The Winter Girl (4 page)

“The front door was open,” I said to Elise, pouring her another glass of wine. “I let myself in.”

She tilted her head back as she sipped the wine, her dark eyes fixed on me.

“You're going to get arrested,” she said. “And I'm not going to bail you out.”

“It's harmless fun,” I said, reaching out to touch her hand. She pulled it away.

“It's our next-door neighbor,” she said. “Normal people don't invade the houses of their next-door neighbors.”

“There's no one living there. They won't be back till the summer.”

She twisted her fingers around the stem of the wineglass and shook her head slowly, but there was a smile on her face. That's when I knew I could show her around the house next door.

W
e got drunk that night, for the first time in weeks. We pretended our trespassing was just a game. I put on her father's old duck-hunting outfit, the camouflaged canvas scratching against my elbows. I pulled on a pair of rubber boots. Elise changed into a black turtleneck sweater, found a pair of her old L.L.Bean galoshes and a black pair of jeans she swore she'd never wear again. It was pitch black outside and raining. An insistent, tapping precipitation that hadn't bothered either of us all night, until we got outside.

“I need a hat,” she said.

“Fuck the hat,” I said, handing her the bottle of wine. She took a sip and handed it to me, the last of her father's Malbec sloshing in the bottle. Intermittently turning on a flashlight, I led her down the driveway, over the wooden fence, down the deer path. Halfway there, we found ourselves in a small gully, mats of wet leaves attached to our boots by then, like snowshoes.

“I'm going home,” she said, catching my elbow as she nearly slipped.

“Come on,” I said. “It's two steps away.”

I felt like we were back in college, stumbling around in the woods after taking two hits of Ecstasy. I held her hand and pulled her toward me the same way. Three weeks of feeling like a grim, aging couple just fell away. I kissed her and warned her about the thorns. I felt them encircling our legs, but the moisture rendered the points harmless. We just kicked them away and they made useless snatching sounds and then we were in the clearing, listening to rain patter on the deck of the pool.

“It's empty,” I said. “They didn't even bother to cover it.”

If someone had been able to see us from the window of that house, I think we would have looked like mischievous children, slightly crouched, holding hands. I wonder how we must have looked as we crept around the pool, as I shushed Elise when she started laughing. Our silhouettes must have been clearly distinct on the patio, even in the rain.

“Where's the wine bottle?” she said.

“I don't know,” I said, pressing the palm of my hand down so that she'd crouch next to me. “I thought you had it.”

“What are we doing?” she said, as she knelt down next to me on the slick patio, rain beating on our shoulders. “Praying?”

“We're surveilling,” I said, wiping moisture off my glasses with my sleeve. I put them back on and saw only a vague white haze where the light was. “We have to go around the side.”

Still crouching, we crept around the side of the house, past the outdoor grill and the cadaverous mound of lawn furniture. Our footsteps could barely be heard on the wet gravel. My hand made no sound as it grasped the lever of the front door and pushed it open. Elise followed me in and I closed it behind us.

We must have looked pretty idiotic, standing there dripping all over the place. Me in my oversized camouflage duck-hunting jacket and Elise looking like a B-movie spy in her sopping turtleneck. The recessed lights in the living room were on, throwing a faint light on the coffee table and the striped chair I had sat in earlier that day.

“This is creepy,” Elise said, but she looked delighted.

We walked past the wall of plates and the dining room table.

“Nice,” Elise said sarcastically, touching the wooden beak of one of the carved birds that sat on the table. She slipped her hand inside my jacket, pulling me a little closer to her. I could feel her cold hand on my waist.

“You want to fuck me right now?” she said. “On this table.”

“Let me show you the rest of the house first,” I said, taking her hand.

I walked into the kitchen, flipped on the light, and watched the white tiles and marble counter come to life in freeze frames. I stared out the window over the sink and touched a plastic Baggie that had been draped over the lever.

“Weird,” I said. “Maybe someone's worried about fingerprints.”

Elise ran her hand over the countertop, rubbed some dust between her fingers.

“It's Corian,” Elise said distastefully. “From Home Depot.”

I opened the refrigerator. There was a box of baking soda in the back; that was it. No, that's not correct. There was a yellow onion in the sliding drawer. I pulled the drawer out and held up the withered onion. Judging by its inner collapse, I estimated that it had been there for at least six months.

“The best is yet to come,” Elise said, reading what was written on the porcelain pig's chalkboard.

When you share a secret with someone, the mystery is cut by half. But I still felt excited to be there.

I deposited the withered onion back in its vegetable drawer and closed the refrigerator door. There was a dusty Panasonic handheld phone on the wall that had twenty-four messages.

I pressed the playback button.

We listened to the detached voices of friends and businessmen, all looking for a couple who sounded like they were doing their best to avoid everyone.

“Swainy,” a chummy-sounding man said. “Where the hell are you this summer? Give me a call. Let's do dinner at the Peconic Grill.”

“Mr. Swain,” a professional-sounding female said. “This is Samantha at Southampton Catering. We still haven't received payment for the event last August. Please call me immediately.”

There were a few more calls like that: someone from a lawn-care company calling twice about a bill that had never been paid, a pool-cleaning person warning that they would not proceed with the acid-washing of the pool if Mr. Swain did not remit payment. There were a few more personal calls as well.

“Martha,” a croaky-sounding woman said. “Pilates just isn't the same without you. I'm not going until I hear from you. If I get fat and die it's going to be your fault.”

“Swainy,” a more agitated-sounding chummy guy said. “It's Bill again. You better be dead. Because it's almost September and I still haven't heard from you. This is your last chance to meet us at the Peconic Grill. The oysters are on me.”

Other confused friends left similar messages, wondering why the Swains had never gotten back to them. There was the sense of a whole summer passing without Mr. Swain or his wife making an appearance. And then it was winter, because East End Pools was calling again.

“Mr. Swain,” a tired-sounding man said, as if he were moving down a list of the most derelict and hopeless customers. “We cannot drain your pool if you don't pay your current balance. I would say there is a one hundred percent chance that the concrete foundation cracks if it isn't drained properly.”

Elise moved closer to me and reached out toward the phone, her finger an inch from the delete button. She was just about to press it when we heard a different kind of message.

“Carmelita?” a man said. His voice sounded a bit bland, as if he weren't sure he had called the right number. I could hear him breathing and the faint sound of a television playing in the background. Then he hung up.

“He sounds familiar,” I said.

“Let's not freak ourselves out,” Elise said, reaching for the stop button on the machine. She hesitated and didn't push it down. Another message from the same man.

“Carmelita,” the man said. “I'm worried about you. I know you're listening. I know you're standing there.”

It was Victor. Beyond a doubt. And when I looked up at my wife, I knew that she realized it was her father too.

“It's your dad,” I said. “That's his voice.”

“Are you crazy?” she said, listening to the sound of the television in the background. If it was Victor on the phone, he was still waiting for this woman named Carmelita to pick up the receiver. I imagined her, standing there just as we were, listening to his gravelly, sleep-deprived voice.

“Come on, Elise,” I said, waiting for her anxious expression to soften. Of all the people in the world, she'd be the one able to identify her father's voice. But instead of admitting it, she did something strange. She tried to hit delete. All before we could hear another message. I caught her wrist and pulled it back, stopping her.

“It's not him,” she shouted at me. “There are a thousand old guys who sound like that. You're just trying to mess with my head. We shouldn't even be here.”

“Okay,” I said, relenting. The excitement of exploring the house further would definitely have to take precedence over an old answering machine. “Let's not ruin the fun.”

My voice had turned to a playful whisper again, and Elise finally allowed herself a quick smile. For a moment, it felt like all that had built up between us had vanished. I knew that resentment would return as soon as things felt ordinary again, but I had this feeling that as long as we snuck around this house, we might stop finding ways out of the marriage. You need each other more when you have no idea what's going to happen next.

There was no denying the thrill of it. The faint smell of dust in the air, as if the windows hadn't been opened for months. The cold air making the ordinary kitchen light above us seem even more surreal. I felt like a suburban astronaut, exploring an abandoned home in which the crew had gone missing.

I watched her walk past the counter, swabbing up some dust with her index finger. She tried the door in the corner.

“Probably leads down to the basement,” she said, watching me come to her with a lascivious look on my face, my cold hands squeezing imaginary boobs.

“Come here, my little Carmelita,” I said.

“Don't call me that.”

I pressed against her as she stood with her back toward the door. I don't know who we both were for a few seconds, but it felt raunchy and good. Elise playfully pushed me away and pressed the ice dispenser. Nothing came out.

“House is beginning to fall apart,” she said. “Look at the white seams in the window. The insulation cracked.”

We opened every cabinet and drawer, and though Elise would disagree with this fact, I will tell you that she committed the first act of violence.

She bent a spoon, twisted it into a
U
right in front of my face.

“Cheap,” she said, as I snatched it out of her hand and tried to bend it back into the correct shape. That's the thing about cheap spoons: once you abuse them they stay abused.

“Come on, Elise,” I said. “Show some respect.”

I tossed the spoon back in its drawer and followed her out of the kitchen, past the dining room table. I pressed my palm onto the glass table, leaving a stubby green ghostprint of my fingers behind.

“Let's get out of here,” she said. “It's creeping me out.”

“I want to check out the downstairs bedroom. Come on. Then we'll go.”

She followed me reluctantly, peering over my shoulder as I turned on the bedroom light, as if someone would be waiting for us there.

We walked around the queen-size bed the way people walk around art in museums. The thin, pastel-colored comforter was not pulled taut. The pillows and covers were rumpled in places, as if someone had been sitting there.

“That cactus looks like a prick,” Elise said, kneeling down to touch one of its yellow spines. It only added another note of playful obscenity to the whole night.

“Motel art,” I said, looking at the watercolor of the Indian squaw on her haggard horse.