A. Homes - Music for Torching

"I meant to tell someone," Elaine says, speaking directly into the trapdoor. "There's a hole in the master bedroom ceiling; it leaked on us last night."

"I'll send a guy in."

"Thanks," Elaine says. "If you need more ice, just holler-I've got a freezerful."

"Do you want me to leave this open?" the man asks, gesturing at the trapdoor.

"Close it," Elaine says, thinking of the dust, of Sammy.

"Hello, stranger," Elaine hears her mother say. "Long time no see. Have you got a kiss for your grandmother? Well, I've got one for you."

The image of Daniel in the kitchen, being kissed by her mother, floods Elaine with a peculiar rush of discomfort. She thinks of the fat woman from the magazine, the woman whose legs have to be held open in order to be fucked, she thinks of her lipstick in the Ziploc bag in Daniel's drawer and wonders what it means.

She hurries into the kitchen and glares at Daniel.

"How'd you get in?" she asks.

"Door," he says.

"Did someone leave it open?"

"Lock's broken," he says, looking at her strangely.

She nods. She doesn't know how to talk to him.

"I need Polaroid film," he says, "for a project."

She imagines him taking photographs of fat women on the streets of Scarsdale, riding his bike to Mamaroneck and Yonkers, prowling for bulk, waiting outside the Weight Watchers office, hunting down chubbies at Overeaters Anonymous meetings, using his allowance to buy film, to buy Twinkies and HoHo's, to bribe the fat girls to show him their padded parts.

"I need some coffee," Elaine says.

"I need film," he says.

Need this, need that. Need ice. Need film. "Then get it," she says.

"What's your problem?" he says.

What's yours? she wants to ask.

He goes upstairs.

Elaine waits for the eruption. She counts the seconds.

"Who went in my room?" he yells less than a minute later.

"It's not your room," Paul shouts from the bedroom. "It's my room. I own this house."

"You went in my room? Why did you do that? Why would you go in my room?" Daniel runs down the hall, screaming.

"Why would you put a lock on the door?" Paul hollers.

"Because I didn't want anyone to go in my room."

"That's why we went in your room." "Because of the lock?"

"You bet."

Elaine wonders if she should go upstairs and moderate. "We bought you a new comforter," Elaine calls up the stairs. "We were trying to fix things up for you and Sammy."

"You sure fixed it," Daniel shouts.

"Whose shirt are you wearing?" Paul asks Daniel.

"Not yours, that's for sure."

"Who the hell do you think you are?" Paul shouts. "What kind of monster are you?"

"I am not a monster," Daniel yells back.

"What the fuck are all the Ziploc bags?"

"Evidence."

"For what, what are you trying to prove?"

"I don't know," Daniel shouts. "I don't know, I read about it in the junior-detective book. You don't own me," he yells, crashing down the steps, pushing past Elaine, heading for the door.

"Where are you going?" she asks.

"Out," he bellows.

"Look," Elaine says, "if you want more privacy, all you have to do is say so, but no padlocks on the doors. If there's a problem, let's talk about it."

Daniel stops. He turns to her. "Dad is a lazy fuck, and you're pathetic," he says.

A switch flips. She goes from being the concerned and confused mother to pure rage. Daniel is everything that Paul is and worse. She hates him.

She takes off her shoe and hurls it at him. "Brat."

Daniel runs out of the house.

Elaine's mother starts to say something.

"Shut up," Elaine says, before she can get a word out. "Just shut up."

Her mother makes a gesture like she's zipping her lips.

Paul comes down. "Did we handle that well?"

Elaine's mother clucks.

One of the men knocks on the door. "You have a hole?" he asks, stepping in.

"Upstairs," Elaine says, "in the master bedroom-look up and you can see the sky."

"What's the suitcase for?" Paul points to a suitcase by the kitchen table-Elaine hadn't noticed it before.

"I can't take it anymore," Elaine's mother says. "A woman of my age, of my position, deserves more." She pauses. "I'll stay in one of the boys' rooms. You can talk all you want, you can fight, you can make love, you can kill each other for all I care, and I won't say a word."

Elaine imagines her mother upstairs, discovering the lump in Daniel's bed, lifting the mattress. Her mother flipping through the stack of Chunky Bunch magazines.

"The house isn't ready," Elaine says.

"It's ready enough for you," her mother says.

"Mother, please."

"Your father isn't being nice. Why should I stay where I'm not wanted?"

"It's your house, you don't have to be wanted. And Daddy does want you, but you're driving him crazy."

"I'm driving him crazy. I'm driving him. What about what he's doing to me?"

"What do you want from him?"

"Some attention. I want someone to pay some attention."

"Maybe you have to pay attention to him first. If you pay attention to him, he'll pay attention to you-that's the way it goes."

"That's manipulative. I am not a manipulative woman."

Elaine rolls her eyes.

"I'm not. Are you telling your own mother that she can't stay in your house?" "Mother."

Paul leaves the room.

"Where are you going?" Elaine shouts after him.

"Getting ready for Sammy's soccer," Paul says.

"I thought you were just picking up."

"I thought I should go and watch-isn't that what parents do?"

"You don't usually watch."

Paul doesn't respond.

"Did you call Nate's mother and ask her about packing Sammy's stuff? Did you tell her that he's coming home?"

Paul doesn't tell her that he called from upstairs, that he arranged for Sammy's return, arranged for an extra date next Wednesday afternoon, and got a great high-concept blow job over the phone-"I want you to feel my mouth sucking your prick, your balls rubbing my face, my finger on the edge of your asshole." The finger on the asshole was the unexpected bit that did it; he shot off instantly, splashing the wall of the walk-in closet where he was hiding with the cordless phone.

"It's taken care of," Paul says.

"Does she get to stay here?" her mother asks.

"Who?" Elaine asks, distracted, thinking about Nate's mother, her good hair, her big boobs.

"Her," Elaine's mother repeats.

"No," Elaine says, realizing that her mother is talking about Mrs. Hansen. "Mother, just stop it. Go home, go back to Daddy."