The Guest Room (19 page)

“I'd be scared of the ghosts,” Claudia piped in. “I told her, Mom.”

“Claudia, I specifically asked you not to talk with Melissa about this weird thing you have about ghosts,” Jesse said, exasperated.

Claudia shrugged and stirred what was left of her sundae into soup. “Anyway, that's what would make me not fine.”

“There is no such thing as ghosts,” Jesse said pointedly, staring deep into Melissa's eyes. “I've told Claudia that. And now I'm telling you that.”

Melissa looked away. She stared down at the woman's hand atop hers. Jesse's nail polish was a shade of red that reminded her of the maple leaves on the trees in their yard a week ago. Now most of those leaves were on the lawn. If her dad hadn't still been in the city on Sunday—or maybe if they had all been allowed to go home—he probably would have raked them up that day.

“Claudia, dear, I'm not judging here,” Jesse was saying now to her own daughter. “But if you want the ice cream to be soup, why don't you just order a shake?”

“Because a shake is a shake and soup's soup.”

Melissa focused on Jesse's nails. They were perfect. She wanted nails just like that, she decided. She wanted to wear leggings just like Jesse's.

“How is your house?” the woman asked her, the tone nothing like the playfulness that marked her question to her own daughter about why she insisted on liquefying her ice cream.

Melissa thought about this. She thought about the bloodstains. She thought about the rubber on the blue plastic Tucker Tote lid. Before she could respond to Jesse, however, Emiko was saying something, and so Melissa turned her attention to her other friend.

“My grandmother always saw ghosts,” Emiko was explaining. “My grandfather never did, but my grandmother was always seeing them. She saw her aunts. She saw this friend of hers from elementary school who had died super young. She used to talk to them.”

Jesse lifted that beautiful hand of hers off of Melissa's, and sat back against the bench on her side of the booth. She folded her arms across her chest. Then: “Melissa, are you scared of ghosts?” Again, there was that elongation of a single syllable—in this case,
you
. A sheep, it seemed to Melissa, when stretched so far. A homonym.
Baaaaaaaa
. She tried to remember how to spell the word for a female sheep, but she couldn't.

“Melissa?” Jesse asked when she didn't answer right away.

She put her spoon into the dish and pondered the…undead. She really hadn't been scared until Claudia had put the idea into her head the other day that her house might now be haunted. Certainly last night she had been relieved that she was allowed to share her parents' bed with her mom, even though it was because a man and a prostitute had had sex in her own bedroom, and because now her mom didn't want her own husband in bed with her. Dad had been—and here was a word he had taught her, trying to make light of the situation—
exiled
to the living room. She guessed she would have been scared if she had had to sleep alone in her own bedroom. And now the idea that Emiko—far and away the sanest of her friends—seemed to believe in ghosts, only gave more credence to Claudia's suggestion that she and her mom and dad were now sharing the home with a couple of dead men. Moreover, they were dead men who did bad things when they were alive. Which meant they might not be especially playful ghosts. Not Casper. They might be the kind who killed you in the night. When it was dark. They might be the kind of ghosts who quite literally scared you to death.

“I am a little scared of them,” she answered finally.

“A little?”

“A little scared of ghosts.”

“I would be,” Claudia agreed.

“Claudia? Seriously? Come on,” Jesse said. “I just told you, there is no such thing as ghosts. Emiko, that doesn't mean your grandmother was mistaken or crazy. It just means that she was from a…a different generation.”

Melissa had wanted to speak with her mom yesterday about Claudia's idea that their house might now be haunted, but there had never been a chance. They had found the rubber and her parents had fought, and then her mom had retreated, sobbing, to the bedroom. It had been awful. And it hadn't been the bloodstains or the ruined painting or the gross stains on the furniture that had caused her mom to break down. It had been the rubber.

Her dad had told her mom that he hadn't had sex with the prostitute, and Melissa wanted to believe him. She couldn't imagine her dad telling a lie like that. But it was getting harder and harder for her not to be angry with him: the house was a mess, people were doing gross things in her bedroom, and he had made her mom cry. That was the worst part. He had made her mom cry a lot. And now they might have to move, and her parents might even get a divorce. Those were the things that really upset her; those were the things that really frightened her; and those were the things, she realized, that now had her furious with her dad.

“You haven't seen the bloodstains,” Melissa said to Jesse. She wished that Claudia hadn't stirred her Cherry Garcia into goop. Or, maybe, that her friend had ordered a flavor that was less…red.

“There are bloodstains?” Jesse asked, and then answered the question herself. “Good Lord, of course there are. Holy crap. Of course there are. Is it bad?”

Melissa nodded. And then, unsure what she was going to say when she opened her mouth, she admitted, “It's kind of a disaster. The house.” It made her ashamed to admit this, but she couldn't stop herself. She just couldn't. She liked Jesse so much, and there was something so hip and charismatic in her animal print leggings and black jacket and perfect red nails—something that made her so different from all the other moms. There was something about her that just made you want to talk to her and accept this great gift of friendship. Of comfort. Of…coolness.

Suddenly Melissa was sharing everything that she had been keeping inside her: Her fears that her family was going to have to move. The reality that her parents might get a divorce. The fact that she had almost picked up this wet, messy thing called a rubber that a man had put on his penis.

“It was in your room?” Jesse asked, her eyes widening.

“Uh-huh.”

“Wait, what?” Claudia was asking. “A rubber what? What was made of rubber? I don't understand.”

But Emiko knew. Melissa could tell. The girl was looking into her empty sundae bowl as if the bottom of the dish was a smartphone with a video. She was embarrassed.

“But the worst part?” Melissa said as she wiped at her eyes.

“Go on,” Jesse said. “The worst part?”

“No, wait,” Claudia said, grabbing her mother's elbow. “What was made of rubber? Tell me!”

“Later, Claudia, okay? I'll explain to you what a rubber is later.”

“I was just asking.”

Jesse must have regretted bringing any of this up, Melissa decided; she herself was blinking back tears, Claudia wanted to know all about rubbers, and Emiko was clearly uncomfortable. But Melissa was tired of trying hard to be brave for her mom and to be patient with her dad. Her mom and dad were talking to each other—or, more accurately, arguing with each other. But still. Still. Who was she supposed to talk to? Who?

And so now she took a deep breath and said the first and most honest thing she was feeling: “The worst part? I am so mad at my dad that I almost hope my mom does make him go back to that hotel to live.”

Jesse seemed to think about this for a moment. Then, once more, she reached across the table. This time she placed both of her hands atop Melissa's.

Richard told himself he was overreacting. Yes, he was furious with Spencer. Annoyed by the news vans, with their George Jetson–like satellite dishes, and the way they appeared out of nowhere like elephants, lumbering briefly into view and then disappearing back into the wild. Alarmed by the portrayal of the Russian mob in the tabloids, and the dawning realization that they might be seriously pissed at him, too, since a couple of their own had died at his house. In his living room and front hall. Did this mean he was at risk—or, more importantly, that his wife and daughter might be at risk? He couldn't say. But he felt vulnerable. Exposed. He was, he realized, on the radar of people with whom he would otherwise never have crossed paths.

Everything, it seemed, was unraveling. He imagined Spencer Doherty's anger if, in the end, he refused to pony up the thirty grand. If a month from now he balked at an additional five. Or ten. Or twenty.

He also wondered if this was all about having too much time on his hands to think.

Still, he could not believe how—and this was indeed the adjective he heard in his head—fucking difficult it was to get a handgun in New York. A week ago, this discovery would have thrilled him. Would have made all the sense in the world. But now? As he gazed up into the midafternoon autumn sunshine, unexpectedly warm this late in the year, he was furious. He needed to do something—anything—and the old guy with a beer belly the size of a Mini Cooper on the other side of the counter had told him that a pistol permit would take a couple of months. He had droned on about county and state and federal regulations.

“Do I look like a guy who holds up convenience stores?” Richard had asked, knowing the question was wholly unreasonable. But he couldn't stop himself. “I just want to be able to look out for my wife and my daughter,” he'd added, hoping that the tone of his voice hadn't sounded as disagreeably entitled in reality as it had in his head.

But there was going to be no negotiating here. The laws were the laws. The background check was mandatory. And so he had taken the application with him and left. But character references? Fingerprints? Waiting to hear back from the FBI? This was ridiculous. He was…a banker. An investment banker. He was in mergers and acquisitons at Franklin McCoy. He had always been—with, admittedly, one recent, egregious exception—a good husband and father.

The dealer had pinched the bulbous wattle beneath his chin and suggested he get a rifle instead. The fellow had said it was less likely there might be an accident with a rifle, but he could still use it to protect his family. All he needed for that was a hunting license from Fish and Wildlife. Not hard, especially now. After all, it was deer season. He—the store owner—would smooth out the paperwork.

“The paperwork?” Richard had asked.

“You either need proof of a prior hunting license or proof you've taken a hunter education course. I can't get you the license. That would be illegal. Besides, you get those in White Plains. But I have a friend who teaches hunter education. I can smooth out the education course paperwork—if you pay up front and promise to take the course.”

“Wouldn't that be illegal, too?”

The dealer yawned. “Less so. Kind of a gray area. And there are some things I can get around and some things I can't.”

“Like background checks.”

“Yes. Playing fast and loose with an education course for a hunting rifle—especially for a guy like you? That's one thing. But an illegal permit? Whole other kettle of fish.”

Richard sighed, frustrated. He had imagined bringing a pistol with him when he went to tell Spencer to go fuck himself. Just let his jacket fall open so that spineless weasel could see it. Or, in his mind, he'd imagined himself taking a pot shot at the satellite dish atop one of the news vans idling at the end of his driveway. He didn't believe he would ever actually do such a thing, but the fantasy alone fired him up. But mainly he'd had his heart set on a pistol so that he could keep it inside the top drawer of his nightstand, just in case the Russians were as crazy as the newspapers (and, yes, that detective) suggested they were.

And so he had left the store in a huff.

He glanced now at the garage and body shop across the street. This was not one of Yonkers's tonier neighborhoods. In addition to the gun store, there was a tattoo parlor and a pawnshop. A bar with a couple of Harleys outside. He'd been a little nervous when he had parked his Audi out here. But it was fine. Untouched. No one seemed to care.

For a long moment he watched the wide glass window beside the garage bay. Inside, he saw a couple of guys chatting around the desk, and one was wearing a ball cap. Red, he thought, but he couldn't be sure from this distance. On the wall behind the desk was a deer head. A buck with a pretty sizable rack of antlers.

He took a deep breath and gathered himself. Maybe he didn't need a handgun. Maybe he just needed a gun. The dealer was probably right; a rifle would do just fine—at least right now. A hunting rifle. Maybe he could get a handgun…later. People knew people, right?

Besides, if a rifle could bring down a buck the size of the one whose head was in that auto body shop office across the street, it sure as hell would stop some lunatic Russian behemoth in his tracks. He recalled how much easier the dealer had said the process was. It was briefer. Less invasive.

And so Richard almost went back inside. Almost. But he paused at the entrance and then turned around and climbed into his car. He thought of the corpse he had seen in his front hall. Shot once in the chest and once in the head. He thought of the splotches and streams of blood he had seen that awful night. He thought of all the blood still left on the wallpaper, the couch, and the painting in the back of this very car. No, he wasn't a gun guy. He wasn't a gun guy at all.

Kerri-Ann Jennings had not actually fucked the quarterback of the Bronxville High School football team four years ago. The few times she had even embraced him had been the sort of social squeezes that usually accompany an air kiss by the cheek and had occurred in close proximity to one or both of his parents. After football games. At his house for dinner with his whole family. When his uncle was diagnosed with brain cancer. But she liked the boy a lot, and the two had been friends. Good friends. The boy was smart and was applying early decision to Brown. Still, the rumor persisted at the school that the two were fuck buddies. It was the sort of urban legend that made the single, statuesque French teacher wildly popular. The truth was that Kerri-Ann was also friends with the quarterback's mother and father. She was looking forward to teaching the quarterback's younger sister next year. She knew about the rumors and happily kept them alive by saying things to her class in French that were unquestionably inappropriate, but not so ribald that she was ever likely to get disciplined. Every year or two, it seemed, there were stories about her just like this. But most of the students loved her. The boys fantasized about her in the shower. The girls vacillated between jealousy and awe. The teacher used her tortoiseshell sunglasses and headband as props when she spoke—some days her wild mane of red hair, too—and with dominatrix-like confidence wielded absolute control over her classroom. She relished who she was. She was probably Kristin's closest friend at the school.