“Are you trying to turn him against my family?” Sylvie hissed.
“Am I supposed to lie?” James lobbed back.
“It’s not a lie,” she answered.
“Don’t be naive.”
Then there were harsher, stilted whispers Charles couldn’t discern.
That same night while Scott was taking a bath, Charles stood outside the bathroom doorway, clenching his fists. Why did Scott have to push buttons? Why was Charles always the one getting punished for it? Maybe Scott didn’t deserve the privilege he’d been given, the life they’d rescued him from.
Charles wanted to make his brother understand what he had. Charles fantasized about bursting into the bathroom and telling Scott that their parents had come to a decision: they were sending him back to his real family. He would have to leave tomorrow on a Greyhound bus, alone. That would show him.
Then he’d felt a hand on his shoulder and turned. Sylvie stood above him, a questioning look on her face. “Do you need something in the bathroom, sweetie?” she asked. Charles wavered, wanting to explain to her why he’d defended Charlie Roderick Bates at dinner. The only thing that mattered was defending her honor, their family’s honor.
“I made pudding cake,” she said to him, guiding him downstairs. “You can have an extra-big piece since you didn’t get to eat all your dinner.” And there was nothing else he could do but follow her, swallowing his pain. His frustration continuing to build and build.
C harles found Joanna sitting on the couch, flipping through the channels from one reality show to another. There were still tons of unpacked boxes all around her. “It’s really coming down out there,” he said.
“Is it?” She didn’t look away from the TV. There was a glass of wine balanced between her knees. “I haven’t been out.”
Charles thrust the flowers at her. “Here.”
She looked baffled. “What are these for?”
“I thought you’d like them.”
She blinked fast. The cellophane crinkled as she touched it. “Huh.”
She held the flowers outstretched, as if they were wilting. He sat down next to her and looked at the television. A dark-haired news anchor was announcing that some economists were predicting that housing prices might fall another fifty percent by next fall. “Jesus,” Charles said. “Maybe we should have rented.”
Joanna looked at him, startled. “That doesn’t apply to us.”
“It doesn’t?” He gestured out the back window. “Those houses on Spirit? The longer they sit there unoccupied, the lower our value will go. We won’t have any equity anymore. I won’t get the down payment money back.”
Joanna stood up, walked to the kitchen, and found a vase for the flowers. “Yes, but I mean, it’s not the same.” When he stared back at her, not understanding what she was getting at, she added, “It’s not down-payment money from your salary, is it? It’s from your trust. It’s not like you slaved away for it.”
Charles winced. Something about that hurt. “It’s still my money.”
Joanna tucked her chin into her chest. “Well, I bet Mrs. Cox and Mrs. Batten aren’t worried about their deposits,” she said over the running water.
“Mrs. Cox and Mrs. Batten?” Charles squinted. “Our … neighbors? The ones you called me about yesterday?”
She turned her head toward the fridge, giving him her crooked ponytail.
He laughed. “Do you really call them by their last names? They’re our age.”
She placed the vase of flowers on the island. Several of them drooped over immediately, nearly kissing the marble surface. “They don’t seem our age,” Joanna said. “They seem … different.”
“Maybe you’re not giving them enough of a chance.”
Her expression became wounded, then beseeching. The look.
“What?” Charles implored, suddenly exhausted.
She turned her head toward the refrigerator and said something very softly. It sounded like, “So I’m the pathetic one then.” And then, after inaudible mutters, something like, “Banana bread.”
“Huh?” Charles said, growing more and more perturbed.
She walked back to the couch, reached for her wine, and took another sip. “Nothing. Forget it.”
He waited. The television flickered against her face. It showed a commercial for Gatorade, three long-limbed basketball players spinning and dunking. “Scott’s working at a sneaker shop,” Joanna said.
Charles cocked his head. This conversation was making him a little nauseous. “Scott … my brother?”
“Uh-huh. Helping out a friend or something.”
“How do you know that?”
She picked at her nails. “I saw him at the grocery store, La Marquette. We had coffee.”
Charles shifted his weight. “Well, aren’t you two buddy-buddy?”
Joanna folded her hands, matching his stare. What was she driving at? Look at me. I can have a civilized conversation with your brother and you can’t?
“So is this sneaker store he’s working at like a Sports Authority?” Charles asked after a while.
“Not exactly,” Joanna answered. “It sells limited edition stuff. Everything’s high end.”
“Sneakers can be high end?”
“Sure. It’s kind of a city thing.”
“Ah.” City. This basically shut Charles out of knowing or understanding anything about it. “And how do you know so much?” he asked her.
She let out a huffy, indignant smirk. “It’s not like it’s a secret.”
He bristled and turned away. Joanna always had an inside track to things that had flown straight over his head—music, old foreign films, indie artists, fashion trends. “You’ve never seen Kill Pussycat, Kill!?” she’d say, and off they’d go to the video store to rent it. “You’ve never heard anything by the Velvet Underground?” she’d exclaim, and she would pull out her large, zippered case of old CDs and play What Goes On. But as time passed, the exclamations sounded more like disgusted accusations. Once Charles even groaned and said, “No, I’ve never seen any of the Dirty Harry movies. It’s amazing I’ve got testosterone in my veins. It’s incredible that my brain hasn’t exploded.” She had stared at him, stunned—it had probably been the first time he’d raised his voice at her—and then shrugged and backed off. Those kinds of comments waned after that.
He turned back. “It could be a drug front, you know.” She pushed her hair out of her eyes. “What could?”
“The sneaker store Scott’s friend owns. It’s in an alley? They sell high-end sneakers? Come on. They’re probably selling meth in the back room.”
A wrinkle formed on the bridge of Joanna’s nose. Now it was her turn to look naive. Charles held her gaze, hoping she wouldn’t call his bluff. She turned away and stared at the television. Now it was a commercial for a company that paid cash for old gold jewelry. “Nice,” she whispered sarcastically, looking at Charles out of the corner of her eye.
Charles placed his hands on his head and swiveled around to face the kitchen. What the hell was happening? Why were they arguing? And why were they talking about Scott? There was no way he could mention Bronwyn now, not in this tense room.
“We should go out,” he announced.
She didn’t take her eyes off the television. “Out?”
“Let’s go get a drink.”
“A drink? “
“Sure,” he said. “There’s that Italian place a couple miles from here we’ve never tried. I think they have a bar.”
She gestured toward the window. “It’s pouring.”
“So? You told me before we never go out. And that you didn’t want to be the one to always suggest it. Well, now I’m suggesting it.”
He could take her somewhere quiet and explain the uncomfortable bind he was in, the person he was being asked to interview. I’ve tried to get out of it, but Jake wants me to do it. But, I mean, she’s living without plumbing and electricity. I won’t have anything to say to her. You have no reason to be jealous.
“All right,” she said, setting her wine glass on the coffee table. “There must be an umbrella in one of these boxes.”
The television blinked soundlessly; an ad about Toyotas, then another about eHarmony dating service. “Actually,” Charles gazed out the window. “It is pretty bad out there.”
Joanna paused, her hand on the doorknob. “So … you don’t want to go out now?”
He shrugged. He knew he wasn’t making sense. He felt like he was losing his mind.
Joanna slapped her hands to her thighs. “Whatever.” She walked to the kitchen sink and turned on the faucet. “Oh. I have to go to Maryland next week. My mom’s having a biopsy on Tuesday.”
Tuesday. The day of his interview with Bronwyn. “Is she all right?”
“I hope so. Probably.”
Then he had an idea. “Do you want me to come?”
She looked up from the sink, startled. “What?”
“Do you want me to come?” he repeated. “We could go to Baltimore after your mom has her appointment. Or to DC.”
She blinked. “You’ve never wanted to come before.”
“Okay. Never mind. I just thought I’d ask.”
“No, I mean, sure. Come.”
"Yeah? "
“Of course.”
There. It was a good enough excuse. His mother-in-law was having a biopsy. He needed to be there for moral support. It would get him out of the interview. He could assign someone else to the story. The end.
“Don’t expect much,” Joanna said over the running water. “We don’t have to stay at my mom’s house if you don’t want to.” “Okay. Whatever you want.”
Decision made. He stood there in silence for a while, watching the muted TV, the rain on the windows, assessing the piles of still-sealed boxes. Most of them were marked joanna, kitchen or joanna, bedroom or joanna, misc, remnants of her life before him. Good, he thought. This was figured out. He was free.
And then, feeling something rise up inside of him, he padded down the hall to the first floor full bath, the one they never used. He shut the door.
It was warm in the bathroom. The towels were fresh and dry. The dispenser was full of orange soap, and the shower curtain was printed with bug-eyed fish, maniacal octopi. Charles ripped it back and stepped into the scoured, empty tub. He sank to his knees, spread his legs out, and closed his eyes. The memory pressed at him, begging him to think it through. Even though he didn’t want to, even though he might not have to explain it, it wouldn’t leave his mind.
The last time Charles had seen Bronwyn was the end of his senior year, at the Swithin award ceremony and banquet. The ceremony, which presented achievement awards in academics and sports, was taking place in his parents’ garden. Charles’s great-grandfather had held one of the first award banquets there, and a board member had held succeeding banquets at one of their homes ever since.