Housebreaking (11 page)

The girl was beautiful, like her mother, but in a wholly different way: tall, dark hair, full in the chest. She was how old—seventeen? If he didn't know better, he would have guessed she was in college, or older still. She had large, dark eyes, a wildness in her expression.

At the stop sign, he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw her, still, hand raised, pointing her middle finger at him like a knife as he drove off.

* * *

THAT EVENING
he stopped for dinner at Max Baxter's Fish Bar. He sat at the bar, eating a cheeseburger and watching football highlights: the New York Giants and some blue and red team he didn't recognize. At one time he could name every starting backfield in the NFL. Now he didn't even know who coached the Giants. The NFL had gone on without him, like everything else, although the old Giants players remained in his mind as
vivid as the screen above the bar: Spider Lockhart, as nimble as a thief; Pete Athas, with his long hair flowing from the back of his helmet; Ron Johnson, exploding out of the backfield, knees pumping high; and most of all, Fran Tarkenton, scrambling away from lumbering defensive ends, changing directions as quick as a dog. Recently Benjamin had seen the man on a late-night infomercial hawking rug cleaner, the great Tarkenton, looking like a retired accountant.

Before long the bar started to fill up with the evening crowd—stylish women in their thirties or forties, traveling in packs of two or three, eyes scanning the room. Hair in supermarket shades of brown, red, and blond, streaked and straw-like. Was this the type of place Judy would come to now, in search of his replacement?

“Brian, dear,” one of the women said to the bartender, “an appletini, please.”

“Check, please,” Benjamin said to the bartender.

He felt off-kilter, after the way Audrey had left that night. He didn't know if he was supposed to wait for her to summon him, or if she expected him to make the next move. On the way home he decided,
What the hell
, and got out his phone. He wanted to see her; he might as well tell her so.

She answered in a formal voice he hadn't heard before: “Hold on a second, please.”

Was her husband sitting next to her, chomping a steak? Benjamin had never had an affair with a married woman, never had to worry about these things. But he was half-drunk and not overly concerned with discretion.

“Sorry about that,” she said.

“Is this a bad time?”

“Sort of. I grounded my daughter, like you suggested. So now I have to deal with her. She's always been something of a spy. A watcher and a listener.”

“Where are you?”

“In my bathroom.”

He got out a cigarette and lit up, something he did only when he drank. Judy used to complain about the smell. She would throw out his cigarettes whenever she found a pack and make him shower and wash his clothes before getting into bed. “I want to see you,” he said.

“After the other night, you still want to see me?”

“That was my fault. I said the wrong thing—”

“Let's not talk about that anymore, okay?”

“Yes. It's settled. Good.”

“Good,” she said.

He took a long drag on his cigarette. He said, “I believe I'm a little bit addicted to you, Audrey Martin.”

“To having sex with me, you mean?”

“Yes,” he agreed, although he hadn't meant that—not only that.

“Why do you always call me Audrey Martin?”

“Because that's your name.”

“Most people just use the first.”

“I'd never think of using only the first. Audrey Martin is a totality. A concept that existed before it was given a title.”

“You sound like Michel Foucault tonight.”

“Who's she?”

She laughed.

“What's so funny?”

“You are,” she said. “So you want to see me?”

“Yes. How about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow isn't possible.”

“What about the day after?”

“That's Halloween,” she said. “Little goblins everywhere. Maybe the day after that.”

He had trouble sleeping, thinking about her. On Halloween, every time some kid rang the doorbell, he jumped, thinking it might be her.

The following morning at the dealership, he found it difficult to concentrate.
Pussy brain
, the salesmen called it. When you can think of nothing else. He phoned her in the afternoon to see if they were on. Yes, she said, they were.

At home he lit the fireplace and poured the wine and prowled the empty rooms. She was late again. Did she do this to torture him? Or had he scared her away? His understanding had always been that women wanted to be wanted, but if you wanted them too badly you became
creepy
or a
stalker
. (Judy's words, again.) You had to express the proper amount of desire, but not too much. A game for daters. At forty-four,
he didn't know how to play, or rather, he couldn't be bothered. He didn't want to dance around; he'd thought he and Audrey were on the same page there.

But maybe, he figured, she wasn't toying with him. Maybe she was having problems getting out of the house. Finally, he couldn't wait any longer and called her.

“Where are you?”

“Getting ready.”

“You always keep me waiting.”

“We said eight.”

“Did we? I thought seven.” He checked the clock. It was a quarter of. “Come now.”

“Patience . . .”

Ten minutes later the doorbell rang.

“Where's your dog?” he said.

In response she tugged him down the hallway by his belt buckle. Later, this was the night he would remember most clearly, the way she'd stepped out of her dress to reveal the fishnet stockings and garter belt. They started on the rug in front of the fireplace. He was aware of Yukon in the doorway, watching with his head cocked to one side, like a ruffian at the ballet.
Go away
, Benjamin gestured with his hand. Instead, the dog padded into the room and stood beside them, panting.

“Just what I always wanted,” said Audrey. “A threesome.”

* * *

AFTER
, they stared at the flames, both of them naked and glistening with sweat. They sipped at the wine until it was gone.

“More?” he asked.

“I'm perfect,” she said sleepily, snuggling back against him.

“I saw you and your daughter on my way to work the other day,” he said.

“Where?”

“In your driveway. She sort of glared at me.”

“The patented Emily look.”

“Then she flipped me off.”

Audrey laughed.

“What's funny about that?”

“It's so Emily.”

“Why would she do that?”

“I have no idea. You can't explain Emily. She takes sudden likes or dislikes to people and things. She doesn't like the word
lugubrious
, she told me once. She said it doesn't sound like what it means.”

He forced a laugh. Then he realized he was feeling too good—his arm wrapped around her, his face buried in her hair—to play the phony. “Actually,” he began, “I don't know what that means.”

“
Lugubrious?
Oh, sorry. It means gloomy, but in an over-the-top way, like
Dark Shadows
.”

“I can't believe you remember
Dark Shadows.
”

“I saw it in reruns when I was a kid. I always loved the name Barnabas Collins.”

“That other word, too, you called me.”

“Hmm?”

“You said I was . . .
ecclesiastic
? No. Not that.” He laughed at himself. “Something like that.”

She turned and kissed him. “I think I said eclectic. Someone who knows a lot of different things.”

“Compared to you, I know nothing.”

She moved onto her elbows and stretched, a yoga-like movement. “You know how to make a woman feel good. That's something, believe me.”

“Why wouldn't she like me?”

“Who?”

“Your daughter.”

“Stop obsessing about that. It was your car, probably. She hates SUVs, because of the carbon footprint. With Hummers, she goes berserk. She even threw a tennis ball at one once.”

“You drive an SUV.”

“The mini-model.”

The flames rose from the fire, the wood crackling. It made him sleepy and slow-witted. “Is she still giving you the silent treatment?”

“Yes. She's really good at holding a grudge. It's as quiet as a tomb in that house.”

“She's a beautiful girl. That can complicate things. It certainly did for my daughter. Boys and all.”

“Emily's always been complicated. This is just her latest phase,” she said, finishing her stretch and settling onto her stomach.

He said, “Maybe it's normal, in a way. Kids don't consider us as anything but
parents.
We're these people who live with them and provide things for them—money, a place to sleep, stuff they want. They don't really think about us until something goes wrong.”

“It was the opposite with Emily.”

“What was?”

Audrey didn't answer.

He leaned over to admire her. “God, I love your ass. Did I ever tell you that?”

In this light she looked like a woman in her late twenties. Petite girls like Audrey had the advantage in the long run, he decided, over the bombshells, the showstoppers at sixteen. He'd seen one of the Wendys at the dealership some years ago when she came in to buy a station wagon, and even then, in her mid-thirties, she was overweight, her high school face barely recognizable amid the jowly cheeks and garish makeup.

He squeezed her thighs. “Do you work out?”

“Yoga,” she said. “Years and years of yoga. Before that, aerobics, Pilates, Nautilus. Push-ups to start the day, crunches in front of the TV at night. The great accomplishment of my life. All my education and ambition, and here you have it.”

“Hey, don't be sarcastic. You look amazing. You've got the body of a twenty-something. Plus, you're smarter than anyone I know. You're talented. You're—”

“Okay, enough,” she said. “You'll give me a complex.”

Complex, too
, he almost added, but he figured he better stay away from her complexity, after the other night.

In the silence that followed he felt himself starting to doze. He heard her gather her clothes, felt her brush against his leg. He intended to get up and show her out, but the next thing he knew he was asleep, the dog curled up against him where Audrey had been.

* * *

LEONARD COULDN'T GET
the remote control to work. He could change the channels, but there was no sound. Terri Funkhouser knew how to work the thing, but she hadn't come. She usually showed up after breakfast, but today lunch had come and gone and still no sign of her.

He pressed the buzzer for the nurse, as he'd done many times already, without luck. They came on their own time when they were good and ready, and they did their poking and prodding, taking his blood pressure, twisting and turning him. If he asked a question or made a complaint, they smiled at him as if he were a simpleton. Even the nice nurse, the heavyset gal with the curly red hair, even she didn't answer his questions. He could understand why, with all the senile folks wandering the halls, talking to themselves, but shouldn't they be able to tell the difference between
them
and him?

When the door opened, Leonard pushed himself up in bed. “Terri, where have you been?”

“I had some errands. Did you miss me?”

“Miss you? I've been buzzing for two hours.”

She set her handbag on the table and placed a large shopping bag on the floor. “What's wrong? You're not ill, are you?” She put her hand to his forehead. “Cool as a cucumber.”

“I can't get the TV to work.” He held out the remote control. She took it, and a moment later the sound came blaring at full volume.

“You had the mute on, Len. This little button here.”

“Oh.”

“What else?”

“Something to drink.”

“How about a ginger ale?”

He was too upset to answer. She ducked into the hallway and almost immediately returned with the nurse.

“He's all discombobulated today,” Terri Funkhouser explained.

The nurse said, “Maybe you'd like your ginger ale in the community room, Mr. Mandelbaum.”

“I'm fine right where I am.”

“No, Len. That's a good idea. A little exercise will do you good.”

The nurse winked at Terri Funkhouser and went away.

“What's that winking business?” said Leonard.

Terri Funkhouser shrugged. “Sometimes people wink.” She bent and helped him with his slippers.

“If you're not here they treat me like an imbecile,” he said, grasping her arm for support.

She picked up her handbag and shopping bag. “Well, you can't blame them. I just passed a fellow in the hall dancing with himself.”

“He should be locked up.”

“He
is
locked up, Len.”

Leonard couldn't find the word for the way the hallway smelled—a common word, having to do with cleaning. Mr. Clean, Myra always used in the kitchen, with the bald man on the bottle with biceps like a gym coach. That smell—the clean smell—masked another smell, impossible to name but relating to rot and death and wasting away.
That
smell came from the rooms, from the patients themselves, something the orderlies couldn't wash away.

“It's all old people,” he said.

“This is the geriatric wing. They put the young people in a different place.”

“Must be costing a fortune.”

“Medicare, Len. It's all taken care of. We talked about this already, remember?”

“Somebody's paying for it, I know that much. They'll want their money back sooner or later.”