The Best People in the World (18 page)

“My handsome man,” she called me. “My gentle Thomas.”

“I don't know why you said that.”

“I don't know why either. It was a mistake.”

“You just wanted to hurt my feelings.”

She hung the towel on the towel bar and retreated from the room.

When I got back in bed, Alice kissed my chest about a hundred times. At first it made me really excited, then it made me tired. Her head kept bobbing and she made the smacking sound. She kissed each rib and my collarbone. She kissed my shoulders. She kissed my arms.

I asked her if this was some form of apology and she kissed my neck and my forehead and she kissed my closed eyes.

 

The next morning we slept in. The summer sun beat on the house. The rising heat made the meadow shimmer. At some point I noticed that all the houseflies had died. They were everywhere, on the windowsills, on the kitchen table, scattered like black currants across the floor. I got the broom and swept them into a pile. I opened the front door and sowed them in the grass. Parker's blue van hulked in the driveway.

I stared at the van. There was a nagging thought that I knew had something to do with Parker. I was reluctant to let myself think about him. I wandered out into the yard. The windows were all rolled up. The red curtains were drawn. I put my hand on the side of the van. My hand jumped back. The sheet metal was skillet hot. I said his name. I rapped a knuckle on the driver's-side door. The door was locked. I went to the passenger's door and then around to the back. Alice made her way across the yard.

I said his name a little louder. “Parker,” I said, no longer a name, but a summons. “Parker!”

“He can't be in there,” said Alice.

“I didn't see him inside the house.”

Alice touched the side of the van. “I bet he's in Shiloh's room.”

“Go check,” I said.

From inside the house I could hear Alice yelling to Shiloh. It seemed that the crisis had migrated away from me and I was safe. I stood next to the blue van and felt the waves of heat radiating off it. Then they were coming across the lawn, Alice and Shiloh. He was
barefoot and half asleep. Just as mellow as could be he walked over to the van and knocked on the quarter panel. He was only then arriving at a place we'd already left. He adapted quickly, rechecking the door handles, trying to stare through the curtains.

“Why does he lock the doors?” asked Alice.

“Is he in there?” I asked Shiloh.

Shiloh didn't know.

“Check the basement,” said Alice.

I called his name as I went down the stairs. The center column was jacketed with new cement. The air was cool and humid. It was the only sane place to be, but Parker wasn't down there.

Outside, Shiloh had a wire coat hanger inserted between the window glass and the weather stripping; he yanked it now and then as if he was trying to snag a fish. Alice looked over her shoulder at me. Parker wasn't the type to go off for a walk. I went into the living room and grabbed the fire poker. As I headed across the lawn, I saw the small, square windows at the back of the van. I cocked the poker over my shoulder and swung it through.

Glass alone wasn't enough to stop the rod's momentum. I creased the window molding. The shock of those noises that accompany breaking glass and shaping metal sent Alice bolting into the road. Shiloh had his head tucked between his shoulders and his jaw set in a cower. He walked over to me like that, looking like a turtle.

“Put that thing down.”

I dropped the poker.

“Shit.” Shiloh pulled his T-shirt over his head.

“See if he's in there.”

“That's what I'm doing.” He used the shirt to brush the loose glass from the window frame. He reached a hand through and moved the curtain. He stepped aside so I might take a look.

There was just a plywood floor where the mattress should have been. I stood there in the stream of oven heat escaping through the hole where the window wasn't.

“You don't do that to someone's property,” Shiloh said. His voice was low and full of regret.

I had tried to recast myself as a person who was capable of decisive action. And look where it had gotten me.

“Whoa,” said Parker. He stood in the doorway in a T-shirt, Jockey underwear, and wool socks. He put a hand on the door frame and came down the flagstones and over to the van.

There wasn't anything any of us could think to say.

He joined us. He stuck his hand through the window, twirled it around, and withdrew it. Then he looked up.

Shiloh and I looked up too. There was the empty sky and the giant sun.

“I'll be double fucked. Which of you assholes did this?”

Alice put her hand over her mouth.

“I broke the window,” said Shiloh. He picked up the fire poker. “With this,” he said.

I felt a powerful love for Shiloh.

“Get on with the story.”

“Thomas thought you were maybe trapped in there.”

Parker reached through the broken window again to unlatch the lock. He swung open the butterfly doors to air the van out. Carefully he brushed away the glass that hung on the curtains and along the bumper. “What, that I was incapacitated?”

“The heat,” I said.

Parker gave Shiloh a hard look. “I can't believe you're that stupid.”

“They woke me up. I'd been sleeping,” explained Shiloh. “I wasn't thinking straight.”

“None of you was, I guess.”

Alice had something she wanted to add. “Where were you?”

“I was just asleep.” Parker started to gather shards of glass in his left hand.

“So you're sleeping in the house now?”

“Loverboy can tell you; if I'd slept in the van, I could be dead.”

“I thought Thomas checked the basement.”

“Did I say I was in the basement?”

“You're dressed like you were in the basement.”

“That's right. I had no idea it got like this in Vermont.”

Shiloh said, “It sure does.”

“Did you check down there or not?” Alice asked me.

Everyone looked at me. “I did.”

“On a bright day like this,” said Parker, “your eyes probably couldn't adjust.”

It was clear, suddenly, how my decisions were responsible for building this drama. I said, “I'll pay to fix the window.”

Parker traced his finger over the empty window. “A hundred should do.”

“Come on,” said Shiloh.

“If he can't afford it, he shouldn't be encouraging people to damage other people's property.”

“Haven't you two finished working down there?” Alice asked.

“Oh,” said Shiloh. “Have we?”

“Just about,” said Parker.

To Parker, I said, “The column looked finished to me.”

“Suddenly he's an expert.”

“We'll finish soon enough,” said Shiloh.

“Where were you in the basement, exactly?” I asked.

“I was just lying down sleeping,” Parker said. “Be careful where you step. The glass is everywhere.”

“In the basement?” Alice asked.

“Right here. This glass.” He held his hand up for her to see.

For a moment I thought Alice might help him pick up the glass. “I don't know,” she said.

“What?” asked Shiloh.

“I think it may be time for Parker to move along.”

Parker straightened up and looked from Alice to Shiloh to me. “You're pulling my leg.”

Alice sucked in her breath, as if she meant to say something measured.

“Wait,” said Parker. “You break into my van and then tell me it's time I packed my bags. Someone tell me what I'm missing. I wasn't doing anything but having nice dreams.”

“The man was the victim of innocent circumstances,” said Shiloh.

Alice looked to me. “Back me up, Thomas.”

“Originally he was just going to be here for a few days.”

“I've been here five days,” said Parker.

“Five days,” echoed Shiloh.

“You're all crackers.” Snatching the fire poker out of Shiloh's hand, Parker touched it to my chest. “You owe me a hundred bucks.”

“Don't threaten him,” said Alice.

“I'll leave in two days,” said Parker. “You can say bye-bye now because I'm going to stay out of your hair until then. I'm going to be a ghost.” Still carrying the poker he stormed back inside the house.

Shiloh shook his head. “We damage his property and then have the nerve to ask him to leave.”

“If you had told me he was sleeping in the basement, this wouldn't have happened.”

“Why do you care where he sleeps?”

“Because he's a thief, for one thing.”

“He's my guest.”

“When we left New York, did you know Parker would come here to see us?” This was Alice's question.

Shiloh looked at me. He shook his head.

“Is that your answer?” Alice wanted to know. He refused to look at us. I felt as though I'd betrayed him.

 

A couple of hours later, I went down into the basement to apologize. Parker was on his mattress, in the best lit corner of the room, curled up on his side, and underneath a blanket. I hadn't really planned a particular thing to say, but hoped we might have a talk. It seemed to me that I was doing something honorable by ignoring his earlier threat. At the time, it made my blood cold, but now I felt an awed respect for his passions. Plus, if Shiloh had chosen us over him, didn't that make me at least his equal? I just stood there at the base of the stairs and watched him, considering how to proceed.

“I knew things would go down like this. It could only be postponed for so long. I thought if I stayed out of her eyesight we could have avoided this, but I didn't figure you'd try to rescue me either.”

I had his money in my hand. The bills represented about half of the money I had left. I walked over and gave it to him.

He tucked them into his pocket. “It's a nice gesture.”

“It's not a gesture.”

“I mean the idea that you were trying to save me.”

I was certain his mattress hadn't been where it was now. “This isn't where you were sleeping earlier.”

He stuck a finger in his ear and wiggled it around. “You're right.”

“Where were you?”

“I was underneath the stairs.” He pointed beneath my feet.

“I guess I didn't look there.”

“You must not have.”

What made it worse was that I had thought that he and I were becoming friends. A couple of days before, we had actually engaged in a conversation. Alice was asleep on the living-room sofa and Shiloh was snoring in his room. It was the middle of the day, not oppressively hot yet, but getting there. I wasn't planning on doing anything, but sort of stewing in my freedom, listening to the chains squeak as I kicked myself back and forth on the porch swing. Parker came out the mudroom door. His hair was tousled and wet. He'd come from the bath. He considered himself a city person and bathing in a stream was too hillbilly for his tastes.

“What are you looking at?” he asked.

I hadn't been looking at anything in particular. I was just letting my eyes follow what caught their interest. “You know, you can see New York from here.” I bent at the waist to illustrate. “That's it on the other side of the lake.”

“Right there?” He leaned forward to see.

“Look familiar?”

“Funny. That's funny.”

I knew he meant something else entirely.

“Tell me,” he said, “what do you think about as you look out there?”

I didn't much want to talk about my family again.

“Let's try another way. What do you think I see when I look out there?”

“You probably think about all the places you might be.”

“You've mistaken me for someone else. I am where I find myself. Let me tell you what I see.” He used his hand to indicate the approximate dimensions of there. He turned his head toward me to see if I was paying attention. Then he jabbed his finger at the center of my chest. “Understand?”

I thought I had to thump him on the heart. I stared at my hand and tried to will it to move.

“You're in love.”

I was indeed.

“When I first met Shiloh, he was in love, too. It didn't go so hot. When he told me he was returning to that damp shack, I figured he was going down there to die. He'd seen enough, I thought. You can imagine how surprised I was when the three of you showed up on my doorstep. It really picked up my spirits. That was something I was in need of, too.

“Things don't necessarily have to go so bad for you. For one thing, your girlfriend probably can't believe her good luck. She's been around the block. She used to be married, right? Shiloh said her ex wound up in an institution. You know what they call that? Nobility. They both had it in spades, Shiloh's ex and Alice's. Well, she's a good-looking chick, a little flat chested, but you look at her like she's the reason the sun rises.”

I asked him what he meant by “nobility.”

“Shiloh's ex shot himself through the heart. That's noble. That's fearless.”

“He told you that?”

“I'm the one who found the body.”

I was staring at his profile and trying to figure out how he could say things like this. All the while, he was doing mundane tasks, like combing his hair, folding, then unfolding the cuffs of his pants. “What brought you up here? Does it have something to do with the thing you stole?”

“You and Alice are obsessed with crime.”

“Shiloh said you took something from some people.”

“He must think he can trust you.”

I said, “So Shiloh was in love with a boy.”

“You catch on quick,” said Parker.

10

Dust

Shiloh showed Alice a receipt for three rolls of yellow fiberglass insulation. The night before Parker left, I heard him and Shiloh padding above our heads, laying the batting out in the attic. Through the plaster ceiling I could hear the crinkling of the paper backing and their quiet breathing. Alice slept beside me, unaware of the bodies working above us.