Читать книгу The Show House - Dan Lopez - Страница 10

THE FROG-CROAK SOUND OF DUCT TAPE TEARING JOLTS him awake.

An army moves around him. Men go in and out of the house, shouting at one another to mind plants and to tend to various pieces of equipment arranged throughout the limestone patio. Some climb onto the roof, where they stitch together heavy yellow tarps with rows of alligator clips, while others feed a tube under the tarp and test seals. Overnight, his sedate home has transformed into a midway abuzz with activity.

Cheryl hands him his coffee. “Here. Drink,” she says, her voice stripped of whatever softness it possessed the night before.

“The doll?” he asks, clearing his throat and wiping the sleep from his eyes. His pipe, long extinguished, rests on the hard bubble of his gut. His entire body aches.

“In the car with our suitcases.” She stashes the pipe in its usual place. “They’re just about done. We should get going.” She helps him to his feet. “You’re sweating. I told you to come in last night. Now you don’t even have time to change.”

“I’m fine. Never better. Feel like a million bucks.” He stretches himself like an elm scratching at the sky and stomps his feet to get the blood circulating. He shakes his body like an earthquake, rolls his neck, windmills his arms, and cracks his back. And in one bearish gulp he empties the coffee mug, announcing his satisfaction with a yawp.

The foreman peeks out from beneath the tarp. “Hey, lady. We’re about to close ’er up. If you forgot anything, now’s the time to get it.”

“No. Go ahead,” she calls back.

But before he can duck inside, Thaddeus beckons him. “Just a few questions!”

Thaddeus turns to Cheryl, who busies herself returning the lounge chairs to their original positions, mumbling something about UV and sun bleaching. “Do you have the doll?” he asks again.

She sighs. “In the car. Along with our suitcases.”

The foreman waddles over, tossing a glance at his loitering crew. He checks something on his phone, then looks up at Thaddeus. “I went over all of this with your wife. What do you need?”

For a long time Thaddeus doesn’t speak, only stares at the yard.

“Hey, guy, you got a question or what?” The foreman squints in the early-morning sun. He’s a large man, and already a tributary of sweat marks the valley of his spine. He smells of mulch and high-en-durance deodorant. “Yours ain’t the only house we got today. Ain’t even the only one we got in this neighborhood. You’d be surprised what bad shape a lot of these old houses are in.”

Thaddeus purses his lips. “How long until we can use the pool?”

He shrugs. “Should be fine now, unless it’s broke. We only do the inside. Inside.” He points at the house for emphasis. “Look, I left a pamphlet with your wife—”

“This pool,” Thaddeus says. He wraps an arm around the foreman’s shoulders and drags him along the perimeter. “The contractor—a good-looking lady-contractor, couldn’t have been more than twenty-five—she wanted to charge twenty thousand for it. Do you know what I told her?” He grins, awaiting a response.

“Look, we really need to get started here—”

“I said, ‘No way, Josephina!’ Ha!” He taps the foreman’s chest. “I could do the job myself for half that if I knew about construction.”

“Yeah? Good for you. Like I said, I gave your wife the rundown. Just avoid goin’ inside and you’ll be good—”

“‘Materials alone are going to run twelve grand.’ That’s what she told me.” Thaddeus narrows his eyes. “Okay, so I told her I could go as high as fourteen thousand. Hey, two grand’s just a weekend in Vegas anyway, right? But it wasn’t enough. ‘I have my crew to think about,’ she said. We went back and forth for twenty minutes. I don’t have to tell you about negotiating.” He gives the foreman a knowing nod. “Finally I said, ‘Fifteen thousand. That’s my final offer,’ and showed her the door. And what do you think she did?”

The foreman glances back to his crew and motions for them to seal the house.

“She said, ‘You drive a hard bargain.’ But she took the job. I liked her style, so I said, ‘What the hell, with the five grand I’m saving I’ll start a scholarship to help more girls like you go to trade school.’ I can’t help it; I’m a feminist. When the job was done I gave her an extra two hundred bucks for her trouble. No big deal.”

The foreman slips away, and moments later a quiet hiss signals that the gas has begun to fill the house.

“Let’s go,” Cheryl says.

But the limp tent sputtering to life transfixes Thaddeus. It morphs and undulates like a lava flow. Forms rise in the fabric only to collapse as the gas reaches toward equilibrium. “It’s just the wind,” Cheryl says, but he ignores her. His home is turmoil. Right now poison pours over Cheryl’s clothes and into Stevie’s old room. Next will be the garage, or would that have been first? Ultimately, the order matters little to him. Gas will eventually coil around everything like a cat setting down for a nap: his law books in the attic, the photograph in the family room of Stevie leaning over the rail at Niagara Falls pretending to slip, the Hawaiian leis from a family vacation he can’t quite remember, entire drawers full of odd knickknacks and fading memorabilia that attest to a life well lived, tangible proof of memories made even if the memories themselves rise more sluggishly and infrequently than they used to—all of it, ultimately, choking on gas. But how many of the termites?

He stays awhile longer, watching the tent. Then with a cough he turns to Cheryl. “They’ll do a great job,” he says. He knows that they’ll go above and beyond because he took the time to build a rapport with the man in charge. And in business, as in life, it’s the relationships that matter. “A fine job,” he says. “No problem.”

Cheryl looks down at her nails and taps her foot. “Can we go now?”

“Whatever you want, heart of my heart.”

Taking her hand, he kisses her on the knuckles, but the static charge has barely left her skin before, wide-eyed, she yanks her hand away.

“I may have accidentally touched the poison,” she whispers, half apologizing.

Orlando feels like an extension of Apopka. Or maybe it’s the other way around. A mall looms in the distance, and before that a multiplex cradled by a handful of shops. But mostly the streets are wide and residential. If a difference exists between the neighboring cities at all it’s in the way faux-Spanish architecture dresses up the vernacular of simple midcentury bungalows in Orlando to a greater degree than it does in Apopka. Thaddeus is having a hard time navigating it. It’s been years since he’s been in the suburbs beyond downtown.

“Lot of new construction,” he says.

“Uh-huh,” Cheryl says. “You’re going to want to make a left at the light. It’s the one with the waterfall.”

He maneuvers into a turning lane, dutifully engages his directional signal, and waits. Traffic roils from the horizon like salmon on run. In Apopka traffic’s not so bad, or maybe it is and he’s simply accustomed to it. (The streets by their house, at least, are familiar.) An oasis pools in the middle distance. A final car swims through a long yellow light, then Thaddeus proceeds, on Cheryl’s direction, passing smoothly through a portal of blue tile and lacquered calligraphy spelling out the name PALM FALLS WEST. At the end of a long drive flanked by hedges and iron lattices stands a security kiosk, built with unassuming white concrete that could just as easily be calcified runoff from the eponymous waterfall.

“Gated community.” He whistles. “You didn’t tell me they lived in a gated community.”

“Yes, I did.” She removes her sunglasses and places them in her purse. “All the new ones are gated.”

“I would’ve remembered something like that.”

“What do you want from me? I told you.”

The white gate opens before they reach the kiosk, but he stops the car and lowers his window anyway. “Good morning!”

A guard leans out of the kiosk. “You can go right on through, sir,” he says. His uniform appears freshly bleached, the epaulets newly stitched. Even bent over, the polyester holds its crease. He waves at Cheryl. “Nice to see you again, Mrs. Bloom.”

Cheryl returns the gesture. “Hello, Byron.”

Her smile is bright, boarding on flirtatious, and Thaddeus wonders if he should be worried. He’ll have to look into that later, but right now there’s work to be done.

“We’re visiting my son, Stevie, and his partner for the week,” Thaddeus says. “Do you need me to sign anything?”

“No need, sir.” Byron smiles. “Mrs. Bloom is on the list. You can go right in.”

“I’ll sign whatever you need.”

“He said it’s fine,” Cheryl snipes, maintaining a pained smile.

“Just so everything’s on the up and up. I know how gated communities can be.”

“Thaddeus, let’s go.”

He relents, raising his hands in surrender. “Hey, man, okay. She’s the boss. I just do what she tells me to.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Keep up the good work, huh?”

“Yes, sir. Have a nice visit.”

Thaddeus reaches for his wallet, but Cheryl stays his hand and gives the guard a quick wave. “Thank you, Byron. Thaddeus, drive.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

The immediate interior of the complex houses a cabana and a modest pool. From there the layout quickly segues into a series of winding lanes and sidewalks. Some end in culs-de-sac; others skirt roundabouts and branch off into labyrinthine blocks with plenty of meandering green space. The homes are all two-story off-white units with trim in peach, seafoam, or light gray. A few look freshly painted, others recently pressure-washed. A traffic sign reminds motorists to be vigilant of children at play. The overall impression is of something clean and new. “Some place,” he says.

Just being here seems to have elevated Cheryl’s mood. As soon as they turn the corner—or, rather, slalom along a lazy curve—she spots the house and taps him on the arm, pointing it out. He’s happy for the contact, even if it’s fleeting. “Here we are! Just pull into the driveway.”

Uniform rows of violet and white perennials adorn the bottom of the house. Pagoda lights trim the front walkway, and stacked river rocks create a neutral border between the saturated green of the grass and the robust brown of the wood chips piled high throughout the flower beds. A juvenile oak sprouts from the center of the lawn.

“Some yard. Must be making the gardener rich.”

“Oh, the homeowners’ association probably takes care of it.” She flutters out of the car.

“Homeowners, huh?”

He shifts the car into park and steps out with a wince. These days driving always puts a crick in his knee, and sleeping outside last night didn’t do him any favors. He bends the knee until the pain recedes, then hobbles around the driveway.

She extracts a handful of letters from the mailbox. “Peter’s still at work, but Steven said to just let ourselves in.” She hands him the mail to hold while she goes around the side of the house. Lazily, he flips through the stack: a few bills and a catalog from a furniture store he doesn’t recognize, that’s pretty much it.

“Stevie’s not here?”

“He’s at the real estate office all day, then doing his volunteering. I told you all this already.”

“Oh.”

“He’ll be home later.” Then speaking to herself: “There’s a key hidden over here somewhere.”

After getting the bags from the trunk, he wanders over the lawn. It’s softer than what they have in Apopka, which is stubby, coarse, and often yellow in the winter. This grass, by contrast, is almost blue.

“Some lawn,” he mumbles.

Cheryl returns, holding up a key and smiling. “Found it!” She kisses him on the cheek. “Come on, quit staring at the lawn and grab the suitcases. I have to disarm the alarm and I never remember the code. Oh, I’m so excited!”

“Oh”—the kiss still warm on his cheek—“I’ll come all right!”

Palm trees line the deck of Stevie’s house, barks painted white against insects. Cheryl is upstairs while he paces aimlessly; dusk can be the loneliest time of day. She’d grabbed him as soon as he dropped their bags in the guest room, needing him for the first time in months. “Do you want anything special?” he’d asked, unsure how to proceed after such a long absence. She hadn’t deigned to answer, leaving little for him to go on but a cryptic shrug. He didn’t press her further; instead, he improvised, and they had a magnificent time.

And now he finds himself drunk on it still, stumbling around Stevie’s backyard, letting the decor wash over him and already missing the warmth of her skin, the scent of heat in her hair. Her smooth back has maintained its perfect line through the years—a sculpture that never tires of posing. She even kissed him before dropping her head dreamily onto a fresh white pillowcase that still retained a vague latticework of creases from the linen closet. “They’ll be home soon,” she said. “And I still need to get dressed.” She suggested he get some air, her voice tinged by that familiar indifference. But she must have noticed it sneaking back in, because she kissed him again and softly added that she was feeling tired and might take a nap.

“Whatever you want,” he’d said, afraid of ruining the moment, and he repeats it now to himself as he circles the pool, which is better than theirs in every way: the still surface reflects the window to the guest room where Cheryl keeps her own counsel, the adjoining hot tub mocks him with its effortless warmth. There’s a gas barbecue, too. He twists the knobs and tests the starter before shutting off the valve and opening the hood. Drops of charred fat speckle the burners, but the grill sparkles silver, clean—of course. “Whatever you want.”

The labored whine of the garage door opening calls him inside.

It can mean only one thing. In a moment, his idle curiosity about how his son’s family lives evaporates. There’s no need to wonder, he thinks as he scrambles across the deck and into the house, because he’s about to find out.

Inside, he pauses at the landing long enough to call up to Cheryl. “They’re home,” he shouts, but he doesn’t stop to wait for her. Rushing on he stumbles over a leather ottoman. Catching himself, he calls again: “Cheryl, Gertie and Stevie are here!” As he says it, he can’t believe it. His voice shakes with anticipation and maybe even fear. Stevie is about to walk through the door. After three years, he’s about to walk through that door, and all will be forgiven.

He zips past the dining room and through the laundry room. One and a half inches of beveled, stained oak is all that separates him from absolution. Tonight will go well. Tomorrow will be a breeze. Smiling, arms outstretched, he prepares to embrace his son, the past forgotten, and to greet his granddaughter. He’s seconds away now; he can hear a key scratching at the deadbolt from the other side, a muffled curse accompanying it. Impatiently, he turns the lock himself before throwing open the door.

But instead of Stevie with Gertie in his arms, he finds Peter weighed down with groceries. Disappointment at not finding his son momentarily blinds him to Gertie’s presence, but there she is, too. Little Gertie. Hurdy-Gertie. The girl he recognizes only from photographs. Her legs splay across Peter’s midsection. Her straight black hair hangs down like streamers from his arm. She bears little resemblance to the girl in the photos, however. She’s so much bigger for one thing, and asleep, it’s hard to find the same animated features. The fact of her race remains absolutely clear, though. There’s no mistaking that she’s adopted, yet the closer Thaddeus looks the more he senses something vaguely familiar in her face, maybe somewhere around the hairline, and for a moment he entertains the notion that Stevie, Peter, and Cheryl have colluded in a lie about her adoption in hopes of keeping him away for these past three years, but it seems too outlandish even for Stevie, so he dismisses the thought and just like that it’s gone entirely, as if he’d never even thought it.

They must’ve exchanged greetings because Thaddeus feels words form in his mouth. From the end of a long velvet tunnel all Thaddeus hears is a deafening din until Peter asks a question that pulls him back into synch with the world around him. “Can you hold her?” Bogged down with grocery sacks and with Gertie, he can hardly move. Thaddeus manages a nod and holds out his hands. To think that last night he was just some old man beside a pool, and now, less than twenty-four hours later, he’s not only meeting his granddaughter but being given the opportunity to hold her. His eyes mist.

Peter slips her into his outstretched arms. “Say hi to your grandpa, baby.” And that’s as much ceremony as he puts into the exchange. Gertie continues to sleep uninterrupted.

“It’s okay. Don’t wake her,” Thaddeus whispers. “She’s probably had a big day.”

“Careful. She’s heavier than she looks.”

“She ain’t heavy. She’s my brother.”

Peter shoots him an odd look, which Thaddeus hardly notices.

“Just an old Hollies tune.”

How many nights beside the pool have been spent imagining this first meeting, rehearsing scores of scenarios? He had so many reservations, so many fears. What if he wasn’t cut out to be a grandpa? What if he dropped her? Would he even be able to love an adopted granddaughter? And now she slumbers in his arms, bigger than he could even imagine, a real person, but still tiny and vulnerable in every way. He could’ve saved himself the worry, he thinks. He’s a natural.

“It’s good to see you, Thaddeus.” Peter leads the way to the kitchen. “It’s been too long.”

“Three years.”

He stacks canned goods on the granite counter and slips a slab of something wrapped in pink butcher paper into the open refrigerator. For a while they don’t say anything else.

“Anyway, water under the bridge,” Thaddeus says at last. “You look different.”

Peter folds the empty grocery sacks and places them into a drawer. He looks down at himself and grins. “I can’t tell if that’s a compliment.”

In three years Peter’s look has changed completely. The wild dark dreads he wore in the past have been replaced by his natural shade of russet blond, trimmed close to the scalp and revealing a rather severe widow’s peak. In place of the grimy yellow glasses, which were always far too big for his small face, he’s substituted a stylish pair of wire frames. The clothes mark the biggest change. Peter used to wear lots of things with safety pins and ironed-on badges, a style far too youthful for him even five years ago when he and Stevie first started seeing each other. Now his patterned, understated button-up neatly tucks into a pair of pressed tan slacks. No more black boots either. Those he replaced with soft leather boat shoes.

“A compliment,” Thaddeus says. “You look good.”

Peter smiles. “I guess I grew up, huh? Who would’ve thought?”

Gertie squirms. Whimpering, she pushes against Thaddeus’s shoulder.

“Uh-oh, what’s the matter, beautiful, don’t you like your grandpa?”

“No, she loves her grandpa.” But Peter scoops her out of his arms all the same. Cooing, he kisses her on the head and she calms down. “She’s probably just having a bad dream. She gets them sometimes. Steven thinks she’s reliving something from the orphanage, but I think it’s just something she ate. It’s okay, Gertie, Daddy’s here. Shh.”

“Will you look at that...”

A new serenity washes over him seeing Peter with Gertie. He’s here now, in this house, with his family. A moment ago he held his granddaughter and later he’ll get to hold her again, and then maybe in a week Peter, Stevie, and Gertie will be at his house and they’ll all enjoy the pool together. Maybe they’ll even visit Disney World together, as a family. Cheryl will be kinder to him now. They can finally put the past behind them. For the first time in three years Thaddeus can envision a happy future.

Then Gertie screams so loudly she startles him.

She transforms into a dynamo of sleeping rage. Her fists pound into Peter’s shoulder and her feet slam into his hip. She wails. Thaddeus scrambles toward her. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s just a dream.” Calmly, Peter rocks her. “It’ll pass. We just have to stay calm.”

The staircase rattles in the adjacent room as Cheryl comes rushing down. “Wait!” she shouts. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’m coming!”

Her cries further agitate Gertie, who redoubles her tantrum, but Peter is able to wake her and as soon as he does she stops screaming. Her eyes immediately rest on Thaddeus, and at first she seems startled by this stranger and her mood threatens to spill over into anger again, but Peter kisses her cheek and tells her it’s okay. “Say hi to your grandpa, sweetie.”

Thaddeus playfully sticks out his tongue and makes a trumpet of his thumb pressed to the tip of his nose. Though she remains suspicious, she lets slip a hesitant grin that soon blossoms into a gregarious smile.

“Ha!” His granddaughter just smiled at him for the first time!

Cheryl charges into the kitchen, a stricken look on her face, but she stops short when she sees them all huddled by the breakfast bar. “Peter?” She grabs her chest and exhales. “What a relief. When I heard screaming I thought it was Steven—” She crosses Thaddeus with a withering gaze. “I thought something happened.”

“We’re fine,” Thaddeus says.

“Just a bad dream, is all,” Peter adds.

Gertie sucks her thumb, her gaze shifting back and forth between Thaddeus and Cheryl, a stranger and a friend. She’s done crying, for the moment at least, and Thaddeus decides it’s a good sign.

“What a relief,” Cheryl says. Turning to Gertie, she pouts and slips into baby talk. “Your grandma just got worked up over nothing.”

Gertie squirms, wanting out of her father’s arms. He sets her on the floor, then takes a seat at the breakfast bar. “It’s okay. We’re used to drama around here.”

“Nothing to worry about,” Thaddeus reiterates. “We’re all fine.” Then to Cheryl, he says, “Stevie isn’t here yet.”

“Wait,” Peter says. “What do you mean Steven isn’t here?”