This is Just Exactly Like You (19 page)

“What are you, the Better Business Bureau?”

“I am not, in fact. I’m just looking after your well-being. Your professionalism.”

“As long as I get it there in time for Butner to fill it up and for somebody to drive it wherever it’s supposed to go, it doesn’t matter. One of the perks of being the boss.”

“The Patriot of Patriot Mulch & Tree?”

“Something like that,” he says. He walks down the hall to check on Hendrick, who’s gone to the bathroom. Behind the door, he can hear him saying
We’re back live at The Weather Channel, at Hurricane Central. For the latest on Ashley, let’s go to Dr. Steve Lyons in the Forecast Center. Thanks, Jeanetta. Let’s check those latest coordinates from the National Weather Service.
The TV in the other room is saying basically the same thing. The engine noise from next door cycles up and down, loud and soft, loud and soft.

When he comes back to the kitchen, Rena’s sliding one shoe off and on her foot. “I don’t think we have any Chinese food,” he says. “I might have some carrots you can drag through soy sauce if you want.”

“No, thanks.”

“Just offering you breakfast,” he says. “Which you don’t eat.”

“Thanks, though,” she says, and smiles at him. She says, “I’m glad you didn’t kiss me goodnight.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” she says, getting the shoe on, reaching out with her foot for her other one. “It would have been too soon. Or too weird. Best just to tuck me in, leave me on the sofa. You were a perfect gentleman.”

“Thank you?” he says, because now he has no idea what’s going on, has no idea what to say, even though he feels like there’s probably a right and wrong answer here, feels like when she’s talking there might always be a right and wrong answer. He can’t quite keep up with her. She’s making him nervous, like those light-up tote boards on buildings that keep track of the national debt or tons of carbon dioxide emitted into the air per second or per minute. The numbers just keep ticking up and up.

“Don’t freak out,” she says. “I’m just fucking with you. We’re not riding off into the sunset together or anything, OK? We’re not riding off anywhere. Don’t worry. Safety first. On belay, or whatever they say when they’ve got you all tied in.”

“What?”

“Rappelling? Like when they’ve got you tied into the thing, and you have to say
on belay
, and the person on the ground who’s got you says
belay on
?”

“I think I remember something like that,” he says.

“Good,” says Rena. “See? This is not that hard.” Outside, the engine noise gets a lot louder. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” she says. “I’m sorry. Let’s not talk about this. Let’s go see what your neighbor’s doing with that plane or whatever it is instead.” She heads for the front door, and he follows her, because what else is he going to do? He takes his headache out onto the front porch, where their two whiskey glasses are still sitting on the rail, wilted mint leaves in the bottom. There’s a breeze, but there’s heat in it. Next door, Frank is standing in his grass, and he’s got a pressure washer going, pressure-washing the boulder that sits in the corner of his front yard. The sun is very, very bright. Jack needs The Duck. When Frank pulls the trigger, when he’s washing, the engine whines upward. When he stops, it drops back down again. It’s loud. Motorcycle loud. He’s wearing a button-down shirt, and he’s wearing leather deck shoes, and he’s out there with his pressure washer, pressure-washing his boulder. He’s pretty much destroying the flowers he’s got planted at the base of it. Jack’s never seen anybody wash a rock before.

“Outstanding,” Rena says, and turns around and goes back inside. Frank works on a corner of the boulder. When Rena comes back out, she’s got Hen with her, has got her coffee, and the three of them stand out on the porch while Frank works in thin stripes across the face of the rock. When he finishes that, he starts in on the seams in his driveway, blowing dirt and weeds and everything else that’s down in there ten, twelve feet in the air. He’s getting mud on his deck shoes, on his shorts. In between seams, he looks up and waves. They all wave back, even Hendrick. Jack wonders who Frank might think Rena is.

“So this is how it goes in the suburbs,” Rena says.

“Some days,” says Jack.

“It’s good to get out and see this again,” she says.

“Because you’ve been in the big city too long?”

“Don’t knock those condos,” she says. “Very fancy down there. Very. The building next to mine is five whole stories tall.”

“My head hurts,” he says.

“Mine, too,” says Rena. Frank’s working the edges of his driveway. She says, “You should go to work.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” she says. Her car’s out on the curb.

“Do you want to have lunch or something?” he asks.

“What for?” she says.

“I don’t know.” He feels stupid. “To eat lunch. If you believe in lunch.”

“Today?”

“Sure,” he says. “Or some day. We could plan.”

“I don’t know, Jackson,” she says. “Let me think that over.”

“OK,” he says.

“Great,” she says.

“You can stay here a while if you want to,” he says, flailing. “Finish your coffee. Take a shower if you want. There are towels in there. Take whatever you want to wear if you want to change clothes. I’ve got T-shirts on a shelf in the closet.”

“OK,” she says, looking at him like he’s making a speech.

“And I can go in to work.”

“Super,” she says. “You’ve got it all figured out. That sounds great.”

“Yeah.” He feels like probably he shouldn’t have to feel like he doesn’t belong on his own front porch, but there it is. Or maybe that’s not quite it. Maybe it’s that he feels like he doesn’t know where to stand, doesn’t know where his feet should go. “I’m going to get him ready,” he says. “Hendrick. To go.”

“Good idea,” she says. “I like it.”

So that’s what he does. He takes him in, finds the catalog, grabs him a package of Pop-Tarts from the cabinet, puts his shoes on him. Do what you say you’re going to do.
Your word is your bond.
Something his grandfather said to him one summer—there had been a lie about a pocketknife. By the time Jack gets back outside, Rena’s set up in a different spot on the railing, is tucked up into herself like a bird. Frank’s pressure-washing his chain-link fence. “See you later,” Jack says. “Have a good rest of your morning.”

She smiles. Her teeth are very small. “You too,” she says. “Thanks.”

“There’s a key in the bowl on the kitchen counter. You can just leave it in the mailbox.”

“OK,” she says. “I will.”

Jack takes a deep breath, nods for a while, and then he walks Hendrick down to the truck, gets him all belted in. The problem is, he likes her up there on the railing, crazy and all. Likes it from here, anyway. He tries not to think about it any more than that. He’s bird-watching. That’s all. On his way down the driveway, Jack waves at her through the windshield. She waves back. He rolls the windows down. Fresh air. He leaves her there at his house, on his porch.

On the way in to PM&T, Jack works on what it is she’s likely to do next. She’ll sit out there, finish her coffee, watch Frank wash the fence, wash the wheelwells of his cars. Then: Go inside, maybe take a shower, definitely look through all their drawers and cabinets. That’s what he’d do. Look for medicine bottles, dead bodies. After that, who knows? Maybe she’ll eat bowls of porridge, lie down on all the beds.

Hendrick flips through his catalog some, then yanks the glove compartment open, looks in there, says, “Nobody beats Carolina Kia. Nobody.”

“One-ninety-nine down,” Jack says, and before he can even finish, Hen says, right over the top of him, “And one-ninety-nine a month.” Jack flicks his blinker on, drifts into the far right lane, turns on the radio.
And now, Traffic and Weather Together with Dave Arbussy in the SkyTracker chopper,
the radio says. Hendrick says,
The Triad’s Eye in the Sky.
Jack pulls the visor down, shields himself from the sun coming up off the hood. Hell of a way to start things off. He counts the traffic lights on 70, aims for the yard.

Both loaders are right-side-up, nobody’s hurt, nothing’s on fire, no blood, no ambulances. Score all of that for the good guys. He bumps the truck through the low spots and pulls up next to the cypress pile, turns around neatly, leaves it there for Butner, for the delivery. A yellow scooter is parked over by the office, with a matching yellow trailer the size of a desk hooked up to the back of it. There’s a man with a yellow helmet under his arm watching Butner and Ernesto load big slabs of bluestone onto the trailer one by one. After they get each one on, the man leans over, checks the tires on the trailer. Jack hangs back. The man leans over again, nods, hands Butner some money, and drives away, the scooter sounding like Frank’s pressure washer. Jack walks Hen over to the office.

“Little man, what do you say?” Butner asks Hendrick.

Hen says, “Tropical Storm Ashley is the first named storm of the Atlantic season.”

“That so?”

“Tropical Storm Ashley is churning off the coast of Cuba, and may make landfall in Florida by the weekend.”

“You’re a regular weatherman,” Butner says.

“Jacksonville Tampa St. Petersburg Safety Harbor,” says Hendrick.

“Goddamn right,” says Butner. He hands Jack a wad of cash. “Eighty bucks for eight rocks. I figured that was fair. It was from the broken pallet, anyway. He said he’d be back for more. He didn’t want to overload whatever the hell that thing was, that little trailer. You ever seen a trailer on a scooter before?”

“No,” Jack says.

“Me neither.” Butner leans in close. “You call over to Canavan’s this morning? See how he is?”

“No.”

“Good for you, man. Good for you.” He runs something out from underneath his thumbnail, squints in the sunlight. “Well, anyway, we called. He’s fine.”

“You called? What for?”

“I thought it’d be good. Like a call from the business, you know? A ‘How the hell are you, how the hell’s your fucked-up leg?’ call.”

Ernesto says, “Why is it that you have to curse so much in front of the boy?”

“I don’t have to, Paco, I just do.”

“If you don’t stop calling me that, I won’t cure your tomatoes.”

“What’s wrong with the tomatoes?” Jack asks.

“It’s nothing,” says Butner. “It’s the goddamned yellow death. Always happens. Just a little early this year. But Paco here—” The phone rings, and Butner tosses it to Ernesto. “Paco says it’s a fungus, says he’s got some kind of magic potion.”

“It’s a disease,” Ernesto says. “Nothing more. You need to use
habañero
and baking soda. In a spray. Also, vinegar will work sometimes. Fix it in a week. Two weeks at the most.” He stares at Butner. “A spray, you know?” He makes a hand motion like he’s spraying. Then he answers the phone. “Patriot Mulch & Tree?”

Hendrick follows Ernesto inside, trailing him, a shadow. Jack says, “You didn’t really call over there, did you?”

“Sure we did.”

“We did?”

“I did.”

“Who answered?” He can’t help it, even though neither answer can make him happy.

Butner scratches his cheek, doesn’t answer, exactly. “Fucknut said he might be up and around in a week. Said to keep sending business his way.” He turns to him. “Why didn’t you call, if you’re so interested?”

“I was busy this morning,” Jack says. Part of him wants to tell Butner about the possibility that Rena’s in his shower right now, washing her blue hair. Part of him doesn’t.

“You did go last night, though. To the hospital.”

“Yes.” What he remembers: The vending machine, the pirate in the fish tank, Beth standing in the automatic doors, looking out at him.

“How was he?”

“I didn’t see him.”

“Why not?”

“So Beth answered, right?”

“Hey, man, settle down. I think it was a nice middle ground, the phone call. From the guys. You went to the hospital, for chrissakes. And didn’t see him?”

“They asked me if I was family. I told them no.”

“You always tell them yes,” Butner says. “That’s easy.” A couple of cars pull into the Shell. Two boys in white T-shirts get out, stand there at the pumps and smoke. Butner says, “Last night, after you left, I went on and shredded everything he bled on. Put it in the compost.”

“Thanks,” Jack says. He looks around, runs a quick mental inventory of the rest of the lot. Hardwood’s low. Pine bark’s fine. Shredded is fine. The air shimmers in the heat. It’s summer, like someone’s thrown a lever. He can smell the sweet in the air, can smell the bark and wood rotting into itself. And then he gets himself convinced he can smell Canavan’s blood over the top of it, sweeter. He’s slipping. There’s got to be a pill he can take for this. An empty flatbed bangs by on the highway, brakes for the light. It’s ten-thirty. Beth’ll be through most of a pot of coffee by now, maybe prepping for class. Maybe changing Canavan’s bandage. Maybe bringing him breakfast, ice chips, whatever spectacular meds they give you when you saw halfway through your shin. And Rena—