“Look, Marie…”
“What does she want, then? Is she a visitor?”
He considered this, then nodded. “More or less.”
“Then why haven’t you invited her in? Show a little common decency!”
This seemed a practiced routine the woman had to complete before she did what she was furious with her husband for not having already done. This was the machinery that primed them for the next step.
Senior sighed, then gestured to Billie to enter.
Perhaps she shouldn’t judge on first impressions, but even if the couple had been less abrasive, their door and entry-hall decor were enough to convince her that she couldn’t like them. She thought of Stephen in a job that never required clothing more dressy than a flannel shirt, driving a thirty-year-old hearse, and she approved. This was a family whose best hope would be a misfit.
“This is lovely,” she lied. “You certainly have a beautiful home.” Billie liked this part of her job—seeing the stages people erected for their personal dramas. This one was a still life. Embalmed shrine to success. A property statement, not a home.
Mrs. Tassio’s nod was in acknowledgment of the praise her home deserved as she directed Billie and her husband into a room of watercolored silks, fragile side tables, embroidered runners, and gilded accessories.
The sofas and chairs were so far apart, interaction below a scream would be difficult. The coffee table was distant enough from the sofa so as to make retrieving an actual cup from it hazardous, liable to spill and stain a pink-and-cream rug, too delicate to endure the pressure of shoes. Guests would socialize here only because they had to, not because they wanted to. You couldn’t live in this living room.
She paused at a small table filled with silver-framed photos, one of which was of a smiling young man in cap and gown. “Your son?” she asked Mr. Tassio. He nodded.
Junior was nice-looking. Open-faced, inviting. She wondered if he always looked that way, or if graduation’s promised freedom from these people was what had lit his face.
Billie sat gingerly, refusing the offer of a beverage. “And you are?” Mrs. Tassio asked. “I never caught your name.” She shot an accusatory glance at her husband.
“Billie August.” No need for Audrey here. She told the truth, at least partially. She explained that she was looking for a female friend of Stephen’s who had inherited money but didn’t know about it.
“Another girl, then.” His mother sealed her mouth so tightly she had no lips, only lines radiating from where they had been. Girls, then, were bad. Stephen’s girls were bad.
“Truth is,” Senior said, “Stephen’s close-mouthed about his whereabouts lately. He hasn’t lived here in a while.”
“Only right after college,” his mother said. “While he was job-hunting, but it didn’t work out. Not at all. Stephen himself, well, that might have worked, but there were all these girls, a parade of them, and his friends. Strange people.”
“Who, Marie?” Senior asked. “Who was strange?”
“Remember Alicia Malone?”
Her husband nodded and smiled. “Pretty child,” he said. “I always liked her.”
Mrs. Tassio sniffed. “After high school she became weird and then she infected Stephen. He was normal till then. She’s the one dragged him in with her crowd. People who think it’s still the Middle Ages, or should be. Pretend to be lords and ladies. Thanks to her, he arrived here with a wild bird. Filthy thing that sat on his wrist, on a leather band. It ate mice. My freezer was filled with them.” She shook her head. Her hair was salt-and-pepper, pulled back into a twist. Attractive on anybody else, as would have been her black turtleneck and slacks, but the style only emphasized the steeliness of her temperament.
Billie had a moment’s pleasure imagining Stephen’s hawk defecating digested mouse upon this living room.
“Last time we knew his whereabouts it was with this girl Yvonne,” his father said.
Mrs. Tassio inhaled loudly, then let the air escape in a ragged exhale. “I’m glad that one’s over,” she said. “She was not… You could tell how far downhill he was sliding if he was with her. She was different. Not…educated. Not refined. Cheap, if you understand what I’m saying. And after they broke up, she had the nerve to come here and accuse us of causing the rupture because we didn’t approve of her! What a piece of work! There’s no law says I have to let whatever my son picks up—mangy friends who don’t own a decent suit, a hawk, or Yvonne—into my house. A woman’s home is her castle, too.”
“Then you don’t have his new address or phone number?”
“I wouldn’t have known he’d moved if that…person hadn’t come here and carried on that way. Stephen is not your ideal son. He lacks social niceties, like telling his parents where he lives, calling sometimes, even visiting. Without the bird.”
“Did Stephen ever mention Penelope Redmond?”
“You might be getting the idea that Stephen mentions very little to us, Miss August,” Senior said. “You’d be correct in that.”
“Is this Penelope the girl who’s inherited something?” his wife asked.
Billie nodded.
“At least his taste in women has improved since Yvonne.”
An interesting judgment since the only information she’d been given was that imaginary money floated on her imaginary horizon.
“Then I thank you for your time and consideration.” Billie stood up. “Please let me know if you do hear from Stephen. It’s important that I notify Penelope.” She handed them one of her cards, the one that simply said, Investigator.
It was interesting what you gleaned while searching for something else altogether. Peel back the fronts of those tidy homes and see how they’ve organized their lives, how closely they resemble their facades and landscapes. Learn a lot.
What she hadn’t learned, however, was the only thing she’d been hired to find out. Where was Penelope Redmond?
Seventeen
Penny crouched behind a fan of green leaves at the far end of the dock. The end of the walkway was edged by potted cymbidiums, all heavy with about-to-burst buds. From here, she had a clear view of an entire line of houseboats including the small one three down. The one where her father was when he should have been at the office or the store. “Just Kidding,” he called his company. A good name because it was obviously a joke, nothing he had to pay attention to.
Penny sat quietly, knees to her chin, a baseball cap on her head with its visor tilted down. She watched a woman come out of a boat and unlock a shopping cart from her front wall. Then she went back in and reemerged with bulging trash bags. When the cart was full, she wheeled it toward the parking lot.
Penny didn’t try to hide. Nobody would notice her or if they did, she’d be taken for a kid playing hooky. Which, actually, she was.
Arthur was also playing, not hooky, but around. She knew what it was costing her—literally and figuratively, as her English teacher would have said—to have him give these strangers champagne and tiny violins and new sofas while Penny saved for the tuition he wouldn’t pay, the prom dress he wouldn’t buy, and her mother did his books, took care of his office, helped in the store. He traveled so much, was on the road so often, her mother said, the least she could do is take care of the scutwork. Penny was no longer sure that he was ever on the road, except for the freeway to Sausalito.
The car with its JUS KIDN vanity plate was already in the lot when she got there. She could wait. Whenever he came out, she was confronting him, letting him know he couldn’t get away with this any longer. She’d threaten to tell his boss at the store, the manufacturers who thought he worked for them.
In return for silence, she’d make him promise that he wouldn’t hit Wesley or her mother anymore, that he’d give them more money. Pay her college. And, of course, he’d have to stop doing this. She watched a pelican skim over the bay, its wings inches from the glassy surface mirroring its flight. A noise interrupted—two large men in blue jumpsuits wheeling a dolly wit
h only blue quilted cloths draped over it. They entered the little houseboat.
A few minutes later, they emerged with three sections of a black leather sofa. No relationship to the green velvet she’d seen moved in. The woman must have multiple personalities.
On their next trip, the men carried a stiff-looking white sofa with pale wooden legs and framework. It looked like the Barishes’ furniture, which they always referred to as being Louis the something. Half the time she sat for them it was because they were “going antiquing.” Their kids weren’t allowed in the living room.
Her mother was always talking about what “went with” their house, what the “look” of the place was supposed to be. She thought her mother went overboard with “the look” thing, but still, she had a point, and what kind of “look” went with green velvet, then a black leather sectional, then a Louis? What kind of person changed her mind every few days? The houseboat was small, perhaps two rooms on deck and one or two bedrooms below, where windows showed above the water line. It couldn’t house two living rooms, or a den or family room plus a living room, plus two bedrooms, one for the little violinist.
She stood up and briskly walked back to the parking lot. Maybe they found change sexy, a turn-on. But it was certainly not economical, and Arthur was dead set against renting. God, one time her mother had wanted to rent folding chairs when they were having a camp reunion for Wesley and Arthur had blown up. “Renting furniture is pissing money away. Skip the middleman and burn my cash right now instead. Save time.” The campers had sat on the floor to eat their sandwiches. Her mother tried to make it seem on purpose, called it an “indoor picnic.”
Now look at the hypocrite. Unless, maybe the woman was paying for this, and Arthur just happened to visit during sofa-shifts.
The movers wheeled their dolly back to the parking lot. The mistress was changing more than sofas. Out with a brass lamp with a black leather shade, out with a massive planked coffee table. In with ruffled shades—one of the men carried them while the other wheeled a round of glass, a gilded base, and two clear-glass lamps.
Penny seated herself in front of a piling and waited for more, watching a woman take a baby out of its car seat. She was glad she didn’t sit for anybody here. Too scary, and she didn’t have much confidence in water herself. She’d drown trying to stop a drowning.
Odd to choose a houseboat when you had a baby, but the whole colony was a little apart from normal. A mix of suits, artists, leftover hippies, and whoever was quietly growing cymbidiums at the end of the dock. Kids at school said drugs were run in the waters that filled the spaces between Sausalito, Tiburon, and Mill Valley.
The men loaded the dolly with a gold-and-white-painted headboard and night table, plus two gilded, pouffy-shaded lamps. And they took out a large boxed set she couldn’t identify until one of them called to the other, who was still in the truck, “Don’t forget the canopy. I have the rest of the four-poster.”
She might vomit, imagining Arthur naked below the canopy. Why were they switching beds? Had they already worn one out? How long had this setup been going on?
The men wheeled an empty dolly back and got into the truck. Penny listened to the warning beeps as it backed out of its space. Something nagged at her, something separate from the things she already knew about, a kind of “What’s wrong with this picture?” sense. She thought back, tried to think this through, but her mind skipped and wandered.
She decided to wait for Arthur in the parking lot. It was more comfortable, with the piling as a backrest, and it was his only way out—unless he rowed off, which he wouldn’t. She rested her head on her knees as she again tried to figure out what the new thing was that bothered her about the moving people, and felt the shadow rather than saw anyone. Her heart rate doubled even before she lifted her head. She hadn’t seen him—he’d seen her.
But it wasn’t Arthur looming above her. “Luke!” she said. “What are you doing here?” She scrambled to her feet.
“A better question would be what you’re doing here. Or, more precisely, what is my car doing here?” His voice had a whole new sound, as if he’d wrapped a worn-out blanket of calm over spikes and crags
“You were asleep and this was important. I thought—”
“It’s two in the afternoon!” He was furious. No mistaking it now.
“I…didn’t realize. I was watching. Luke, men came and—”
“And stop calling me that.”
“That’s who you are to me. That’s who you were when I met you.”
“No, I was Stephen, the guy with the weird car, remember? It wasn’t until you invited yourself to one of our—”
“You told me to come. You did!”
He shrugged. “Whatever. I didn’t think it mattered, the Lucan the Steward business, but I changed my mind. It’s—it’s a symptom. You never want to live in the twentieth century. You want to live in The Principality of the Mists all the time. You love make-believe so much you’re ruining my life!”
She stood and took off her cap in some instinctive humbling motion, then had no idea of what to do except brace herself. This felt like an earthquake, at least inside of her.
“My name’s Stephen. And you had no right to take my car. You’re taking everything.”
“I’m sorry. Really, honestly. I didn’t think it’d matter. You were sound asleep, and we didn’t have any plans—”
“Maybe we didn’t, but I did! And that isn’t the point. You’ve got everything screwed-up. For starters, why the hell did you come here? What game are you playing?”
“Not a game, and you know. About my father.”
“So he’s having an affair. People do. My father has them nonstop. So they’re creeps, but it’s not the end of the world and it doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“I told you—he treats us, all of us, like—”
He brushed aside her words and walked away, then turned back. “You know what? I don’t give a shit about your father. My family’s fucked, too. Everybody’s is, but people don’t have to screw up their own lives because of it. When are you going to get your diploma? How are you going to get a decent job if you don’t? How are you going to live? Off me? That isn’t a plan, Penny. That isn’t what I meant.”
He made everything wrong, turned it inside out and upside down. Maybe if he knew more about how weird things were at the houseboat, he’d see this wasn’t ordinary, this demanded attention. “Luke—Stephen, these men came and changed the furniture. Three times since I first came here. Three times that I saw, let alone when I wasn’t here. New sofa and bed and lamps and coffee table—”
“Get this straight—I don’t care. Everybody’s crazy their own way—what I care about is getting my shit together.”
“So do I, that’s why I came here.”
“Not this! You can’t straighten out your father.”
“Stepfather.”
“If he’s playing around, then he is. Tell your mother, let them work it through.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“She…didn’t believe me.” She didn’t want to say more. It bothered her even thinking about how her mother had reacted.
He shook his head and waved her entire family off. “I want to straighten us out. Now.”
“M-meaning what?” She could barely get the words out and when she did, they hurt her throat. Nothing was crooked or in need of work between them. He was her one ally on earth. She heard a high, thin scream like a dental drill in a faraway part of her skull, coming closer.
He seemed reluctant to speak, then he sighed. “Maybe if we talk it through, calmly, you’ll see. There’ve been misunderstandings right from the start, beginning with what you thought I was offering you, what you thought I meant. Nobody’s fault—just wires crossed.”
He was kicking her out—turning back on the promises he’d made so she could get away from the screaming and hitting and lying and her father’s woman and other life.
He was a liar lik
e everybody else. The high voice moved closer, through the center of her brain. It aimed for her face, found its target and plunged through her eyes like needles. “You’re making me leave, aren’t you?”
He shifted his weight, looked uncomfortable. She was right, then, no matter what he’d say.
“It isn’t that, not exactly. And not like today or anything. Listen, this is no place for a real talk. Can I have my car keys?”
“What are you going to say? Where am I going to go if you—”
“Don’t get hysterical. That’s one of your problems, acting as if everything’s so tragic, so dramatic.”
“This is! I can’t go home! He’s— They’re—” Her mind flooded with images of them, of him, of her mother pretending to be crippled so she could get money and get away from him, but she never would—not even if she collected a million dollars because she wanted that house, the furniture that all “went.”
She suddenly realized what had been wrong at the houseboat. “They didn’t switch anything else,” she said out loud. “There couldn’t be a house where the rest of the stuff went with all those different sofas. But nothing else went. No chairs, even.”
“What are you, a reporter for Architectural Digest? Stop changing the subject. I’m not throwing you out and I’m not saying you have to go home. There must be other solutions. But for as long as you stay with us—”
With us. Not with him. With us. She didn’t matter to him, not in any special way.
“—it’ll work better if you get a few things straight about, well, about how the place works. What’s appropriate and what isn’t.” Sounded like he was training a puppy. Like she’d been messing up, spoiling his life.
“Like last night, about your necklace. Such a stupid racket, and you know, the rest of the house isn’t real excited to have a runaway there, so the least you could do is not…take over. And since you eventually agreed, couldn’t it have been sooner?”
“What do you mean, take over the house? I agreed not to do that?”
“No.” He sounded exhausted, as if he wanted her to know she was wearing him out and she hadn’t done anything, except borrow a car he wasn’t using.
Time and Trouble Page 17