Heat and Light (24 page)

“She's fine.”

Another silence.

“She had a stomach bug a while ago, but it was nothing. You know kids.” Finally the realization dawns. “Wait, you think my
water
is making Olivia sick?”

He listens in disbelief as Rena explains, finally, the reason she's standing in his driveway.

“Let me get this straight,” he says, with deliberate calm. “You're trying to shut down the drilling.” He can actually feel his blood pressure rising. It is in every way like listening to his brother: the sanctimonious tone, the clear assumption that other people don't understand what's good for them and must, like children, be protected from what they want.

“Rena, are you out of your mind? This town is dying. It's the first glimmer of hope we've had in thirty years.”

“And drilling is going to save us? It's killing my business.”

“I don't hear anybody else complaining.”

“Nobody else is doing organic.
You
try and sell organic milk when your cows are grazing in a gas patch. Pretty soon we won't be able to give it away.”

The
Batman
soundtrack builds to a sweeping crescendo, Hollywood's version of waterboarding.

“I don't know anything about that,” he admits. “But nobody's making you do it, right? Organic.” The word sounds awkward coming out of his mouth. “That's your own choice.”

From the back yard comes a grinding noise. Rena covers her ears. “Good Lord. They never stop, do they?”

The grinding gives way to a mechanical shriek.

“Look, Rena, I get it.” He has to shout to be heard. “You think I like listening to that? I haven't had a decent night's sleep in weeks. So if people want to get together and bitch about it, knock yourselves out. Just leave my kid out of it. There's nothing wrong with my water. And Olivia is fine.”

The shrieking vibrates his hands and feet.

“Listen, I know there's problems. I look out my kitchen window and I think, what the hell are they doing to my land?” He has never admitted this to anyone. “But I'm trying to be patient. A lot of good could come out of this. Look around, Rena. Half this town is out of work.”

“Name me
one local person
who's gotten a job on a drill rig. All those guys come up here from Texas or wherever.”

(The drunken yahoos at the Commercial, the parking lot full of out-of-state plates.)

“Well, maybe so,” he admits. “But what about all these trucks on the road?
Somebody's
driving them. If I needed a job, I'd get myself a commercial license. Some people in this town are just fucking lazy,” he adds, thinking of the Nick Blicks, the Booby Marstellars. “If they're out of work, maybe it's their own goddamn fault.”

Abruptly the noise stops. The silence is somehow shocking. They stare at each other, blinking.

As he watches her drive away, Rich remembers the strippins.

The old strippins, not yet backfilled. Beyond the sooty moonscape lay woods and lake and rusted track, an old rail bridge where teenagers congregated. They left behind a trail of graffiti and used rubbers, beer cans and cigarette butts.

He remembers a summer evening just before twilight, jumping bikes with Booby Marstellar on the ramps they'd made, stolen planks and cinder blocks lugged from a building site. Rich ducked into the woods to take a leak and saw movement on the rail bridge, a flash of white. He was nine years old and didn't, at first, understand what he was seeing. A shirtless man crouched on his knees, bare-assed, pants around his ankles. Pinned beneath him was a half-clad girl. He held her by the throat.

That winter, hunting with his pap, Rich had bagged his first doe. This girl was as still as the deer in his crosshairs. Her bare feet were dirty. Her arms and legs were white. When she saw him her
head jerked sideways, and he understood that she was telling him to run and he ran.

The girl held by her throat. To this day he isn't sure what he witnessed: horny teenagers going at it, or a sexual assault in progress? He remembers thinking, She could get away if she wanted to.

(her feet dirty, as though she'd already tried)

He didn't tell Booby what he'd seen. He didn't tell anyone. The boys rode home grimy and sunburned on the cinder path along the railroad tracks—two little shits on bicycles, a long time ago.

IT'S NEARLY DARK
when Shelby gets home. The house, predictably, is a shambles: a greasy fry pan left for her to wash, bowls and spoons piled in the sink. Honestly, how is it possible? Two hours ago she left the place in perfect order. Now there is clutter everywhere, piles of junk mail, toys and small shoes littering the floor. To Shelby, who spends much of her day returning items to their proper places—dolls to the toy chest, scissors to the kitchen drawer—the level of chaos is unfathomable. She thinks of Pastor Jess's tidy house, the two empty wineglasses on the coffee table. What passes for messy when you don't have kids.

In the living room Braden and Olivia lie on the floor in front of the TV.

“You shouldn't watch in the dark,” she says, flicking on a lamp. “It's bad for your eyes. Where's Daddy?”

“Basement,” Braden says.

She finds Rich sprawled on the old couch, staring at his laptop.

“Where were you?” he says.

“Where am I every Thursday night?”

“That's a great question, Shelby. I
think
you're at counseling. Then again, I thought you were at Bible study on Tuesday.” Finally he looks up from his screen. “Your pal Rena Koval came by to see you. She wanted to know how you made out with the lab.”

Shelby feels suddenly faint.

“I was going to tell you about it. I knew you'd be mad.” How much had Rena told him? She sits on the dusty couch, clutching her stomach. “I don't feel well.”

“Goddamn right I'm mad. Now the whole town thinks there's something wrong with our water.”

“There
is
something wrong with our water.”

“You,” he says very slowly, “have completely lost your mind.”

“Oh, really?” she says. “They didn't think so. They said it happens all the time.”

“Who said?”

“Dr. Trexler, at the meeting. He's a scientist. There's people out west who can light their tap water on fire. Did you know that?”

“If one more person tells me that, I'm going to put my fist through a wall.”

“It's a true fact.” The couch is making her eyes itch.

“And what's this about having the water tested?”

Rena had told him everything.

“They came this morning,” Shelby says with a pounding heart. “From Pittsburgh. We should have the results in a few weeks.”

“Exactly how much is this going to cost me?”

Shelby hesitates. In all the excitement, she had forgotten to ask the most basic question. “I'm not sure. They're going to send a bill in the mail.”

“Jesus Christ.”

She has never seen Rich's face this color. He looks like he's about to have a heart attack. “Calm down,” she says. “You're scaring me.”

“I will not calm down. You're making a fool of yourself. Of us both. What did you tell them about Olivia?”

“The same thing I've been telling you. The same thing I've been telling
everybody.
” Shelby is near tears. “Rich, she
isn't getting better.
Something is seriously wrong.”

“Not according to Dr. Stusick.”

“Dr. Stusick doesn't know anything. She needs a
specialist.
”
Nothing to lose, now; she might as well tell him everything. “There's a doctor in Pittsburgh. Environmental medicine. I made an appointment.”

“Let me guess. Something else I'm supposed to pay for?”

“Oh no,” she says quickly. “They take Blue Cross.” This is an outright lie. In truth Shelby has no idea whether insurance will pay for the visit. Another question she forgot to ask.

CLOSING TIME AT THE COMMERCIAL
. Gia wipes down the counters while Darren swabs the floors. In the back room he fills a bucket with hot water and Pine Sol. Above the sink his brother has posted a list of instructions—terse commands, no articles, all caps.
AT CLOSING: 1. SWEEP KITCHEN. 2. MOP FLOOR. 3. EMPTY DISHWASHER. 4. TAKE OUT TRASH.
It's more or less the way Rich speaks in life.

He takes the bucket out front. “MOP FLOOR,” he tells Gia.

“WIPE COUNTER,” she answers. “Your brother is an asshole.”

Out of embarrassment or solidarity, some weird filial allegiance left over from childhood, Darren keeps quiet. What is there to say? That Rich is perfectly reasonable, as long as you do exactly as he wants?

Gia swipes briskly at the bar. “Why do you think Shelby goes to counseling? I'll tell you why. Her husband is an asshole.”

“Wait, what? There are therapists in Bakerton?”

“At her church. I don't know if it's doing any good, but at least she gets a break from the kids. It's the only time she ever leaves the house.”

“I was over there on Dad's birthday,” he says, enjoying the gossip. “Definitely some marital tension in the air. Shelby's a little—intense.”

“Shelby's a little nuts.” Gia finishes wiping and gives the rag a rinse. “I think she might be anorexic, or that other one. The puking one.”

“Bulimic?”

“The girl eats like a lumberjack. She never gains an ounce.”

“You're one to talk. You used to have a little more meat on you,” he says, pinching her arm. Her tanned skin is surprisingly warm, as if saturated with sun.

“Baby fat. Don't remind me.”

“Seriously, Shelby's bulimic? Why would you think that?”

“Next time you're over there, look in the medicine chest.”

“Look for what?” he asks, but Gia has already disappeared into the kitchen.

When she returns they empty the ice traps into the sink. “Remember Mr. Radulski?” says Darren. “I saw him the other day, at the library.”

“That dickwad?”

“He was a nice guy.”

Gia snorts. “To the smart kids, maybe.”

“You're smart,” says Darren.

“You know what I mean.”

Darren runs the hot water. There is a satisfying crackle of ice melting. “It was pretty awkward. I never know what to tell people.”

“About what?”

“My wasted potential. My utter betrayal of anyone who had hopes for me. We didn't talk very long,” he says quickly, realizing he's said too much. “He had better things to do. His daughter was getting married.”

“Leah? Wasn't she your girlfriend?”

“Er, no. I wouldn't say that. We were friends.”

“You're a terrible liar.”

“She liked me,” he admits. “I wasn't really into it.”

Gia howls. “You did her!”

“Nah,” says Darren, his face heating. Recently he'd found, in his dad's basement, his own high school yearbook, its inside cover inscribed in the exuberant rounded cursive—
Friends forever! Dar
ren, U R the coolest. Have fun in college!—
of girls who didn't want to sleep with him. For reasons he still can't fathom, Leah had been the exception. At high school graduation they were both still virgins—despite a close call in the Radulski basement, an awkward clinch interrupted by Leah's little brother.

Gia, of course, hadn't signed his yearbook. He hadn't had the nerve to ask.

“I was kind of a jerk,” he admits. “Leah was super nice. My mom loved her.” His mother had never liked Gia, though she'd been careful not to say so. When Gia rolled up to the house in Rocco's cast-off hearse, the open windows pouring heavy metal and cigarette smoke, Sally offered only the mildest sort of criticism.
She seems like a wild girl
. She seemed to understand that Gia could break Darren's heart, or maybe already had.

“Do you think my dad's okay?” he asks. “He seems lonely.” It isn't precisely true. Dick doesn't seem any way in particular, unless Darren supplies the subtext. What he really means:
We are equally lonely.
Age is the only difference. Darren's youth allows for certain illusions, the implicit hope that life could change.

“Ah, Dick's all right,” says Gia. “Now that he's got you to kick around.”

“I guess.” It's a disconcerting thought, that his father's well-being depends in any way on his own presence. “But, you know, I can't stay forever.”

“Why not?”

He starts to say that it's an unnatural arrangement, a person of his age living—even temporarily—with an elderly parent. He stops himself, remembering that to Gia it's perfectly normal. Except for her brief teenage marriage to Steve Yurkovich—
the worst five minutes of my life
—she has lived, happily it seems, with her widowed father. Rocco Bernardi is older than Dick, his health questionable. How much care he requires, Darren isn't sure.

“You've never thought about moving out?” he asks as they empty the dishwasher.

“And pay a grand a month for some shithole?”

“In Bakerton?” The number seems impossible. He pays only a little more in Baltimore.

“Rents are out of control. Those gas guys have money.” Gia polishes the Iron City tap, which is already gleaming. “Remember my old place? That dump above the hair salon?”

“The stove didn't work.” It's his sole memory of Gia's marriage: getting high in her kitchen, lighting joints off the stove's only working burner while Steve, a long-distance trucker, was on the road.

Gia squeals. “God, remember my hair when my hair caught fire?”

It is possibly the most vivid memory of his life: Gia leaning over the gas stove, the sudden flash of light, the strange airy noise like opening a can of tennis balls.

“Sorry, no,” he says. “I can't recall.”

Gia shrieks with laughter. “I didn't know what the hell happened. I couldn't figure out why you were smacking me in the head with a magazine.”