“Mrs. Cox and Mrs. Batten?” Charles squinted. “Our … neighbors? The ones you called me about yesterday?”
She turned her head toward the fridge, giving him her crooked ponytail.
He laughed. “Do you really call them by their last names? They’re our age.”
She placed the vase of flowers on the island. Several of them drooped over immediately, nearly kissing the marble surface. “They don’t seem our age,” Joanna said. “They seem … different.”
“Maybe you’re not giving them enough of a chance.”
Her expression became wounded, then beseeching. The look.
“What?” Charles implored, suddenly exhausted.
She turned her head toward the refrigerator and said something very softly. It sounded like, “So I’m the pathetic one then.” And then, after inaudible mutters, something like, “Banana bread.”
“Huh?” Charles said, growing more and more perturbed.
She walked back to the couch, reached for her wine, and took another sip. “Nothing. Forget it.”
He waited. The television flickered against her face. It showed a commercial for Gatorade, three long-limbed basketball players spinning and dunking. “Scott’s working at a sneaker shop,” Joanna said.
Charles cocked his head. This conversation was making him a little nauseous. “Scott … my brother?”
“Uh-huh. Helping out a friend or something.”
“How do you know that?”
She picked at her nails. “I saw him at the grocery store, La Marquette. We had coffee.”
Charles shifted his weight. “Well, aren’t you two buddy-buddy.”
Joanna folded her hands, matching his stare. What was she driving at? Look at me. I can have a civilized conversation with your brother and you can’t?
“So is this sneaker store he’s working at like a Sports Authority?” Charles asked after a while.
“Not exactly,” Joanna answered. “It sells limited edition stuff. Everything’s high end.”
“Sneakers can be high end?”
“Sure. It’s kind of a city thing.”
“Ah.” City. This basically shut Charles out of knowing or understanding anything about it. “And how do you know so much?” he asked her.
She let out a huffy, indignant smirk. “It’s not like it’s a secret.”
He bristled and turned away. Joanna always had an inside track to things that had flown straight over his head—music, old foreign films, indie artists, fashion trends. “You’ve never seen Kill Pussycat, Kill!?” she’d say, and off they’d go to the video store to rent it. “You’ve never heard anything by the Velvet Underground?” she’d exclaim, and she would pull out her large, zippered case of old CDs and play What Goes On. But as time passed, the exclamations sounded more like disgusted accusations. Once, Charles even groaned and said, “No, I’ve never seen any of the Dirty Harry movies. It’s amazing I’ve got testosterone in my veins. It’s incredible that my brain hasn’t exploded.” She had stared at him, stunned—it had probably been the first time he’d raised his voice at her—and then shrugged and backed off. Those kinds of comments waned after that.
He turned back. “It could be a drug front, you know.”
She pushed her hair out of her eyes. “What could?”
“The sneaker store Scott’s friend owns. It’s in an alley? They sell high-end sneakers? Come on. They’re probably selling meth in the back room.”
A wrinkle formed on the bridge of Joanna’s nose. Now it was her turn to look naive. Charles held her gaze, hoping she wouldn’t call his bluff. She turned away and stared at the television. Now it was a commercial for a company that paid cash for old gold jewelry. “Nice,” she whispered sarcastically, looking at Charles out of the corner of her eye.
Charles placed his hands on his head and swiveled around to face the kitchen. What the hell was happening? Why were they arguing? And why were they talking about Scott? There was no way he could mention Bronwyn now, not in this tense room.
“We should go out,” he announced.
She didn’t take her eyes off the television. “Out?”
“Let’s go get a drink.”
“A drink?”
“Sure,” he said. “There’s that Italian place a couple miles from here we’ve never tried. I think they have a bar.”
She gestured toward the window. “It’s pouring.”
“So? You told me before we never go out. And that you didn’t want to be the one to always suggest it. Well, now I’m suggesting it.”
He could take her somewhere quiet and explain the uncomfortable bind he was in, the person he was being asked to interview. I’ve tried to get out of it, but Jake wants me to do it. But, I mean, she’s living without plumbing and electricity. I won’t have anything to say to her. You have no reason to be jealous.
“All right,” she said, setting her wineglass on the coffee table. “There must be an umbrella in one of these boxes.”