And because Ree couldn’t stop talking—it just wasn’t in her—Jeanette mopped her way down to the far end of the room.
On TV, Michaela Morgan said, “The president so far has declined to declare a state of emergency, but informed sources close to the crisis say that . . .”
Jeanette tuned her out. The new fish had raised her cuffed hands to the circling moths, and laughed when they alit.
You’ll lose that laugh in here, sister, Jeanette thought.
We all do.
4
Anton Dubcek returned home for lunch. This was customary, and though it was only twelve thirty, it was actually a late lunch by Anton’s standards—he had been hard at work since six that morning. What people didn’t understand about pool maintenance was that it was not a business for softies. You had to be driven. If you wanted to succeed in pools, you couldn’t sleep in, dreaming about blintzes and blowjobs. To stay ahead of the competition you had to stay ahead of the sun. At this point in his day, he had swept and adjusted the levels and cleaned out the filters of seven different pools, and replaced the gaskets on two pumps. He could save the remaining four appointments on his schedule for late afternoon and early evening.
In between: lunch, a short nap, a short workout, and perhaps a brief visit to Jessica Elway, the bored married chick he was currently boning. That her husband was a local Deputy Dog made it all the sweeter. Cops sat in their cars all day and snarfed donuts and got their jollies harassing black guys. Anton controlled the motherfucking waters and made money.
Anton dropped his keys in the bowl by the door and proceeded straight to the fridge to get his shake. He shifted around the soy milk, the bag of kale, the container of berries—no shake.
“Mom! Mom!” he cried out. “Where’s my shake?”
There was no answer, but he heard the television going in the living room. Anton poked his head through the open doorway. The evidence on display—television playing, empty rocks glass—suggested that Magda had retired for a snooze of her own. As much as he loved his mother, Anton knew she drank too much. It made her sloppy, and that pissed him off. Since his dad died it was Anton who paid the mortgage. Upkeep and sustenance was her end of the bargain. If he didn’t have his shakes, Anton couldn’t dominate pools the way he needed to, or excel to the maximum in his workouts, or slam a juicy ass as forcefully as the ladies wanted him to slam it.
“Mom! This is bullshit! You gotta do your part!” His voice echoed through the house.
From the cabinet under the silverware drawer he yanked out his blender, creating as much of a racket as possible as he thumped it down on the counter and pieced together jar, blade, and base. Anton dropped in a good bunch of greens, some berries, a handful of nuts, a spoonful of organic peanut butter, and a cup of Mister Ripper Protein Powder?. While he performed this assembly he found himself pondering Sheriff Lila Norcross. She was attractive for an older chick, extremely fit—a true Yummy Mummy, no donuts for her—and he liked the way she rallied when he gave her a line. Did she want him? Or did she want to commit acts of police brutality against him? Or—and this was the truly intriguing possibility—did she both want him and want to commit acts of police brutality against him? The situation bore monitoring. Anton set the blender to the highest speed and watched the mix blur. Once it was a smooth pea color, he flicked off the power, removed the jar, and headed into the living room.
And on the screen, what did you know: his old playmate Mickey Coates!
He liked Mickey, although the sight of her induced uncharacteristically melancholy feelings in the president, CEO, CFO, and sole employee of Anton the Pool Guy, LLC. Would she even remember him? His mother used to babysit her, so in their early years they had been thrust together quite a lot. Anton remembered Mickey exploring his bedroom, looking through his drawers, flipping through the comics, tossing out one inquiry after another: Who gave you this? Why is this G.I. Joe your favorite? Why don’t you have a calendar? Your dad’s an electrician, right? Do you think he’ll teach you how to do wires and stuff? Do you want him to? They must have been about eight and it was like she was planning to write his biography. That was okay, though. Good, in fact. Her interest had made Anton feel special; before that, before her, he had never even wanted someone else’s interest, had been happy just being a kid. Of course, Mickey’d gone off to private school early on, and from junior high onward they’d hardly spoken.
Probably as an adult, she was into briefcase-and-cufflink types who read the Wall Street Journal, who understood whatever the hell the appeal of opera was, who watched shows on PBS, that sort of guy. Anton shook his head. Her loss, he assured himself.
“I want to warn you that the footage you’re about to see is disturbing, and we haven’t confirmed its authenticity.”
Mickey was reporting from a seat in the rear of a news van with the door open. Beside her was a man in a headset working on a laptop. Mickey’s blue eye shadow was visibly damp. It must have been hot in the van. Her face looked different somehow. Anton took a large foamy gulp of his shake and studied her.
“However,” she continued, “in light of everything surrounding Aurora, and the rumors of adverse reactions by sleepers who have been aroused, we’ve decided to run it because it would seem to confirm that those reports are accurate. Here’s the section of footage recorded from the streaming site maintained by the self-proclaimed Bright Ones from their compound outside of Hatch, New Mexico. As you know, this militia group has been at odds with federal authorities over water rights . . .”
Good to see Mickey, but the news bored Anton. He picked up the controller and clicked over to the Cartoon Network, where an animated horse and rider were galloping through dark woods, chased by shadows. When he set the controller back on the side table he noticed the empty bottle of gin on the floor.
“Goddammit, Mom.” Anton took another gulp of shake and crossed the living room. He needed to make sure she was sleeping on her side in case of a sudden ejection; she was not going to die like a rock star on his watch.
On the kitchen counter, his cell phone chirruped. It was a text message from Jessica Elway. Now that she finally had the baby down for a nap, she planned to smoke a jay and take off her clothes and avoid the TV and the Internet, both of which were utterly freaky-bizarro today. Was Anton interested in joining her? Her poor husband was stuck at a crime scene.
5