John Lutz - Spark

As he turned his ancient Olds convertible onto Golden Drive, Carver saw that the houses, like the orange trees, were all exactly the same height, the same distance apart. They were single-story ranch houses with attached double garages, shallow-pitched roofs with air-conditioning units on top, small porches, and bay windows in what were probably the dining rooms. Some of the garages were on the right, some on the left; that seemed the only difference in the houses other than color. And though colors varied, most of the clapboard-and-stucco structures were painted in pastels, with blue and pink predominating. The shingled roofs were all pale gray to reflect the sun. Most of the yards were a combination of lawn and colored gravel, and most had palms and decorative citrus trees growing in them. There were occasional lawn ornaments, from artificial flamingos and miniature windmills to religious icons. Carver drove along the flat, smooth pavement to K Street, then went east until he reached Pelican Lane, where Hattie Evans lived and grieved.

After checking house numbers, he turned right. There wasn’t another car in sight, except occasionally in the shadows of garages whose doors had been left open. The heat and lack of shade made it vehicular brutality to park a car outside in the driveway or street. There were golf carts hooked up to chargers in some of the garages. Solartown’s billboard had boasted of a golf course as well as a restaurant, community entertainment center, and medical facilities. One could eat, golf, and play bocce ball and never leave here right through to the end.

The way Jerome Evans had.

Carver squinted through the windshield to make sure the address number on the pale-blue house was Hattie’s, then parked the Olds in the driveway. The canvas top had been up and the air conditioner blasting and it was cool in the car. When he got out and stood supported by his cane, the heat attacked him as if he’d just flung open a blast furnace door. It was the curse of air-conditioning, he decided, that when you left it the heat was doubly vicious, as if trying to make you suffer for your temporary escape.

The Olds’s big engine, hot from the drive, ticked in the sun as he limped up the driveway to the small concrete porch and pressed the doorbell button with his cane. Inside the house, barely audible, Westminster chimes imitated Big Ben half a world away in a cooler clime.

After a few searing minutes even in the shade of the jutting porch roof, the door, a slightly darker blue than the rest of the house, eased open and Hattie Evans stared out at Carver.

She said, “Have you found out anything?”

“Found my way here,” Carver said. He limped past her, in from the heat. “Sun’s tough on us baldheaded guys.”

She closed the door. “I know. My Jerome lost most of his hair twenty years ago. Virile men lose their hair earliest in life.”

“That’s absolutely true,” Carver said, catching a sweet whiff of roses and thinking about his conversation with Beth that morning, wondering fleetingly about Hattie Evans.

He was in a small but well-furnished living room. The furniture was light oak and teak. There was a low, cream-colored sofa, a matching Lazy-Boy recliner with its footrest raised. In one corner was a tall display cabinet full of plates, not the collector kind with Norman Rockwell scenes, or likenesses of John Wayne or Elvis, but mismatched dinner and luncheon plates of elegant designs and patterns. On another wall was a bleached wood entertainment center that contained mostly books and framed photographs, but also a television with a cable box on top. It was cool in the living room. Felt good.

Hattie said, “Baby oil.”

“Pardon?”

“Try baby oil on your bald head,” she said. “It’s good for one end and the other. Keeps you from getting sore when you’re outside in the sun. Jerome used it and hardly ever wore a hat. You couldn’t get that man in a hat any sooner than you could get him to wear a tie.” The hard, handsome lines of her face softened as she remembered her husband.

Through the window, Carver saw a big blue Lincoln pass like a mirage in the sun-washed street. It hadn’t made a sound, and he found himself surprised he’d seen it, almost wondering if it had been real. He said, “Not much goes on around here, does it, Hattie?”

“Not out where it can be seen, anyway. This is a retirement community, so the people who run it don’t encourage children or any kind of raucous behavior. A buyer has to be at least fifty-five years old to become a home or condo owner in Solartown, and the presence of children is definitely discouraged, even as guests.”

“You sound as if you disagree with that policy,” Carver said.

Hattie smiled sadly. “I wouldn’t mind it if some nice young couple with children moved in next door. On the other hand, I understand why some residents want their hard-earned peace to remain undisturbed.”

Until it merges with the peace of the grave, Carver thought, then chastised himself for being morbid.

“Contrary to what some people might believe,” Hattie said, “retired schoolteachers miss children.”

Carver shifted his weight more heavily over his cane and nodded. He’d have thought otherwise.

“I’ve forgotten my manners,” Hattie said, as if surprised. “Please sit down, Mr. Carver, and I’ll prepare some cool drinks. We-I have orange juice, grapefruit juice. Pepsi-Cola if you don’t mind diet.”

“Nothing, thanks,” Carver said, not moving to sit down. “What I’d really like is for you to come with me in my car and show me around Solartown.”

“If you’re going to continue standing there leaving a dent in the carpet from the tip of your cane, then let’s go.”

She was already moving toward the door, a woman of decision and action.

Properly chastised, Carver followed.

“What exactly do you want to see?” she asked, pausing at a closet near the door to get a navy-blue pillbox hat and plunk it on her head. Carver wondered if she wore hats because her hair was thinning.

“Oh, I just want a general view of things. So I can get a feel for the place.”

“Very good, Mr. Carver.” Her tone suggested she was voicing approval of his preparation for a test.

Maybe that was how she meant it exactly.

Hattie sat on the passenger side of the Olds’s wide front seat while Carver drove. She directed him along streets with names like Reward Lane, Restful Avenue, Pension Drive. They were the north-south streets. The streets that ran east and west were lettered alphabetically.

After weaving among side streets with their middle-class, attractive but monotonous pastel houses, navigator Hattie directed Carver south on Golden Drive. They rolled past Z Street and beyond A South, B South, all the way past M South, where Golden was divided by a grassy median and widened to run toward a complex of low beige brick buildings.

“That’s the community center,” Hattie said. “Want to stop and look it over?”

Carver parked in front of a clean beige structure with RECREATION CENTER lettered in gold on a dark-brown sign. “Lead on,” he said, turning off the engine.

She did.

He limped behind Hattie into the cool rec center. A few feet inside the glazed-glass double doors was a bulletin board with notices pinned to it announcing schedules for weaving, flower arrangement, exercise classes, literary discussion groups, swimming parties, a golf and tennis tournament. There was also a smattering of 3 ? 5 cards advertising cars, golf carts, and household items for sale.

Hattie smiled and nodded hello to several gray-haired women as she led Carver along a wide, cool central corridor, past a small and busy bowling alley, past windows overlooking an Olympic-size pool where half a dozen older men and women were splashing about like kids, beyond rooms where various arts and crafts classes were in progress. Near the back of the center they stood at a floor-to-ceiling window and looked out at tennis courts, and beyond them a well-tended eighteen-hole golf course. Two golfers were jouncing on a yellow golf cart toward a distant green. On the third green, not far from where Hattie and Carver stood, a pudgy man in checked pants and a tight red pullover stood very still and studied a six-foot putt. Carver and Hattie were silent, as if their voices might disturb the golfer even at this distance and behind glass. Finally he tapped the ball neatly into the cup. Carver thought he should enter the tournament.