Michael Thomas - Man Gone Down

“It’s okay,” I say. My voice sounds foreign — too deep and reassuring. We both look at the bag; then she does a little shuffle step and leans away, mouthing a strange benediction to it. It forces us both to smile. She is young, at least younger than I’d thought — the only wrinkles she has are at the corners of her mouth and eyes, and in this light there’s no sag to her muscle at all. The duet ends abruptly: the piano on a lone bass note. The bassist slides way up the neck and stays there, high and tremulous, until both tones fade away. We wait for another song but nothing else comes.

She starts for the living area, and I almost grab her arm. It stops her. She cocks her head to the side and studies my hand and raises an eyebrow.

“Yes?”

I pull my hand back, crack my knuckles rudely. “What do you need for me to do?”

She nods as though considering a request, rubs her hands together, then pushes her palms at the kitchen.

“Okay, what I wanted to have you do was build the kitchen, but it didn’t get here. They sent the bathroom instead.” She shortens her nod, puckers, and looks at me as if I know what she’s talking about. “So, can you do the bathroom tonight, and maybe the kitchen when it gets here?”

I confess. “I don’t understand.”

“Oh,” her eyes widen in realization. “Of course you don’t.” She turns and half shuffles, half skips to the door on the far right. “Come on,” she waves when she realizes I’m not following. She opens the door, reaches around and turns on the light. She pokes her head in as though she was exploring something new and then turns back to me with a little, fake grin. “Come on.” She goes inside. I stand in the doorway. It’s a small, square bathroom with a large, claw-footed iron tub on the opposite wall, a cracked pedestal sink and no mirror to the right. Next to the sink is a worn laminate vanity with a small drop-in sink. Running up the tub wall to about eight feet are four-by-four-inch white institutional tiles. To my left is a blank wall with a doorless opening. The space beyond is dark.

“Okay, the plan.” Her voice rises, gains energy. I can’t tell if it’s out of nervousness or a growing mania. She does a few quick turns in the center of the room, gesturing at the walls and fixtures. She finally settles on the vanity. “Okay, this — out. The new one goes in. But I want to keep the sink — the old one.”

“You want me to build a vanity?”

“Yeah.”

I look around the bathroom. “Tonight?”

“Sure. If you can.”

“Out of what?”

“Oh,” she covers her mouth, turns, and walks into the dark space. “Just a second.” The lights come on, orange and low. “It’s in here.”

I stand in the opening, the entrance to her bedroom.

“Come in.”

It’s a fifteen-by-fifteen square. On the opposite wall are stacked milk crates filled with books, clothes, and random possessions — an old, medium-format camera. To the left is a couch covered by a light blue bedsheet. On the wall above the couch is a large corkboard; several photographs — too small to make out — are tacked onto it.

“Come in.”

She’s to the right, next to her bed — a boxspring and mattress on the floor with a balled-up comforter in the middle. On the floor beside the bed are two large, flat boxes, with what looks to be warnings written across them in some Scandinavian tongue.

“Okay, here’s the deal. I completely went against my better judgment and designed a kitchen online. I try to stay away from that whole world — technology — but it just seemed so easy.” She taps one of the boxes with her foot. “So easy. I measure everything, I study all these kitchens in magazines. I go to all the expensive design shops around here — you know them? — And I chat up all the salespeople for hours, like I’m going to drop eighty thousand dollars on a kitchen. I get it all done, send it out, and they send me back a bathroom.”

She waits for me to comment, but I have nothing to say. She wraps her hands around her neck and sighs, exasperated. She releases her neck, stretches up toward the ceiling, exhales then quickly bends and stretches to the floor. She holds her pose for a moment, relaxes, and drops somewhat awkwardly onto the edge of the bed.

“So somehow I wind up with a bathroom and a kitchen. For a substantial discount, so they say. All I know is I spent more than I wanted to. They’re supposed to be good, better than that Ikea stuff. But I’ve been too scared to open it. It’s a vanity and a medicine cabinet. They look pretty good, pretty simple in the pictures, but I don’t even know if they’re going to fit in there.” She goes to run her fingers through her hair but remembers that it’s tied up. She sighs. “What should I do?”

“Send it back.”

“I can’t,” she whines.

“Why not?”

“I’m not a good consumer. I can’t complain.”

“Okay,” I point at the boxes. “Let’s see what’s in there.”

“Wait,” she shoots a hand up. “I don’t want to see.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t want to be here when they’re opened. I think my presence will jinx it. My luck kind of runs that way. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, so take the old cabinet out, just leave it outside the door. We can sneak it down later.” I question her with a wrinkled brow. She leans forward. “They have a trash pickup every Friday,” she almost whispers. “Did you see the containers?”

“No.”

“They must have come after you left. They’re just inside the door.” She looks through the bathroom opening. “We can break it into pieces and kind of slip it in under their stuff. Beth won’t mind.”

“Then why do we need to hide it?”

“Oh, come on. After what happened today — with you?”

“All right,” I nod. “I guess I should get started.”

“Right,” she jumps up. “Let me leave first.” She skips across the room looking for something she can’t find. She stands for a moment by the door, then opens it and jogs out into the living area. I follow her to the door. She senses that I’m there and calls out from behind the mudroom wall. “I have to do a bunch of things I forgot to do, before everything closes.” She rustles through the coats and shoes. I hear her keys jangle. She pokes her head around. “Help yourself to whatever you need. There isn’t much in the fridge, I’m sorry.” She steps into full view. “There’s wine — somewhere — there,” she points at three bottles by the sink. “But I don’t think you should drink and use power tools.” She reaches behind her and puts on her transparent coat. Thinks better of it and drops it on the floor. “I can pick up food for later — yes?” I don’t answer, and it slows her, makes her listen to herself. She exhales, kicks at the floor, and twirls her keys around her fingers. “I’m sorry. I’m crazed. I’ll stop.”

“It’s okay. I’m all set. I’ll be fine.”

“So you’re okay with being left alone. I won’t lock you in — in case there’s a fire or something.”

“Or something,” I mumble, but she hears it. It makes her laugh.

“Remember, help yourself to what you need — music,” she points in the direction of where the stereo is. “Okay, I’m gone.”

“It’s colder than that,” I gesture at her clothes.

“I’ll be fine.”

All I need for the prefab units are pliers, a screwdriver, and a set of Allen wrenches — all of which she has laid out on the floor. The cabinets simple — white laminate, predrilled holes for everything. The vanity has three slide-in glass shelves and a ready-to-hang mirror door. I ignore the rebuslike instructions and put them together by sight. It only takes about fifteen minutes each. I go back in the bathroom, eyeball the size of the vanity and find the studs in the wall above. I shut off the water, disconnect the supply and drain, and pull the cabinet away from the wall. There’s a lot of water damage — mold, stains — on the exposed wall. It has to go. I cut it out.