Now I can look at the details of the place. See if a little gentle persuasion might get some paint on the walls in some of these rooms. Or get a picture hung on the walls, something, because the place echoes. Having gone through every room now, I note a lack of certain things, and an overabundance of others. Funny, Mr. M doesn’t seem like the type of person who likes a fussy environment, but I have two rooms off the laundry room filled with ‘things’. Knick-knacks. Crap, if you ask me. And he hasn’t said anything about them being missing. In fact, he hasn’t had much to say at all about anything I’ve changed in the house, unless it was to say that he liked it. Sure, I’m still picking up after him. There isn’t a day that goes by that he doesn’t dump something in a corner, or leave CD’s or DVD’s out all over the place. I still find clothes on his closet floor, and items that have missed the trash can strewn all around. All minor stuff. Regular stuff that I’ve seen in my own home, because I have a child who often forgets that the sink isn’t a dishwasher, or that water comes out of the taps, or that if you want to wear that special shirt on Monday, it’s got to be in the laundry by Sunday, not under the bed. He has the habits of an overgrown child.
While clutter abounds, well, abounded because I’ve shoveled it out of the main rooms, there’s still a sterile quality to the house. The plants have helped, I’ve loaded the rooms with ivies, orchids, rubber trees, potted palms, a few ficus and anything else that struck my fancy. There are a lot of built ins throughout the house. A lot of shelves and cupboards. Great for storage, and I’ve reassigned things to different places, like linens, towels, and the never ending supply of throws and blanket type pieces that had draped furniture. And I’ve put the bits and pieces of art or memorabilia on some of the shelves, but beyond that, they’re empty. I, personally, find that disturbing.
There are no books in this house.
The room that must have been a library holds the pool table now. There are rows of shelves in there, and they hold next to nothing, surrounding one of the ugliest pool table’s I’ve ever seen. I don’t even think Mr. M goes in there because nothing ever moves.
I can’t imagine there being no books here, though. I’ve never had the luxury of being able to buy books that weren’t used, or even very many of those. Not since I was a child. All my books have traveled with me wherever I’ve gone, meager collection that it is. But almost every town has a library, and in every town I’ve gotten a card and read when I could. Tish is an avid reader. She’s read through everything we own as well as put in her time in the library, too. So seeing no books in this house makes me wonder. Not that there aren’t plenty of other things to do with one’s time, but, to not read, to not take yourself to other worlds through words; damn.
Another oddity in the house at the moment is the lack of dogs. The dinning room is now a functioning room. The dogs are still at the vet. The first call came the afternoon I dropped them off. The dogs definitely had fleas. Tank had some skin problems they wanted to look at, as well as respiratory issues I had no idea about, although when I told Mr. M he was aware of it. Something to do with bulldogs, something hereditary. And Tank being Tank, he didn’t want to be left alone at the vet and must have made that need known. He and Byrd are ‘pals’ anyway, and the vet felt that leaving the dogs together would be easier on Tank. So they’re still there and the house seems emptier than usual.
And I have less to do, which makes me want to do more. I can now have the house in order and laundry running within half an hour of arriving here. Of course I always have to wait on the bedroom, Mr. M does like to sleep in when he can, but still, maintaining one person is no difficult task.
So I sit here this morning once I have the background work underway and drink my coffee, smoke my cigarettes, and scribble out menus and shopping lists and wish lists of things I’d like to do here, but don’t think will get done. I sit here and wait to make a breakfast, to make a bed, to wipe down a bathroom and then maybe, MAYBE prepare a lunch.
I may just do some shopping this afternoon. I might go visit some of those galleries I see all over the place and have a look around. Or I may even go to a book store and browse, even better, buy. Buy something for me, and something for him, too. Just look at him, I can see him coming down the hall, his hair, freshly cropped and sticking up in a million directions, and his pants hanging off his ass. Cigarette sticking out of his mouth. Nice. I’d like to take him outside and put the hose to him, like Tish did for the dogs.
“’Mornin’,” he mumbles around his smoke. This is not a good sign. I’m beginning to sense some patterns with him. When he’s THIS incoherent, it means that he’s had a difficult night, whatever difficult may mean. I try and be on my toes these mornings, now that I recognize them. I’m quiet, try and stay in the background more.
“Good morning. Coffee?” I ask, but it’s only a cursory inquiry, I’m pouring the coffee into a mug as I speak.
“Yes.” He pauses, slumps in a chair, and sighs. “Thank you,” he remembers to say, even before I put the cup in front of him.
“Breakfast?”
“No.” This is a first. I’ve yet to see this guy turn down food.
“Are you feeling all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he says, but I don’t believe him.
“I’ll go make the bed then, and...”
“Could you sit for a minute?” he asks.
“Sure.” Now I’m worried. When a boss seems out of sorts and asks you to sit down, it’s never good news.
“I need a favor,” he says.
Oh.
“What?” I ask.
“I’m having someone here tomorrow night, kinda late, and I...”
“I’ll be sure and not be here early on Saturday morning then,” I tell him, smiling, wishing he’d smile back. He grunts, I think it’s supposed to be a laugh, then looks at me, which he hasn’t done yet today. He looks tired, the way he looked when I first met him, a look that had gone away for a while.
“No, thanks, but, I was wondering if you could work late, make us dinner or something?”
“Of course.” I agree right away. That’s not a favor, that’s my job.
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As soon as Shi agrees to cook for me late tomorrow night, I wish she hadn’t. I feel like if she had said ‘no’, I could have had an out. Probably would have bitched a little, just for show, but I could have had an excuse. Because Sarah is coming over.
That’s what the call was on my cell the other day. I never returned it. Didn’t want to. Instead, I waited, ignored it, but she called again. She wasn’t mad at me, or anything, just wanted to know if she could come by and get a few things she thinks she left behind. So I said sure, and then jumped ahead of myself and asked her to stay for something to eat. She’ll be comin’ late, after a shift at the restaurant. I thought, maybe, she might talk to me. For a little bit. Because she said, yeah, dinner would be fine.
“What would you like to have?” Shi asks me. I have no idea. None. I’m too nervous about Sarah being there, and I’m thinkin’ that this is a bad, bad idea.
“I don’t know.” Fuck this. I don’t want to do this at all.
“I can make anything you want. You can let me know tomorrow, if you need some time to think about it.”
Why is this lady so fucking nice all the time? You know, I’m not the easiest person to get along with. I’m Alex McLean, high-maintenance pain in the ass, and Shi has been nothing but nice to me, no matter how shitty I feel, or how shitty I might come off. Now she’s going to be nice about something I don’t even care if she’s nice about.
“I, I,” I’m stuttering over the word, god, why did I ask her to eat here? “No meat, she doesn’t really eat meat.”
“Is she a vegan?”
“A what?”
“A vegan. No meat or meat products. Or a vegetarian, so perhaps she’d eat eggs, or cheese. Or is she just adverse to eating red meat, and will she eat chicken or fish?”
“I didn’t know it was that complicated. She’ll eat chicken, fish maybe. Cheese and eggs are fine.”
“And what would YOU like?” Oh, man, I’d like to take the invitation back. I’d like to put all Sarah’s shit in a bag and leave it on the doorstep and forget about it. For real, I’d like to turn the clock back. Far, far back, so that none of this would have ever happened, so that I could have been a ‘good’ boy, and not fucked so many things up.
“I liked that chicken you made that day.”
“I can make it again.” Shi writes something down on her pad. She’s always writing something down, makin’ notes to herself, notes to me, notes all over the place. I think I might get her a whole bunch of those pads that say somethin’ on them, you know, ‘notes from the desk of’ whoever. With sticky stuff on the backs so she can plaster them all over the place.
“You don’t have to make any big deal abou....”
“I’ll take it from here,” Shi says. And I know that she will. It hasn’t been two whole weeks and I know that she will take it and make something that I’m gonna like and Sarah’s gonna be impressed with and she WILL go to some trouble to do it, too.
I mean, fuck, look at the house. The house never looked like this, shit, it was always a jumble of crap. You know what I like? I like things real simple. Not a lot of stuff around. Real, what do they call it? You know, when everything is almost bare? Clean. Clean lines, that’s it, I like clean lines and some color. Bright colors, like reds and yellows and oranges. And leather and glass and chrome and things like that. So of course I got this Spanish style house that looks stupid if you put stuff like that in it, and it’s got wood all over the damn place. The only thing I like about the house is the way it’s laid out, all over the place. And the windows. There are lots and lots of windows that face the ocean; so that’s not bad. Oh, yeah, and the size. I like big places. I like having a room for everything.
Other that that, this place was never my style. I like boxier rooms and those friggin’ ‘clean lines’.
I have to admit, Shi has toned this place way down. All those scarf things and blankets, or whatever the hell they were, they’re all gone now. And there are more pillows, which I like, because I like to have a lot of pillows to lay back on. And she’s moved everything around, too, made more space. I like a lot of space.
Sarah is gonna hate it. I know she is. Maybe that’s why I’m not lookin’ forward to seein’ her. Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe if she’d called me, like, two, three weeks ago, I wouldn’t be feelin’ anything but hopeful that she even wanted to call me or come back here to do anything. Even pick up stuff. I’m not feeling that way now. I’m not sure about her comin’ here, I’m not sure about anything anymore. I mean, I still love Sarah. I do. It just doesn’t feel the same way. Not just because of what happened, either. It’s like, so much has changed. I was used to her bein’ here, now I’m used to her not bein’ here.
Too late now, she’s comin’ tomorrow, so I’d better find her shit. It’s stuffed in the closet with my junk. Shi has gone through there, too, so there’s no tellin’ where her stuff is.
Damn it.
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© 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
