John Saul - Perfect Nightmare

Might as well be here.

Just as he was getting back into the dry prose of the blandly worded document, the harsh overhead office light went on. He looked up at the janitor who stood in the doorway, his hand on the light switch. “Sorry, sir, didn’t mean to bother you.”

Jesus Christ, can’t he see I’m working? But when he spoke, Steve did his best not to betray his annoyance. “Can you come back a little later, maybe?”

The janitor shook his head. “This is my last office. I’ll just dump your trash and be gone.”

Steve nodded toward the wastebasket. This guy didn’t look familiar. “You new?”

The man nodded. “Just started today. Didn’t mean to get in your way.” He gathered the plastic bag full of trash, dumped it in the large bin he’d left just outside the door, then replaced the plastic liner in the wastebasket. As he straightened up, his eyes fell on the framed photograph of Steve, Kara, and Lindsay at the beach that had been sitting on Steve’s desk since last summer. “This your family?”

Steve nodded, not even looking up, wishing the man would just go away.

“Nice. Very nice,” the janitor said. “Looks like Long Island.”

“It is,” Steve mumbled.

“Pretty girl,” the janitor said.

Leaning back in his chair, Steve saw that the man’s eyes were now fixed on another of the photos on his desk, this one of Lindsay in her cheerleader’s uniform.

“Very nice,” he said, so softly that Steve wasn’t sure he was even aware he’d spoken out loud. “Beautiful.”

He was about to reply when the phone rang, startling both of them. Nodding almost curtly, the janitor disappeared out the door as Steve picked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Hi, honey,” he heard Kara say, and there was something in her voice that belied her cheerful tone.

“Hi.”

“Are you coming home?”

He sighed. “I don’t see how — I’ve got too much work.”

“You promised.”

He could almost see her struggling not to sound plaintive. “I know,” he sighed. “I tried, but I’ll get out of here early tomorrow and we’ll have the whole weekend. We’ll do something — just the three of us.”

Kara was silent for a second, then: “I was hoping you could be home before Lindsay went to sleep tonight. She’s kind of upset.”

Steve sat up straight in his chair. “Upset? Why? What’s up?”

“She hurt her wrist at cheerleading practice, and then the real-estate agent was here when she got home. I think we all ought to sit down and talk. You know, like a real family?” Kara quickly added, perhaps at hearing the sarcasm in her voice, “I’m sorry — that wasn’t fair. I’m just — well, I just really wish you’d come home tonight.”

“What did the agent say?”

Kara chuckled hollowly. “You won’t like it.”

Steve looked down at the deposition. If he called a driver, he could finish it on the way home. But he couldn’t afford a driver — not with what it cost to keep the apartment. “Kara, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve got to finish this deposition tonight.”

“Okay.” Her voice was small now, and he knew she wasn’t going to argue anymore, which only made him feel worse.

“Let me see what I can do,” he finally said.

“Okay. ’Bye.”

“ ’Bye.”

He heard her say “Love you” just before he put the phone back in its cradle.

Crap!

First the damn janitor had thrown him off his concentration, and now Kara was angry at him, and he couldn’t blame her.

And Lindsay was hurt and upset, and that made his stomach churn.

And on top of everything else, he was going to hate what the agent had to say.

Enough was finally enough. He glanced down at the deposition one more time, then flipped its cover closed, turned off his desk lamp, and headed for home.

Lindsay dialed up the volume on the iPod her father had given her for her last birthday, but no matter how loud the music coming through the headphones was — even if it drowned out the argument going on downstairs — it couldn’t cover the tension that filled the house.

And it was her fault — all of it.

She grabbed a pillow and pulled her arm back to hurl it at something — anything — but the warning stab of pain in her injured wrist made her change her mind. She dropped the pillow to her chest instead and hugged it, tears of frustration stinging her eyes and clouding her vision. “Grow up,” she told herself.

The song she’d been listening to ended abruptly, and now she could hear her parents’ voices drifting up the stairwell.

Though the anger was clear, the words themselves were not. Not that it mattered; she knew perfectly well what they were arguing about.

Her.

In fact, it seemed that all they did anymore was argue. But until tonight, it had been mostly about her father’s new job, and the little apartment he had to rent in the city, and the fact that so many nights he couldn’t make it home at all.

But their argument now was focused on her, and with every angry sound she heard, she felt worse. All she wanted was for everybody to be happy, and even without hearing what they were saying, she knew that nobody in the house was happy.

She lay on her bed, listening to the muffled words as long as she could stand it. She heard her mother’s voice rising, but her father’s voice stayed steady. What’s happening? she wondered. What’s Mom yelling about? And even though part of her wanted to clamp the pillow against her ears, shutting out the sound of her parents’ argument, she knew she couldn’t.

No matter how much it hurt, she had to know what they were saying. Putting the iPod on the nightstand, Lindsay got up from the bed, opened her bedroom door and listened.

“You’re asking too much of her,” Kara said for what she was certain must be at least the third time, if not the fourth or fifth. She was perched stiffly on the edge of the couch, and could see by Steve’s expression that she looked every bit as shrill as she knew she was starting to sound. But how many times did she have to go over all this before he would actually hear her? “She’s only seventeen years old, and you’re asking her to give up everything. I know being on the cheerleading squad doesn’t mean much to you, but so what? She’s your daughter, Steve! And it’s not just cheerleading! You’re asking her to move away from all her friends — friends she’s known since kindergarten — and start all over again in a new school where she doesn’t know anybody. And it’ll be her senior year. Believe me, I remember what it was like when I was her age. The cliques are formed, and they’re rock solid. There won’t be any room for Lindsay.”

Steve spread his hands helplessly. “I don’t know what else to do,” he said, his own voice starting to rise, though not as much as hers. “There just doesn’t seem to be any other answer. We can’t afford—”

“Another year,” Kara broke in. “Let’s stay here just until she graduates.” Seeing his expression harden, her voice rose another notch. “For heaven’s sake, Steve — the real estate market is down so badly, we’d only get about three-quarters what we would have gotten a year ago, and you know as well as I do that even though the market’s dropped out here, it hasn’t in Manhattan. We’ll be lucky if we can afford a tiny little two bedroom, and you better believe it won’t have more than one bath!”

Steve shook his head and picked up the glass that sat on the table next to his chair, downing the last of the scotch in a single gulp. “We’ve been over the numbers, Kara,” he said, his voice taking on a steely edge. “We can’t afford to keep this house and pay for the apartment, too. We have to get a place in the city that’s big enough for all three of us.”