Maybe This Time (11 page)

“Chocolate chip?” North said, sounding like a kid.

“Yes.”

“Yes, please.” There was a pause, and when he spoke again, he was back to business. “So everything is going well there?”

“Sort of. The kids have been through a lot, and this place is Amityville, the House of Usher, and Hill House combined, so their environment isn't working in their favor, but they're very bright and very tough and they've had each other. The worst mistake was sending Carter away to school. But if I can keep bribing Alice, and Carter will do the work, they'll be ready to go back to school by January. The nannies did a good job educating them. From what
I can tell, they were sensible, competent women except for the last one. Nanny Joy. Telling her to kidnap them and take them to Columbus was not a good idea. Alice calls you ‘Bad Uncle.' ”

“I did not tell her to kidnap them,” North said, sounding exasperated. “I told her to bring them to Columbus if she possibly could.”

“Sorry. I wasn't sure. You are sort of a hand-of-God, forget-the-feelings, don't-bother-me-while-I'm-working kind of guy. And in your defense, it was a good idea, her execution of it just sucked. We have to find a way to get them to agree to go, not trick them into it.”

“Well, you have a month,” North said, his voice suddenly cold, and she reacted to the undercurrent more than to the words.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“That was our deal, a month.”

“And what's wrong with that?”

“Nothing, assuming you don't bolt before then.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Never mind. Is there anything else you need?”

Andie scowled at the phone. “Yeah, I need you to back off that bolting thing.”
Or no cookies, you jackass.

“Tell me you haven't thought about it.”

“I just
got
here,” Andie said, ignoring the sympathy she'd felt for the nannies who'd left. “What's wrong with you?”

“Hand-of-God guy?” North said.

“Well, you do like your distance. You like to do your caring from another room.”

“Whereas you do limited engagements and then head for another state.”

“Hey, I'm not the one taking care of Damian and the Bad Seed from a hundred miles away. I'm
here.
”

“And at the end of the month, you won't be taking care of them at all. You don't stay.”

“
You
don't
care,
you don't even
see them
.” There was a long silence, and Andie thought,
This is stupid.
“I'm sorry. I don't want to have this dumb argument. Of course you care, you sent me down here.”

“Fair enough,” North said, as distant as ever. “Is there anything else you need from me?”

Not anymore,
Andie thought. “No, we're fine. Unless you're willing to come out here and burn the place down for me so we have to leave.”

There was a sharp intake of breath on the phone.

Andie thought,
That wasn't North, somebody is listening in.

It had to be Crumb; Carter wasn't interested in anything but his books and his drawing, and Alice would have contributed to the conversation by now. “Well,” she said brightly. “I can't wait to get home to you, baby. I really miss you.”

“What?”

“I know how hard this separation is on our
marriage,
but it's worth it to see that the kids are safe.”

“What?”

“But I'll be home in a couple of weeks,” Andie said. “I'll send the cookies and banana bread tomorrow. Can't wait to see you. Love you. Bye.”

“Uh, good-bye,” North said, and Andie thought,
Jesus, you suck at improv,
as he hung up.

She went downstairs and told Mrs. Crumb to stop eavesdropping—“I never!”—and that she'd be making her own tea from now on. She went into the pantry, a dark narrow little room off the back of the kitchen, and found a row of old glass decanters in a cabinet, most of the bottles empty except for one with peppermint schnapps and another that smelled like musty Amaretto and a third that was some kind of brandy. She made a cup of tea with a shot of Amaretto in it—one shot—and took the cup upstairs and sipped it in the warmth of her bed while looking over the kids' schoolwork,
which was really very good. When she was done, she put the empty cup on her bedside table, and slid down into the sheets, thinking about the kids. They had such potential if only they weren't so . . .

Her thoughts clouded, and she slipped into a deep tea-and-liquor-aided sleep. The whispers began again—
Who do you love? Who do you want?
—and she thought,
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
and when North showed up in her dreams, she thought,
Bad Uncle,
and refused to have anything to do with him.

 

After the first week, Andie kept pushing and the changes came fast. Alice worked her way through the third-grade workbooks, her tongue stuck between her teeth, her pearls, shells, locket, and bat swinging forward as she bent over her papers, her Walkman cast forlornly to one side so she could concentrate. It really was a miracle she hadn't become hunchbacked from the weight around her neck. She'd decided she liked the black-and-white-striped leggings Andie had bought her, but they were too small, so when Andie went back and bought her the larger size, Alice cut the pants off the too-small ones and tied her topknot with one of the legs. She liked it so much she began ordering Andie to do her hair every morning, which was an annoying improvement. It took Andie a while to realize who Alice looked like: a very short Madonna in
Desperately Seeking Susan,
except Alice hadn't discovered earrings and eye shadow yet. Well, it was only a matter of time.

Alice cooperated with everything once she was bribed, earning many trips to the shopping center, which resulted in each of the bedrooms sporting different treatments: red and black paisleys, pumpkin-orange stripes, purple checks, a violent green leaf pattern, a multicolored dot extravaganza that made Andie dizzy when she looked at it, and a green
Sesame Street
comforter with Bert and Ernie waving on the top. “Bee-you-tee-ful,” Alice said with each one, and since Andie didn't have to sleep in any of them, she said, “Yep,” and
moved on. Alice and Andie painted Alice's bedroom walls white, and Alice spent the ensuing days drawing pictures on her wall in marker. The black got quite a workout since that's what she drew everything in, and the red was almost as bad since there was a lot of blood in Alice's imagination, but the blue ran out first, used for many butterflies and a woman in a long blue dress. “Who is that?” Andie asked, and Alice said, “Dancing princess,” and drew on. She also badgered Andie to tell her the princess story every night and then critiqued it mercilessly as it evolved into a story about a brave princess in a black ruffled skirt and striped stockings, and the Bad Witch who lived with her and tried to make her eat soup.

But it wasn't all Bad Witch. Alice also began to follow Andie around after school time, asking, “Whatcha doing?” and then criticizing whatever it was with great interest and enthusiasm, which evolved into the Three O'Clock Bake, when Andie would turn on the radio and they'd listen to the only station they could get—“All the Hits All the Time”—while Andie mixed up whatever she was making in time to the music, and Alice helped a little and danced around the kitchen a lot, belting out the hits with fervor if not technical accuracy.

Alice was singing “I'm too sexy for my shirt” one afternoon as Andie began to make banana bread. “This is my specialty,” she told Alice as she got out her mixing bowl. “Do you want me to show you how to make it?”

Alice said, “My specialty is
dancing,
” and kept hoochie-coochieing to Right Said Fred.

My specialty used to be dancing, too,
Andie thought, and began to peel bananas for banana bread.

Alice stopped and peered over the bowl. “The bananas are yucky,” she said. “They are spotted and brown and
dead
.”

“They're supposed to be spotted and brown for banana bread,” Andie said, smooshing them up in the bowl with her fork. “That's how you know they're ready to make into banana bread. If they're
yellow, they're no good for bread. Everything has a time, Alice, and it is time to make these bananas into bread. It's very good.”

“I do not like nuts,” Alice said, frowning at the bag of walnuts on the counter.

“Then don't eat the banana bread,” Andie said, and beat the banana bread in time to the music, bouncing while she stood at the counter and Alice danced around singing, “I don't like nuts” to “Achy Breaky Heart” (“I do not like nuts, I really don't like nuts”). Then Andie put the bread in the oven, and Alice went back to singing with the music.

When the banana bread came out, Alice ate it.

The next day she danced to “Everything Changes” while Andie made chocolate chip cookies with nuts—“I do not like nuts.” “Then don't eat the cookies”—and ate the cookies. The day after that, she belted out “I Will Always Love You” as cupcakes came out of the oven—“I will eat these because there are no nuts”—and after the first two weeks and many Hits All the Time, she added waffles and pancakes and lasagna and spaghetti and whole wheat rolls to her menu—“I do not like whole wheat.” “Then don't eat the rolls”—and began to put on ounces and bounce just from consuming Andie's quality calories as she danced around the kitchen. After a while, Andie danced, too, which Alice, surprisingly, approved of. She was still pale as a little ghost, but she was a healthy little ghost. By the time the first three weeks were up, the only problems Alice still had were intractable stubbornness, occasional screaming, and nightmares.

Andie didn't realize Alice was having nightmares until she used the kids' bathroom one night and heard her crying as she came out. She knocked on the door and went in, and found Alice weeping helplessly in her sleep. She woke her and then picked her up and carried her to the rocker and began to rock her, saying, “What happened, baby, what did you dream?” and Alice sobbed, “They had teeth.” “What had teeth, baby?” Andie said, and Alice said, “The
butterflies.
” Andie kissed her forehead and said, “Butterflies don't have
teeth, it was just a bad, bad dream,” and rocked and rocked as Alice cried, quietly now.
I need a lullaby,
she thought, but the only one she could think of was from a Disney cartoon Alice played over and over. She began to hum “Baby Mine,” and when Alice quieted down a little, she sang, “so precious to me,” holding her close. Alice sighed and in a little while fell back asleep, and Andie held her for a while longer, just for the chance to hold her and in case she dreamed again, and then she put her back to bed and tucked her in. The next day she asked Alice about the butterflies, but Alice said, “I don't remember,” and turned away, stubborn as ever in the daylight. After that, Andie put a baby monitor in Alice's room so that when the little girl had bad dreams, she could go to her.

Meanwhile, Carter aced the tests Andie wrote based on the curriculum, listened patiently to her explanation of whatever lesson was next, and wrote his critical thinking papers. Whenever possible he wrote on comic books, but his arguments were clear and concise and that's all Andie was looking for. After one particularly good paper on the way comics were drawn, she took the kids to an art supply store on their way to the shopping center and saw him smile for the first time.
Okay,
she thought,
I'm getting the hang of this,
and loaded him up with quality drawing supplies. Other than that, nothing changed: Carter did his work silently, read silently, drew in his sketchbook silently, worked on his computer silently, and ate everything Andie put in front of him, although he was now growing at such an alarming rate that she thought there was something wrong. “I swear, he's grown two inches in three weeks,” she told Flo when she called her for help. “I expected him to grow out with all the food I'm shoving at him, but not
up
. And he walks like his legs hurt. I want to call a doctor but he won't go.” “He's twelve,” Flo said. “It's a growth spurt. Keep feeding him, he'll be fine.” So Andie bought him new pants that would cover his newly exposed ankles and gave him aspirin when he winced, and kept feeding him, and Flo was right, he was fine. Silent, but fine.

And during it all, Andie tried to figure out what the hell was wrong in Archer House.

Because once the routines were settled—schoolwork in the morning, grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch, reading and drawing and baking in the afternoon, reluctant eating of new food for dinner, Go Fish after dinner (there was a routine Andie regretted immediately since Alice seized on it and refused to give up, snarling,
“Go fish!”
with venom whenever possible), and then bedtime and reading comics for Carter, and bedtime and the princess story for Alice—once all that routine was in place and the house was clean, and at least the illusion of stability had been established, Andie still felt that whatever was wrong was as strong as ever, waiting out there for her. And she was pretty sure the kids felt it, too: Carter seemed to be always looking over his shoulder, waiting for something, and Alice's screaming seemed to be tied to more than just being crossed, erupting when anything threatened her routine. There was more fear in those screams than Andie had realized at first, mostly rage, true, but definitely fear underneath.
It's the house,
Andie thought, and tried to find a way to break through their resistance to comfort them with no success.

“They're just tolerating me,” she told North when she called him at the end of the third week to give him the update on their education. She was on the pay phone at the Dairy Queen, which wasn't the best place to have long conversations but had the advantage that Mrs. Crumb would not be listening in. Add to that it was a sunny day in late October, and she was wearing her favorite skirt—greeny-blue chiffon with turquoise sequins—and Alice hadn't screamed at all so far that day, and things seemed more doable than usual. It helped that she and North were being polite again after sniping at each other for a couple of weeks. The politeness was cold, but it wasn't annoying.