The Timer Game (3 page)

Chapter 3

She pulled into the driveway and her headlights revealed her house in pitiless relief, like in a police lineup. Hers was the ratty one in the middle, squeezed into a row of minimansions.

The house on the right belonged to a retired osteopath and his wife. Blocky pink stucco, gated and electronically locked, with a metal fence spiking into iron bulbs every few feet. Nobody came in or out of that house. Even the mailman used a cement slot built into the fence.

The house on the left cascaded in white cubes amid designer palms. A stoop-shouldered attorney Grace’s age lived there, with a blond wife and two kids in private school uniforms. She’d hear them in the back sometimes through the natural barrier of high succulents that separated their properties. At night, the motor in their swimming pool gargled like an old man.

On her house, the dormer window flaked, the front door bulged with moisture, the second step leading to the door splintered and sagged. Even the trees looked bad. Leathery and overgrown, they shed gray leaves like molting birds onto the green tar paper roof of the garage clamped onto the left side of the house.

She watched as a squirrel darted across the ratty front yard and sprinted along the splintery picket fence, diving into a shrub under the bay window. The bay window hung over a yard she was too tired to tend, the window made of cramped squares of glass leaded and soldered, looking as if it had been assembled by some parsimonious contractor cousin of Dickens—
please sir, may I have one more pane of glass, sir, a little larger, if you please, oh, you’re too generous—
flanked by two narrow windows that actually opened, providing some relief in the summer when she sat in the living room and contemplated her life.

Not much relief, considering what she had to work with. Cramped, untidy, spilling with dog hair and scraps of paper, vagrant Cheerios and missing shin guards wedged under sofa cushions. Home.

Not that she could complain. From the street it looked like a broken-down fire hazard, but inside, her home held an amazing secret. She had no illusions about ever being able to afford a new roof or granite countertops in her lifetime. It was enough, plenty, more than enough that the house sat on an actual beach in a section of San Diego in Point Loma called La Playa, and that the back of the lot faced out over the harbor and gently tilting sailboats, while across the water the glass and chrome towers of downtown San Diego twinkled on the horizon like small crystal boxes.

Only thirteen homes shared the beach that had once been a staging area for seamen melting tallow. They were whalers, Portuguese immigrants transplanted from the Azores, sturdy soldiers of fortune who rode the seas and started a tuna empire. They’d all lived together; their kids had gone to Cabrillo Elementary and they’d shopped at family-run stores and eaten at small restaurants clustered along Rosecrans, the main thoroughfare. Now the fishermen had moved a few blocks inland, and real estate along La Playa beach had skyrocketed.

She’d never sell, despite increasingly clamorous offers from Realtors and sometimes people just out for Sunday drives. The view always calmed her, but it wasn’t only the view that made Grace fight so hard to stay there. The house was all she had left of her dad.

Thoughts crashed. She turned off the ignition and sat in the dark. Once, her dad had taken her alone to Lake Morena to catch fish. He made his living doing that, in deep waters, but this was vacation, and he was spending part of it with her. She’d crawled eagerly into the boat. Six years old, still small enough so the wooden sides seemed high. He’d heaved the boat into the water and jumped in after her, her hands clamped around a tin can of worms. That was her job, he’d said, keeping the can safe while he climbed into the boat. He plunged his hand into the black soil and pulled out a worm. It glistened plump gray and magenta, pulsing in his hand. It was the most magnificent thing she’d ever seen. Her dad’s other hand flashed into his tackle box and in the same fluid motion, pierced the creature with a hook. Blood spurted and it thrashed, trying to get away. Her throat closed in fright. It was alive just like she was. It had blood and it hurt. She burst into tears and begged him to take her home. She didn’t mean for it to die, she whispered.

And now she’d put a bullet through a man’s skull. Several bullets. There had been a fence next to Eddie Loud, and the force of the gunfire had splashed it with bits of brain and flesh and blood. The raw stink of fresh meat had hung hotly in the night air.

Now she couldn’t seem to get that smell out of her nostrils. Heavily, Grace stepped from the car and locked the door. She could hear them inside as she went down the service alley on the right side of the house. Helix banged against the porch screen door, whining.

She unlocked it and Helix bounded toward her, clattering on his fake leg, tail wagging in a frenzy of doggie devotion. He was a mix, a mongrel stray, part shepherd and collie, hit by a car as a puppy and left to die. Grace had rushed him to the vet, who’d informed her that fixing him up would cost the equivalent of a small developing country’s entire gross national product. Grace had made the mistake of going into the death chamber to say a weepy good-bye. Five minutes later she was scheduling the operation that had saved his life.

“Some alarm system.” Grace scratched him behind his ears, and he rolled over and yipped. She rinsed off her Tyvek suit and filled the sink with water and bleach, spying a discarded pizza carton tucked behind the wastebasket. Helix followed her through the kitchen, his doggy nails clicking across the linoleum like a flamenco dancer.

The calamity of being a parent was that there was no off switch, no time-out for personal disaster. Schoolwork still called, lunches had to be packed, reprimands administered. Her head pounded.

In the family room, Katie was belting out a country western song, standing on the

piano bench wearing a pink flowered nightie, Mickey Mouse ears and cowboy boots,

almost dwarfed by the Gibson she was strumming. Her fingers were so tiny she only played the bottom string of the chords. Lottie stood crouched over the piano, banging the rhythm, her silvery blond head moving in time. She was wearing orange vinyl hot pants and white go-go boots with tassels and a vest with beads that shimmied as she moved.

"No, honey," Lottie interrupted, "that’s a C chord you’re playing; it’s a G.” She broke into song, demonstrating, “
We don’t share the same time zone…”

Katie focused, nodding, tried it again, her voice clear and treble. “
We don’t share the same time zone…you’re not my phone-a-friend…and all the special features I like best you never do intend…”

Lottie nodded, banging out the chords with force. “That's right, kid, milk it, honey.”

Helix bounded across the carpet and skidded into Lottie. He still had trouble stopping properly.

“For Pete’s sake. How’d he get out. . .”

Grace smacked the empty pizza carton against her thigh and Lottie snapped her mouth shut.

“Busted,” Katie said.

Lottie guiltily banged the lid down on the piano. Katie turned toward her mother to plead her case. She froze on the bench, staring.

“Mommy, are you okay?” Katie’s voice was small, and too late, Grace remembered her face.

At least Katie hadn’t seen her on TV. Lottie’s idea of television news was watching psychic pets find missing jewelry.

“I’m fine.”

“Your jaw is all purple.”

“I just had a little accident, but I’m fine. That’s not what I want to talk about. What I want to know is. . .” She lifted the pizza carton as if she were signaling the ships in the bay beyond the sliding glass door. “What is this? Lottie?”

Grace waggled the carton at her and Lottie sneezed.

“You know I’m allergic to that dog.”

“Answer the question.”

Other people had mothers who wore suits and went to the Wednesday Club, where they drank tea and listened to lectures on Quail Gardens. Grace's mother was still in her midfifties, with a smooth, unlined face, stuffed into a pair of hot pants so tight that her rear looked like two cantaloupes squeezed into a plastic bag.

"You weren't supposed to see that pizza carton," Lottie said.

"You know she had pizza for lunch. Lottie, you promised you'd fix her a real dinner. Something with vegetables in it.”

"It's rude to call your mother Lottie," Lottie said. “It's not respectful. Is that what you want your daughter to call
you
when she grows up?”

“Latte?” Katie squealed. “You want me to call Mommy
Latte?”

“Sure, like one of those coffee drinks,” Grace said.

“It’s not like you’re a Roller Derby queen.” Lottie's eyes traveled over Grace’s face. “A mud wrestler. Look at you. What did you do? Walk into a wall? You know, you can’t spend your life running through jobs like they were a pair of hose.”

“We’re not talking about my face or career choices. We’re talking about dinner.”

"Jeez, Grace, lighten up," Lottie said.

It was like having two kids, only one of them could drive and order take-out. "Where's your homework, Katie?"

“A four-year-old child—”

“Five,” Katie said. “I’ll be five on Saturday.”

“A five-year-old child in kindergarten shouldn’t be expected to do homework,” Lottie said. “You should change schools. I bet you’d like more recess, wouldn’t you, honey?”

“So where is it?” Grace repeated.

Katie said brightly, “Grandma’s taking me to Disneyland for my birthday.”

“You’re having a party on your birthday,” Grace said. “You’re not going to Disneyland.”

“Not right
then,
” Lottie said. “Of course, not then. I have to miss her party, I told you. Terrell and I are going out of town.” She leaned down toward Katie and cooed, “And that’s why I’m taking my sweet little sweetums to Disneyland upon my return. I personally know one of the dancing dwarfs, who’s prepared to give us a behind-the-scenes tour of the Magic Kingdom.”

“Goodie,” Katie cried.

“You did make her do her homework, right?" Grace pressed a finger against her temple. A vein throbbed.

Lottie pulled on her lip.

“The one thing I asked you to do.”

Lottie shot her a wounded look and fiddled with her hair. Her bracelet clanked. It was fake turquoise that looked like gobs of used chewing gum. "We were getting around to it."

She opened her mouth, threw back her head and sneezed. “That dog. I mean it.”

“When, Lottie? It is now after eight on a school night and all you've done so far is pump up my child on caffeinated soda and yellow grease."

“Grace, you're just not fun anymore. You need to work on your people skills.”

“I want you to sit, Katie." Grace's voice was icy calm. “'I want you to sit at this desk and not move until you finish your homework. Is that clear?”

Katie stomped to the desk.

Grace yanked open a drawer and got out Katie’s stationery. It was pink and orange and had psychedelic ponies gamboling. She positioned a purple crayon in her daughter’s limp hand.

“This is fun,” Grace said. “We’re having fun learning about the mail. You send this to somebody, you get something back. You’re going to like it.” It sounded like a threat.

Katie started to whimper. “You can’t make me.”

"Oh, for Pete's sake," Lottie protested.

“I don't have anybody to write to!” Katie burst into tears and put her head down, dampening the stationery.

“Write to Clint, honey," Lottie said, “he'd be happy to have you—”

“She is not writing to Clint,” Grace said, and Katie wiped her eyes and raised her

head, interested at this turn of events.

“'Who’s Clint?”

“She's not writing to some hick singer who shellacs his hair until it’s the size of a

turkey rump.”

Grace couldn’t believe she was having this conversation after the day she’d had, except that it was with Lottie, so it made sense. In the kitchen, the phone rang.

“Hick!” Lottie said in a hushed, stricken voice. Her unnaturally violet eyes brimmed with tears. “'I want you to know Clint's hosted the first hour of the
Grand Ole Opry
seventeen times, and I mean the first hour that's broadcast, too, not the one that warms everybody up. Not even George has done that.”

“She's not doing it,” Grace said.

“How do you spell Clint?” Katie asked.

“Katie, enough. And Lottie, would you
please
get that phone?”

Grace waited while Lottie stalked out of the room, muttering about personal maid service.

“Remember that girl Mommy told you was her friend when she was in high school?"

Katie shook her head.

Grace reached around Katie to rifle through the desk.

“We haven’t gotten a pumpkin and you promised. We never do anything.”

Novels made it look easy. Heroines, they had a kid, they had problems, the kid got farmed out for long stretches, just dropped conveniently out of the story, while the heroine—always taller and skinnier than real life, too, it wasn’t right—got herself out of trouble in some plucky way and came back to the kid and the kid was relaxed and happy and clueless about how close her mom had come to being turned into roadkill.

“Nothing fun. I’m just a little kid. I’m supposed to have fun.”

“You’re having a party Saturday.”

From the kitchen, Lottie sneezed and trilled into the phone,“Hello? Helllooo?”

“And no goodie bags ready yet either. None. Not one.”

“Oh, good, here.” Grace pulled out her address book and started thumbing through it. It was slow going. Somehow, she’d mixed up the
R’s
with the
S’s
. “Well, Mommy had a friend named Annie and she grew up and got married, and they had a kid and he lives on a farm in Iowa and that's who you can send your drawing to. And you can tell me what to say, if you want, and I’ll write it down.”

“And a costume. You said you’d make one this year. You promised.”

Grace had. Months ago it sounded like a fine idea, she just couldn’t remember why
.
In the kitchen, Lottie banged down the phone, cursing.