Carousel Court (29 page)

She doesn't know Metzger's email address and doesn't want him in
their house, so she won't mention the party to him, though he's sure to wander over uninvited.

• •

It's dusk and she sips her glass of Terra Blanca outside, stares at the fading orange lights lining the wall of the empty pool, the clear message from Nick that she's not to be trusted, not only with their commitment to each other but also with the well-being of their son. She walks back inside, closes and locks the sliding glass door, crosses the kitchen, and stands at the rock-climbing wall, gazing at her reflection in the blackness of the kitchen door, waiting for it to explode, something to burst through. The only sound is the icemaker churning, dropping cubes into a plastic bin. Everything is still. There are no more pills to take tonight, no messages to send him, questions to ask, demands or false promises, angles to play. All she can do is wait. She can't take it.

60

P
hoebe meets Nick in the driveway on Carousel Court. She messaged him and he told her he got a late start and instead of anger she responded with nonchalance and sympathy. She wrote:
You must be exhausted.
He ignored it and texted Mallory instead. He's been collecting rent checks this morning. It's been days since he saw her at the Sunland house. He texts her too often and is unsure why. She hasn't been responding. At first she would reply an hour or two later. Then a day. Now she doesn't respond at all. Nick asks her what the deal is again. He started texting like this when he was drinking. Now it makes no difference whether he's sober or not. He asks her how he should interpret her silence. Once she responded six hours later:
What is your deal?
He fired back immediately:
No biggie either way.
She didn't respond, which made him insane. He accused her of ­judging him. Then said she was just some random girl and who the fuck was she to judge him. Then he apologized. Now, this morning, on his way to pick up Phoebe, he is having an entire conversation with her even though she contributes nothing. Somehow it's cathartic for him.

At the last red light before reaching Carousel Court,
he taps out a succession of manic messages:
I dig you, ok? That night was epic.

Let's be friends. Let's start over.

Disregard everything I've said to date and pretend we just met. Hey. This is Nick. Thanks for giving me your number. Wanna grab a smoothie or something? Do you need anything? Some cash maybe? Wanna go shopping? Let me buy you something nice.

My wife is fucked. My kid's amazing tho, go figure.

Hello? Are you there? What the fuck? Respond. Once. Like common courtesy. K? I thought you were cool. Whatevs.

There is no response from Mallory.

• •

Nick slows the Forester as he approaches the driveway. Phoebe holds a Starbucks tray with two white cups and an iced macchiato she's sipping through a green straw. Nick passes her, and when he does, he sees Jackson hiding behind her white sundress. They wave. Nick turns the car around and the two of them climb in.

“No, wait, I'll drive,” she says.

“I got it,” Nick says, but she's already out of the car and walking around the front to the driver's side, so he gets out and walks around the back to the passenger side, gets in, and slams the door closed. He'd rather be in the house, showering then sleeping, dreaming about Mallory.

Nick reaches into the backseat and tickles his son, who says through his laughter “Hi, Daddy” in his little voice. Nick glances reflexively at the face of his iPhone. No response from Mallory.

Phoebe drives west, toward the freeway. Her white sunglasses match her dress, and the brightness of the white accentuates her thin, tan legs and loose-fitting sterling bracelets and thick men's watch on her left wrist.

“We have the whole day,” she says.

“To do what?”

“I want to show you something.”

“There's nothing I want to see.”

“It's a surprise.”

She hands him her phone. A video is cued up. It's a backyard pool with clear blue water and voices and splashing and Jackson is wearing
a red bathing suit and kicking and Mai is leading him, backing away a little farther the closer he gets, until she reaches the wall and he reaches her and she scoops him up, and his wet face and blinking eyes find the camera because Phoebe is calling out to him off-screen and Jackson is laughing, swimming.

“She taught him,” Phoebe says.

Nick is moved by the image of his son flailing with purpose in the deep water. He swallows hard and averts his eyes as he hands the phone back to Phoebe. He exhales and the scenery is a blur and colors blend and for an instant he wonders if maybe it's not as bad as it seems. “Nice watch.”

The watch on her wrist is not the one Phoebe bought for his thirtieth birthday. That one was thick and silver with a black face, not blue, and it was a Movado, not a Tag Heuer, and he sold it for four hundred dollars when they first got out here. It's his, JW's, he thinks. If it is, he might take her out to the Sunland house and throw her in the empty pool. It can't be.

They reach the freeway heading south. Black signs with orange lettering warn about wildfires. The sky is pale blue and stretched thin, wraps around them. Phoebe is in the left lane, trailing a red BMW too close.

“Let me see it,” Nick says, and reaches across her body for her left wrist.

She nudges his arm, which stiffens.

“It's his?” He grabs her wrist too hard, wrapping his callused hand around the watch. She screams. The BMW slows. Nick curses. She swerves, narrowly avoids the BMW, horns sounding. Nick curses again. His coffee spills.

“Asshole,” she snaps.

Nick has the watch. He studies it. “This is not my watch.”

She's shaking her head. “I'm trying, okay?”

Jackson is crying out and Phoebe is reaching back, squeezing his leg, telling him everything is okay. She adds that Daddy got scared and that's why they both yelled.

“Tell me it's his or I will throw this”—he snatches her phone—“out of the car.” He begins to lower his window.

“It's his.”

He screams, throws the watch out the window. Jackson wails. Nick pounds the dashboard with a closed fist, then both fists, until he's unloading a barrage of punches. Exhausted, he drops his head on the hot dash, looks away from Phoebe, sweat burning his eyes.

“You should have left him with Mai,” Nick finally says, exhaling. “You're a horrible mother.”

At first she says nothing. Her eyes remain straight ahead, both hands gripping the wheel. Then she says distantly, “That's not true. I'm a good parent.”

“We're leaving you.”

Phoebe doesn't seem to hear him. She is talking to herself. “There's money for groceries. The house needs to be cleaned. It's coming together. We're getting there. And the laundry needs to be folded. Mai is there if we need her. It's good. We're better.”

“When we get home,” Nick says, “I'm packing his things and mine, and we're driving back to Boston.”

She's talking to herself about orientation for new hires and her starting salary and a bonus she seems to think will erase their debts, and as she speaks she nods and leans forward in her seat, and instead of easing off the accelerator and coasting a bit she's gunning it, pumping the brakes, agitated as she talks about leaving behind neighbors in tents, and guns, and staying awake every night waiting for something horrible to happen to them, to Jackson, for the glass to shatter downstairs as they fall victim to their own home invasion because Nick insisted, refused, and she's stabbing the air in front of her with her right hand and Nick is reaching for his son's leg now but, too drained to turn around, leans back in his seat and watches the traffic.

“Refused to honor,” she says, and trails off. “There are basic commitments. Expectations.”

“Goddamn, you need help.”

61

T
he yellow Craftsman in Laguna Beach sits empty. It's a Tuesday afternoon and no one on the lush wide street, dotted with purples and whites and reds, a few short palms, black wires and the Pacific in the distance, knows the young family in the white Subaru. No one knows that the man in the backseat with the young boy is a father reading him
Harry the Dirty Dog
for the third time in an attempt to console him or that the thin, pretty mother on her iPhone peering through the living room window is secretly terrified that she's making the mistake of a lifetime. It's just another breezy day off the ocean in Orange County.

Finally, the blue Audi pulls up. The agent lets them inside and waits in the living room while Nick carries Jackson, trailing Phoebe, from one sun-filled hardwood room to the next. In the upstairs hallway the floors creak as they walk. Phoebe has her hand wrapped around the dull silver knob on the white bedroom door, waiting to push it open in some grand gesture.

Nick's and Phoebe's eyes meet. They stand close to each other. He could grab her wrist and pull her hand from the doorknob and tell her, Not like this, I've got this. We're going home. Boston. I'll take care of
it. He could hoist her on his shoulder like a plastic jug of water on a sweltering summer day and carry her out of here.

Her eyes shift before his. Heat radiates from her; she's tense, and a sheen of perspiration gives her thinning face a hollowed-out appearance, almost ghostly.

“Another house,” he says more to himself than to her, exasperated. “Is he co-signing?”

She ignores the reference to JW and pushes the door open.

“Renting, Nickels. Renting.” Then a look crosses her face, a question. “How much money have
you made, Nick?”

Nick has never told her. He stopped talking about it when she insisted she wanted nothing to do with it. He made deposits in five separate accounts and kept cash. He's cleared over seventy thousand but has no interest in telling her. “What is he offering you?” he says.

The sunny room is all hardwood floor and sweeping view, dark water and white surf in the distance. Nick puts Jackson down and the boy runs to the window.

“D&C in Laguna Beach. It's a ten-minute commute. There's a signing bonus.”

“What's the job?”

“Consulting.”

All Nick can think is what is unspoken, the expectation of this middle-aged man who has his wife on a string. All Nick can see is Phoebe averting her gaze when her cell rings and the call is him, and her leaving the room, walking outside to talk, lying when she returns, saying it was her mother, and Nick will seethe when he tries to resist the temptation to demand the fucking phone. And when she's home late and finds out later that he was in town for work he'll burn inside repressing every dark instinct that tells him to find out: Did she see him? Did she fuck him again?

“Tell me,” he says, “how in the hell you think this can work.”

“We need this.”

He cocks his arm, ready to deliver a blow to the bedroom wall.

“It's the best option. It's the only option we have.”

“For who? Not for me, it isn't. I have options. Jackson and I have options. I have money and a job and a house. I am living my options.”

“Oh, come on, Nick. It's not sustainable. We both need to be earning. Unconventional is not turning this around for us.”

“Unconventional?” He's laughing now. “That's very diplomatic, charitable terminology. You fucked this guy, Phoebe. While we were together. You fucked him. Do you not remember what that did to us? That we're still here, having this conversation, with Jackson existing, and your grand plan is to hitch our wagon to the star you
fucked
. And you didn't walk away, you kept it going, kept it alive.” He's gritting his teeth and too close to her face. At her ear, resisting the overwhelming impulse to close his teeth around it until the skin breaks, until he's tasting the salt of her blood. He says, “For us, right? For us.”

She tenses, her arm stiffens and meets the force of his body, which is pressing, leaning in to her. “We need it.”

“You need it.”

“Yes, I need it.” She pushes him. “Back up.”

“I don't need it. I don't want it. Don't push me.”

“Step back. I will scream.”

“Not like this. Not ever. Not him. We're gone.” He walks to Jackson, scoops the boy off the floor.

“Jesus, will you stop? Now it matters how—” Phoebe continues.

“Who.
Who
is making this happen?” He lowers his voice, holding Jackson to his chest, chin on his shoulder. The boy is tired or tired of them. “That matters. Yes, that matters a great deal.”

“Not to me,” she says, staring out the window.

“Well, maybe if he gives me a watch. Was that your signing bonus that I threw out of the car?”

“I haven't signed anything yet.”

“So then tell me what in God's name occurred to you, Phoebe, what compelled you to put on his watch? And wear it? Are you that far gone? What are you even on these days? It's not just Klonopin.”

She's next to Nick now, close enough to stroke Jackson's hair. “He's a factor. Would you rather I hide it? You know what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. The rest is up to us.”

“You, me, Jackson, and JW. Happy shiny family. Your little surfside chalet.” He's laughing for Jackson's sake. “Say it. Say it all. Right now. This is the time, because you'll never have a better chance, this
room with this view for Jackson. If you're going to convince me, sell me, make me JW's bitch, you damn well better do it now.”

Her iPhone vibrates and a chime sounds.

“Is that him? Does he have his own special alert? Is he ready for you now?”

She doesn't turn around. She removes her hand from Jackson's head and reaches into her carryall and removes her phone and checks it.