A. Homes - Things You Should Know

“I ate with Mindy,” she says.

She goes into the kitchen. Dials.

Ray answers.

“Hello, is Mrs. Green there?”

“May I ask who’s calling?”

She wants to say — you know damn well who’s calling, but instead she pauses and then says, “Her daughter.”

“One moment.” There is a long pause and then Ray returns. “She’s not available right now, may I take a message?”

“Yes, could you ask her to call me as soon as she is available. Thank you.” She hangs up.

“Find anything?” Steve calls from the bedroom.

She doesn’t respond. She stands in front of the open fridge, grazing.

The phone rings. “It’s deeply disturbing to call home and have to ask to speak with your parents. What does that mean, you’re not available?” she says.

“I was in the bathroom. I fell asleep in the tub.”

“Why didn’t he just say that?”

“He was being discreet.”

“You’re my mother. Does he know that?”

“Of course he knows.”

“Why was he answering the phone? Why didn’t Dad get it?”

“Maybe Dad was busy, maybe Dad didn’t hear it, he doesn’t hear as well as he used to. We’re old, you know.”

“You’re not old. Who is this Ray character anyway? How much do you know about him?”

Her mother doesn’t say anything.

“Mom, are you there? Is he right there? Can you not talk because the guy, the guest, the visitor, Ray, is right there?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Yes, of course, he’s there? Can he hear you? Can you not talk because he can hear you?”

“No, not at all.”

She stops for a minute, she takes a breath. “I feel like the SWAT team should be setting up next door with sharpshooters and a hostage negotiator. Are you all right? Are you safe?”

She overhears a mumbled conversation: “Oh thank you. Just milk, no sugar, thanks Ray.” There is a slurping sound.

“Where does this Ray sleep?”

“Downstairs, in your brother’s room. What train are you planning on taking?”

“I think I can get out early, two o’clock.”

“We’ll look forward to seeing you. Stay in touch.”

She hangs up.

“When are you leaving?” Steve asks.

“Early afternoon — I’ll go straight from the office.”

“Should we talk?” he says.

“Are you seeing somebody?”

“No. Are you?”

“No. Then we don’t have to talk.”

She walks into the bedroom. “This is how we’re having a conversation, yelling back and forth between rooms?”

“Apparently.”

“Is this how Bill told you to do it?”

He doesn’t say anything.

“There’s some man living in my parents’ house. Can’t the rest of it wait?”

“Do you want to have a code word so you can tell me if something is really wrong?”

“I’ll say, it’s unbelievably hot. And that means call the police or something.”

“Unbelievably hot,” Steve says.

“And if I say my toes are cold, that means I’m confused and you should ask me some more questions.”

“Hot house/cold toes, got it.”

In the morning, Wendy’s desk is too neat.

“Did she quit?” asks Tom, the executive who shares Wendy with Susan.

“She just needed a day off; the computer got to her.”

By nine there’s a temp in Wendy’s place, a woman who arrives with her own name plate — MEMORABLE TEMPORARIES, MY NAME IS JUDY.

“Worst thing is not knowing someone’s name, looking at her and wondering, Who is she? How can I ask her to do anything — I don’t know her name. Now you know, it’s Judy. And I’m here to help you.”

“Thank you, Judy” she says, going into her office and closing the door.

“I have an appointment outside — I won’t be back,” she tells Judy at one-fifteen, when she emerges, wheeling her suitcase down the hall.

“Have a good weekend,” Judy says with a wink.

The train pulls out — she has the sense of having left something behind, something smoldering, something worrisome — Steve.

The train pushes through the tunnel, rocking and rolling. It pops out over the swamps of New Jersey, and suddenly instead of skyscrapers and traffic there are swamps, leggy white egrets, big skies, chemical plants, abandoned factories, and the melancholy beauty of the afternoon light.

She takes a taxi from the train. Directing the driver toward home, she descends into a world that is half memory, half fantasy, a world so fundamentally at her core that it is hard to know what is real, what is not, what was then, what is now.

“Is there somebody home?” the driver asks, pulling up to the dark house.

“There’s a key under the pot,” she says, giving away the family secret.

It is twilight. She stands in the driveway, with her suitcase at her feet, watching light fade from the sky, wondering why she came home. On the telephone line above her, four crows sit waiting. The trees press in like dark shields, she listens to the breeze, to the birds still calling. Across the way she sees Mrs. Altman moving around in her kitchen. In the house that used to belong to the Walds, someone new is also doing the dinner dance.

She stands watching the sky, the branches of trees blackening against the dusk. There is a rustling in the woods beyond the house. She glances at the brush, expecting to see a dog or a child taking a shortcut home.

Her father pushes out, breaking twigs along the way. He is carrying a brown paper bag and a big stick.

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I walked.”

“Did you have car trouble?”

“Oh no,” he says. “I didn’t have any trouble. I took the scenic route.” Her father peers into the carport. “Ray’s not here? I must have beat him.”

“Where’s your car?”

“I left it with Ray. He had errands to run. I had a very nice walk. I went through the woods.”

“You’re eighty-three years old, you can’t just go through the woods because it’s more scenic.”

“What would anyone want with me? I’m an old man.”

“What if you fell or twisted your ankle?”

He waves his hand, dismissing her. “I could just as easily fall here at home and no one would notice.” He bends to get the key. “You been here long?”

“Just a few minutes.”

Her father opens the door, she steps inside, expecting the dog. She has forgotten that the dog is not there anymore, he died about a year ago.

“That’s so strange — I was expecting the dog.”

“Oh,” her father says. “I do that all the time. I’m always thinking I shouldn’t leave the door open, shouldn’t let the dog out. We have him, for you, if you want,” her father says. “His ashes are on the shelf over the washing machine. Do you want to take him with you?”

“If we could leave him for now, that would be good,” she says.

“It’s your dog,” her father says. “So, how long are you here for?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t usually stay long.”

She takes her bag down the hall to her room. The house is still. It is orderly and neat. Everything is exactly the same and yet different. The house is smaller, her room is smaller, the twin bed is smaller. There is a moment of panic — a fear of being consumed by whatever it is that she came in search of. She feels worse, further from herself. She looks around, wondering what she is doing in this place, it is deeply familiar and yet she feels entirely out of place, out of sorts. She wants to run, to take the next train back. From her bedroom window she sees her mother’s car glide into the driveway.

“Is she here?” She hears her mother’s voice across the house.

“Hi Mom,” she says and her mother does not hear her. She tries again. “Hi Mom.” She walks down the hall saying, Hi Mom, Hi Mom, Hi Mom at different volumes, in different intonations, like a hearing test.