We Are Not Ourselves (36 page)

“You okay?”

“I ate a bit quickly,” she said.

“Brenda’s cooking will do that,” Donny said. “You want to get through it as fast as possible.”

Sharon chuckled.

Eileen wanted to abandon the plan, go downstairs, and come back when she’d be more collected, but there were signs to put up, and she was going to need access to all the apartments.

“Who wants dessert and coffee?” Brenda said after the clinking of forks on plates had died down.

“I don’t want to put you out any more.”

“Nonsense. Have a seat inside. I’ll make a pot.”

Donny led her to the living room. She sat on the yellow floral couch, which had a pattern she’d always found garish and worn areas by the skirt and armrests. She’d considered it a telling detail that they’d bought a big new television and kept this sofa. Now, as she sank into it, she was taken by its softness. The room, which she’d always thought of as a model of how not to decorate, radiated the warmth of shared usage. In the corner sat a small, beaten piano that looked like it might have survived the ransacking of an old saloon. At times she could hear someone practicing up here, and she’d never realized until that moment that it gave her pleasure.

Donny sat on the opposite couch. Sharon came and sat next to Eileen. The television was on, muted; Donny glanced at it out of the corner of his eye.

“Are those yours?” she asked, pointing to the framed artworks on the wall. Sharon nodded.

“I don’t know where she got it,” Donny said. “Nobody in this family has any kind of talent like that. You should see how she does in school. Tell Mrs. Leary how you did on your last report card.”

The girl demurred.

“Go ahead. Tell her.”

“Straight As,” she said in a quick burst.

“I didn’t even graduate high school,” Donny said. “Gotta be proud of this kid.” He had a faraway look in his eye. “I try to help her at the table, but she don’t need it. My little daughter is the same way. She’s like a whip. Not even two years old and she can count to ten. She don’t get it from me, that’s for sure. I tell Sharon to watch you and Mr. Leary. You folks are on another plane. I tell her to be like you. I never knew what an education really meant. I tell her to look at me and just do the opposite.”

“Don’t say that,” Eileen said. “I bet she’s proud to have you as an uncle.” As she spoke, she realized to her surprise that she believed what she was saying. “And you’re going to be a great father to that girl.”

He smiled wearily, accepting the verdict without objection. Brenda came in with a plate of Duplex cookies, followed by mugs of coffee. Eileen searched about for a coaster.

“Don’t worry about it,” Brenda said. “This table’s older than me. It does the job.”

Circular embossments emblazoned the table’s surface like trophies from all-night conversations. They were suddenly so appealing that Eileen wondered for a moment why she’d always been concerned to preserve a pristine surface on her own table, which looked almost as new as the day she bought it, no history engraved on its face.

“I have to tell you something,” she began, as Brenda settled into the couch next to Donny. “It’s not easy to say.”

Brenda, who seemed to have a radar for danger, shifted in her seat.

“Ed and I have decided to move. We’re going to have to sell the house.”

Donny’s eyebrows rose. Brenda took a sip of coffee with two hands.

“That’s great, Eileen,” Donny said. “Where are you moving?”

“To Westchester,” she said. “Bronxville.”

“That’s up by Yonkers, right? It’s beautiful up there.”

It unnerved her a little to hear Donny place it so quickly, though she wouldn’t have been surprised to learn he knew every major road within a hundred-mile radius.

Brenda took out a cigarette and flapped the arm of her robe out to sit more comfortably, a gesture that made Eileen unaccountably uneasy. It was then that the smell of smoke, which ineluctably pervaded the apartment, came to her all at once. It was in everything; Connell came downstairs smelling of it. She hated to think of him sitting in it, or of Sharon sleeping in a cloud of the settling vapors. It also angered her that it might be a detracting factor in the minds of potential buyers.

“When is this happening?” Brenda leaked a small stream of smoke as she spoke. Her cigarette dangled at the end of her lip, just as Eileen’s mother’s had so often. She felt her heart hardening toward Brenda, and by extension Donny and Sharon. Brenda was making it easier on her without meaning to.

“Soon. I’m not sure.”

“How soon?”

“I found a house. We’re ready to make an offer.”

“What happens to us?”

“I don’t really know. The buyer can choose to let you stay. He can ask you to go. It’s up to him.”

“There’s a
buyer
?”

“I’m just thinking out loud.”

“I don’t care if they raise the rent,” Brenda said. “I’ll make it work. I just don’t want to move.”

“You’ve been very kind to us.” Donny stretched an arm out as if to hold his sister at bay. “We appreciate it.”

They sat in silence, Brenda taking deep drags.

“It’s going to be strange not having you around here,” Donny said.

“It’s going to be strange not
being
around here,” Brenda said.

“What do you need us to do?” Donny asked. “How can we help?”

He was broad-shouldered and game, and the warm roundness of his face admitted no despair.

“I’m going to need to show the apartment, and the one upstairs. There’ll be an open house. A few of them. I’ll let you know when.”

“Okay,” he said.

“You can’t be here during them. The Realtor asks that. The same is true for your mother and Gary.”

“Got it.”

“She might want to bring some things in. Candles, comforters, et cetera.” She paused and then added, “She’s doing the same thing in my apartment.”

“Not a problem,” he said.

“When is all this happening again?” Brenda asked, jabbing her cigarette out forcefully.

“Soon. We could start next week.” Brenda called Sharon over. As the girl took a seat between her mother and uncle on the couch, the moral balance of the room seemed to shift. “I’m sorry it’s so sudden. We just decided. I came to you as soon as I could.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Brenda said. “I’m happy for you. I don’t blame you. I’d get out of here if I could.”

Eileen looked down at her interlaced fingers.

“How much time do we have after you sell?”

“It depends,” she said. “Thirty days. Sixty. Ninety. I don’t know.”

“Don’t we have some kind of rights as tenants?”

“I’m not sure, since we’ve never worried about a lease. I can ask the Realtor.”

“That’s bullshit,” Brenda said. “Put us on a lease. Buy us some time.”

Donny stood up. “It’s hot in here,” he said. “Anyone else want a beer?” He left the room.

Eileen cleared her throat. “That might make it harder to sell the house. Especially because your rent is substantially below market.”

“Then increase the rent. I don’t care. Double it. Whatever it takes.”

“Let’s not worry about that right now,” Eileen said. “Maybe I’ll have a buyer who would prefer to have the house fully rented. I’ll see what I can do when I know more.”

“Maybe we’ll buy it ourselves,” Donny said as he returned with a glass of ice water. She saw that he had meant for the beer comment to lighten the
mood. “It’d be nice to have a room for my daughter when she comes over.” He checked his sister’s face to see what she thought of the idea. Brenda’s expression hardened, as if to say,
Who’s got that kind of money?
Donny sighed. “Don’t worry about us,” he said. “I’m sure you have a lot on your mind. I’ll see what we can come up with on our end. Whatever we can do to help, you let us know.”

She thought about Lena. She knew Lena should hear the news from her, but she didn’t know if she had it in her to go upstairs and go through it again. Lena was upright in everything she did; decency and morality were her default positions. She was one of those heroic old women who sat in church all day taking on the burden of saving the sinners around them.

“There is one more thing,” she said.

“What is it?” said Donny. “Just ask.”

“Will you tell your mother for me?”

•  •  •

A week later Jen had an open house. The thought of all those people gawking at her furniture, her possessions, her bathroom annoyed Eileen, but then she thought,
Let them come. Let them see the oasis we made.
Jen came an hour early to put duvets on the beds upstairs—where they’d all cleared out, as requested, despite Eileen’s visions of them haunting the stoop, hangdog or angry looks on their faces—and decorative items on the tables and breakfront. She’d warmed pots of potpourri on the stovetop. It already felt like someone else’s home.

She wondered who would show up. This was the time to leave the neighborhood, not discover it—but perhaps some intrepid breed of young person might fancy themselves enterprising and patient enough to secure an outpost in the neighborhood of tomorrow. It wasn’t her responsibility to tell them that this neighborhood’s best days were in the past.

Eileen left to get her hair done. When she returned, half an hour after the open house should have ended, she saw a tall Indian man on her stoop, talking with Jen. She stopped in front of the Palumbos’ house and watched him for signs of interest. He was gesturing around and nodding at whatever Jen was saying. A woman who must have been his wife was standing on the sidewalk, along with their son and daughter, both of whom leaned against
her. Eileen resisted the urge to introduce herself and feel them out. When they left, Jen told her she thought they might bid on the house. The man had said he would need it empty to make room for his extended family—brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, grandparents.
So that’s how they live
, Eileen thought.

A couple of days later, the Indian man offered the full asking price—$365,000, which Jen had originally thought a little high. Eileen called Gloria to find out whether the Bronxville house had sold. Then she called Donny to let him know there was an offer.

“How much?”

She told him. Donny whistled into the phone and there was a long pause. Did he know how much less she’d bought it from his father for?

“That’s a lot,” he said. “That’s great, good for you.”

“Thank you,” she said.

He paused again. “How long do we have?”

She explained that it would be soon, a week or two at the most. She wanted to sell as soon as possible.

“Can you wait a little longer?” he asked. “I might have some options, but I could use more time.”

She didn’t know whom Donny was going to ask for the money, or what kind of trouble he would be exposing himself to in order to get it, but that was his concern.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said, and as she hung up she understood that there was nothing she was willing to do. She had to get out while she could.

She called Gloria and told her to make an offer on the Bronxville house.

The next day—she forgave herself in advance for the lie—she told Donny there had been a competing bidder and the first bidder had gone above asking, but it was his final offer, and he needed an answer immediately.

He was no closer to having a down payment, he said.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m going to have to take it.”

Eileen had bid below asking for the house in Bronxville, but they hadn’t had another bid, so they took it without parrying.

The Indian buyer insisted on a thirty-day closing, but Eileen was able to extend it to sixty when she pled the case of her tenants. That was the most she could do for them.

Donny still fixed her car.

33

C
onnell woke up to his father screaming at him and wagging his finger in his face.

“
Christ!
Do you know what you’ve done?
Do
you?”

Connell’s mind raced, but he could recall no hanging offenses.

“You left the jelly out all night!” his father said. “You left the cover off!” Connell stammered an apology, but his father waved him off. “How could you
do
such a thing?” He stamped his feet, one after the other, as though smashing grapes. Connell had never seen him make such a childish gesture, and it disconcerted him more than the yelling had.

Ten minutes later his father was back in his room, sitting on the bed. “I don’t know what came over me,” he said.

All that summer, he was on an energy crusade. He said they didn’t need to shower every day, that every other day was sufficient. If you walked away from a stereo for a second, he hit the power button. If you ran the hot water too long for dishes, he reached across you and pressed the handle down. If you turned on the air conditioner in the car, he told you to open the window instead. When he turned off the air conditioning in the house, Connell’s mother threatened to leave and turned it right back on. That got through to him; nothing else did. He let the air conditioner run, but unplugged the coffeemaker, the toaster, the stereo, the TV, the Apple IIe.

One night, while they were sitting at the kitchen table, his father howled in frustration after breaking the point off a pencil by pressing too hard. “This goddamned thing’s no good,” he said as he snapped it in half. “It’s no good at all.”

His mother took them on scenic drives in the area they were moving
to, but when they parked and got out, his father just stood by the car with his arms crossed. They went peach-picking once, in Yorktown, and his father stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned against the enormous wheel of an idle tractor while his mother filled a basket with the most shapely peaches she could find. When they walked back to the barn to pay, his father reached into the basket in his mother’s hands and began tossing peaches to the ground. “We don’t need all these!” he said.

“What the hell is
wrong
with you?” He’d gotten about half of them out before she fended him off. She was looking around to see who had noticed the outburst. “Have you gone crazy?”

“We don’t need this many!” he said, squashing them underfoot as he followed Connell’s mother. “We can’t eat this many!”