“Pickle, I had a plan. I’d agree. Take the money. Go to Stan. Marry him. I’d invest the money and just let it sit. I wasn’t going to use it. Then after she died, I’d go back to you.”
“Lovely. Fucking great.”
“You’ve got to believe me. I figured with that money, we could have a good life. I thought I knew what I was doing.”
She looked around and saw that the man was gone, and she felt oddly alone in the busy restaurant. Karen stared at the tabletop, trying to compose her next words. “But then it got complicated because Stan immediately brought me into the firm. I liked his star power. I had you back at that point, anyway. All of it happened with a strange ease, like it was meant to be. But mostly, I was lazy. I had everything: Stan, the business, the money. And you …”
Pickle stood up, reached into his pocket and threw a hundred-dollar bill on the table. “There, Karen. You can keep the change and stuff it in your pocket. Add that to your stash.”
Karen grabbed him as he began to walk away. Pickle swung around. “It was a mercenary transaction. That’s all it was for you. I get that part. What you left out was why my mother did this.”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“It’s too awful.”
“Fucking try me.”
“Pickle. I still have the money. It’s almost five million now. I’ll give it all to you. I don’t want any of it. It’s money from the devil.”
“Just tell me about my mother. There’s nothing you could say that’ll surprise me.”
Karen picked up the hundred-dollar bill, rubbed it between her fingers and watched it drop to the table. When she looked up, Pickle was already out the door. She caught up with him and, without talking, they walked back to his apartment. Then, like a miracle, they fell into their usual routine of preparing for bed. Pickle ran a bath for her and she was grateful. The roadmap of her body would surely tell him everything about her pain.
When he saw the bruises all over her body and the dried blood crusted on her legs, he didn’t ask. That was how they understood each other—to leave all the inward aches and outward hurts stranded in a distant place. Pickle carried her to the bathtub, lay her deep among hot bubbles and washed her. As much as he tried to be gentle, every swipe of the sponge stung. Karen kept her eyes closed; she could not look at what the power of her own hand had done.
Then, five a.m. light, yellow and thin, crept into the room and the building’s traffic rumble woke her. Karen heard Pickle in the bathroom, showering. When he returned, she patted the covers for him to rejoin her. Karen shifted onto her back, pushed down the covers and finally scanned her naked body. She wasn’t beautiful, and it gave her the courage she needed to tell Pickle all about his mother.
“She didn’t want the money split between you and Stan when she died. It was meant for Stan only. When I asked why, she said that you could take care of yourself, that Stan needed the help. In fact, she said you didn’t need anything at all—that you’d never needed her—that you didn’t love her like Stan did. Because he was the firstborn and you were the burden. I didn’t understand much of what she was talking about … just that your mother was crazy. I don’t know if she was always that way, but when I realized the extent of her mental state, I saw a way to get the money, and you, too. She trusted me—we signed no papers.”
Karen needed oxygen, or something restorative that might revive her as she unloaded her secrets. She rose up off the bed, dragging the sheet with her, wrapped herself in a cotton cocoon, and stood in front of the view, where everything made just a bit of sense. Pickle joined her, standing behind her with his chin resting on the top of her head.
“I went to Stan—made it happen. It was easy, easier than felt comfortable, and it occurred to me, again, that Stan was in on it. But as I got to know him I saw the limits of his ability to deceive. The worst day was the wedding. Stan and I began to drink heavily immediately—I think he knew something was wrong …”
Karen’s voice trailed off. Pickle wrapped his arms around her and together they witnessed the first drip of an emerging morning. She wanted to wash away all the words that had been spoken, all the awful truths that were now alive in both of their heads—every tiny fact that both hurt and released them. And every rule she’d ever followed.
31
PICKLE HAD STOPPED OFF AT A CAFÉ AROUND the corner from the brownstone to load up on muffins and coffee. Before going upstairs, where he anticipated the satisfaction of blowing his stack, Pickle took a few minutes to gulp down a sustainablysourced organic muffin and swig a weak latte with an artful bonsai tree etched into the foam at the top. His new version of life, thanks to Karen’s disclosure the previous night, showed him how phony his whole existence had been—just like the pretentious food he was now ingesting.
After the requisite breath spritzes, he climbed the stairs to find Patrick and Karen stuffed into a corner of the room discussing the progress of the renovation. Brendan was at work pulling his BX cables. With each tug, the sound against the new metal studs buzzed into Pickle’s nervous system. He stopped short as he remembered Karen’s battered body lying amid bath bubbles.
She looked up and smiled at him, so benign, so Karen. “Patrick says it’s going well and we’re making good progress—”
“Bullshit it’s going well. There’s nobody working. And where the fuck is Stan?” As he began his protest, Karen waved her hands at him to stop. Pickle noticed a large, fresh welt on the back of her hand; he was sure it hadn’t been there at five a.m.
“Stan’s at the office. I know what you’re going to say, but just listen. Patrick and I have decided to bring in a crew that can work into the night to move things along. It’ll be noisy, but Stan’ll just have to deal with it.”
“We still have the inspection,” Patrick warned, directing his words at Karen, and ignoring Pickle altogether.
“Suzie will have a call into the DOB shortly. Don’t worry, Patrick, I have everything under control.”
“I’m not worried about you, Karen. I just want Mr. McArdle’s expectations to be well managed.”
As Patrick turned and walked away, Pickle called after him. “Patrick, there’s coffee and muffins downstairs!”
Patrick waved Pickle off with disgust.
“He doesn’t like me very much.” Pickle stated the obvious.
“Can you blame him? You practically beat him up the last time you were here. Patrick’s a sensitive guy.”
“He’s in the construction business, for God’s sake. I’m surprised he doesn’t have a thicker skin.”
“Drop it, Pickle! Anyway, it isn’t a mob business anymore. There’s an understood decorum with high-end construction now. You’re lucky he didn’t walk off the job.”
“I wasn’t that bad. All this posing. Jesus.”
“Oh, please. Can we stop all of this?” Karen pleaded.
Pickle decided to give her a bone. “Okay. Listen, about that granite …”
Karen feigned surprise. “Ah! The mystery purchase.”
Pickle ignored her. “I want it everywhere. Bathroom, kitchen, every surface. Make a dining table out of it. Whatever. Use it all up.”
“Why? I can save most of it for other projects. It won’t go to waste, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I’m not worried about that at all. I want to use it.”
“But it doesn’t make sense, design-wise,” she insisted.
The Doodles walked up and jumped up onto his legs, clawing to be picked up. Pickle scooped him up, buried his face in the fur at his neck and inhaled. Grapefruit. Junie. He plastered a Jack Nicholson/Here’s Johnny grin on his face. “It makes perfect sense. It reminds me of Junie’s eyes.”
Pickle didn’t wait for her reaction. Instead, he began to pace, trying to get a feel for the space. He noticed, as if for the first time, that the ceilings were quite high. And Pickle imagined color everywhere—he’d dictate to Karen exactly what colors to put on which wall
s. Her design advice would get no traction, because he meant to make this space entirely his.
The Doodles squirmed as Pickle waltzed around the room, now sure of a future that had been out of reach just yesterday, and he tightened his grip on the dog. They ended up at the window to the street. He hoped to see the woman with the standard poodles. But she wasn’t there—the curtains closed tight. Pickle released The Doodles, turned, and walked the length of the brownstone back to Karen, who seemed to still be recovering from the sting of his Junie comment.
“Karen, can we get one floor completed immediately?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, what if they finished the top floor first—completely? Then I could move in sooner. The bathroom’s up there, and that’s all I really need. I don’t cook much, but if I needed to, I could use your kitchen. Or Junie’s.”
“No. That’s not a cost-efficient way to do the job. Construction is carefully timed; you know—when we do one thing, we do it everywhere. If we did it the way you suggest, it would almost be like doing two renovations, and really expensive.”
Pickle bore down. “But that’s not an issue now—the money. Right? Because now I know there’s money lying around. Lots of it.”
Karen shifted her weight from foot to foot. “Well. That’s true.”
“Karen? Don’t fuck with me. Not now. Just say yes. That’s what you need to do.”
Karen nodded slowly, and Pickle began to mimic the motion. They stared at each other as their heads bobbed in unison.
“Good. So, I wanna move into the top floor in two weeks. Make it happen. I don’t care if they have to work all night long. I don’t care if you and Stan don’t sleep for two weeks straight. Got it? Because I don’t care about fucking anything right now. I’m going down to see Junie.”
Pickle loped downstairs, taking two steps at a time, then blasted through plastic wall barriers. Just as he reached the upper landing to Junie’s floor he stopped up short.
He took out his breath spray, doused his mouth, combed his hair, and loosened his tie, which he’d worn for some reason, then tightened it again. As he was about to descend, he heard strains of classical music coming up though the radiators.
“Junie?” Pickle screamed in a whisper down the stairs. There was no answer, so he gingerly proceeded. Approaching the last step, he heard the shower running. Pickle tiptoed through her private area, all the way into the front room. He made himself comfortable on the sofa they’d dozed on a few days before, and picked up Architectural Digest—an old dog-eared copy. Pickle leafed through last year’s high-end residences from the world over, listening for the shower to conclude.
The water stopped. He heard her singing along with the music and imagined her toweling off. Perhaps she’d need two towels—one for her body and one for that mop of hair. Then maybe she’d use lotion on her legs, heels, and elbows to keep her skin supple. He’d seen Karen do just that the night before.
The bathroom door creaked open. He expected the footsteps to diminish to the back section of the brownstone, when he’d call out, so as not to startle her. But he heard a rustle of movement closer to the living room. Embarrassed, he put the magazine up to his face so that Junie could jump back into the privacy of the hallway—if she was naked. Or if she’d wrapped herself in a towel, or if she was in a nightgown, or even if she was fully clothed. All possibilities lined up in his head like crows on a live wire. He cowered on the sofa with Architectural Digest blinding him and his knees jammed up to his chest. Now, he regretted what he’d done—that he’d invaded her space. It was certainly disturbing, but more likely, unforgivable.
Bare feet stood in front of him, her toes painted with sparkling blue nail polish. He could see her boney ankles and slowly, from the bottom edge of the magazine, he allowed his eyes to take in her calves, slathered with a trillion freckles. She gently tugged the magazine from his hands and threw it on the sofa. Pickle, simultaneously, slammed his eyes shut.
“I’m sorry, Junie. I thought for sure you’d go back to the bedroom. I feel awful barging in like this. Just go to the back and I’ll go upstairs. Please. Let’s do this over. Okay?” Pickle rambled on, his hands now covering his face.
She pried his hands off his face, but he kept his eyes shut. With her fingers like tweezers, Junie pried Pickle’s eyelids open. She stood before him—naked, lithe, shivering. Drop-dead angelic. Pickle grabbed the magazine and threw it on his lap for fear he’d get an erection. Junie laughed and knelt down in front of him. He accommodated her by parting his legs so she could nestle her body into his. Her damp hair draped over his chest and he couldn’t resist digging his fingers into the clumps of wet tangles.
“Pickle. Your heart is racing.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“All of this.”
“I’m a big girl. I heard you come down when I was in the shower—and I knew it was you.”
“How?”
“Karen’s the only person who’s been down here. The footsteps were a man’s. It couldn’t be Stan, so I just figured.”
“Not Stan?” he whimpered.
Junie continued to talk with her head pressed to his chest. “Nope. You know Stan won’t go into basements.”
Pickle distracted himself from the Stan topic by looking down the length of her back, how her waist curved in and out like a gourd, terminating at her butt.
She squirmed. “Okay, now I’m cold. And a little bashful! So, close your eyes again and I’ll go get dressed.”
He felt her rise up, supporting her arms on his legs for leverage, and when he was sure she’d retreated to the back, he opened his eyes and stared at his crotch, where he’d usually have an erection waging battle with his pants. But he was embarrassingly limp. Well, he reasoned, Karen was upstairs … but Junie had allowed him, for just a moment, to dip into the privacy of her body, and that was a beginning.
Junie returned in no time, dressed in a simple floral dress, an outfit he recognized from Karen’s wardrobe. Unacceptable. “Jesus. I can’t have you wearing Karen’s clothes,” Pickle said with more than a hint of indignation.
“But we’re the same body type exactly. If that’s all I wore for the rest of my life, I’d be very happy. And stylish.”
Talking about Karen’s body type was making him literally sick. That yuppie muffin and millennial coffee were exploding in his stomach and trying to crawl up his throat. “Well, it’s not right. I mean … I’m not sure what I mean. Just that I think you should have your own clothes. Not hand-me-downs from Karen,” he stammered.
“But it’s been kind of fun, kind of like being Karen.”
Pickle began to hyperventilate. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. I can’t explain it other than it feels very weird.”
“Well, we certainly wouldn’t want you to feel weird!” Junie smiled and plopped on the sofa next to him. She continued in a more subdued, conspiratorial tone. “I’ve got to start thinking about getting a job. I’m bored.”
“Are you sure you’re ready for that?”
“I think so. The days drag. I take The Doodles for walks. He cheers me up. Don’t you, Doo-Doo?” Junie reached down and rubbed the area just above his tail and The Doodles attempted to scratch the unreachable itch. “I help Karen with stuff. Grocery shopping. She’s gone a lot—much more than Stan. She seems to have the brunt of the work. I googled them and it’s pretty impressive. I was thinking they might have a part-time job for me. I’m not qualified for much, but I thought I’d ask them.”
Pickle stiffened. “But aren’t you interested in art?”
“Yeah, that was my major in college. How’d you know?”
“Oh. It was part of a routine background check that Lance did. When you mentioned a job just now, I remembered. But why not do something in your field?”
Junie swung her legs up off the floor, propped her feet on the sofa arms, and rested her calves on Pickle’s midsection. “That sounds so far-fetched—the art worl
d. Like a dream.”
Pickle saw the defeat on her face, as if he’d clamped down on her hopeful idea. “It’s not a horse race. Something will come up. Hey, I’m starved. I barely ate breakfast. Wanna go out? I know a place in the neighborhood where they’ll let The Doodles in.”
Junie grinned and fetched the dog’s leash. They walked outside just as the woman across the street came down her steps with the poodles. The Doodles dragged them over and nose/butt reintroductions were made between the dogs, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, and Blitzen. Junie chatted easily with the woman, a well-known writer it turned out, with whom, it became evident to Pickle, she’d taken several walks.
Pickle stood back. The women took up topics he had little interest in, while they alternately kneeled down to attend to the quadruplet dogs and The Doodles. He looked back across the street to the brownstone—to his two upper floors. Karen stood at the window on the top floor, observing them. She placed both hands on the glass pane, as if someone was holding a gun at her back. Pickle nodded once and then, with apologies to the writer, explained that he and Junie were hungry. Locking his hand into Junie’s, he pulled her away. He felt Karen’s eyes bore into the back of his head, or maybe they didn’t. Perhaps she was already living her other life, bossing the construction guys around. In either case, Pickle leaned over to Junie and kissed the side of her head.
32
KAREN PULLED HER HANDS AWAY FROM THE WINDOW. By simultaneously removing some dust buildup and depositing a filmy residue of oil, she’d made two turkey impressions with her fingers. She lay her cheek against the glass in between the birds, and watched until Junie, Pickle, and The Doodles dropped out of her sight line. Then she called the office.
“Suzie, I won’t be in till later this afternoon. When Stan comes back from the Kinsey meeting, tell him I’m at the brownstone, supervising stuff.”
“But he likes to unload with you after he has a big presentation.” Suzie whined.
“You’ll be fine. Just stay with him. He’ll talk it all out. And take notes for me. In fact, act like you’re me.”
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