Ava and Sylvia held on to each other as they walked from the car to JJ’s house. Puddles of standing water from the early morning rain dotted the red clay yard.
“Step on the pieces of board, Mama,” Ava said as she steered her mother away from the slick mud.
“Look at this swamp. Somebody could break their neck out here,” Sylvia said.
Jay waited for them at the unstained open door. “Sorry. It rained before I could get the stepping-stones in.”
Sylvia entered the house behind Ava. The ride up the mountain she prepared herself to see what Jay had created. A fist tightened in her chest at the prospect of his beautiful house rising in front of her, a dream conjured from the ground itself. What she would not admit even to herself was that she was jealous. Jay Ferguson and his house advanced the cause, credited the race, as they used to say. Why then was the gnawing, the hollowness eating her from the inside out?
Sylvia stood in the empty foyer big enough for a reception table. Sparkling clean windows along the front of the house still had their maker’s stickers on their faces. What in the world, Sylvia thought as she walked to the staircase and silently took it all in.
“Come in the living room,” Jay said.
Jay waited by the slate fireplace as Sylvia removed her shoes.
“What do you think, Mama?” Ava asked.
“It’s nice. A nice house,” Sylvia said.
Ava glanced at Sylvia, a quizzical expression on her face.
“I’m so glad you’re here.” Jay smiled at her, a boy wanting her approval.
Ava cut her eyes to Jay, and they grinned at each other. Sylvia saw them hold each other’s glances, schoolchildren keeping a secret. They had connected before. That much was clear to Sylvia now. She settled into a folding chair.
“I’ve been living like a turtle, Sylvia. Can you believe a grown man and I don’t own a real chair?”
The three of them looked around the room, imagining the space. Oh the television shows and magazines that tried to convince us that our rooms, lamps, and throw pillows are all windows into our truest inner selves. What a crock! If nothing else Jay’s rooms proved to Sylvia that anything looked beautiful—even folding chairs—surrounded by enough money. The fact was a chapter of a life story Sylvia knew by heart.
“Take your time, JJ. Get just what you want,” Sylvia said.
Jay smiled at Sylvia, then at Ava. He had waited for this very moment and it had happened. Sylvia couldn’t help but feel some of his joy. Not many people get a taste of that feeling—getting just what you want just when you need it.
“Want to see your house?” Jay pointed to the deck.
“I do,” Ava said.
Sylvia shook her head and motioned for the two of them to go on. The folding chair groaned at her weight. Folding chairs were designed to be portable pain, and this one did not disappoint. Sylvia gave up and eased herself up from the seat, cradled her purse on her belly like the old ladies she had made fun of back in the day. Those old ladies with their boxy pocketbooks shoved under their iron grips secured themselves from the snatchers of the world. Sylvia shifted to get another view of the room. When she moved into her own house she had felt such pride. She had not had to scrub and clean or paint or make do with nasty and old rooms that would never be more than nasty and old until the transformative power of money took hold. What she would have done with all this house she could not begin to imagine.
Ava and Jay stood together in the middle of the unfinished deck. Sylvia stood up to watch them. Jay circled his arm on Ava’s shoulder and drew her closer. Ava did not hug him back, did not rest her head on his arm, but Sylvia saw her body give for him and ease into the hollow place of his so that they stood as one unit, no daylight between them and not two people at all. Sylvia couldn’t hear if they spoke to each other.
“Ava,” Sylvia said as she opened the door to the deck. “I need to go. Come on.”
“What’s wrong, Mama?” Ava said.
“I’m just ready,” Sylvia said as she stared from Jay to Ava and then back to Jay. “I have no business here. Let me get home.”
“At least look around. That’s why you came,” Ava said.
Sylva looked out over the valley. She could see for what seemed like miles into the town, though none of the houses was recognizable. What the lights must look like at night from this height.
“Come here, look right there.” Jay pointed. “There’s your roof, the greenish-gray one. See?” Jay pointed to a clump of trees.
If Sylvia used the full capacity of her imagination, she thought she might see the smallest sliver of a roof. “I’ll take your word for it,” Sylvia said.
“You know what?” Ava began. “You should get Mama to help you pick out plants.”
“That’s right, Sylvia.” Jay turned to face her. “I could use your help out there.”
“I doubt that,” Sylvia said. She was embarrassed that they were trying to include her, like she was a child. “Don’t put me in this,” Sylvia said. Jay glanced at Ava, a little panic on his face. Good, Sylvia thought. They should be scared out of their damn minds.
Ava was sharing a bed with Jay. Here it was all out in the open. In Sylvia’s youth even the men you desired, hell, even the men you married, you kept at the edge of your feeling. Ensnare them with the prospect of an abundant sexual life, sure, but frustrate them with only glimpses of it. Do this and (better said) be the first to do this to your man and you can control him for the next thirty years. But under no circumstances do you believe your desire, your stupid fallible body. Every good girl and even the pretty-good girls knew this. Follow the code, keep your legs closed, and in return you might keep him or at the very least you might not have to live under the burning gaze of shame.
“Let me show you the downstairs. Five minutes, okay?” Jay said.
“Okay, be quick,” Sylvia said, not sure why she didn’t run as fast as she could.
“On the other side is the dining room.” Jay pointed it out as they walked—the docent in his personal museum. “The family room is down here.”
“Jay, do you mind if I lie down on your bed? I’ve got a little headache,” Ava said.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Go ahead with Mama.”
Sylvia followed Jay down the stairs in the back of the house. A large space almost the size of her entire house opened up in front of her.
Jay flipped a switch and the gas fireplace and flame burst into life like a magic trick. Sylvia jumped.
“What are you doing?”
“Oh sorry, I wanted to show you the fireplace.”
“Does the one upstairs do that too?”
Jay nodded to her a little sadly she thought.
Sylvia ran her fingers along the cool slate of the fireplace. In the house she’d known as a child they’d had a woodstove in the back where the children slept. The different weathers of the house—arctic kitchen at the front of the house to dry smothering desert of the big open room at the back—were like different geographic zones of the globe. So much can happen in just a few short years.