Eric Puchner - Model Home

She wanted a cigarette — a deep, ferocious craving — and then was ashamed of thinking of it. There was a radio sitting on the shelf, plugged into the wall near the bathtub. Noticing the stupidity of this arrangement made her feel slightly less awful. “Lyle, for heaven’s sake. Please don’t put the radio there.”

“I like to listen to it in the shower.”

“You’ll electrocute yourself.” Camille squinted at the radio, which had a sticker on it that said PANTERA. “Where did you get this anyway?”

“Someone gave it to me.”

“Who?”

“Hector,” she said quietly.

A boy. Camille felt happy for her — also strangely bereft. “Someone from your class?”

“No. He’s older.” Lyle fiddled with her belt. “Actually, you know him.”

“I do?”

She turned to Camille, as though craving her approval. A pale, awkward girl in lipstick. Was it possible that all her hostility, her inscrutable annoyance, was actually fear? “Hector?” Lyle said. “The guy who works at the gate?”

Camille laughed. “The one with the mustache?”

Lyle’s face turned red. It was an awful face, her lips sucked in like an old woman’s. Camille stared at her daughter’s lipstick.

“He doesn’t speak English.”

“He speaks perfect English,” Lyle said, slamming the door to the medicine cabinet. “They came here when he was four. Anyway, what difference would it make?”

“There’s a Spanish sticker on his radio,” Camille said lamely.

“That’s a band. Jesus. Why am I even talking to you?” Lyle narrowed her eyes, her face red now but not from embarrassment. “We’re having sex, Mom. I’d know if he spoke English, wouldn’t I?”

“You’re having sex ? With a man you barely know?”

“I know him perfectly well.”

“Is he here legally?”

“Oh Jesus. Wow. I knew you were full of shit with your acts of kindness, but I didn’t know you were racist.”

“I’m not racist. Please don’t say that. I just don’t think you should be having sex with some strange man.”

“You mean a Mexican man,” Lyle said. “Who works in a guardhouse.”

Camille ignored this. “Do you even know where he lives?”

“Jesus. I’ve been to his house.”

“He owns a house ?”

“Mexican-Americans can’t own houses?”

“That’s not what I said. I’m just wondering how he can afford one.”

“He lives with some roommates. They own it together.” Lyle looked at Camille, her pink mouth pressed into a smile. “We go there to fuck.”

Camille couldn’t speak. She left Lyle in the bathroom and went into the kitchen and turned on the sink, picturing some men with grubby baseball caps watching her daughter through a peephole. She shook this racist, disturbing image from her head. Who did the bastard think he was? Maybe he’d preyed on other girls as well. It would be a good job to have, if you wanted to sleep with people’s daughters. Trembling, Camille flipped through her Rolodex and found the number for Herradura Estates management. She picked up the phone, wondering if she could control her voice, but couldn’t bring herself to dial. It was too much — the thought of Lyle despising her for the rest of her life. Perhaps Warren would know what to do. He’d said he’d be at the office all day, working on some elevations. A twang of love went through her. She dialed his office, longing to hear his voice.

Music thudded up the driveway. Pantera? Camille peered out the window, poised for attack, but it was only a beautiful blond girl slouched behind the wheel of a convertible Bug. She was wearing a tank top and sunglasses. Lyle came out of the house in one of her gigantic T-shirts, sweatshirt wrapped around her waist, laughing at something Camille couldn’t hear. Her face in its garish lipstick looked like a woman’s. Camille started to cry. She stood there while the convertible backed down the driveway, listening to the phone ring and ring and ring.

On his way out to Antelope Valley to meet the Granillos, Warren kept the Renault in the slow lane in case the muffler decided to fall off. The view from the freeway was soothingly apocalyptic. Go Kart World, Toyota Planet, Land of Sheet Metal — he’d seen the names so many times that they failed to alarm him. Watching cars overtake him and zip back into his lane, steady as water around a rock, Warren ran through the spiel he was going to give Mrs. Granillo as he showed her Durango number 4, the house of her dreams. It seemed, from her voice on the phone, that he might actually have a shot. He would not make the same mistake he’d made with the couple from Riverside. If she asked about the dump, he would tell her it was a shopping mall. He would talk it up, sing to her of the Mojave International Galleria, tell the struggling woman about all its beautiful, air-conditioned, unbeatably priced amenities.

For the first time in weeks, his panic began to lift. It felt just like that: the lifting of a weight. He’d sell the house; word-of-mouth would spread. He’d get his furniture back, his Visa, maybe even his car. Of course, they’d have to leave Herradura Estates — but his life, his family, would be saved.

Rounding the San Gabriels, Warren got off on Highway 14 and began the long descent into the valley, an endless, moon-stark desert stretching into the distance, spiked here and there with Joshua trees poking up from the dirt. Their arms branched haphazardly in the sun, like the thoughts of a lunatic. The trees, the Mojave, seemed to appear out of nowhere. Warren still found it beautiful — breathtaking even — though he regarded it with the begrudging respect you might have for an enemy.

He searched for the poppy preserve that had once been a selling point, trying to spot a few dreamy flashes of orange in the hills, but the summer drought had rendered them as brown as their surroundings.

He pulled off the highway and followed the long dirt road to a block of brand-new homes, his very own ghost town, parking in front of the strip of grass meant to evoke images of croquet matches and Fourth of July picnics. Warren couldn’t afford the astronomical water bill, and now the grass had turned to a crunchy brown stubble more befitting the desert. The words AUBURN FIELDS glared at him from the engraved rock sitting in the stubble. The name had been Larry’s idea. “Fields” implied living grass, even auburn ones, but when Warren had mentioned this to Larry recently he’d laughed in his face. “You’re right,” he’d said. “We should have called it Brown Dirt.”

Warren took a deep breath. The Granillos were there already, parked up at the gate. The sun cuffed his face as he got out of the car to greet them. Mrs. Granillo was short and attractively dressed, wearing high heels and a sleeveless dress that showed off the dimpled drape of her arms. Her wrist, heavy with bracelets, clattered when he shook her hand. She introduced her son, who was nervously touching his mustache. He didn’t offer his hand.

“I recognize you,” Warren said, surprised. “Do you work with Lyle?”

“I’m a security guard. At Herradura Estates.”

“Right!” Warren realized he was frowning. “Wow. Who knew. She’s really been working the neighborhood.”

The son reddened. “We’re friends.”

“Of course. I didn’t mean—”

“My son like her very much,” Mrs. Granillo said.

Warren looked at them, a ray of sadness spoiling his optimism. In doing his dirty work, had Lyle pretended to befriend this sullen-looking kid? Now here they were, mother and son, imagining some deep connection to his daughter.

Mrs. Granillo wandered over to the red-striped gate, inspecting it with a look of reverent mistrust. Larry had had it installed first thing, before any of the houses were built. Just having a gate out front raised your equity by 15 percent. According to Larry, it was the “honey that drew the bees.”