much money to cut their hair? The job can be done either way.” He looks at them, puzzled. His hair barely touches his shoulders. “My hair isn’t even that long.”
“It’s important to Alma,” Roy says simply. “And I like it when she’s happy.”
“He needs new clothes too,” she says, pointing a crooked finger in Mark’s direction.
Roy gives her a fleeting smile. “All in due time, dear. Let’s get this squared away first.” He turns his attention back to Mark. “If we hire you, we pay ten dollars an hour. That’s in addition to the money for the haircut.”
Ten dollars an hour. Nearly five times the minimum wage, and more than most recent college graduates make. Added to the initial two hundred dollars, he’d be caught up on his rent in no time.
“What do you say, young man?”
Mark suppresses the surge of excitement that flutters in his stomach. Cautiously he says, “For two hundred dollars, I’d cut my hair. But that’s only if I’m guaranteed the job. Are you offering it to me?” Lisa advised against asking questions. Beverly, too, said it was better to let the employer take the lead, but screw it—Mark wants to know where this is going.
Roy reaches over and gives Alma’s hand a squeeze. “What do you think, dear?”
She peers over her glasses and beckons. “Can you come here, young man?”
Mark gets up out of his chair and stands in front of her. She puts out both hands, and he takes them, pulling her to her feet. She says, “I need to get a better look,” then reaches up and puts her hands on either side of his face. While it seems an affectionate gesture, everything in him wants to push her away. She smells musty, like clothes stored in a basement. Up close he sees through her thin hair to her pink scalp and notices that one of her eyes has a milky film to it. Her face is grotesque, covered with wrinkles like beaten leather. A little spittle gathers in the corner of one side of her cracked lips. He presses his lips together, quelling the impulse to gag. She puts her hands on his shoulders and gives them a squeeze, then runs her fingers down his arms. “Oh, how strong!” she says, sounding delighted.
“I told you,” Mark says, looking past her. “Strong like an ox.” This is something dorky his stepfather sometimes says. It seems appropriate at the moment.
“I can tell.” She releases him from her grasp. “Turn around for me.” He hesitates, and she says, “Come on. Turn around.” He turns around slowly, and she says, “Stop!” A second later, he feels her hands on his back, tracing the line of his spine all the way down before grabbing a handful of his buttocks and giving a squeeze.
“Hey! Is that really necessary?” he asks sharply, taking a step away. If he isn’t hired after enduring this, he’s coming back tomorrow with a flamethrower.
Alma sits down and speaks to her brother. “He’s just right.”
“This isn’t part of the job, is it? Getting groped?” The words are out before he’s even thought them, and he is surprised at his own level of indignity. He’s been felt up at discos and bars, mainly by drunk women, some of them not even remotely attractive, and he laughed it off, was flattered, even, knowing that ultimately he holds the power. This, though, is an entirely different thing. A violation.
“Not at all,” Roy says. “Won’t happen again.”
“I hope not.” Reseating himself, Mark smooths the front of his shirt.
“You have to forgive Alma. She can be a bit much at times, but she means well.” He winks at Mark as if to say, Just between us, my sister is losing her mind. Please indulge her. Maybe this is why the topic of senility came up earlier in the interview.
“So, I’m hired?”
“I think you’re just the right man for the job,” Roy says. “You can start tomorrow. Come around the same time as today.”
“Will it be full time? I’m going to need full-time hours.”
“Full time,” Alma echoes.
Roy says, “Forty hours a week or more. We may need you some nights and weekends. Is that a problem?”
That had to be the around-the-clock availability Beverly mentioned. Mark isn’t thrilled at the idea of working weekends, but for the pay, he’ll do it. He might as well make the money while he can. “Not a problem. I can work whenever you need me.”
“Excellent.” Roy rubs his hands together. “I think we’re going to get along fine, Mark.”
“I think so too, sir.” Getting up, he shakes hands with each of them, and then, grinning, he pours on the old Mark Norman charm. “I appreciate the opportunity you’re giving me, and I won’t let you down. Sincerely, thank you.”
“Enjoy your hair tonight,” Roy says. “Tomorrow we’re going to the barber.”
“Yes, sir. Looking forward to it.”
After they exchange goodbyes, Mark says he’ll let himself out. In the hallway he runs into Lisa. “Guess what?” he says. “I got the job. I start tomorrow.” He gives her his best smile.
Clearly unimpressed, she flatly says, “Good for you.”
He leans in conspiratorially. “I think we’re going to be friends.”
“Think again,” she says, moving past him.
Mark smirks, seeing her words as a challenge. He sticks his hands in his pockets and whistles as he heads out the front door. With his newly acquired bus pass, he won’t have to use his remaining cash for the bus fare. Tomorrow he’ll be two hundred dollars richer, and he’ll get another four hundred dollars after the first week of work. He has a feeling he’s going to see even more money on top of his weekly wage. He knows opportunity when he sees it, and this pair is a mine that hasn’t yet been tapped.
He is, as Roy said, just the man for the job.
Chapter Three
The next morning, Mark and his girlfriend engage in such wild sex that their douchebag neighbor downstairs pounds on the ceiling with a broom and yells, “Enough already,” making both of them laugh. Afterward, while he gets dressed, Monica watches from the bed, laughing when he deliberately shakes his ass in her direction while pulling up his underwear.
“Sure, now you love me,” he says, going over to the bed and smacking her backside.
Such a contrast from the night before when he arrived home to find her ready to kick him out, the phone bill clutched in her hand. “You’re starting to feel like a weight around my neck,” she said. “If you don’t start bringing in your share of the money soon, we’re through.”
Of course, once he told her about his new job, she softened. “Their health is declining,” Mark said. “Just by looking you can tell time’s running out for them, especially the sister.”
“Are you hoping they die soon?” she asked, more curious than disapproving.
“Right now it’s in my best interest for them to stay alive as long as possible,” he said. “I can see all kinds of opportunities in that house, and as I told you before, I’m the kind of guy who makes things happen.”
“Watch, I’ll have you paid back in full in the next two weeks,” he said.
Monica said, “We’ll see about that.”
He raised one eyebrow. “Oh yes, we will.”
Thinking about it the next morning on the way to the bus stop, Mark realizes that most of the women he’s dated were chosen for their physical attributes, but he found that the attraction wore thin over time. So many of them turned out to be girls who expected him to be a mind reader and chattered endlessly about nothing. Total airhe
ads. Monica, now she’s a different story. Gorgeous, with dark hair and huge brown eyes, and smart as hell besides. She has ambitions, too, saving her money and planning for the future. She says that once she has enough to buy a car, her next step is to start her own business, and from there she foresees a lifetime of security and luxury. She and Mark are in agreement on so much of this. Working for other people will always be a tether that keeps them in one place. The best way to get ahead in this world is to run the show. As far as he’s concerned, with Monica, he’s met his match. She sees right through him and doesn’t put up with any of his shit. Oddly enough, this is the biggest turn-on of all. Which doesn’t mean she’s perfect, just better than most.
As he finds a seat on the bus, change is in the air. Like a vibration in the atmosphere, it buzzes all around him. This new job is going to be a turning point for him.
Getting off the bus at Clarke Street, he retraces yesterday’s route without a hint of yesterday’s hesitation. Funny how a person gets used to things; today the condition of the neighborhood doesn’t bother him at all. When he arrives at Alden Manor, the sight of a mansion tucked between two industrial buildings looks just right. Another positive? No sign of the aging hippie. He bounds up the stairs and through the arches onto the porch, so intent on arriving on time that when he steps on something small and squishy, he yelps in surprise. Backing up, he leans over to take a closer look, sickened to see it’s the remains of a bird, its wing mutilated, two flies buzzing around the bloody corpse.
He is still staring at it when the door opens with Lisa on the other side. “There you are,” she says. “What’s the holdup?”
“A dead bird.” Mark crouches. “Looks like something tore into it. Maybe a cat? Do the Walgraves have a cat?” He glances up at her.
“No, just leave it. I’ll get it later,” she says impatiently. “Roy is waiting for you.” Lisa leads him through the house all the way back to the dining room, where Roy and Alma sit at a table, drinking from china teacups. The plates in front of them show remnants of toast and eggs.
“Good morning,” he greets them.
“There’s that hair again,” Alma says, decidedly contentious.