Джонатан Троппер - This Is Where I Leave You

“That was a long time ago, Horry. You weren’t yourself.”

He nods and blows his smoke out into the night, watching it dissipate in the amber glow of the streetlight. “I’m still not,” he says.

Iam having sex with Jen. She bucks and writhes under me, her hips rising up hard against mine. Her nails slice my back; her fingers grab my ass and then slide down my thigh to where my leg ends at midcalf in a hard, creased stump. But it’s not me, it’s Wade lying on top of Jen, and I’m sitting on the reading chair by the window, watching them go at it while I pull at the worn straps of my prosthesis, trying to strap it on so that I can get the hell out of there. And now it’s me again, lying in the smooth delta of Jen’s opened thighs, but it’s no longer Jen, it’s Penny Moore, and I’ve got both of my legs again, and Penny’s got her legs wrapped around me, and she’s biting down on my earlobe as she moans, and it’s actually feeling pretty good. Then, from behind me, a low guttural growl, and when I turn, I see the rottweiler, with the tattered threads of Paul’s red T-shirt still hanging from his teeth, alongside a thick chain of white drool. And when I turn back to Penny, she’s Chelsea, Phillip’s old girlfriend, and I’ve got one leg again, and the dog is crouching, getting ready to attack, and no matter how much I try to pull out of Chelsea, she just keeps rocking her hips and licking her lips. And then the rottweiler is upon us, and I can smell his feral scent and feel the crush of his jaws on the back of my neck, and I’m sandwiched between Phillip’s old girlfriend and a vicious rottweiler and I’ve got one and a half legs and this is not any way to die. And just as I feel the searing pain of the dog’s teeth sinking into the skin of my neck, my shout fills the basement and I wake up shivering violently in my own sweat.

It’s like Stephen King is writing my dreams in to Penthouse Forum .

The lights go out again while I’m in the shower. When I step out into the basement, Alice is at the electrical panel again in her bathrobe. “We must stop meeting like this,” she says.

“This house sucks,” I say.

Alice smiles. “Which one is it, again?”

“I think it was number fourteen.”

“I can’t see the numbers.”

I go over to her, holding my towel in place with one hand.

“You smell like a little boy.”

“They’ve only got baby shampoo down here.”

“I love that smell.” She leans back against me, breathing deeply. “The smell of a clean baby.”

“Yes. Well . . .” Her own hair is freshly shampooed and has that clean, blow-dried smell, like baked honey, and that, combined with the sheer fabric of her bathrobe and my highly sensitized libido, makes for an awkward family moment. “I’ll have to find a new manly fragrance when I start dating again.”

“Oh, right,” she says, turning around to face me. “We haven’t really talked about that. How are you doing, Judd?”

“I’m fine.” I need to curtail this conversation for reasons both emotional and anatomical. “Here it is.” I lean past her to flip a breaker. The lights don’t go back on, but from upstairs, we can hear Paul yelling, “Who’s dicking around with the damn lights?!”

Alice chuckles and turns around to flip it back. “Paul signs the payroll while he’s on the toilet.”

“Two turds with one stone.”

She laughs and flips another switch. The lights come back on. “Let there be light.”

“Amen.”

“Anyway, Judd,” she says, turning back to me. “I know you’re going through a lot right now, and your family . . . well, they’re not exactly famous for their emotional wherewithal. So, if you ever want to talk, just remember, we were friends long before we were family.”

“Thanks, Alice. I’ll keep that in mind.”

She seems about to say something else, but after a moment she just nods and leans forward to kiss my cheek. I lean forward, not so much to accept the kiss, but to avoid any incidental lower-body contact. Things are hard enough already.

So to speak.

BREAKFAST IS SERVED. On platters, of course. The pastries and bagels continue to arrive every day, courtesy of my parents’ friends and set out by Linda, who quietly lets herself in every morning to see to things. Horry’s here too this morning, sipping thoughtfully at his coffee, sneaking glances at Wendy over the rim of his mug. His T-shirt says, YOU’RE UGLY, BUT YOU INTRIGUE ME. Beneath the T-shirt, his compact muscles bulge in exactly the way mine never did. Tracy is buttering a bagel for Phillip, and Phillip is creaming her coffee, and they’re smiling at each other in a way that makes it hard to look at them. I guess there was no lasting fallout from the Chelsea/Janelle/Kelly visit. Wendy is giving the baby a bottle while Barry chews a muffin and reads the Wall Street Journal. Ryan and Cole are watching cartoons on the small television in the kitchen. Mom is in the kitchen with Linda, organizing the endless array of catered platters. You could fill an airlift to Africa with all the food generated by one dead Jew. Alice is spreading fat-free cream cheese on a rice cake, and Paul is sitting next to her, chewing a glazed donut. He’s at the head of the table, but just to the side of Dad’s chair, which sits symbolically empty.

No one says anything. No one dares.

“Listen,” Paul says. “We need to talk about the Place.”

“The Place” was how Dad referred to the business. He never called it the store, or the shop, or the company. “I’m heading out to the Place,” he would say. “We hired a new girl at the Place.” I guess Paul picked it up somewhere along the way. Alice looks up from her rice cake, and you can hear her ticking, the woman behind the man. Whatever he’s going to say, she knows all about it.

“What about it?” Phillip says.

“Barney will come by at some point to discuss Dad’s will. But this is the part I want to discuss. Dad left half of the business to me. The other half is divided into three even shares for Wendy, Judd, and Phillip. So together, each of you will own one-sixth of a business that has not shown a profit in going on three years. The shares won’t generate any cash for you. Barney will have the bank valuate the shares, and then I’m going to buy them back from you. Depending on the value, I may not have the cash readily available, so I hope you’ll all cut me a little slack until I come up with it.”

“What is each share worth, roughly?” Phillip says. “I mean, what are we talking about here?”

“What about Mom?” Wendy asks. “Isn’t the business hers too?”

“Between Mom’s royalties and Dad’s life insurance and pension, she’s more than taken care of for the rest of her life,” Paul says. “I know you all might have been expecting a little bit more from Dad’s estate. Unfortunately, there’s not much that isn’t tied up in the business, which, like I said, isn’t in the best shape. There is the house though. It’s been assessed at upwards of a million dollars. Dad has it set up in a trust for us. When Mom sells it, we’ll all make a nice profit.”

“I’m not selling the house,” Mom says from the kitchen doorway.

“Well, not right now.”

“Not ever!” she says. “I’m only sixty-three years old, for God’s sake.”

“I just meant—”

“I know what you meant. You want to pull up the floorboards and look for money, you go right ahead. But make no mistake, I’m going to die in this house!”