The Invaders (11 page)

“I like you better than Jeffrey's first wife,” he said.

“I have been worried all night that you didn't,” I said, half smiling.

“Well, come on now. I'm sure you hear the opposite all the time,” he said.

“Only as I'm leaving the room,” I said.

“She was a very unhappy woman,” he said.

“Wouldn't you be?” I asked.

“I really can't blame her. But if you tell anyone I said that I'll deny I ever talked to you.” He paused, then said, “Jeffrey's a tough nut to crack.”

“Try being married to him,” I said.

He was staring out the window at the Magrees' house, their overbuilt second floor, thinking about something.

“Gilded cages, right?” he asked.

“Maybe.”

“Let loose. Say what you feel. Talk shit.”

“I'm doing what I'm supposed to do here,” I said.

“Hmm. I guess, I'm sure whoever you are is pretty good, too.”

I narrowed my eyes at him and he looked at me, lying on the hydrangea sheets, tight hair bun jabbing the back of my head, and I felt like he could see right through me.

“Uptight is the word I'm looking for, I guess,” he said.

“We're all playing at something, aren't we?” I said.

“No, I'm just sitting here,” he said.

“You're the one regaling me with your conception stories.”

“That's what I mean. Don't you have any of those? Don't you have any indiscretions? I know you do.”

“I don't have any kids,” I said. And then I thought of Teddy, briefly, and for a moment was concerned about where he was. “I have Teddy.”

“I mean sex stories,” he said.

“Everyone has sex,” I said. “Why is that a story anymore?”

He contemplated it for a moment. “I suppose you're right,” he said.

“You're looking for first experiences behind a 7-Eleven in the summer? That kind of thing?” I asked.

“I mean, if you want to get that gritty, sure.”

“I don't think you could handle it,” I said.

I didn't have sex in exotic locations, just bed-and-breakfasts and places with sheets like Elaine's — an overabundance of floral patterns. If Tuck wanted to hear about how Jeffrey and I came to be, it would just be stories about dark parking lots and fumbling in his car. We liked it quick so I could get back to my post at the dressing room. When Jeffrey got more attached, it felt nice, and when he would tell me about his wife, I would listen and hold his hand and tell him he was a very patient man. I loved him because he loved me and we had so much fun on bona fide dates, going to museums and jazz festivals. He even took me all the way to Massachusetts once to visit Tanglewood and eat brie and listen to classical music in a big, rolling field. I realized that the appeal might have just been that I was from somewhere else and I wasn't after anything from him except his time. I didn't think these were the types of sex stories that Tuck wanted to hear.

He leaned back on the vanity and played with Elaine's things. Sniffed her perfumes, opened her jars. He looked at himself in the mirror and at me beyond him on the bed. He spritzed one of the atomizers and sniffed the air.

“I think I'll keep asking you the same question every day.”

“What's the matter with me?” I asked.

“Bingo.”

“Maybe you can just tell me. You seem to know it all,” I said.

“Where's the fun in that?” he asked.

I stared at the ragged collar on his knit polo. I didn't think he had
a right to ask, but he was the first person who had, so I considered my answer. His Top-Siders looked like they had a thin film of mold on them and were misshapen. I would never have let him out of the house like that.

“I never thought I'd live by the water like this,” I said.

He stared out the window at the Long Island Sound spread out around us. I could hear high tide hitting the seawall that kept the ocean away from the houses.

“We're the lucky ones,” he said.

I suddenly wanted to tell him all about Steven and the rock and what I had done. I thought he, if anyone, would understand. Now, sitting here with him, it didn't seem so risky.

“Do you think you're happy?” I asked.

Tuck nodded as he weighed the pros and cons in his head. “I don't really ever think about it,” he answered.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I'm here. This place is great. I've lived here my whole life and I don't have to do much. Why ask the question? You're setting yourself up for trouble right there,” he said.

I put my head back on Elaine's pillows.

“Probably true,” I muttered.

WITH CHERYL AND MY FATHER
gone I wasn't sure what to do with the rest of the night. My father told me I was supposed to show up at Richard Shepard's office in the morning to discuss my future as a surgical sales rep or whatever Richard did. The whole idea was giving me waves of panic. I needed to take something for my nerves. I also needed to put a lock on my door or something, because maybe Cheryl had figured out what I was doing. I was pretty sure she'd thrown away the clothes I left in the bathroom last night. They weren't in the hamper and they weren't in the dryer. I knew she was territorial and anal about cleanliness. Also, she was a snoop. If she threw my pills away, I'd be out hundreds of dollars and I'd have to go crying to my father, so that wasn't going to work at all. I found some in my jacket pocket—blue and round—and popped two in my mouth and held on.

I took a seat on the couch and turned on the television and ran my feet over the cold glass of the coffee table because it felt nice. I knocked
over the club directory and when I picked it up I suddenly wanted to know just where Jill lived.

I didn't know her last name, so going family by family through the directory was a bitch. Finally, I found her in the Fs. Thank God. Jill Fulton. Husband, Craig. Children: Kimmie and Jennie. Both names ending with “ie” like it was a thing.

They lived on Graves Point and I considered driving by. I hunted around in my pockets and didn't feel my keys. I got up and my legs felt thick. I found the keys on the kitchen table and flicked through them, trying to find the right one for the car. Graves Point was only a couple of streets over and the kids were probably inside by now, so it would only be minimal damage if I hit anything. But was I really going to pull a drive-by like a girl? Was I?

•  •  •

I did it. Her house was mediocre, one of those old, ugly houses from the seventies. I assumed it was their starter home or something. I figured Craig would have been doing better for himself than this. At least get her one of those new Cape Cod numbers. I could do better than this. I would kill it as a surgical sales rep and then quickly move on to surgical sales manager and Richard Shepard would give me my own territory and I would be able to buy a house that overlooked one of the holes on the golf course. Maybe not one of the good holes, but one of them, anyway. That shit would be my starter home. Are you hearing yourself, Teddy? Do you hear your aspirations right now? They are so fucking attainable right now.

The windows were dark and I turned my car off. It was about six o'clock or something, so they must have been out to dinner or at Elaine's with everyone else. I could wait, because I had nothing else to do.

Their garage was open and the cars were gone. I wanted to see what Craig had going on in there. Nothing much, it turned out, except that he was an anal-retentive asshole. Even the oil cans were spotless. A lot
of pool toys, shit like that. Nothing that told me anything about what was really going on inside of him. His fears.

I went around to the backyard and saw the most amazing jungle gym. It had like ten parts to it. All different colors. It was like one of the ones from an elementary school. What was with this guy? He built it? Nah, he probably hired some guys to do it for him but made sure his family was out so they didn't see what little he did to make it happen. He just handed over his AMEX and let other men do it for him. Manlier men. The slides had domes that you could look out of and there were like four of them. And monkey bars! I went over and grabbed onto the monkey bars and just hung there. There were fireflies blinking all around me and suddenly everything felt fine. I hung there until my arms hurt, just swinging back and forth.

•  •  •

Headlights filled the backyard and I knew Jill was back. I had tucked myself into the bubble slide and fallen asleep. She couldn't see me hiding in there, but I could see her and her daughters walking to the back door. With a pizza box in her hand, Jill looked like a mom. I decided to stay in the bubble slide and wait for them to go inside. For a second, she looked my way and I knew she couldn't see me, but maybe she just knew I was there.

The lights turned on in her house and I saw her walk into the kitchen. I wasn't watching her in a creepy way; I just wanted to see her doing normal things. Mom things. She turned away from the window and looked like she was saying something to one of the girls. I wished I could hear through the window, but I wasn't going to risk moving closer. She was probably one of those hands-on mothers, tending to cuts and bruises. Reading to them before bed. Could I blame my current state on my mother because she had never read to me? I wasn't sure.

Instead, I pushed myself up into the slide. It smelled like new plastic. Like her husband and his workers had just put it together the
week before. I moved up until I couldn't see the grass below anymore. I pushed my head up until I reached the clear bubble in the slide and then I saw Jill open the door, and for a moment, I panicked.

She let a dog out, a golden retriever, of course. I bet its name was Max.

I wanted something about her to be new and surprising, something I hadn't thought of before.

Her dog came sniffing near the slide. It was so big, like a McDonald's PlayPlace or whatever it was called, that he had no chance of finding me. I just hoped he wouldn't start barking and fuck up my hiding spot. He pissed at the base of the slide. Nice.

And then he circled the slide and the jungle gym and I tried to move farther up, away from the bubble and out of sight. My hand slipped and I started sliding down, my feet slamming against the sides, making noise as I tried to stop myself. And that bastard dog started to bark. Jill came back outside.

“Bogey.”

Jesus Christ, that had to be her husband's choice for a dog's name.

“Bogey. Come here.”

The dog didn't listen to her. He just kept barking at where I was trying to move up, trying to be quiet. He snarled, baring his teeth in my direction.

“Bogey! Is it a raccoon?” He was going crazy.

She slammed her foot down on the patio and called his name again. He ran to her and I was impressed. He actually listened to her. More important, he wasn't going to rip my balls out of my pants.

She stared at the jungle gym for a while, the dog pacing behind her, and finally went inside with the dog, shutting off the kitchen lights.

I waited in the slide for a while, contemplated sleeping in there, but it was getting sort of warm and my shirt was soaked through with sweat, from the stress of it all.

Lights turned on upstairs and I knew it was safe to leave. I went down the slide and made sure not to step in the wet spot of dog piss, then slowly walked across the backyard. I looked up at Jill's window, where I thought she'd be, and she wasn't. And for a minute, I was disappointed.

I STOOD IN THE
front yard, snipping my Mr. Lincoln roses and trying to figure out what was causing the white spots on their leaves. They had developed a sickness and no amount of mild dish soap or garden-center nutrients was helping. I held the patches of oval leaves in my hands and inspected them closely. Were the leaves being eaten through to the veins? The buds looked haggard but were still trying to bloom despite the attack. I swabbed each leaf with a Q-tip dipped in a solution I had made myself. Vinegar and some other homeopathic remedies. The swabbing would take all afternoon or longer, but I needed to save them. I had to give them a chance to survive.

“What are you operating on?”

I looked up and saw Tuck on his bicycle.

“I'm trying to rescue my roses from whatever disease is eating them alive.”

“Do you suspect foul play?” he asked. “The pisser?”

“I think we're calling him the urinator now. Anyway, he was peeing on the street, not in people's yards.”

“Urinator. That definitely sounds more threatening than pisser.”

“It really does the job riling up people at association meetings,” I said.

I stared up at Tuck and held my Q-tip with purpose and said, “Anyway, who would want to hurt my roses?”

Tuck looked up and down the street, then said, “Maybe someone has a problem with you. I heard Lori talk about the tree. Don't you know how people around here operate? You don't cooperate. . . they send a message.”

“There's more evil ways to take me down than to mess with my flowers,” I said. I looked at Lori's yard. Everything was blooming beautifully.

I shook my head.

“She just wants to watch you crack slowly, that's all.” Tuck smiled at me when he said it. Like he knew it was happening and he wanted to lighten the mood.

“I'm sorry about your flowers,” he said.

“You know when you finally find a sense of purpose? Like, something needs you in order to grow and thrive, you take it seriously. Roses are temperamental. What else do I have?”

“Probably nothing, like everyone else around here. Though there's purpose and then there's purpose,” Tuck said, smirking. “Do you think I want to spend my weekend mowing and weeding like the rest of these suckers around here? Mulching, spreading little colored rocks around just so? Lori imports her own sand, did you know that? Did you know that? She didn't like the color of the sand on her part of the beach. Twenty thousand dollars for sand.”