“Sure, we can handle it,” she told him.
So there they were, saggy-middled mother and bubble-gum-limbed son, inching down the slippery ramp of the truck, their heavy wooden dining table suspended between them, both determined for different reasons to pretend that the weight of it wasn’t killing them. That the morning hadn’t added another mark in the long column of disappointments they had both suffered at the hands of Markie’s ex-husband and Jesse’s father. That lugging the rest of their heavy furniture off the truck and up the puddled walkway and through the narrow side door of the rented bungalow, on their own, in the rain, in an hour and a half, would be remotely possible.
Both pretending that, on the matter of the moving truck, just as on the matter of their life in general and their ability to function properly since Kyle left, they were “like, totally fine.”
Jesse had barely reached the level pavement of the driveway and Markie was still slipping her way precariously down the ramp when a flurry of activity and noise poured out of the side door of the house next to theirs. A tiny white-haired woman marched outside, her hand raised as though she were hailing a cab.
“Arrêtez!” she called as she stomped across her lawn toward Markie’s.
She hadn’t gotten far before two men—one older, taller, and thinner, the other younger, shorter, and wider—rushed out the door after her, quickly overtaking her. The younger one extended his hand to her, but she shooed him off with a wave and yelled, “Vas-y! Vite!” He spun away and raced ahead, joining the older man in jumping the low wooden fence that separated the two properties.
Markie craned her head slowly to look over her shoulder, curious to see what the men were running toward but aware that sudden movement could send her, the table, and her son plummeting off the ramp. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary behind her, she swiveled her head back around the other way to find that the men were now almost in her driveway, and the woman, who was easily seventy-five years old and couldn’t weigh one hundred pounds, had marched herself through a gate in the fence and was storming across Markie’s yard.
“Arrêtez!” the woman yelled again. “Stop! Put that table down maintenant! This instant!”
The table’s legs clunked hard on the ramp as Markie dropped it. Jesse let go of his end, too, and stood frozen in place, his arms raised at high right angles, hands open wide. As the woman made her way across the patio at the back of the bungalow, the two men reached the truck. The younger one—midthirties, Markie guessed—clad in faded jeans, a T-shirt, and a ball cap, approached Jesse and said something Markie couldn’t hear, and the boy shuffled sideways, hands still raised, giving up his end of the table.
“Madame,” the older man said to Markie, with a small bow. “S’il vous pla?t.”
He was dressed more for a business meeting than for racing across lawns and over fences, with pressed suit pants, a dress shirt, and polished loafers. He levered stiffly forward and arced a hand through the air toward her, as though she were a princess climbing down from a carriage, he her devoted footman. She let him help her make a clumsy jump from the top of the ramp to the ground, and when he saw she was safely deposited, he placed one foot on the ramp and stepped up as easily as though it were a distance of mere inches rather than feet.
Gripping the table, he nodded at the younger man, who nodded back, and together they trotted down the ramp, up the walkway, and into the house. The entire trip took them a fraction of the time it had taken Markie and Jesse to move halfway down the ramp. By the time the men were inside, the old woman had made her way to Jesse, and taking him by the elbow, she led him to his mother, planting him in place beside her. He scowled and rubbed his arm, but he didn’t move from his assigned spot.
From the closer vantage point, Markie could see she had been generous in her estimate of seventy-five years and one hundred pounds—she should have added ten years and subtracted as many pounds. The woman wore an expensive-looking linen suit, and diamonds flashed from her ears, collarbone, and a few fingers, making Markie wonder if part of the reason she seemed so cross was that she and her equally well-dressed husband were being kept from some important event. Before Markie could tell the woman they needn’t have disrupted their plans, a jeweled finger wagged in her face. But only barely—the tiny woman had to stretch her arm high to get it close to Markie’s chin.
“The small boxes, I was prepared to let you take,” she said in a thick French accent. “Even avec la pluie—with the rain. And then les autres petites choses—the other small things. Those lamps, the pillows, your suitcases, and the such.”
Markie and Jesse exchanged glances. It was clear their new neighbor had been watching as they unloaded the truck.
“Mais, une table?” she continued. “Et . . .” She leaned around them, peering into the truck at the couches and bed frames waiting to be carried inside. “Non. Ce n’est pas raisonnable!” She put one blue-veined hand on Markie’s arm, the other on Jesse’s, and steered them to the giant oak tree on the lawn beside the driveway. They could hear the rain pelting the canopy of leaves above, but not a drop made it through. “We will wait here,” she said, “in the underneath, and let them finish.”
Jesse seemed thrilled for the break, but Markie checked her watch and said, “I appreciate the help. I really do. But I have to get the truck back in less than an hour. So we need all hands on deck here, including the four of ours.” She indicated her hands and her son’s, and motioned for the boy to go with her to the truck. He widened his eyes in protest, and she was about to snap, “Jesse—now!” when the hand on her arm clamped more tightly.
“Non,” the woman said, with a single hard shake of her head. “This will not help. You will be getting in their way only.”
She pointed to the walkway leading to the bungalow, where the older man was practically running with Jesse’s futon mattress on his head while the younger one trotted along behind with an ottoman balanced on a TV stand. The elder worked his way into the house and was outside again, holding the screen door wide, by the time his partner reached him.
“Thanks,” the younger man said.
The other responded, “De rien,” before jogging back to the truck.