“Sure,” he said. He glanced at the upper floor of the house, where he could see a light on. “My dad around?”
“You still filming out in the sticks?” Michael asked his dad. They were sitting at the kitchen table, having some pie. The tree lights shone from the living room, where Alice slept on the couch. Michael realized he’d forgotten to take off the “MY NAME IS Alice” sticker they’d given her at the police station. It had been nearly six months since Michael had seen his dad. The last time, they’d had a fight in the driveway over his keys, which his dad had taken. Darnell had pinned him against his truck after Michael punched him. The cops came out but his dad, mindful of Michael’s probation, told them there had been a simple misunderstanding. The cops made notes with weary indifference. A little later, his dad, icing a welt below his eye, even made the cops coffee in the kitchen to make up for the trouble.
“On the set out in Marfa during the week and here on the weekends,” his dad said. “Same old, same old.” He looked at Michael’s shaking hands on the kitchen table until Michael put them in his lap. Michael had helped his dad with movie props in his workshop when he was younger, his dad’s hands guiding his, sliding four-by-sixes along the table saw. For one movie, they’d built a 1930s replica of an old Lucky Strike cigarettes sign that welcomed baseball fans.
“Thought you might retire, with the baby coming and all,” Michael said.
“They’ll have to pry the props from my cold, stiff hands,” his dad said. He grinned.
Margo came into the kitchen, leaned over Darnell, and cut a slice of pie. “The new movie’s a murder mystery,” Margo said. “Your dad’s an extra.”
“No shit?” Michael said absently.
“Credited as ‘Guy Peeping in Window,’ ” his dad said, cutting another piece of pie.
“He hardly has to act at all,” Margo said.
Darnell stood up, walked behind Margo, and kissed the top of her head. “The plot is so goddamned complicated. Doubt the writers know who the murderer is. Might end up being me.”
Margo’s mother, Olive, eased her way through the living room toward the kitchen. She was eighty-six, nearly blind, and suffering from dementia. With the fingers of her left hand she followed the wood trim along the wall, pacing herself until she came on Alice asleep on the couch. She seemed confused. Michael wondered if Margo’s mother knew where she was. Whose house? What year? Was this her daughter?
Michael got up from the table and said hello, took the old woman’s hand. She looked at him and smiled. Touched his face. “Are you from the planet of men?” she asked.
“See? Mother recognizes you,” Margo said.
Michael knew that Margo’s mother had been in the movies, like Margo’s dad. She’d been a Miss Texas runner-up in her late teens. “Quite the looker,” Margo had said. “Leggy and quick-eyed.” Just after World War II and before she met Margo’s dad, Olive appeared in some Italian films and was even courted by a former Italian submarine commander. “Should have taken that offer,” Margo had said. “Mussolini had softened him up.” Later, back in America, she had small parts in B movies. Science fiction mostly. The Unearthly, and Queen of Outer Space with Zsa Zsa Gabor. They’d watched them on video. Michael remembered the space queen wearing a glittery harlequin mask because she’d been horribly disfigured by radiation burns. They recycled all the props from earlier movies like Forbidden Planet, his dad said, so everything supposedly otherworldly seemed tawdry and familiar.
“Sure, she recognizes him,” Darnell said, nodding at Michael. “He’s from the planet of men.”
“Shush,” Margo said.
Margo walked over and took her mother gently by the elbow, walked her to the table, eased her down in a chair. Olive’s movements seem to take an eternity, as if each film cell was advancing one by one.
“How did you get past our sentries?” Olive asked Michael.
“They just opened the door,” Michael said, smiling stupidly.
Olive seemed to run this over in her mind.
“Mother, would you like some pie? It’s mincemeat.”
“Is that child yours?” Olive asked Michael, glancing at the couch where Alice slept with her mouth open.
“Yes. That’s Alice,” Michael said.
“My daughter has conceived,” Olive said. She had an excited, perplexed look on her face. She looked at Margo, and Margo smiled, putting a hand to her belly. Olive said, “No one knows how it happened.”
“We have our suspicions,” Darnell said, winking, handing Michael a cup of coffee.
Olive leaned in toward Michael. She narrowed her eyes at him. “Do you know what it is to be a woman?”
Michael shook his head.
“It means to be filled up inside yourself but to always feel empty.”
“Ah,” Michael said. He looked over at Margo, who was staring at Alice, worry darkening her face.