House of Wonder (18 page)

Coffee with Nondairy Creamer

W
arren and Rose sat beside each other at the island in the kitchen, each with a glass of milk in front of them. Warren had returned home at five thirty—an hour and a half after he left with Detective Dunn. I was making them dinner.

“I still don't understand what information they thought you'd be able to give them about all this,” said my mother, as she paced, then hovered, hovered, then paced in the space behind them. She couldn't bring herself to refer to the “thefts” by name.

Warren looked into his milk cup, silent to all our attempts to find out more about his time with Detective Dunn. He had come home with a strange, resigned calm about him, as if events had been set in motion that he was now powerless to stop.

I squatted down to stare through the door of the oven, seeing my reflection in its tinted glass. “They're probably talking to everyone,” I said, not managing to convince even myself. “War, do you want ketchup with your chicken nuggets?”

Warren looked at me as if I had suggested something perverse. “No,” he said. “No ketchup.”

“You should try it,” said Rose with both elbows resting on the counter. “It's really good.” Warren looked at her, his expression amused and skeptical. “How do you know if you don't like things unless you try them?” demanded Rose, her already high voice reaching an even higher note.

Rose looked at me for corroboration. “That's right,” I said, my lips twisting in a smile. “You've got to try things.”

The timer sounded and I pulled the baking sheet from the oven, setting it on the stove top. Loosening the nuggets with a spatula, I divided them between two plates, giving Rose a third of them, then adding a healthy squirt of Heinz. “It's hot, Rose,” I said as I set her meal down in front of her. “Blow, okay?”

Sticking the tip of her finger in the ketchup, she licked it off, then turned to Uncle Warren. “Did they give you food in jail?” she asked, leaning onto the counter.

I felt my mother tense. “Uncle Warren wasn't in jail,” I said quickly. “He was just helping the policeman do his job.”

But Warren was looking at Rose as if hers was the most delightful company he could keep. “They gave me coffee with nondairy creamer,” he said.

Again, she dipped her finger into the ketchup and sucked on its tip, her legs kicking under the table, her eyes casting about the room until another question came—urgent and sudden. “Did you see Maglons?” she asked.

He dropped his gaze and his eyebrows drew together, but he kept his small smile, letting out a low chuckle that sounded like an old piece of groaning machinery. Rose took this as an affirmative. “Why didn't you call me?” she demanded, her open palm inviting explanation. Warren's head shot up, like a teacher finally being rewarded with a worthy student. Rose reached up and rubbed her earlobe. “Like this,” she said. “I would have come to get you.”

•   •   •

With my hands on my hips, I stared at the printout of the recipe that lay on the counter.
Turn the potatoes halfway through roasting.
Then I pulled the roasting pan from the oven and set the spatula to work. “Shit,” I whispered as a potato sprang from the pan onto the floor. “Man overboard.” Gordo immediately lapped it up, his eyes staring at me with an addict's urgency as his body remained tense in anticipation of more salty starches raining down from the sky.

“Hey, Mom!” called Rose from the family room, where she was watching a
Sesame Street
DVD; it was the segment in which Elmo talks to babies. “Tucker said that his brother eats from his mom's
boobies
.” She giggled, thinking she was being bold and naughty.

“Lots of babies do that,” I said, as I opened the fridge door and pulled out a small wedge of a very nice cheese, the sort I only ever bought for company. “You did.”

Following a silence that hummed with her thoughts, Rose asked, “What about babies who don't have moms?”

“Well,” I said, my hands resting on the countertop, “those babies drink from bottles.”

“Is that what Gabby did?”

I looked at Rose, trying to gauge whether this question marked some sort of defining moment. Rose glanced back at me, her eyes shifting from me to the TV and back again. “Gabby has a mom, honey,” I said. “She just lives far away now. Like your dad.”

“Oh,” she said, as her focus moved more permanently back to her show. I watched her for a moment, wondering if these explanations would eventually become more difficult. If they would someday involve more than a recitation of facts.

Unwrapping the beautiful bit of cheese, I set it on a plate with some nuts and dried apricots. Then with her full capacity for wonder and elation, Rose declared, “They're here!” Barking, Gordo began circling the space in front of the door.

I grabbed the dish towel and wiped my hands, bending down to check my face in the door of the microwave, then stepped into the family room to see the headlights of Bobby's Jeep suddenly drop to black. Car doors were opened and shut. Gabby's chatter and the crunch of feet on gravel drew closer.

I slid my fingers up the back of my head near my scalp, letting them run through the length of my hair while Rose stood bouncing in front of the door. “Hi!” she boomed, waving as Gabby and Bobby passed in front of the big window. It was only a little before six, but the sky had already sunk into darkness. The nearest homes lined up neatly across the street, their windows forming distant, trim yellow rectangles.

Bobby knocked once, sending Gordo spinning. “Go lie down, buddy,” I said, my hand on the doorknob. As I turned it, I felt a sensation that was almost like free fall, almost like that blissful millisecond after you step off the diving board but
before you land in the warm, calm waters of the pool. Gabby and Rose scampered immediately inside, a rush of cold air following them as Gabby flopped down on the floor and Rose helped her pull off her boots. I stood in front of Bobby just long enough for the warmth from our house to collide with the frigid night beyond. Then I reached for his arm and gently pulled him inside. “Come in,” I said.

“They weren't kidding,” he said. “It's gotta only be like thirty degrees out there.” Meteorologists with stern expressions had been discussing the unseasonably cold temperatures for several days now.

“Those damn Canadians with their Arctic blasts,” I said, as I pushed the door shut behind him.

In Bobby's hands were a bottle of wine and a slender brown paper bag containing a beautiful baguette, the emerging end coming to a slim point. I thanked him as he handed them to me. Then he slipped off his coat, turning to hang it on the hook by the door. And as he stood with his back to me, I noticed the solidity of his form. And I imagined putting my hands on him, running them under his sweater and up his back, my fingertips lingering on each knot of his spine. When he again faced me, he smiled, nodding toward the kitchen, from which wafted the scent of roasting chicken and potatoes. “Smells great in here,” he said, his voice low and intimate.

•   •   •

I rested my hand on my chin as I leaned over the table, my eyes flickering to Bobby's and his to mine as we listened to Rose and Gabby chatter and giggle. Dinner's dirty plates had been
mostly cleared and piled by the sink, and the wine Bobby had brought had left me loose and warm, with pink cheeks and a content smile.

“Do you guys want some dessert?” I asked the girls as I glanced at the clock. It had been a long meal, one spent luxuriating over the conversation and the company.

“Yeah!” they both said at once.

“Have you ever heard a no to that question?” asked Bobby as I rose to pull out the brownies I had bought at the high-end bakery near Wonderlux, where hip-looking women with red lipstick wore retro aprons and baked from scratch.

I snapped the twine off the box and set the brownies on a plate, then shuffled happily back over to the table, setting the plate down in front of Rose and Gabby. Rose immediately grabbed two, and handed one to her friend.

Bobby and I watched them eat with easy bemusement. When they had finished, I suggested that they go to Rose's room to play. Bobby and I followed, hovered in the doorway as they pulled plastic horses and Barbie dolls from baskets, indifferent to our presence. Then we returned to the kitchen.

“So, I'm glad there were no issues with that cop yesterday,” said Bobby, bringing the last of the plates to the sink.

“Yeah,” I said, sweeping crumbs off the table and into my open hand. “I'm still a little uneasy about it.”

Alerted to my lingering concern, Bobby grew serious. “Has Warren told you anything about what was discussed?”

I gave him a look as I took a seat. Although Warren hadn't told me a thing, I wanted to move away from the weightier topics of the present, if only for another hour or so. For another
hour or so, I wanted to forget that my brother had been questioned by the police, that I couldn't afford cable much less the fancy brownies I had just fed to two four-year-olds. Bobby turned on the water to begin the dishes, but I patted the table. “I'll do that later,” I said. “Come sit.”

Bobby poured himself another inch or so of wine, then walked across our tiny kitchen and pulled out the chair next to mine. We stared at each other in a way that felt like a confession, his knee touching mine, our hands inches apart on the table. “Do you remember,” I began, “that party you took me to at Rick DeSesso's?” The memory had risen up unbidden.

Bobby chuckled and tilted his head, as if trying to get a better view into my mind. His pinkie finger rose off the table to stroke mine. “I do,” he said.

I slid my leg under his beneath the table. “Why did you ask me to that party anyway?” I said.

Bobby smiled and looked down. “Uh . . . ,” he said. Our eyes connected for a moment before he looked back down, chuckling.

“Oh, no,” I said with mock dread, leaning back in my chair, but keeping my hand where it was. It was suddenly clear, like one of those secret-image pictures that you stared at for hours before shifting your head to find that the image was obvious, so obvious you didn't know how you had missed it before. “Your mom. Your mom made you take me.”

His hand curled around mine and he pulled it closer to him. “I think she thought that you needed to have some fun,” he said, his gaze falling away.

“I used to have fun,” I protested, though as I said it, my
surety slipped away, undermined by the memories of my mother's face when I would ask her if I could go to this or that party, to this or that dance.
What about Warren?

Bobby held my hand tight and tugged it close to his chest. “You always seemed to have a lot of responsibility.”

•   •   •

When Bobby left that night, we hugged good-bye. Our legs had touched, our hands had touched, but our lips still hadn't. “I'm at the hospital all day tomorrow, but on Friday, I finish at seven,” he said. “I'd love to see you.”

I glanced down at Gabby. Her eyelids had begun to look weighted and her hands disappeared inside the too-long sleeves of her quilted purple down jacket. “Well, actually . . . ,” I stuttered. “Rosie is going to spend the night with my friend Maggie's boys for Sam's birthday, so . . .”

“It could just be me,” he said. And as I looked back at him, I felt the deep, churning thrill of wanting someone. Of having him want you back. “If that's all right.”

I nodded. “That's all right,” I said.

He picked up Gabby and pulled open the door. “Say thank you to Rose's mom,” he prompted.

Gabby rested her little chin on his shoulder. “Thank you,” she said sleepily.

When I shut the door behind them, I smiled at Rose and scratched her head. “Let's get you to bed, monkey.” Gordo rubbed his eyes against my thigh. “You, too, Gord.”

I changed Rose into her flannel nightgown, the one my mother had gotten her for Christmas because it looked like the
ones that I used to wear and “was on a big sale.” Then I propped Rose up on the vanity in the bathroom, helped her brush her teeth, and carried her to bed.

“Did you have fun tonight?” I asked, as I pulled the covers up to her chin.

“Yeah,” she said, rubbing her eyes with her small fist. “I like Gabby.”

I kissed her forehead and said good night, leaving the door cracked open.

Walking out to the kitchen to begin cleaning up in earnest, I saw the baby doll Gabby had come with. I picked up the phone. “Gabby forgot her baby,” I said when Bobby answered.

“Shit,” he whispered. I chuckled, familiar with the decision he was making, the inconvenience of turning around weighed against the inconvenience of time spent without a favorite toy. “I'll come back and grab it.”

“If she can live without it tonight, I can drop it off tomorrow after work.”

“Really?” he said. “That would be great.”

Of Great Use

A
s I drove from the office to Royal Court the next day, I tried to use the trip to shed the tension from what had turned out to be a terrible day at work. A vendor slipup on a project already fraught with an unrealistic timeline and unreasonable client demands had resulted in hours spent on the phone trying to remedy an issue that wasn't our fault but was most certainly our problem. There was little quite as frustrating as having to bite your tongue through an unwarranted and gleeful reprimand. Maggie, being particularly unsuited to such tongue-biting, had gone down to the corner store at three o'clock, returned with a long, rectangular brown paper bag, and poured herself a glass of wine.

“Want one?” she'd asked, as the wine sloshed into the floral paper watercooler cup.

I'd shaken my head. “I have to go pick up Rose,” I'd said, thinking about the evening that lay ahead of me. “And there are some things I have to do later.”

I hadn't told my mother that I was coming to Royal Court that day, hadn't told her what I planned to do. I had called Beth Castro that morning and asked if we could speak.

“What about?” she had said, her tone already confrontational.

“Please,” I said. “It won't take long. I just think a conversation would help clarify some of the issues there've been”—my tongue had moved through my dry mouth—“between your family and mine.”

But the day had turned my mood dark and it remained so as I pulled into King's Knoll. I found myself wondering why I was in this position. Why was I the one who had to smooth things over with the Castros? Hadn't I moved away from Royal Court? Didn't I have my own problems, my own concerns?

So when I opened the door to my mother's house, and she said, “Hey, honey. What are you doing here?” I didn't look at her. I didn't look at her when I said that I needed to drop something off at Bobby's and could she watch Rose for a few minutes. Rushing back out the door, I stopped short, hearing a clatter behind me. Rose's backpack had snagged on the lace runner that ran the length of the table in front of the stairs, and when she'd turned, the runner had pulled, sending a vase full of dusty, faded fake flowers toppling into a pile of magazines and boxes in front of it. My mother caught the vase, pinning it against a box, her foot rumpling the side of a shopping bag. “It's
all right,” she said, to both Rose and me. “It's fine. We're fine.” My eyes met Rose's and I paused for a moment before continuing out the door.

It was cold out, so I took my car rather than walking, cutting the wheel fast and heading first toward the Vannis'.

I'd put Gabby's baby in the nicest shopping bag I had on hand, and when I arrived, I grabbed its handles and hurried up to the house, keeping my chin tucked to my chest to ward off the chill.

As I rang the doorbell, I glanced behind me. Bobby's car wasn't in the driveway, but I hadn't expected it to be. Lights were on inside, but it was taking an unusually long time for someone to come to the door. I was about to try ringing once more when I heard the front door unlock. A few seconds later, the door slowly opened.

“Hi, Mr. Vanni,” I said, softening at the sight of him. He was still a formidable-looking man, with the large frame and broad shoulders that gave him the appearance of a retired football player. But he had diminished, his skin hanging from his bones without the benefit of his once-dense musculature and his joints twisting like roots.

“Jenna,” he said, giving me a smile, his eyes as reflective as a pond. “Sorry about the wait. It takes me a little while to get around now.” He extended his hand toward the foyer, the motion much less fluid than it once had been. “Come on in.”

“Oh,” I said, lifting the bag with Gabby's baby, “I can't. I just wanted to drop this off for Gabby. It's her doll.”

“Oh, good,” he said, his eyes brightening. “She's been missing that thing all day.”

“She left it at our house last night. Bobby wanted to come back for it, but I told him I'd just drop it off.”

Mr. Vanni nodded. “He's a good boy. He works hard. I'm glad he's enjoying his free time a little more these days.” Though his gaze had been on the neighborhood beyond me as he spoke, he gave me a sidelong glance. “Anyhow,” he said, “I'm not going to keep you standing out there in the cold. It's crazy, this weather.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, taking a small step back. “Take care, Mr. Vanni.”

He began to shut the door. “You, too, Jenna,” he said. “Give your family my regards.”

Burying my face in the collar of my coat, I took the stone steps quickly as I made my way back to the car. There was another stop I needed to make before returning to my mother's.

•   •   •

The bell sounded through the house, its ring long and drawn-out. A set of heavy plodding footsteps approached, and with a teenager's lack of urgency the door was pulled open. I remained still as I took him in. Zack Castro was several inches taller than me with a smattering of acne. He had pale blue eyes that looked as vacant as air. His baseball hat was turned backward and he wore a pair of long, shiny basketball shorts and a thick hooded sweatshirt. Though he was only seventeen, his physical presence, if nothing else, was impressive, with a sports-honed physique that lent him strength if not maturity.

“Hi, Zack,” I said, his name coming out as if weighted. He set his head back a bit at the sound of it, as if looking to gain even an inch of distance between us.

“Who are you?” he asked, with an arrogant lift of his chin and calm disinterest.

I paused for a moment. “I'm Warren Parsons's sister.” His eyes registered only the slightest bit of alarm before fading back into apathy.

From the bright kitchen behind him I saw Beth Castro drying her hands on a dish towel. “Zack,” she said, as she hurried toward us. “Go watch your game.”

Zack released the door with a push, letting it swing wider as he turned on his heels, passing his mother without saying a word as he returned to the couch. He fell onto it and hoisted his legs up onto the coffee table. Beth immediately replaced him in the front doorway, gripping its frame with her hand.

She looked at me expectantly, as if I should announce myself.

“Hi, Beth,” I said. “Thanks for seeing me.”

I waited for her to invite me in, but she simply stood there, her body blocking my way into her home. “So what is all this about?”

“I'd like to talk to you about what happened between Zack and Warren.”

She let out an exasperated gasp. “I just don't understand why you people keep coming over here,” she muttered, looking everywhere but at me.

“I'm
coming over here
,” I said, keeping my voice level, “because my brother came home last week with injuries that sent him to the emergency room.” She snorted into the air—all rolling eyes and shaking head. “And my mother has been receiving some very upsetting notes. And I can't help but think that the two are related.”

“So what? It's a crime to write your mother
some letters
? About that
house
she lives in? About what it's doing to property values in the neighborhood?!”

“No,” I said, with a concessionary nod. “But I'd say what she's been getting borders on harassment.”

“Harassment?!”
Beth gave a manic laugh. “Well, you know what's a
bigger
crime?” she said, as if she was in a position to know, in a position to weigh and measure wrongs. “Stealing someone's eight-hundred-dollar mountain bike!”

I felt my jaw tighten, felt the advantage of poise begin to slip away. “I can assure you that Warren did not steal Zack's mountain bike.”

“Then what's he
doing
?” she demanded, her shrill voice nearly making me wince. “Walking around the neighborhood with those damn airplanes! He ends up in people's yards! Poking around near their windows!” I drew back, only slightly, but Beth could see she had me now, that I was on the defensive. “Dina Margolis said he ended up in her
garage
a few weeks ago!”

From my memory came Seth Werlock's face as he tripped Warren on the playground. Almost three decades later and I still remembered his name. And I supposed it was those incidents—the ones from your youth—that found their way into your layers of self, and remained there, like fossils, the deep and undeniable truths of your past. “Warren would have no
use
for a mountain bike,” I declared.

Beth Castro's lips now slid into a grin. I had given her just what she wanted. She glanced down and, smoothing the creases of her pants, said, “Well, a mountain bike can quickly be turned into cash. And I think you'll agree that cash is something that
everyone
has use for.” She would probably repeat that line again and again, over meat loaf with her family, on walks with the neighbors.
So I said to her, I think you'll agree that cash is something that everyone has use for.
She savored the words that
came next. “Especially a woman with an adult son living at home, a broken-down house, and a mountain of bills to pay.”

“Beth,” I said, my voice quiet now.

“The authorities have the information. It's in their hands now.” And with that, she shut the door.