The woman sounded nervous. Son of a bitch. Petie hoped they didn’t owe anyone money. With a dish towel she whacked at a late-fall fly dying on the windowsill. “I could probably come. My husband has to work.”
“Well, that’s fine, even just one of you. Do you know which is Ryan’s classroom?”
“Yes.”
“All right, Mrs. Coolbaugh. We’ll see you at three-thirty tomorrow. Bye, now.”
Petie kept the receiver to her ear as the connection was broken and then replaced by a dial tone. By the kitchen clock the boys would be home in ten minutes, and the sink was piled with dishes Petie had turned her back on to meet Schiff. She looked at them with anger; she hated dirty dishes in any sink. Old Man had always left crusty plates around, and old juice glasses with a film of beer still on them. The trailer had stunk of them all the time, even when Petie cleaned them the minute Old Man turned his back. Not that there was much of a way to clean anything in twelve feet of no kitchen and just a dishpan of water to wash in, another for rinsing, poured from the jerry cans she filled three or four times a week at the spigot outside the First Church of God.
Old Man never got water. Hell, he would have kept on peeing out the window if Petie and Eddie hadn’t built an outhouse for them. That had been eighteen years ago, when she hardly knew him except that he’d watch her in class sometimes, two years older than the rest of the students and still flunking algebra. One day out of the blue, he turned up whistling in a place where no one would normally go—they were squatting on state land, so the trailer was a good fifty feet off the petered-out end of Chollum Road. The day Eddie showed up, Petie had been struggling to get some scavenged boards anchored to a two-by-four. It was October, and cold, and she didn’t have much of a hammer.
“Hey,” Eddie Coolbaugh had said. He had a hammer in his hand. At the time he seemed as unlikely to be there as Santa and his reindeer. Maybe someone had told him she’d been scavenging wood from the landfill. “You could use a better hammer.” He extended his and Petie took it.
“You have any nails?” she said.
“Those nails are all right.”
“They bend pretty easy.”
“Because you were using a tack hammer. You try that one, they won’t bend. Hit it square, though. You got to hit it real square or you’ll bend any nail.”
He watched her pound a couple of nails, all of them true. “Big wall or little?”
“Who said it was a wall?”
“It’s either that or a fence, and this doesn’t look like a place for a fence. Big?”
“I don’t know. I guess not. I don’t have much wood.”
Eddie sorted through the pile she’d collected and lined pieces up on the ground and sawed them even while Petie hammered. Between them they made four walls and a doorframe by dark. Eddie sank a post-hole or two in the loamy ground, against which the walls could be raised and then anchored. He still had not asked what they were building, nor shown any particular curiosity. Out of the corner of her eye Petie watched him work, and there was something about his profound lack of interest she liked. And the fact that he had no smell, none whatsoever.
When the light was gone, Eddie had said, “We better do the roof tomorrow. Supposed to be rain coming in.”
Petie let nothing show. “Yeah.”
Eddie brushed off his clothes, ran his fingers through his hair to tidy himself.
“Why’d you come up here, anyway?”
Eddie had shrugged. “There wasn’t anywhere else better. You want a ride back into town? It’s getting late.”
“Nah. My dad and I, we’ll probably camp out here tonight. He’s supposed to meet me.”
“Yeah?” Eddie looked at her blandly through the gathering darkness.
“I’m building an outhouse,” Petie had said flatly. “We live here.”
“Yeah,” said Eddie. “I heard that.”
Next day he’d come back with lumber and a toilet seat and it had been that way between them ever since.
Chapter 6
FOR NEARLY as long as Ryan could remember, Rose had kept a scrap bag in her bedroom closet. It was a plain muslin sack filled with the leftover bits from sewing projects stretching back years: baby quilts she’d made for all of them, smocks and rompers for Carissa, skirts and blouses and dresses for herself. The two of them used to pore over the contents like two kings in a countinghouse. Rose loved rich colors and fine naps, and inside the plain bag were whole seasons: a springtime garden of pinks and yellows and blues, smoky autumn afternoons of grays and golds and fading greens.
Ryan sat in the narrow entrance to Rose’s closet with the bag open at his feet, cloth carefully unfurled and transforming his legs and feet and lap into a fine landscape: a vast blue velveteen sea, green-checked fields, brown-striped mountains spiking from his toes. Deployed across the folds at the foot of the mountain range but not far from the sea were several Pilgrims and an Indian. The Pilgrims were begging the Indians to give them food, since they lacked the skills to take care of themselves in the New World. Ryan’s class was learning about the early settlers and Thanksgiving in social studies. Ryan was deeply interested in the Pilgrims’ plight. He himself felt unprepared most of the time, and knew the shame and terror it caused.
Ryan loved being at Rose’s, even with Jim Christie there. Christie rarely spoke, which was all right with Ryan because he understood that Christie was shy. When Ryan and Loose had walked in after school today, he had simply nodded to them both, flipped a faded ball cap onto his head, pulled it low and gone outside. Loose had trailed after him, hoping for mechanical revelations—Christie was known as a first-rate auto mechanic, better even than Eddie Coolbaugh. Ryan had Rose and the house to himself until Carissa came home from Sawyer on the school bus.
Rose poked her head into the room. “Sweetie, are you going to want a brownie?”
“Okay.”
“Oh, look!” Rose cried, seeing the scrap bag. “All the beautiful things! It’s been a long time since any of us got into my scrap bag, hasn’t it? When you were little you used to take stuff out one by one and rub them against your cheek.”
“I don’t do that anymore,” Ryan lied. He had stroked his cheek with every cloth he’d withdrawn. It was one of his rituals. He had a lot of rituals. In his pocket was a little satin scrap he’d stolen because he liked the way his fingernail felt scraping across it. He would bring it home and put it under his pillow, where he could scratch it as he fell asleep. The thought made him shiver a little with pleasure.
“What are the Q-tips for?” Rose had come in to take a closer look.
“They’re not Q-tips. They’re Pilgrims.”
“Oh! Is it Thanksgiving?”
“No, because they need to find a turkey first. They’re all starving to death, except the ones who are dying of mosquito bites.”
“Yuck.”
“So they’re walking to the mountains to try and find an Indian who could give them a turkey.”
“You have the wildest imagination. You know, you could watch cartoons if you want to. Loose is outside with Jim working on my car. You could choose whatever show you want.”
“Maybe in a little while.”
“All right, sweetie. Just clean up in here when you’re done.” Rose turned to leave.
“Rose?”
“Hmmm?”
“Why did my mom have to go to school?” Ryan tried not to sound nervous, but he’d worried all day. Maybe they thought he had done something wrong. Sometimes he could feel Mrs. Dumphy looking at him, especially lately, when he wasn’t playing with the other kids at recess. He was sculpting a hole under the fir tree with the knot on the trunk. He’d been perfecting it for a week, a round, smooth hole the size of an upside-down helmet.
Rose turned back in the doorway. “She went to see Mrs. Dumphy, sweetie, that’s all I know.”
“Oh.”
“Is there something wrong?”
Ryan shrugged miserably.
“Do you want to talk
about it?” Rose came back into the room and sat on the bed.
Ryan shook his head.
Rose put her arm around the boy’s shoulders, his bones insubstantial as a bird’s. “All right, sweetie. Come out when you’re ready and I’ll have your brownie waiting. Don’t be too long, though, because they’re some of Carissa’s best and someone else might not be able to restrain themselves.”
“Okay.”
Impulsively Rose came back into the room and gave Ryan a noisy kiss on the top of his head. “I don’t get to see enough of you anymore. You need to come and visit me more often,” she told him. His head smelled like paints; he had worn home an Indian headdress of construction paper. It had been meticulously painted, the spine of each feather detailed, the feathers themselves intricately rendered and beautiful. Ryan had worn it with great dignity.
Rose closed the door to her bedroom behind her quietly. Ryan was one of the most difficult children she had ever known, but also one of the sweetest. God or whatever had just dealt him a difficult nature and there was not a thing he or anybody else could do about it. Loud noises had always startled him, even when he knew they were coming; the vacuum cleaner still made him tremble when it was run over a hard floor. As a baby he’d only been at ease in motion, and his happiest times were when Petie pushed him in the Sea View housekeeping cart, wedged tightly between piles of starchy white towels and linens. On her off nights Petie had spent hours in the dingy laundry room of her apartment building dozing in a plastic chair while Ryan rode the dryer in his car seat, soothed by the hum and the heat and vibration. Later there had been the periods when he couldn’t bear any wrinkles in his socks, when the color orange made him cry, when he was afraid of spiders that weren’t there. Then Loose had come along, a tough, roly-poly, manly baby, a bottle-slinger, a nipple-chewer, surefooted and fearless but with none of Ryan’s sensitivity or sweetness. Rose and Ryan and Carissa had become a trio for a while, while Petie regained her footing. Now Rose worried that she was losing touch with him. He seemed skittish to her, and quick to startle, but then he always suffered when things went bad between Petie and Eddie Coolbaugh. At least Eddie was working again.
Rose spaded brownies out of a deep pan, licking her fingers. Carissa in middle school, Loose in first grade: how could it be that these children were growing up when she didn’t feel old herself? She still had her pretty breasts, her sense of peace, her talent for delight. Christie was home safely—riches!—and she had this cookbook, hers and Gordon’s. Blessed man, and so sick. She would see him tomorrow, after she and Petie had made their Souperior’s run. How awful, to be dying. She couldn’t picture a man loving another man, didn’t want to, but whose business was at, anyway? Everyone needed to love something and maybe Gordon, like Ryan, had simply been dealt a bum hand. Maybe he didn’t want to love other men; undoubtedly Ryan didn’t like minding the wrinkles in his socks when everyone else could just put on their shoes and go. You couldn’t blame people for what wasn’t theirs to choose.
So she’d write a good book for him. That might make him happy.
The front door opened and Rose looked up, thinking it was Carissa home from school, but instead it was Petie.
“Is Ryan in here?” She tossed her purse behind the couch and threw herself full-length onto the slippery old brocade cushions. “I saw Loose outside with Christie.”
“He’s playing in my room. He smells like paint.”
“Not on his clothes.”
“No, just a little in his hair. He made an Indian headdress in school and wore it home. You’ll want to take a look at it—he did a really good job. Is he okay? He’s worried about something, but he didn’t want to talk about it.”
“He scored a 158 on an IQ test.”
“Is that good?” Rose asked.
“It’s off the fucking charts. Mrs. Dumphy’s sitting there saying Ryan could be the next Einstein, and I’m saying they’ve got the wrong kid.”
“Oh, Petie. You know he’s smart.”
“I know he’s odd, is what I know. She said he’s working way below the level she’d expect of a kid with that IQ. She wanted to know if there were any problems at home that might be distracting him.” Petie ran her hands through her hair. “Fuck, I’m not going to go into my personal life with her. I said everything was fine. Which it pretty much is, now. Do you have any beer?”
“Better—wine coolers. Ice, or no?”
“No.”
Rose pressed Petie’s small shoulder as she walked by. There was always something. There always had been. As she poured their coolers into glasses she heard Petie go to the bedroom and look in on Ryan, then after a long minute close the door softly without speaking and come back to the living room.
Rose handed her the glass without the chip in the rim.
“He’s got fabric spread all over the room,” Petie said.
“That’s because he’s in New England or Virginia or somewhere. He’s making up a game about the Pilgrims.”
“Huh.”
“He’s got a great imagination.”
“No kidding. Half the time it seems like he’s on Mars.”
“He’s very talented, Petie, you know that. You should see the head-dress he brought home from school. The feathers look real, I swear. If you get tired of him, just send him over to me.”
“Don’t say it too loud.”
“I’m serious. I’d take him for a few days anytime, you know that.”
“I know. He’s a good kid, though. Plus I’m tough as an old shoe.” Petie took a long drink of her cooler.
“Was Carissa out there when you came in?” Rose asked.
“Yeah. She and Loose were with Jim. He’s a nice guy. They’re hanging all over him, and he’s just going on with his business. For a man who doesn’t talk, he sure has a way with kids.”
“He’s very patient. I worry about what Carissa will do when he leaves again.”
“Maybe he won’t.”
Rose smiled. Of course he’d leave again. The front door banged and in ambled first Loose, then Carissa.
“Hey,” Petie said.
“Hi,” said Carissa. Her cheeks were pink from the cool fall air, her eyes bright.
Loose said nothing. He dragged one toe behind him across the carpet, leaving a thin trail of mud. Rose frowned at him. “You. Shoes off.”
Loose paused, unfazed, and kicked his shoes halfway across the room. He was a big child, with Eddie’s good-natured, uninquisitive face. Rose shook her finger at him. He had always been a physical child, but Rose had also seen him labor over mechanical projects for hours. He was capable of that kind of concentration.
Loose threw himself onto the sofa next to her.
“Where’s Jim?” she said, pulling him into her side with a strong arm. “You wear him out?”
Loose let Rose pull him in, but only for a minute and then he squirmed out of range. “He said he was going to the Wayside.”
“But he’s coming home for dinner,” Carissa called quickly from the kitchen, where she was scraping brownie crumbs from the bottom of the pan with the spatula.
“Are you cooking again?” Petie called back.
“Yup. Meat loaf.”
Petie let her head fall way back on the sofa. “I wish you’d come over to our house sometime and make us meat loaf. We’re doing boxed macaroni and cheese. God, but I hate to cook at night. I dream about cooking. I’m not kidding. I dream about every little step. Some nights all I do is peel the carrots and then peel the potatoes and then cut the onions up into tiny pieces, perfect pieces all the same size, and then I do the celery and by then it’s three o’clock in the morning and I’m about ready to kill myself. I mean, it’s bad enough to do that stuff day after day, but to have to do it all night, too—”
Rose was laughing, and Petie started laughing, too. Ryan came out to see what was going on, and Petie hoisted herself up, draining the last sip of her wine cooler. “Hey, kiddo,” she said to Ryan. “You were so quiet in there I thought maybe yo
u’d escaped out the window and gone on home.”
Ryan shrugged and wandered towards Rose.
“Did they find someone to give them a turkey?” she asked.
“One. I don’t think it was enough, though.”
“Enough for what?” Petie said.
“To eat.”
“What happened to them, then?” Rose asked. “Did someone tell them about squash, or give them some corn?”
“No.” Ryan put his hands on Rose’s knees, leaned in until he was two inches from her face, and whispered, “They all starved to death.”
Petie shuddered. “God, Ryan.”
“But it’s only make-believe, isn’t it,” Rose whispered back to the boy. “Anything can be done and undone in make-believe.” She held out her wing, and Ryan slipped silently under it.
“Stories like that give me the willies,” Petie said, and shook herself.
“You could stay for dinner,” Carissa said from the kitchen doorway. She had an apron of Rose’s tied carefully over her school clothes.
“Oh, thanks, sweetie,” Petie said. “But Eddie’s probably sitting at home right now wondering where we are. C’mon, boys, before I get too tired to get up. Loose, your shoes. Your shoes. Your shoes. You can’t go out in just your socks, dodo-head.”
Petie shooed the boys into their coats and out the front door. “Say hi to Christie for me.”
“Okay.” Rose made a sign to Petie: Chin up. “See you in the morning. Curried lemon rice.”
“Sounds disgusting. Whose is it?”
“Nadine’s.”
“Figures.”
“It might be all right.”
“C’mon, Mom,” Loose said, butting his knee into the back of Petie’s knee.
“Okay, okay.” Petie put her hand on Ryan’s back and in another minute, in a haze of exhaust fumes, they disappeared down the road towards home.
FOR DINNER along with meat loaf Carissa made green beans, scalloped potatoes, and a Jell-O mold for dessert. She set the table with gay cloth napkins she’d made herself; put out a leaf and twig centerpiece that, when her back was turned, Rose tried to prevent from leaking tiny ants all over the tablecloth. She put out a cold beer for Christie and a glass of Diet Pepsi for Rose and milk for herself and then she sat down to wait.
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