“Hmmm,” she murmured. She was sitting forward, her head angled so she could see herself in the lighted mirror built into the visor above the passenger’s seat, swabbing at her lashes with mascara.
“See that?” Ernest said again, pointing. “The public beach is across the lake. They won’t complain if someone builds here. See?” He slowed the SUV to a halt and turned fully around in his seat. “And we’re not far from the main road. Not at all. This is a perfect spot.”
Natalie Pinchbeck was blonde and thin with gray eyes bulging from her powdered and eye-shadowed face. Veins stood out in her neck. She lowered a cotton swab, fumbled with a tube of concealer, and glanced out the window.
“It’s lovely,” she said. “You had better push Mr. Gowen on the price.”
“But of course,” Ernest joked in an exaggerated French accent. “Monsieur Gowen ne sait pas who he is dealing with.”
“Yes, well, I sais that you paid twenty thousand too much for the land we built our house on,” Natalie offered, glancing at her husband.
“According to you,” Ernest said absently, looking around. “In any event, that was before the boom, my love, and it’s doubled in value since.” He frowned. “I can’t turn around here,” he said, pushing the button to lower his window. He put his head out. “I can’t turn around here,” he said again. “I’ll have to back out. They’ll have to widen the road a bit, of course.”
“Shut the window, it’s freezing,” Natalie said, touching a lash with an extended pinky. She folded her hands in her lap and looked out the window. The lake looked pretty, she thought. Leaves lay on the ground in a red and gold blanket. Fall was a pretty season to look at, really, and even to be outside if you had the right clothes for it. Too much and you’d be hot, too little and you’d be cold. If Ernest had told her he wanted to drive with the window open, or go for a walk, she’d have worn her black leather thigh-length jacket, the one with the quilted lining.
Ernest backed the car to the main road and pulled out into oncoming traffic. A small white car honked at him.
“Yeah, sure,” he said, laughing. “Let’s you and me play chicken, that’s really smart.”
“When are you meeting with Mr. Gowen again?” Natalie asked.
Ernest settled into his seat. “Next week,” he said, yawning.
They drove along the same road on which, not many years before, he had brought his wife—in their old SUV, the one without seat warmers—to see the land for their new house. The latest wave of suburb-building had just begun, and tiny men in great machines were shaving the woods clean like stubbly heads, turning huge blotches of land into landscaped condominium complexes, building small ponds, parsing and plotting acres of fields with glimmering, colonial-style mansions. They’d passed the old town center, complete with white church and new-suburban brick firehouse/police station; at the four-way intersection Ernest had turned left, up a hill, glancing at his wife every few seconds as they drove the mile or two along the narrow road. She’d been looking out her window, smiling. Ernest had turned on to a gray road that led through a field and up a woods-covered hill. He’d pulled off the road into the field.
“We’re here,” he’d said.
“It’s lovely,” Natalie had answered. “Where does the house go?”
“Right here,” Ernest had said, opening his door and getting out. “How was that ride? Smooth? See why SUV’s are so worth it?”
Natalie had stepped delicately out of the car, her foot sinking into ankle-deep mud. “Damn it,” she’d said, balancing against the car as she adjusted her shoe. “We’re not building one of those awful fake colonials,” she’d added. “I can’t stand them.”
“No,” Ernest had said. “Of course not. We’re going to do something bold—something to shake up the neighborhood! Look at that tired old thing.” He’d pointed up the hill at an old brown-shingled farmhouse surrounded with sheep pens and pastures.
The day had been warm spring blue, soft with clouds that seemed to hang just above the lip of the hill.
“This ground is too muddy,” Natalie had said, climbing back in the car.
“A bit,” Ernest had agreed. Suddenly he’d run across the field, mincingly, trying to keep his shoes clean. “Dining room!” he’d shouted to his wife. He’d jumped to another spot. “Living room!”
“Nothing boring!” Natalie had called to him.
“Of course not,” he’d answered, running back to the car. “We’ll get the best—the freshest, boldest architect in Boston.”
They’d driven back into Boston, laughing along the great highway, planning the house.
So Pinch House had been conceived and then born: two white triangles stuck into the ground, connected with a square taller than both; the effect was as if a passing giant had dropped three cookie boxes which, rolling downhill, had frozen in mid-tumble. Brass lamps lined the path to the front entrance from the wide driveway and three-car garage, and formed the centerpiece of the fountain in the square between the two wings of the house.
A bold house, Ernest thought as he eased the dark green SUV to a stop.
“Wasn’t it nice to visit Gunny’s land?” he asked, kissing his wife’s cheek.
“Yes,” Natalie said, opening her door. She glanced at her watch. “Now let’s hope the cleaning lady shows,” she said.
“All righty,” Ernest said. “I’ll call you from the office.”
“Kiss kiss,” Natalie said.
Ernest smiled and waved as he backed into the street.
A few minutes later Alice turned her mini-van through the gate and parked in the far-right of the driveway. She stared at the house for a minute as she always did, trying to decide whether it was an architectural wonder, as Ed said when she’d shown him the picture of it in the magazine the Pinchbecks had lent her, or just ugly, as she was inclined to think. But what did she know of architecture? And either way, she thought as she unloaded her buckets and scrubbies and mops, it was a pain in the ass to clean. She hung her supplies from her limbs and approached the house.
She had reached the fountain when the front door opened and a young blonde woman in a navy blue mini skirt and blazer rushed out.
“But my car is in the shop!” a young man’s voice complained from inside.
“Well, that’s not my fault, is it?” the young woman called back. Her face was round, her lip curled in a snarl. “If it doesn’t work, tell Dad you need a new one. Now where is my goddamn phone?” She clawed through her shiny black handbag.
“Come on, Annie!” the young man’s voice called again from inside. “Just let me borrow—”
“NO!” Ann screamed. She dropped her bag and squatted, emptying loose tissues and makeup containers on to the flagstone path. “I cannot find anything this morning and I cannot help you with your problems. Now where is that goddamn phone? Good morning, Alice,” she added
“Your phone’s right here, I had to borrow it last night,” the young man said, his smiling, tanned face appearing around the door. He dangled the tiny black phone from between thumb and forefinger with one hand as he held a towel around his waist with the other.
“Give me that, Russell,” Ann demanded, standing up.
Russell noticed Alice and smiled at her. Ann snatched the phone from him.
“C’mon, Annie, I have to go see the old man today, just let me use the car for a little while when you get back!”
Ann finished refilling her bag. “Maybe,” she said, dropping the phone into the bag and zipping it shut. She turned and strode away, her heels tapping on the flagstones.
Russell smiled at Alice again. “Who’re you?” he asked.
“I’m here to, ahh, clean the house,” Alice answered, remembering and discarding Ed’s insistence that she refer to herself as a business-owner.
Russell looked her up and down. For a cleaning woman, she was pretty, he thought. The way a strand of her hair fell across her cheek was excellent.
“We better get inside, it’s freezing,” he sai
d, gesturing for her to enter.
“Thanks,” Alice said. She met his gaze and blushed.
In the high white front hall she put her cleaning supplies down and wondered where to begin this week. This house was so big. She probably deserved more than her usual rate, if she could only bring herself to explain that to Mrs. Pinchbeck. But Ed had said something about getting her foot in the door, about working for less money in the beginning to build up a client base. Anyway, she’d started in the kitchen the week before but with this kid home and just out of the shower, he’d probably be making himself breakfast next, so she’d start in the left wing. She sighed.
“I’m Russell,” the young man said, extending his free hand.
“Alice,” Alice said, nodding.
Russell nodded. “Well, ok,” he said. “I’ll let you get to it.”
“Ok,” Alice said.
“I’m leaving for Europe soon,” he said, nodding. “I’m going to study abroad.”
“Oh, I see,” Alice said. So he was home from college. Or something.
Is she into me, Russell wondered. He thought so. The dark-haired types usually went for him. She was old, sure, but he’d had a thirty year-old before and she couldn’t be more than, what, thirty-five. If that.
“Hello, Alice,” Natalie said, striding through the front hall, her shoes clicking. “How are you this morning?”
“Fine, thanks,” Alice said.
“Well, I’ll be around,” Russell said.
“Ok,” Alice said, taking up her buckets again.
Chapter Seven
Kimoh
Alice made it home by three o’clock and had time for a cup of coffee and half an hour of television before Jenny got home from school. She made instant coffee and sat in front of the TV.
For some reason she thought of the dishes in the Pinchbeck’s sink. She frowned. There was something insulting about that boy, Russell, standing there as she washed, asking about her family and whatnot. At least she didn’t have to go back to that house for a whole week now. All those bathrooms. It was as if the house had four separate wings so no one who lived there needed to speak to anyone else.
On the TV a talk show hostess considered her audience and her guests with big blue eyes. Alice thought this show was pretty good, pretty real because sometimes it dealt with serious things.
“Our next guest,” the hostess said, her wide face soft-edged in the misty studio light, “is an actress, an author, and, I am here to tell you, one of the great people in Hollywood. And—well, you all know about her recent engagement, so let’s get her out here and get the scoop!”
Alice sat back in her chair and sipped her coffee. She looked around the room. The bookshelves were mostly filled with videotapes—cartoons for the kids, a couple of Ed’s favorite movies. She thought again of the last house she’d cleaned, the huge television in the living room, the wall full of movies, the framed paintings—two or three by the same artist of triangles of all sizes floating in backgrounds of bright orange, yellow, and red. Real paintings, not posters.
“Well, there is nothing I like more than relaxing with a good book,” the actress on TV announced, smiling, the skin around her eyes tight. She looked good, Alice had to admit—her hair looked good black and she could wear that dress at forty? You had to hand it to her.
“You can really know all about someone by what they read,” the hostess said, playfully eyeing first the studio audience and then the camera as if she would find out all about everyone.
“Well, let’s find out about me, then,” the actress said.
Her hair had looked better long, though, Alice thought. She needed to make something for supper, and ran through in her mind what she had in the fridge—chicken breast, some lettuce. There was rice, too. The kitchen in that last house was big enough to have a dinner party in all by itself. Maybe she and Ed should have a dinner party. But who would come? Viv and Bob. Anyone else?
The hostess and the actress were talking about how fun it was to have a book club. As the program went to commercial a web address popped up on the screen and the hostess’s voice intoned, “To find out more or to enter our spring makeover contest and to check out some super Cajun recipes, visit our website today.”
Alice wrote the address down on an envelope. She thought of the actress: “Let’s find out about me!” My God, she thought, imagine being so interested in yourself. She could hear Ed telling her she was a snob. But when was the last time she’d thought about something other than the kids or Ed or cleaning houses? Really thought about something, or studied something. College, probably. My God. She didn’t even read much anymore, there wasn’t time for it. It was strange to remember that she’d studied history in college and had enjoyed it.
She turned the sound on the TV down and dialed the phone.
“Hello?” a gruff female voice answered.
“Hey, it’s me,” Alice said.
“Oh, hey Hon. Hang on a sec,” Viv said. Alice heard the sound of the phone being shifted from hand to shoulder. “Billy—Billy—put that down. No. Put it down. Mommy will be right there, ok? Hey. Sorry.”
Alice tipped back so that it felt like she was suspended in the air.
“Hey, I’m back,” Viv said.
“How’s Billy?” Alice asked.
“I think he’s ok. Fever’s been down since last night. I kept him home today to be safe.”
“That’s good,” Alice said.
“Yeah.”
“So I had an idea. We could start a book club. Let Ed and Bob take the kids one night a week. It won’t kill ’em.”
“Jesus, Alice, what the hell would we read?”
“I don’t know,” Alice said. “I could check the website.” It was probably a bad idea anyway. Who would they get to come? Where would they have it? What night? Mondays were out, football night. How was she suddenly going to have time to read, anyway?
“Yeah,” Viv said.
“Yeah.” Alice finished her coffee and took her cup to the kitchen, the phone pressed between chin and shoulder.
“Is Jenny home yet?” Viv asked.
“No. Any second now.” Alice sat at the kitchen table, staring at the clock. “What did you major in in college?” she asked.
“I don’t remember. Psych. Lot of good it did me.”
Alice heard rustling and the phone clattering on the floor.
“Alice? You there? Sorry, I dropped the phone.”
“That’s ok. I’m here.”
“Listen, Hon. I gotta go.”
“Ok. Talk to you.”
“All right. Bye.”
Alice hung up and stretched her arms, yawning. She heard a car pull up outside and went to the front door. Jenny was climbing out of the back seat of a green station wagon. The driver, Alice’s friend Sue, who had a daughter in Jenny’s class, leaned across the front seat to wave. Alice waved back. Jenny saw her mother and ran across the lawn, holding up a piece of construction paper.
“Lookit,” Jenny said.
“Hi, sweetie,” Alice said, kneeling to hug her daughter.
Inside she took Jenny’s coat off and looked at the drawing.
“That’s terrific,” she said, giving Jenny a kiss.
Alice looked in the fridge but couldn’t find the chicken breast. She’d forgotten to take it out of the freezer. It was easier to make spaghetti anyway. But Ed would complain about that, they’d had it a few nights ago.
Eddie got home and sat in the living room playing video games.
The phone rang. Alice took it from the coffee table and answered it as she went back to the kitchen.
“Hey, babe,” Ed said.
“Oh, hi, Honey,” Alice answered.
He asked about the kids, about the day’s cleaning jobs.
“Everything’s fine,” Alice said.
“Yeah? Listen, I’m not gonna make it home for supper, ’kay?”
“What? Oh, ok. What’s up?”
“Huh? Nothing, just something at work. Save
me some supper,” Ed said. “I’ll eat it later.”
“Ok. What time will you be home?”
“Not too late. Ok? Everything ok?”
“Yeah, fine. All right. See ya.”
At nine Ed still wasn’t home. Alice sat with Jenny in her lap, Eddie lying on the floor, watching TV. Jenny curled into the crook of her mother’s elbow and watched with wide eyes.
Alice got disengaged herself gently from her daughter.
“You kids be good, I’m just going downstairs for a minute,” she said.
“For what? Dad says we’re not supposed to use the computer unless he’s there to help,” Eddie said.
“Then don’t,” Alice said, smiling. “Just be good. I’ll be right downstairs.”
Ed’s computer desk was in the far corner of the basement. A square of dark-green carpet covered the cement floor, and he’d bought himself a leather desk chair, the kind that went up and down and swiveled. Alice stared at the computer, thinking no-one would come to a book club she started and if they did they’d all hate the book she picked and God knew what Ed would say or wouldn’t say, just leaning back in his recliner, smiling at her. She fidgeted with an empty beer can that was next to the keyboard.
Well, she thought. Well. She poked in the website address with one finger and clicked on the “Book Club” picture. She read the list of books, looked at pictures of various actors and actresses and writers holding books, read about their life-long love affairs with reading and some of their favorite passages.
In the top left corner of the computer screen a small white box had appeared.
Message from Kimoh, it said.
Alice frowned. It was probably some kind of ad. She clicked the small “x” in the top right corner and the box disappeared. On the book club page she found a list of ideas for getting people to join and clicked on a “Create a great flyer!” link.
The white box returned. You there, stud?
Alice clicked the “x” again. She read about different kinds of flyers and decided to do a really simple one for the library and the message board at the grocery store. What if some weirdo called, she thought. But it would be ok, if someone like that called she’d be able to tell. And she needed more people than Viv and Sue. The first meeting couldn’t be at her house, Ed would—he’d probably mess it up somehow. Something like, “Oh, Hon, I forgot but I’m having a card game tonight.” Something.
THE GHOST DETECTIVE: Boston Page 6