Son of Destruction

14




Nenna


Crazy, but when the doorbell chimed I thought, What if it’s Bobby? A nice man to hang out with when Davis goes. Not that I’m sure he is. Going, I mean. We haven’t sat down over the details, but when I walked back from work last week, my mind ran along ahead and by the time I collapsed at home, I knew.

I can do this!

Five whole miles, and I only stopped once. I’m stronger than you think.

I know it’s Bobby out front. A woman would phone ahead. It wouldn’t be half bad, walking into Patty’s engagement party on Bobby’s arm. One look and they’d all know without me having to explain. I can ask him in and make a fuss over him, and Davis McCall, who’s out in the car somewhere sulking, well, Davis can go to hell.

But my face! All dressed up, with my face all naked and smeared with grief. After days of not speaking, Davis picked today to have the fight. Frankly, life was a lot more tolerable when we weren’t speaking, but these things have to be done.

I’ve been putting it off for months. What with parties and Steffy and my job and a hundred dozen household things, I don’t have the time. I thought we might hash it out this summer when everything slows down, so I have to wonder. Did Davis plant that phone bill to smoke me out? Tomorrow, I kept telling myself, tomorrow we’ll start, but we didn’t. Then God cursed me with an empty afternoon – two clients canceled, no new houses to list. With Davis home early on Fridays and Steffy safely off at Busch Gardens, I walked right into it.

He let me have it before I got in the door. ‘OK, Nenna. I’m done.’

All the blood rushed to my head. ‘That’s all you have to say?’

‘I’m not spending the rest of my life on that sofa.’

Push leads to shove; I shouted, ‘Then you’re not spending it here!’

Crafty Davis, leading me on. ‘You want me to move out?’

‘I don’t know what I want!’

God damn Davis, he lit up like it was Christmas morning. ‘Great, I’ll need the weekend to pack. Do you want to me to pick up cartons or can I borrow the roller bags?’

I’m glad Steffy crashed into the kitchen just then, before I screamed at him. She thumped through the Florida room in a panic, calling, ‘Mom?’ like the world was ending. ‘Dad?’ She tumbled into the living room with her hair gone wild and when she saw us facing off, all hostile and stony, she stopped cold, and I can’t tell if she was disappointed, or just surprised. ‘Oh! You’re all right.’

‘Steffy!’ And we tried so hard to keep her out of this. ‘Honey, of course we are.’

‘I was so scared!’

She looked so stricken that, forgive me, I yelled at her. ‘Well, get a grip!’

And God damn Davis, he just blinked, sticky sweet and bland as custard pie. ‘Scared, honey? Tell Daddy what you’re afraid of.’

What do you think she’s afraid of, you sniveling cheat. I was furious at Davis, but that’s not who I hurt. ‘Go upstairs and get decent. You look like shit!’ She ran out sobbing even though I called after her, trying to make it right. ‘I bought you a great dress. Carter’s coming to the party, Sallie made him swear.’

Now she’s upstairs, crying in the tub.

Davis let loose as soon as she cleared the room. At least she didn’t have to hear her dad swearing and slamming as he stomped out through the Florida room and drove away. That’s the beauty of central air. We’re sealed up tight against heat and street noises and outside interference of any kind.

Except Bobby, waiting for somebody to answer the bell. I have to wipe my hand across my face and go to the door with a smile. Live in this town long enough and you learn how to do that in seconds, bump up the rheostat so nobody knows what just happened or how bad it was, and I will be charming. ‘Bobby?’

‘No Ma’am.’ Who is this lovely man? Look at him! Good-looking in a blurred, messed-up kind of way, with such a hopeful grin that you just know he’s OK. I come to the door a walking shipwreck, and here he is on my doorstep, like a gift. ‘Mrs McCall?’

‘Nenna. It’s short for Genevieve.’ As if we’re already friends.

‘I’m Dan. Your daughter left her backpack and I . . .’ He hands it off like a calling card.

‘Oh, you must be from the school.’

He takes a little bit too long to answer but that’s OK, the poor thing is so rumpled and sweaty that his day was probably worse than mine. ‘I’m new. She left her bag at the . . . Um.’

‘Bus.’

‘Anyway, here it is.’ And here he is, lingering.

OK, so am I. ‘Well, thanks! She’d thank you herself, but she’s in the tub.’

‘Tell her I said hi.’ On any other day I’d close the door and that would be it, but he’s the first nice thing that’s happened in a week of terrible things. Besides, he’s so attractive and hopeful, leaning into our lovely, cool house, yearning – sort of like me, looking for inspiration in decorators’ model rooms.

‘She’ll be down in a minute. Come on in, you look dead beat.’

I park him in the Florida room with the kitchen island between us, although he’s way too flustered and grateful to try anything. I duck behind the fridge door so he won’t catch me smoothing my lipstick and fluffing up my hair. Then I fix two iced teas with crushed mint and sugar on the rims. He’s not the only one who needs a lift. When Davis comes back and I’m sitting here sweet as Jesus, laughing and talking to a new man, he’ll have to re-think the awful things he said at the end.

The trouble is, we aren’t what you’d call talking. He’s cradling that glass like a Magic Eight Ball, you know, if he stares long enough, the right answer will float to the top.

‘How long have you been at Fort Jude High?’

‘Um. I just got in today.’

‘New teacher?’

‘Not really.’ Why does he look embarrassed? ‘I’m um. I’m a reporter?’

‘Oh. I thought you were from the school.’

‘No Ma’am.’

‘Nenna.’

‘Nenna. For the Los Angeles Times? Here’s my press pass. I’m here on a story.’

‘Oh.’ I can’t read a damn thing without my glasses, so I pretend. ‘Writing up the school trip to Busch Gardens?’

‘Not really.’

‘Then where did you get Steffy’s . . .’

‘I knew she’d want it back, and I thought maybe you’d do me a favor. There’s this other thing I’m trying to . . .’

‘Favor?’

‘Look, Nenna. I need your help.’ He pulls out a snapshot that’s way too faded to read. ‘I was looking for this house?’

‘House.’ The thing’s a blur but I’d rather die than go groping for my bifocals, that’s such an old lady thing, and now that he’s here, I’m working my way back to being young, and if he wants to . . . Stranger things have happened. ‘What are you looking to find?’

‘It’s hard to explain. Um. My mother was from here?’ He’s doing that kid thing where the voice goes up in a little hook at the end. ‘Lucy. Lucy Carteret?’

God. ‘She’s your mother?’

‘Was.’

My God. ‘Oh!’

‘She died.’

I know! ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Did you know her?’

I should be saying, Know her, I went to school with her, but oh, this is so stupid, pretending I couldn’t be anything like that old. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Yeah. Me too. Well, thanks anyway.’ He has such a nice smile!

‘Don’t go.’ I put two fingers on his wrist. Oh, this is embarrassing. Me, flirting with Lucy’s son but he’s so . . . I don’t want to be old!

‘Pink, much?’ Before anything else can happen, Steffy blunders in, twirling her skirt. ‘I look like a f*cking shrimp.’

That ruffled dress looked much nicer on the dummy at Norma Jean’s Boutique and I go all Mom on her, instead of whatever I thought I was when it was just us together, him and me. ‘Don’t use that word in this house.’

Oh, she is scornful; she hasn’t seen him yet. ‘Or a f*cking Barbie doll.’

Sweet man, he intervenes. ‘Hey Steff, I brought your backpack.’

‘You!’ She’s embarrassed – or something. ‘You told my mom?’

‘I would never do that.’

‘Told me what?’ I’m too distracted to follow up because I hear Davis rattling around in the breezeway, just back from wherever he went to sulk, the rat. I’m hurting so bad that I want him to come in on the two of us sitting close on the sofa, me and my new man. Then he’ll know who’s sexy, eat your heart out, you son of a bitch.

Steffy scoops up her backpack, glaring. ‘You didn’t say any . . .’

Something passes between her and this Dan Carteret but there are so many particles piled up in the room by now that I can’t read what he’s telling her when he says, ‘Nope.’

It’s the proximity – his young, lean body sitting this close to mine, and everything – the way my body feels this minute, how hard it was with Davis and how long it’s been – all piles up in me and meanwhile my girl Steffy stands there posing in the archway with her head lifted and wet lips like a model for something you want but are afraid to buy and then, damn, she gives me The Look! I saw it coming the day she was born, I just didn’t know it would be so soon: Now I’m the fairest in the land, and I have to be hard as nails.

‘Go upstairs and don’t come back until you find the right shoes.’ Meanwhile Davis slams the door and goes roaring off in that rattletrap without saying yes, aye or no, so much for that. He hates all these parties, he always has; God knows if he’ll even bother to come, and I’m damn well not going alone.

So I block what I’m thinking: Lucy’s son, and I say, all casual, ‘Want to come to this party with us?’

‘I’m sorry I . . .’

‘Come on, Steff and I would be thrilled.’ Then, my God, I take his hands. Did Davis see us together after all, and that’s why he burned rubber getting away? ‘Tout Fort Jude will be there, so no matter what you’re looking for, somebody at the party’s bound to know.’

‘I couldn’t.’ He shrugs, stirring up the gators on his tacky tourist shirt. ‘Not like this.’

‘Oh, no problem, Davis has plenty of jackets. You’ll need one from before he porked up.’ I sit there, willing him. ‘Hot hors d’oeuvres and an open bar.’

‘I’m sorry, I . . .’

‘And dinner.’ I was thinking, He doesn’t look like Lucy at all.

Then he got up. ‘I can’t. There’s this thing I have to do.’