I know that the first thing I want to do is strip down the living room before the cleaning people arrive. After seeing Tish off, I hustle myself to the house and go through the routine that I know will become second nature to me. I turn off the house alarm, I let the dogs out into the yard so they can have their way with the plants and bushes, and I pour myself a cup of coffee. Today I didn’t bother to make any in my own small pot, I waited for some of this.
The quiet of the house is pleasant at this hour.
I walk around this level opening windows. There’s a light, wonderful breeze coming up from the ocean and I think that it ought to be let inside. Bring the outside in. And then I notice something that I hadn’t noticed before. There are no plants in this house. Not even a no maintenance rubber tree. Nothing.
This place needs greens. The closest things to a plant are some decorative branches, some dried out sticks shoved in an urn that’s rather heavy and ugly.
No, this place needs living things in it. Beyond the three destructors in the yard. I pass by the dining room and gather up the hairy, smelly blankets the dogs have been bedding with. Amazingly enough, there is no sign of dog pee in the house today. I suppose letting them OUT to do their business at a reasonable hour for the DOGS has been effective. Go me.
I put the blankets into the washing machines, two to a machine. Heavy duty cycle, ALL hot water, a bit of bleach added for good measure, with an extra long soak cycle. I figure that I can’t ruin these things, and that if I happen to, I’ll simply replace them.
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The living room is large, a semi-sunken room that has two steps down into it. There are many large, chunky pieces of furniture in it, too. All dark. It makes a stark contrast to the whitewashed walls and I find it unappealing. There isn’t a lot of personality to this room, it lacks warmth. It lacks taste, too, but there’s no accounting for taste, and there’s definitely no accounting for my opinion. The room opens up onto a long hallway that runs straight back to the kitchen area. I think I’ll have them clean in there, too, today, because the living room doesn’t seem like too daunting a project.
I can see everything in these rooms because the curtains have all come down. After denuding the first level of all its window hangings, I decided to take it a floor at a time. There’s just too much to deal with all at once, no matter the scope of my ambitions. Maybe that’s what’s so disconcerting about the color scheme, that it’s no longer muted by diffused light.
No. It’s just ugly in here.
I want them to clean the furniture, too. Most of it is flat topped surfaces, but there are chests here and there, for what I do not know. At random I pick one and open a drawer. Empty.
Empty, empty, empty. I was hoping to find something, even a candle stick, but this first chest is barren. The second yields a little more. There are coasters in one drawer, a pack of cards, a few board games in another, and a piece of broken jewelry in yet another. The other stuff can stay put, but I take the handful of stones and wire and bring it to the kitchen. He should get it fixed. And things like this should be put away more carefully, in a less ‘public’ place.
I cluck my tongue to myself and pour a second cup of coffee. In a little while I can head back to the dry cleaners; they’re going to love me there. Today I have the drapes that I think are worth saving for them. And I should be able to pick up the clothes that are already there. Those curtains that weren’t good enough to keep have been laundered and found their way into a plastic bag in the laundry room. When it’s full, I’ll take those to the Goodwill, or the Salvation Army, or to any place that might like them.
Back in the living room I gather all the ‘stick’ plants into another trash bag. I’ll hold onto them for a little while, but if he doesn’t miss them, they’re gone. I’ll find a garden center, there are thousands out here, even a Farmer’s Market will do, and I’ll replace these sticks with something nice, something that won’t need a lot of care, but will add a spot of color.
Geez, I’d be depressed in rooms like this myself. They’re nothing like my own sunny, bright rooms in the pool house.
“You get up early, don’t you?”
Mr. M’s raspy voice startles me from my reverie. I had been so caught up in staring at the room that I didn’t hear him come downstairs. He looks his usual messy self in sweatpants and loose no-sleeve T-shirt. It’s now that I notice his arms. He’s covered in tattoos. Not continuous designs, like I’ve seen on other people, but singular pictures of this and that. I look away quickly, because it’s not polite to stare.
“Habit,” I say. “Would you like some coffee?”
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I would like some coffee. I would like some coffee very much. And I’m starving, but I don’t know how I can be hungry after pigging out last night like that.
Shit.
“I, uh, had some of that spaghetti last night. It was real good,” I tell her. She hands me a mug of coffee with a smile.
“Glad you liked it.”
Good guess on my part. I’m relieved. I sit down at the kitchen table and everything I need is within arm’s reach: cigarettes, ashtray, sugar, milk. I hope that she’s going to cook me breakfast. Now, that’s stupid, she’s SUPPOSED to cook me breakfast. Before I can think any more on it she places a bowl of fruit in front of me. It’s all peeled and chopped up into nice, even cubes. A big fat strawberry sits on top of it all. I wish I liked fruit more. This is really, beautiful. But it’s fruit.
“Bacon and eggs, or pancakes?” she asks me.
“Eggs,” I say, and force a piece of fruit into my mouth. It’s sweet, ripe peach. It’s the sweetest peach I’ve ever eaten. After that I venture through the bowl, taking one chunk at a time, trying to figure out how many different kinds are in here. EVERYTHING’S in here. Even banana. Even apples, and plums.
I could learn to like fruit.
The smell of bacon frying takes my mind off of healthy food. I love bacon, who doesn’t? My stomach growls. Greedy stomach. Greedy mouth, I want to fill it.
“How do you like your eggs?” she asks me, and I look at her and I think that she might have had to ask me this question twice, from the expression on her face. I like my eggs cooked. Any way.
“Whatever’s easiest,” I tell her, and that’s not the right answer, because she continues to stare at me with the egg carton still in her hand. “Fried, I guess.”
“Over easy, sunny-side up?”
“Over easy.” It sounds simple. I guess it is because Shi says nothing more. I hear her breaking eggs into the pan, I hear the toaster go down, I hear the bacon sizzling, and it all sounds good to me. The coffee is excellent, full flavored, and the rest of the fruit disappears without me even thinking about it.
Shi puts the plate in front of me and it’s a picture, just like yesterday. Two eggs, four slices of bacon and two slices of toast, already buttered and cut into little triangles. No crust. She puts a little bowl down beside it, and I see jelly and a spoon.
“Aren’t you going to have some?” I ask her.
“I don’t care for breakfast,” she says with a shake of her head.
I forgot. Okay, so she can sit and have coffee, no she can’t, she’s heading for the laundry room.
“Hey,” I say.
“Yes?” She turns and looks at me with a small smile on her face. I’ve seen that smile before, but I’m not sure where. Not on her, somewhere else. I’m not sure whether I like it or not.
“How about some coffee.” The smile stays plastered there while she moves across the kitchen and gets the pot, that’s not what I meant. “Not for me,” I tell her, and now she looks confused. “I meant aren’t you gonna have some coffee.”
“Oh, no, thank you. I’ve had some.” She puts the pot back and heads to the laundry room again, the smile gone, but her face less, I don’t know, tense.
“What are you doing?” I ask her.
“Washing the dog’s blankets,” comes her reply, muffled because she’s far away and talking into the dryer. She’s not gone long, though. “Tish bathed the dogs last night and I thought that those blankets could use a once over.”
I think that’s about the longest sentence Shi has ever spoken to me. I like the sound of her voice. Deep. Not throaty, not gravely like mine, but deep.
“You didn’t have to have her do that.”
“I know, I was going to take them to the groomer. You have a groomer, don’t you?”
“Yeah. They take care of it.” When someone bothers to take them. I haven’t bothered. I feel my face going hot and look down at my plate.
“Can you tell me where they are. And the vet, too, because they’ve been out in the yard a lot and even a bath won’t get rid of fleas. Fleas can be a big problem out here, especially in the hills like this.”
She does sit down and I’m glad because I didn’t want to eat alone. I don’t like to eat alone. I don’t like to be stared at, but she’s not staring at me, she’s just like anyone else who might be sitting across the table with me. She lights a cigarette. I notice her hands. Nice hands. Long fingers. No nails, though, you know, not long. Makes sense. If she doesn’t have them, then she doesn’t break them.
“I think they probably need a flea dip of something like that,” she says to me, snapping my mind back to the dogs.
“Yeah, probably. I’ll have to find the information for you, I’m not sure who the vet is.” I’m not because Sarah and I switched vets a coupla times and ended up at the office where her mother works and I ain’t going there with the dogs. Then I remember it won’t be me, it will be Shi, and that’s cool, then, because the dogs are pretty good for the doctors there. I don’t want to see Roxanne, Sarah’s mother. She’s not happy with me, which is nothing surprising, considering what’s happened, but I liked her. A lot. And I miss her, too.
“I think that you’re going to have to do something about the yard, too,” Shi says. “The dogs are tearing up some of the shrubs and...”
“I know, they’re killing ‘em.” I play with my fork, running a bit of toast all around the plate to sop up the eggs.
“The gardeners come tomorrow. I thought I could talk to them and see if they know of any repelling plants, or if they have any suggestions. Do you have any suggestions?”
Oh hell, I have a solution, I could give the damn dogs back to Sarah. That would mean having to see her. I have mixed and mixed-up feelings about that. I COULD have Shi take them over to her, but that would be a shitty thing to do. And I want to keep Tank. We’ve argued over this before and I’m not up for an argument. At least not any time soon.
“I guess they could have a pen or something.”
“I’ll talk to the gardeners and see what they have to say.” She drains her cup and gets up. “Are you through?”
I guess I am, there’s not much left on the plate in front of me. I’ve eaten and not noticed it. I’m not hungry anymore, though. And it’s getting to be that time, when I have to go meet Rene, and I haven’t showered or anything. Maybe I won’t, I’ll just shower after. It’s going to be hot, I’ll end up showering anyway.
“Lunch?” Shi’s voice snaps me out of my thoughts again.
“No, but I’ll be home for dinner,” I tell her. I will. I don’t want to eat out again, I don’t want to hang with AA members, I don’t want to shop, I want to golf, go to my meeting, and come home.
“I’ll see you then,” she says, but she stops, and turns back to me, plate in one hand, something else in the other. “I was emptying out the drawers in the living room and I found this. Should I take it to have it fixed?”
It’s the turquoise necklace. I forgot about it. I take it from her to see what’s wrong with it, but I can’t see anything wrong.
“Where’s it broken?” I ask.
“It’s not?” She rinses the plate and puts it in the dishwasher, and she’s starting to clean the pans she uses. I take the necklace over to her and show her the piece. “It’s supposed to look that way?”
“Yeah,” I say, laughing. I wrap it around my wrist and show her.
“Oh. I thought it was all bent and tangled,” she said, and I think she’s laughing, too, but I’m not sure.
“You want it?” I offer. I don’t. Don’t even know why I bought it, but it would look good on her with her red hair. The stones are about the color of her eyes. It would look damn good on her. “Here,” and I don’t think, I just unwind it from my wrist and wrap it around her neck.
“I can’t take that, Mr. McLean.”
“A.J.” I don’t want her calling me that. I hate being called that. She wipes her hands dry and turns around from the sink. She takes the necklace off and hands it back.
“I can’t take this, A.J.,” she says. She’s not mad, she’s not anything.
“Then put it back in the drawer.”
“I think you should put it somewhere else,” she says. “Upstairs, where it’s not just lying around in a drawer.”
“It can lie in a drawer down here, or up there, it doesn’t matter.” I shrug. She should really have this necklace. “I looks good on you, you sure?” I try a little wheedle, but she’s not buying. Or taking. Or anything.
“I’m sure. But thank you. I need to go to the dry cleaner. Do you need anything while I’m out?” she asks.
“Nope. I’ll be gone when you get back.”
“I’ll just feed the dogs on my way out, then. I need to get the curtains.”
“Curtains?”
“I took all the drapes down, I’m sending them out to be cleaned, well, the ones that aren’t completely ruined.”
“Oh.” I look around, out through the entrances to the kitchen from other parts of the house.
No wonder it’s so bright in here this morning.
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© 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
