Home Improvement: Undead Edition (10 page)

She ducked her head. “Vampires don’t have to kill people,” she told him. “Especially once we are older, more in control of ourselves. I try not to. But . . . it doesn’t bother me very much, not when they are”—she looked him in the eye and gave him an ironic smile—“evil.”

“In my business,” Peter said slowly, “you come into the job seeing the world in black and white. Most of us who survive, the good cops, learn to work in shades of gray.” He smiled slowly at her. “So, Ms. Gray. What have you decided about the lighting fixtures in the kitchen?”

The brass lights are nice, but I think the bronze will look better,
Jack whispered, his lips brushing the edge of her ear.

“I think I like the bronze,” she told Peter.

Squatters’ Rights

ROCHELLE KRICH

In the beginning she heard them inside the bedroom wall.

The sounds originated above Eve’s head and had kept her awake for countless hours every night since she and Joe had moved into the house three weeks ago.

Scratch, scratch, scratch . . .

Mice, Eve had thought the first night, but she hadn’t found droppings in the bedroom or anywhere else in the house, where speckled beige tarps had formed hills over their furniture and the stacks upon stacks of boxes filled with their belongings.

Joe hadn’t heard a thing.

“It’s all in your head, babe,” he told her, his sympathy thinned the third time she woke him—at two in the morning, so she couldn’t blame him. “The house was just fumigated, right? Even if something
was
in the walls, it isn’t there now.”

Unless it was a ghost.

The thought was ridiculous, and Eve was pretty sure believing in ghosts didn’t fit with Judaism, although hadn’t King Saul asked a witch to summon the spirit of the prophet Samuel?

Eve wouldn’t have thought about ghosts at all if the broker hadn’t told them the previous owner had killed her husband and herself, in the house.

“By law I have to inform you,” the broker had said, his shrug and rolling of eyes inviting Eve and Joe to share his opinion of said law. He was a tall, wiry man with silver hair and a restless habit of bouncing from foot to foot that made Eve think of a Slinky. “It’s morbid, I’ll give you that, but a lucky break for you guys. This place is selling way below what it’s worth. I’m sure you’ve seen the comps, so you know.”

Bad
mazel
, both sets of parents had said. Eve and Joe had dismissed their forebodings, swayed by the potential in the three-bedroom, two-bath fixer-upper on Bellaire Avenue in Valley Village, and by the price. They had the down payment, most of it money Eve had inherited from her grandmother, but even with two incomes—Joe was a nursing home administrator, and Eve taught kindergarten at a private Jewish school—it was unlikely that they could afford another house in the foreseeable future, if ever, unless they were willing to leave Los Angeles, which they weren’t. Their jobs were here, their friends, family. Eve’s parents lived in Beverlywood, a thirty-minute drive from Valley Village. Joe’s parents lived in San Francisco, where housing was even more out of reach.

To save rent, Eve and Joe planned to renovate the house after they took occupancy. It had made sense to have the hardwood floors refinished while the house was empty, and they painted the master bedroom themselves the Sunday before they moved in.

That first evening, while Joe and his cousin Marty were returning the U-Haul in the city, Eve stood inside the bedroom. It looked just as she had imagined—beautiful, serene, a haven where she and Joe could retreat during the many months the house would be undergoing work. She would have placed the full-size beds on the wider east wall, but two closet doors made that impossible. So the beds were on the south wall. Eve had chosen the bed near the windows that looked out on the yard even though it was farther from the closets and connecting bathroom.

The bathroom was their first project. The chipped porcelain finish on the tub and sink was ringed with rusty Rorschachs, and a leaking shower pan had caused dry rot in the floor joists and mud sill. Earlier that day Eve had yanked off half a panel of blistered, peeling wallpaper but stopped when she saw ominous Technicolor patches of mold and an accompanying cloud of dust.

Eve made numerous trips hauling armfuls of clothing to the bedroom closets, dresser, and armoire, the furniture’s matte espresso stain rich against the Benjamin Moore Kennebunkport Green, which looked gray in the fading light. She considered moving some of the dry and canned goods into the kitchen, but she didn’t have the energy to line the pantry and cabinet shelves. She took a box of Raisin Bran for Joe and instant oatmeal packets for herself. She gave up looking for the coffeemaker. She’d ask Joe to do it.

Even with the windows open, the house was warm. Eve felt sticky and grimy. Project number two, she decided: air-conditioning. After a quick shower in the guest bathroom (she made a mental note to tell the plumber about the weak water pressure), she put on coral capri pants and a white tank top and unearthed a tablecloth and two place settings, including goblets for the wine chilling in the fridge next to a bottle of Fresca and lunch leftovers from a nearby kosher pizza shop. Humming Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s “Our House,” she arranged everything on the small drop-leaf faux butcher block table in the dark ocher breakfast nook, which would look cheery and cozy when it was painted, maybe a buttery yellow.

Joe surprised her with sunflowers.

“You are so, so sweet,” Eve said, standing on tiptoe to kiss his lips and nuzzle his cheeks, a little rough and darkened by two days’ growth of beard and smudges of dirt, but she didn’t care.

“You smell great,” he said, his strong hands on her hips. “You look great, too.” His smile was intimate, inviting. “You showered, huh? Guess I’ll do the same.”

Before Joe, Eve had felt self-conscious about her body, which fluctuated between a size ten and twelve, huge by L.A. standards. Joe made her feel beautiful, sexy. He loved her curves, he told her, and wide hips were great for having babies.

“How was the shower, by the way?” he asked.

She told him about the water pressure. “It’s fine for now.”

While Joe showered, she found a vase, a wedding gift from her best friend Gina, who had posted Eve’s profile on J-Date. Eve had sworn off J-Date and other Jewish online dating sites after thirty-plus dates ranging from painfully boring to disastrous. She had initially declined to answer Joe’s post, but she didn’t want him to think she was rude, and (she hadn’t admitted this to Gina) she was taken by his humor and his photo, even though photos usually lied. She and Joe, as it turned out, had much in common. They were twenty-nine years old, both only children committed to modern Orthodoxy, family, and sushi. They enjoyed hiking, word games, and
Curb Your Enthusiasm
. From their phone calls she discerned that he was smart and funny and self-deprecating. He had been married briefly at twenty-two—“We were both too young,” he’d told Eve—and was ready for a serious relationship. Two weeks after their first post they met in the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf on Larchmont. She caught her breath when she saw him coming toward her, six foot three and good-looking with wavy thick dark brown hair and okay, a small paunch, but his smile! His smile made her palms sweat and her stomach muscles curl. Pilates for the heart, she thought.

The sunflowers brightened the ocher walls. Over dinner, salmon fillets and tomato-and-basil angel hair pasta that Joe had picked up from the Fish Grill on Ventura, Joe uncorked the Asti. They toasted Gina and their good fortune in having found each other and the house. They drank a second glass of wine. They joked about the house’s many defects and, after a third glass that made them giddy, about its macabre history. Joe said, “Promise you won’t kill me, babe?” and Eve said, “Not tonight, I have a headache,” and they groaned with laughter until tears streamed from their eyes. When the meal was over and the bottle empty, they were suddenly mellow. They held hands across the table. Joe fingered her wedding band and said, “I can’t imagine life without you,” and Eve was so happy she almost cried.

Later, when Joe was asleep, she stood in front of the window, the newly varnished dark walnut floors cool and smooth under her feet. The moon was kinder than daylight to the yard, a field of shaggy yellowed grass and weeds and bald patches of parched earth. She envisioned a dark velvety green lawn, tall trees hiding the cinder block wall, perennial shrubs and annuals—petunias, lobelia, pansies in the fall. Maybe a hammock where she could stretch her legs and brush her fingers against the blades of sweet-smelling grass while she read a book and, God willing, one day soon, would stroke the downy hair of a baby in the jasmine-perfumed air.

The noises started as soon as she slipped back into bed.

JOE HAD TO
prepare for a health department inspection at work, so he was long gone when the contractor, Ken Brasso, arrived at seven thirty in the morning with two Latino workers, Fernando and William. Eve would have offered coffee and had a cup herself—God knew she needed caffeine after having had almost no sleep—but Joe had forgotten to dig up the coffeemaker and the fresh-ground dark roast she’d bought last Friday at Whole Foods, was that too much to ask? She apologized about the coffee, finishing with a little laugh that left her feeling awkward. She did have the Fresca, which all three men politely declined.

Eve had been anxious about the floors and was gratified to see Fernando and William working with care as they laid tarps in the hall and master bedroom. After covering the beds, dresser, and armoire, they taped thick plastic over the frame of the door connecting the bedroom and bath, leaving one flap open.

“There’s gonna be dust when you’re smashing tile,” Ken had told Eve. “But my guys will clean everything up.”

Ken, short and compact and in his late forties, had come highly recommended by her parents’ friends, the Bergers, for whom he had recently done a kitchen remodel. The Bergers had left Ken and his crew alone in their house for months and trusted them without reservation. Eve could, too. She would have liked to watch the demolition, but the drive to the school on West Pico would take at least twenty-five minutes. She did hear the first thunks as she was leaving and felt a rush of excitement as she pictured hammers attacking the godawful wallpaper and cracked tiles.

At work she made Memorial Day projects with the fourteen children in her class. She loved her kids, each one adorable and inquisitive. She loved sharing stories about them with Joe, who was a great listener and would be a great father. Once or twice her mind slipped to the house on Bellaire, and she wondered how the work was progressing. Throughout the day she found herself yawning. During nap time she was tempted to lie down on one of the tiny cots, just for a few minutes. Of course, she couldn’t.

When Eve returned home, she was pleased to see the Dumpster in the driveway filled with debris. Stepping into the house, she was greeted by a lively Hispanic tune that she traced to the boom box on the floor of the master bath, now an empty shell. Fernando and William were removing the tarps from the beds and furniture. The music was loud, and they didn’t notice her arrival. When they did, they smiled at her. A coating of dust had whitened both men’s hair and eyebrows, and William’s moustache.

Eve smiled back and patted her head.
“Mucho polvo.”
A lot of dust.

Fernando nodded and stooped his shoulders.
“Sí, sí. Somos bien viejos.”
We are very old.

Both men laughed, and Eve joined in, brimming with goodwill and happiness.

Ken took pride in giving Eve an update. They had replaced the warped plywood and joists. They had installed the drain assembly in the shower and poured mortar onto the wire mesh layered over the tar paper.

“See that?” Ken pointed to the grayish-brown mud on the shower bottom. “No dips, no humps. The slope is perfect. Water will flow right down to the drain. That’s what you want.”

“Wonderful,” Eve said, thinking Joe would be more interested in the details than she was. The moist, earthy smell of the mortar was making her a little nauseated.

“Tomorrow we frame the window and put in cement backer board for the wall tiles. Moisture won’t affect it, so it’s great for bathrooms. Then the floor tiles. Cabinets, countertop, and faucets are last. And you’ve got yourself a beautiful new bathroom.”

Eve smiled. “I can’t wait.”

She and Joe had enjoyed selecting the materials: white marble for the walls and floors with accents of one-inch green glass tiles above the sink; polished chrome trim for the sink, Jacuzzi tub, and shower faucets; dark brown cabinets; white marble for the countertop. A spa in their own home.

“One thing.” A note of warning had entered Ken’s voice. “That mortar’s solid, but don’t step on it, not even tomorrow. It’ll be hardened, but still soft enough to be easily chipped or gouged with just about anything hard enough to do damage.”

“The shower is off-limits,” Eve promised.

“Thursday, we put in the shower pan liner and the second layer of mud. When that’s dry, we install the marble. You ordered extra, right? Like I said, you have to allow for breakage.”

TUESDAY NIGHT THE
scratching was more persistent. Eve hated waking Joe. He was still tired from lugging furniture and boxes and a long day at work, where a patient had been missing for hours, right in the middle of inspection. After fifteen minutes she couldn’t stand one more second of the noise. “Poor baby,” Joe murmured, “try to get some sleep.” Which pissed her off, because it wasn’t as though she weren’t
trying
, for God’s sake. Minutes later he was snoring, his arm still around her, his breath a little rank as it tickled her cheek. She loosened his arm and nudged him until he was lying on his back. Turning onto her stomach, she pressed her pillow against her ears. No relief. In the living room, she rummaged through several boxes before she found cotton balls that she fashioned into earplugs. Months earlier, planning a trip to Israel, she’d filled a prescription for Ambien. In the end she hadn’t taken the pills. She took half a tablet now, and with the cotton crammed into her ears, she lay down and shut her eyes. Silence. She exhaled slowly and felt her body relax.

The noises came back.

The scratching had been replaced by a whooshed exhalation that formed a word,
heave
, whispery at first, then gaining in volume.
Heave, heave, heave, heave.
And something was hovering over her face, pressing against her body, solid and warm and—