Preston Falls : a novel (21 page)

"You're in the office?" says WiUis.

"Yes. Where else would I be? Ms. Schoemer's going to see him this afternoon." School psychologist. They've dealt with her too.

PRESTON FALLS

"Then I guess justice has been served," says Willis.

"Listen, I have a meeting. I just thought you should know. Are you aU right?"

"Never better," he says.

"Okay, I have to go," she says.

"So I guess I should come down."

"What for?"

"You know, to help deal with this. Did Carol get there?"

"Not yet," she says. "There's no need for you to interrupt what you're doing. I'm taking off early so I can pick him up, and I thought we'd go someplace, just the two of us, and try to talk."

"Hey, good luck."

"Well, what would you suggest? No/ talking?"

"No, you're right," he says. "What else can you do? It's just, you know, first the shrink talks his ear off and—"

"That's not what she does," Jean says. "Listen, I have to get going."

"I'll be down sometime this afternoon."

"Please don't. I don't want you to."

"Jean, this is my responsibility too."

"Is that supposed to be funny?" she says. "I have to go."

Willis goes down, gets more coffee, eats some Cheerios. When he comes back upstairs there's E-mail from Carey Wyman: here's a draft, would welcome your input, cheers, carey. And then the spiel. Willis dumps it without reading, hits Reply and types: suits me if it suits you. In case that sounds hostile, he adds: break a leg.

And a message comes back: thanks, it's with marty now, so i'm keeping my fingers crossed, cheers, carey. Meaning he'd already sent it on. So much for Willis's input.

The phone rings again.

"So what do you think?" says Marty. "He sent it to you, right?"

"Yeah. I told him it seemed fine."

"Including the 'hopefully'? You've heard Bucky on the subject of 'hopefully.' "

"Oh," says Willis. "Oopsy."

"I guess you've got other things on your mind."

"I do, actually," says Willis. "Jean just called and told me that Roger got in a fight with some kid at school."

"Yeah? Clean his clock for him?"

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"Sounds like it. The other kid was the one they had to take to the nurse's office."

"Hey. Way to go."

"Well, opinions vary," says Willis. "At any rate, I've got to go down there this afternoon, so give a shout if you need me to come in tomorrow."

"For this} Nah, I can clean it up from here. But listen, while we're on the subject. You are coming back, right? Reason I ask, if anybody let me out of the cage for two solid months . . . you know. Be like putting the toothpaste back in the tube."

"But you'd go" Willis says. "I mean, you'd have to."

''Have to, what's that?" Marty says. "You know? You have to breathe. I don't know, I just get a funny feeling."

"And it's what makes you the great sports-drink executive you are," says Willis. "Marty. I have a house— two houses—two sets of bills, wife and family, car payments. . . . Believe me: if ever a man was gotten by the balls."

"I hate to pop your bubble," says Marty, "but your situation is not absolutely unique. The thing is, I just know how quickly everything can disappear from a person's screen. Shit, I don't know, this is verging on the weird."

"No no no, I appreciate the concern," says Willis. "Though I guess I'm not sure what this is about, exactly. They don't have any tramp steamers up here."

"Forget it," Marty says. "I'm probably just projecting. Read: envious. Listen, thanks for helping out."

"Hey, my parting gift to the world," says Willis. " 'Tis a far, far better thing I do. What is the answer? Very well, then, what is the question? On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia."

"Ho-kay," says Marty. "I'll leave you to your whatever."

It's still daylight when Willis pulls into the driveway in Chesterton: two strips of pebbly concrete with grass between, from the days of cars with running boards. At least the people who owned the house before had the taste not to blacktop it, and not to replace the wooden Z-braced garage doors with an overhead one. Though more likely they couldn't afford to. The Cherokee's gone; he walks up the driveway, looking at the velvety green moss filling the cracks in the concrete, then cuts across the grass to the kitchen door. There's Rathbone, on his hind legs, looking out. Willis says "Bone-face!" and turns the knob—except the son of a bitch won't turn. He feels in his pocket for his house keys. Shit, He knocks, on the off chance. Well, if all else fails there's a key taped to the bottom of one of the garbage cans.

Footsteps, and here comes Mel.

She opens the door and says, "Daddy, what are you doing here?" Rathbone slithers out, his whole rear end wagging, and jumps up on WiUis.

"I live here. Good dog, yes, I'm glad to see you too." Rathbone has his paws around Willis's waist. Willis rubs him behind his silky ears. "How are you, sweetheart?"

"I'm all right," Mel says.

"You don't mind if I come in?"

"Dad-dy/' she says, and stands aside. He shuts the door behind him and tosses his jacket on the Cosco stool. Rathbone's still dancing around, toenails clicking.

"Yes, you're a good boy," says Willis. "Has he been out lately?"

"He's just glad to see you," says Mel.

"Where's the Mom?"

"She had to go shopping."

"Ah," he says. "She take Roger with her?"

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"No. She tried to make him go, but he wouldn't, and then she got mad and made him go to his room. Do you want some tea. Daddy? O-kay, Rathbone. Chill. "

"No. No, thanks," he says. "I might make some coffee later. Sit." Rathbone sits, but his tail keeps sweeping.

"Tea's better for you."

He follows her into the living room. She sits, cross-legged, on the couch, where he's glad to see she has a book open, face-down, and a loose-leaf notebook. The soles of her white socks show hardly any dirt. Brooding over the couch is this picture Jean once painted of a bed with nobody in it. The folds of the quilt are some kind of tour de force, apparently, but you can't miss what it's fucking about.

"How's the homework this year?" he says. He sits on the wooden chair, so as not to get too comfortable; he's got to go up and deal.

"I don't know. It's just homework."

"Hey, I guess that's why they call it homework."

"Did you come because of Roger?"

"Well, it gave me an excuse," he says. Her book, he sees, is 1 Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

"Yeah, like you really wanted to." She's twisting hair around a finger.

"Hey, it beats sitting in jail," he says, on sudden inspiration. It's a lighthearted way of broaching the unbroachable. Though now that he's said it, he's not so sure. Mel continues twisting her hair. Their first mistake with her was naming her Melanie: since he and Jean are both dark, he pictured her with this glistening black hair. (Trust Willis to know the etymology of every fucking thing.) But by the time she was six, her hair had turned brown-to-blond, and here she is, stuck with the name Melanie Willis. Like some Hollywood personage. He's thinking of Bruce Willis and Melanie What's-her-face, the slutty one. Though actually it's Bruce Willis and whoever the other one is. Willis prides himself on not keeping up.

"Listen, I'm very sorry you had to be there for that," he says. "I guess I was more stressed out than I'd, sort of, given myself credit for." Has he made this speech already?

"What were you stressed out about?" she says.

"I don't know. Work, mostly." She seems to accept this. At least she says nothing. "So the Mom left you guys here by yourselves?"

"Why wouldn't she?" says Melanie. "I've only been doing home-alones since I was like Roger's age. And don't call her the Mom, okay?"

PRESTON FALLS

"I guess you have, haven't you? God, I feel like Rip Van Winkle. Hey, there you go, that would be a good trivia question. What was the name of Rip Van Winkle's dog—no, wait. First, who was Rip Van Winkle?"

Mel sighs. "Wolf."

He looks at her. "You're kidding. That's really the dog's name? How did you know that?"

"They made us read it last year."

"And you remembered the name of the dog? That's amazing."

She shrugs. He can see she's having trouble with the corner of her mouth. Trying not to smile.

"I didn't think they read that in school anymore," he says.

Nothing. So he has to fucking spell it out. "Why were they reading 'Rip Van Winkle'?"

"We were studying the cultures of the thirteen colonies."

"Ah." Heel of hand to forehead. "Dutch Culture Day." Shitting on her for the school they sent her to. He switches to his attentive slash respectful mode. "So what did you think of it?"

"I don't know," she says. "Sexist. Oi course.''

"Why of course? "

"Everything is that's old. Did he, like, hate women?"

"You mean the way he does Mrs. Rip?" A vista opens: father-daughter literary discussions. "Yeah, you do sort of wonder what her side of the story would be like."

Mel says nothing.

"Listen," he says, "did the Mom say when she'd be getting back? Oops. Sorry."

Mel sighs. "She said not long."

"So listen, I guess I better go up and have a word with your brother." He gets up and stretches, fists high above his head.

"The Terminator," she says.

"Right," he says. "So do you have any theories?"

"Yeah. Testosterone."

"I think he's a little young for that," says Willis. "I don't know, maybe not." One more thing he's pig-ignorant about: do you only get testosterone at puberty, or does it come with testicles automatically?

He climbs the stairs, Rathbone right beside him, tail thunking against the balusters, and knocks on Roger's door. "Yo. The Rog-meister."

"What," Roger says through the door.

"I'll huff and rU puff."

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"What do you want?"

"Roger, if you don't open this door by the time I count to ten —"

"It is open."

Willis opens the door, and Roger's sitting against the wall, legs out, with what looks to be a five-pound weight in each hand, keeping his trembling arms straight. "Hey How's it going?"

Roger doesn't answer. Willis walks over and sits at his work station. Fucking mess. Papers, cassettes, marker pens, little plastic superheroes. A bottle of mucilage with the wedge-shaped rubber top, glue drooling out of the slit.

"So your mom told me something happened at school this morning," Willis says. "You want to tell me your version?"

"No."

"I guess I phrased that badly," says Willis. "What happened?"

Roger lowers the weights, slowly, still keeping his arms straight. At the last inch he loses control, and they thud on the floor. He takes a deep breath, lets it out. "I hit a kid, big deal."

"What kid?" says Willis.

"I don't know what his name is."

"How old a kid?"

"I don't know."

"Older or younger than you?"

"Same age."

"So he's in your class, but you don't know what his name is?" No answer. "What did he do to you, this kid?"

"Nothing."

"Then why did you hit him?"

"He was getting on my nerves."

"And how did he do that?"

"I don't know, he's just a feeb. I didn't want him there." Slowly, Roger raises the weights again.

"Is that a reason to hit somebody?"

"He wouldn't move when I said."

"Why should he have to?"

No answer. The weights inch up.

"Suppose somebody started ordering you around," Willis says. "How would you feel?"

"So what? I'm not him." Roger's got the weights at shoulder level, arms absolutely straight.

PRESTON FALLS

"What did you call him—a feeb? What exactly is a feeb?" Roger can't possibly know the word ephebe, right?

"I don't know," says Roger. "Some little feeb. That can't do anything right." The weights start down.

"Well, you know," says Willis, "sometimes people think they're mad at one person but actually who they're really mad at is somebody else. Or they're even mad at themselves." Poor kid's probably thinking, Will somebody get him the fuck out of here?

Roger sets the weights on the floor. "I'm thirsty," he says.

Willis follows him down to the kitchen (Mel looks up at them, then back down at her book), feeling like a stupid, doomed apeman dragging his knuckles along the floor while compact, wily Roger belongs to a race adaptive enough to survive. Roger goes up on his toes to get a glass down—so lightly that it gives WiUis a pang—then opens the refrigerator and pours milk. Rathbone (who knows where meat is kept) sits like a good dog, gazing at the open refrigerator and sweeping his tail back and forth on the linoleum.

"I think I'll join you in one of those," Willis says.

"You don't drink milk." Roger takes the glass of mflk in one hand and a cardboard canister of protein powder in the other, and shuts the refrigerator door with his foot. Willis goes to the cupboard and takes down a glass. Roger puts his stuff on the counter and gets a spoon out of the silverware drawer.

"I'm just going to say something," says Willis, opening the refrigerator. Rathbone's tafl starts up again. "You're old enough that we don't have to dance around this, okay?" He takes out an almost-brand-new half gallon of orange juice. (You can count on Jean.) "I've been spending quite a bit of time away, you know, on weekends, and of course now we're looking at a couple of months when I'll mostly be up in Preston Falls. Because the house needs so much work." He pours orange juice, puts the carton back and shuts the refrigerator door. Rathbone lies down. "Anyhow, what sometimes happens," he says, "is that when the routine changes around home, kids will sometimes blame themselves, or think they've done something wrong. You know, when it's not their fault at all. Or anybody's.'' He sits down and takes a sip, like an orator pausing. "And this in turn can get them upset, or angry, and sometimes they're not even sure what they're angry about, you know? I'm not saying that you we been feeling this way, necessarily, but I really just want

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you to understand and remember that Mommy and I both love you and Mel very much. And we care very much about each other."

And let him find a loose end in that.