This is Just Exactly Like You (18 page)

He says, “You too.” He says, “Are you OK to drive?”

“Sure I am.” Her eyes are bright.

“Good,” he says. “I was just checking.”

“Thanks, Dad,” she says, trying to make a joke out of it, but it comes out heavily, makes everything stranger, and she gets in the car, backs it out of the space, rolls the window down and waves at him. “See ya,” she says, and laughs, shakes her head, and pulls out of the lot. Like that, she’s gone. He’s a letch, a coward. But it was worth it. It was. That’s what he tells himself on the way home, holding the speedometer steady at 45, driving as straight as anyone has ever driven. It was worth it. He can still taste her. He finds 1100 on the AM out of Cleveland and listens to their postgame show. He puts both hands on the wheel. Ten and two. He drives home. He’s a fool. Sarah Cody. Gum and smoke.

Rena and Jack drink both bottles of wine, and he wakes up with a pretty good headache. And late. The clock blinks at him. They’ve lost power sometime during the night. No storms, but this happens: Old neighborhood, old electric. On and off. The angle of the sun on the floor means it has to be at least 9:30. He pulls on a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, hurries down the hall.

Hen’s in front of his cabinet: Not new. What is new is Rena lying on the sofa under a blanket, the green thing they keep in the closet for picnics. Pieces of last night slide back into focus, ambling conversations about old girlfriends and religion and a man she’d been engaged to before she met Canavan. She’s got a Ziploc bag of ice on her forehead. The wine glasses are on the counter, and Jack picks them up on his way to the coffeemaker, sets them next to the two empty bottles.
Let’s drink all this wine.
Yul Brynner’s on the floor, on his side, belly up against the couch, front legs out in front of him like he’s flying sideways through the world. He thumps his tail. “Jesus, shit,” Rena says.

Jack nods
yes
. His head’s heavy, full of sand. Everything on this side of the kitchen is plugged into extension cords that run into the hallway. When he knocked the wall out, he had to cut the circuit to the outlets in the kitchen. One more thing for Beth to mark down in the ledger. Jack sits next to Hendrick once he’s got the coffee going. The tile is cool on the backs of his legs. He rubs Hen’s back. Closed. Forehead. Open. “How long’s he been up?” he asks.

“Not long,” says Rena. “When I woke up, he was still asleep.”

“Really?”

“Or just hanging out in his room,” she says. “I don’t know.” She watches him do the cabinet. “That doesn’t hurt him?”

“Not usually.” Jack reaches for him anyway, though, takes his chances, puts his hand flat on the cabinet in front of Hen’s head. “Hendrick,” he says. “Buddy. You’re making
my
head hurt, OK?”

Hen makes a few noises, looks at him.

“Your head,” Jack says. “Not today, OK? That hurts.”

Hendrick sits up straighter, knocks his knuckles together, then digs at his nose, wipes his finger on the tile. He says, “The Greensboro Grasshoppers: They’re Hoppin’ Fun.”

“They are?” Jack asks him. After they got through the wine, he remembers now, they moved on to whiskey.

“Call today to book your Family Fun Package,” Hen says. He’s getting himself cranked up.

“Would you flick on the weather?” Jack asks Rena.

“What?”

“The weather. The TV. Would you turn it on?”

She does, and the sound comes pouring out, huge in the room:
LET’S GO NOW TO THE TROPICAL UPDATE.
She shrinks back from it into the sofa, winces, holds the remote out at arm’s length, turning it down. Hen gets up immediately, goes and sits on his knees in front of the screen. He rocks back and forth while a pregnant woman in a blue shirt explains that most June tropical storms originate in the Gulf and the Caribbean. There are pulsing kidney-shaped areas showing where the storms begin, animated arrows showing where they tend to go after that: To Texas, to Kentucky, to Nova Scotia. Rena wads up the blanket, leans against it. She’s on his sofa. His life feels half-cooked. Jack reaches for the phone, to call the yard. Ernesto picks up after a couple of rings. “Hey, Ernesto,” Jack says. “It’s me.”

“Yes,” says Ernesto.

“Everything OK over there? Just checking in.”

“Everything is fine,” he says. “Butner will probably want the truck. Eventually.”

“No problem,” Jack says. “I’ll bring it in about an hour.” Ernesto says nothing. “Tell him I’ll bring it in about an hour.”

“OK.” He hears one of the loaders get louder, then cut off. Ernesto shouts, then gets back on the phone. “I told him,” he says.

“Is everything else OK?”

“Everything else is OK. We haven’t knocked anything over today.”

“Great.”

“Terry Canavan cut off his foot, Butner says.”

“Almost.”

“
Castigo.
”

“What?” Jack asks.

“It’s nothing. It’s a figure of speech.”

“What’s it mean?”

“Something like, ‘That’s what happens.’ ”

“Right.”

“Listen,” says Ernesto. “We have customers. I should go.”

“Oh,” Jack says. “Sorry.”

“It’s OK,” Ernesto says. “
Adiós,
”

“
Adiós,
” says Jack, and hangs up. On TV, there’s a green blob spinning off the coast of Cuba, and a graphic comes up that says
First Named Storm of the Atlantic Season.
He pours himself a cup of coffee, pours one for Rena. “Headed this way?” he asks her.

“They don’t seem to know.”

The blue-shirt woman sends it over to a guy in a suit, who keeps talking about the tropics. A new graphic runs the storm name across the bottom of the frame:
Tropical Storm Ashley
. “Ashley,” Jack says. It doesn’t sound fierce enough. It sounds like a baby-sitter.

Hendrick says, “Here are your tropical storm names for the season. Ashley. Bruce. Claudette. Diego. Eliza. Frederick. Grace.” He keeps going through to the end of the list, Wanda, then starts over, runs it again.

“I take it you boys watch a little weather around here,” says Rena.

“A little bit,” Jack says. “We like knowing what’s coming.”

“That’s sound.” She tilts her head back, puts the Ziploc on her forehead. “I’m wounded,” she says.

“Me too.”

“Red wine,” she says. “Not your friend.”

“Tell that to the Italians.”

“It was French,” she says. “I couldn’t believe your quickie mart had French.”

“They’re good down there.”

“That wine wasn’t,” says Rena. “French or not.”

“Yeah,” Jack says.

“We should go down there and warn them. We should tell them something’s wrong with their wine. Tell them it’s broken.”

“I’m right behind you,” Jack says. “Just let me finish this coffee.”

“Check.” She gets up, readjusts her ice, walks to the sliding glass doors, looks out at his yard. On the TV, the blue woman is back, has given up on the tropics, is talking about thunderstorms in upstate New York. “Thanks for letting me stay the night,” Rena says.

“Neither one of us could have driven you home.”

“I know, but still. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

She taps on the glass. “No offense, but for you being a landscaper, your back yard kind of looks like shit.”

“I’m not a landscaper.”

“I mean, I like those flowers over there, in the back, those are nice—”

“The daylilies?”

“Is that was those are? The orange ones? I never know. I like those. But the rest of the yard pretty much sucks, doesn’t it?”

There’s a skinny run of grass out to the left-hand side, but the rest is mainly weeds. He hasn’t cut it in a couple of weeks. Everything’s long. The fence is covered over in some vine. There’s a big patch where there’s only bare ground right behind the house. “I hit the water doing the kitchen wall,” he says. “There was a flood. It took out a lot of the grass.”

“Yeah,” she says. “The kitchen.” She walks around the island, knocks on the plywood wall. She’s inspecting the premises. “Did I ask you about this last night? About what it is you’re up to?”

“I was going to surprise her. I was going to put in a breakfast nook. A little sunroom.”

“Surprise,” she says. “Holy shit, right?”

“I know.”

“Sorry,” she says. “I think it’ll be nice when you get it all finished.” She’s wearing her same clothes, the Ore-Ida T-shirt, the worn-out jeans. Her blue hair is like what would be left over the next day from some Halloween costume. She keeps stretching her toes, laying them back down on the floor one by one. “I like the tile,” she says.

“It’s discontinued. I can’t find any more.”

“Well, it’s still pretty. What’s here is, anyway.”

“Thanks,” he says. “At least you think so.”

“Beth doesn’t like it?”

“She didn’t tell you about all this?”

“She talks about it in kind of vague, grand terms. She says ‘renovation’ a lot.”

“She’s pretty pissed off.”

“And now she’s with Terry,” Rena says. “Which is pretty fucked up, if I do say so myself.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” he says.

“You’re sorry? What would you have said? Who needs to be sorry—and I feel pretty sure about this—is not us. I don’t know if either one of us owes anybody sorry right about now.”

“Yeah,” Jack says. He watches her work her toes along a line of grout. Her toenails are painted brown. Outside, an engine starts up. A lawn mower, or something bigger. Probably the neighbor, Frank, doing something to his yard. “Do you want some breakfast or anything?” he asks. He should have asked her before, been a better host.

“I don’t eat it.”

“OK.”

“I mean,” she says, “sometimes leftovers. I like having coffee and Chinese. I like the sound the spoon makes on those takeaway Styrofoam boxes, you know? But not regular cereal or anything like that. I don’t believe in cereal.”

“How do you not believe in cereal?”

“I just don’t. Anyway. About our good friends Beth and Terry.” She puts her mug down on the counter. “This has been going on a week and a half, right?”

He counts it up. “I guess so.”

“And you’re doing nothing?”

“What are you doing?”

She checks her watch. “Hang on, alright? I’ve known for eleven hours. But you,” she says. “You’ve known for eleven days. I don’t get it. What’s your plan?”

“I’m waiting it out,” he says. “I’m seeing what happens.”

“That’s your plan?”

“I guess so,” he says.

“That is not a plan.”

“It’s the one I have.”

“It’s shitty,” she says. “It’s nothing.”

“What’s yours, then?” he asks.

“Give me eleven days, and I’d have something.”

“OK,” he says.

“I just can’t believe you’re not doing anything.”

“You started this,” he says. “She wouldn’t be over there if you were still there.”

“Nope,” she says, holding a finger out at him. “I don’t think we’re going to allow that. That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It makes more sense than you not believing in cereal, or whatever you just said.”

“We’re not talking about me.” She looks around. “Except, you know what it feels like in here? In your kitchen? It feels like I’m making out with my boyfriend. You know that feeling? Like your top’s off and now you’re just listening out for the sound of the garage door opener so you can frantically look around for your bra and get dressed again before your parents make it inside?”

“Sure,” he says. She says things like this at dinner sometimes. He’ll catch Beth’s eye across the table, she’ll shrug her shoulders.

“I mean, except for all the making out and everything. Do you know what I mean?”

He does not know. “Sure,” he says again.

“I wore a training bra until I was in ninth grade,” she says.

“I never wore one.”

“Good, Jackson. That’s good.” She blows on her coffee, takes a sip, makes a face. “Too hot,” she says.

“Do you want an ice cube?”

“No,” she says, “God no,” and slides past him out into the living room again. She’s a little strange. He’s always liked her fine, but she’s always been a little strange, a little loud, a little sudden. Still, he can’t help but think of what she’d look like frantically searching for her bra, and then somehow he’s imagining the two of them in high school, except they’re in his actual high school girlfriend’s bedroom, the light blue carpet, the pink and yellow bed, the window seat, the vaulted ceiling. Right over the garage. His eyes are starting to hurt. He’s going to need a Coke or something. Sugar. Liquids. Maybe a cheeseburger.

“Don’t you have to go in to work?” asks Rena.

“Not right this minute,” he says.

“I heard you on the phone. You have to bring something in.”

“They need the truck,” he says. “For deliveries.”

“So shouldn’t you go in?”