THE SNOW IS accumulating quickly. He has carried Gorbachev’s head out with him. Finally, it is empty; all the vodka has been drunk. Elliot wants to return it to the Rickeys’ house, where it belongs. With so much snow, the walk is slippery. There is little moonlight. He is on his own.
When Elliot looks behind him, his footprints are already covered. It is as if he is the first one to walk here, ever. He imagines it. Pausing, he looks back at his own house, dark again. What would the first person to see it think? Would he think there was love inside? Would he believe how much had been risked there? Gorbachev’s head feels light in his arms. Like a blanket, like an infant. He raises it above his own head and slips it on, letting it settle over his head, resting on his shoulders. Like a cocoon, Elliot thinks. It is so silent inside that he can hear his own breath, his own heartbeat, even the blood pulsing in his veins. He stands there and listens. He listens hard.
NEW PEOPLE
MARJORIE MACOMBER IS stretched out on a chaise lounge in her backyard, eyeing the new boy her husband hired to take care of the lawn. She is wet with Hawaiian Tropic suntan oil; she is pretending to read a home decorating magazine; she is thinking the boy is too young, too sexy, too trashy to be here, in her yard, distracting her. His name is Justin, one of those soap opera names people give their children. He is shirtless, tanned, tattooed. He makes Marjorie nervous.
The Macombers live in a big white house with stone pillars in the front that was built back in the forties. Some of the neighbors—like the O’Haras next door—have divided up their large lots and sold them off so that now new slapped-together houses are wedged in between the older, better homes. Marjorie has a burning distaste for these new people and their boxy houses. They have come in and ruined the neighborhood, which used to be quiet and friendly, the kind of place where neighbors got together for barbecues in summer or skating parties in winter—and even the pond has been filled in and sold; there’s no place to skate now. Cissy O’Hara used to babysit Marjorie’s daughter Bonnie. Bonnie used to babysit the Hummers’ three children down the street. That’s the kind of place it was. Now people move in and out, build sloppy homes, fill their yards with junk.
The yard boy is one of these new people, Marjorie knows. Her husband mentioned he lived down the street, in the Exeters’ yard, which means in a tacky little house in the part of the lot the Exeters sold off. Marjorie tries to focus on her magazine, but the boy is shearing the hedges nearby and he’s noisy about it. She watches his muscles ripple, his shoulder blades roll, and wonders what in the world Gary had been thinking when he hired someone like this. Their last gardener was a kindly old Cambodian man named Phong, who moved in and out of their yard with great quiet and grace.
The boy is, suddenly, right in front of her.
“Hey,” he says, “you know what time it is?”
Marjorie slowly lifts her sunglasses off her nose and slides them onto the top of her head.
“Almost noon,” she says, pointing to the sky.
He follows her finger with his whole body, then turns back, smiling a smart-alecky grin. “Someone up there telling you something?”
She levels a stare at him, the one that used to send Bonnie running to her room but that has no effect on this kind of boy.
“The sun is directly overhead at noon,” she tells him. She hears the condescension drip from her mouth and it makes her feel satisfied. He is a stupid, beautiful boy and she doesn’t want him in her yard.
Justin looks back at the sun and then at her. “Cool,” he says.
The shears droop like a gun from his left hand. His tattoos are sprawling and colorful—the yin and yang, a dead rock star, even a heart with a banner of roses and the name Janis written inside.
“Joplin,” the boy says, startling Marjorie. He has caught her staring at his big arms and he grins a different, slyer grin now. This boy is used to girls wanting him; he’s too cocky, too sure of himself.
“How interesting,” Marjorie says, and lowers her sunglasses, hoping he doesn’t see her hand tremble. From the safety of her Wayfarers, Marjorie takes in his face: angular, a good straight nose, full lips, and bright blue eyes. The eyes are surprising; his hair is very dark, as long as Bonnie’s, and wavy.
“So,” Justin says. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
She can smell him, all sweat and earth and male.
“No,” Marjorie manages.
From next door, there is the sound of children, splashing and squealing with delight. The people who live in the O’Haras’ yard have two or three little girls, all with tangled hair and sunburns. The children always seem to have on clothing from a Disney movie—a Pocohantas tee shirt, IOI Dalmations bathing suit, even the pool is decorated with Lion King characters. Marjorie wonders how the O’Haras can stand having them in their yard.
Justin is still standing there, close enough that Marjorie can see the dark curly hair on his legs.
She turns the page of her magazine.