Open Water (21 page)

Rennie’s grand Victorian manse, with its rusty shutter hooks and peeling paint, made these new apartment interiors look as slick and unbelievable as the glossy perfume ads in fashion magazines. Snyder said, “Of course we offer Handymaid Services, Mini Bus Transportation, full parking. We have recreational-vehicle parking. Do you own a recreational vehicle? Many of our residents have travel homes—”

Munro said, “No, she doesn’t travel that much. Not anymore.”

Rennie nodded in agreement. “I really don’t go an inch.”

Snyder described every room in detail, ending his presentation with a description of the bathroom. “Tubs have grab bars. Shower stall has nonslip waffle texture. Towel bars with heat switch—”

Holly said, “Heated towels? Shit. Just like Leona.”

The salesman was startled but he maintained his evenness.

Munro heard Holly’s remark and he crossed his arms, tucking the palms of his hands under the armpits of his jacket as if he might have wanted to strike her. Snyder speeded up the presentation and showed them an entire
book devoted to Château-sur-Mer’s medical facilities. He called it “Guaranteed Life Care.” It meant, quite simply, that there was always a bed reserved in the infirmary for each resident. “These are luxury quarters,” he told them. “In health or sickness, luxury is a constant.”

“I’ve got my living will. I won’t need these fancy digs.” Rennie announced.

Snyder nodded. “It’s good to have a living will, Miss Hopkins, but sometimes people change their minds at the last minute. They want to keep going.”

Rennie looked out the window at the fog coming in off the water, long, thick tails of it like polyester filling.

Holly picked up one of the application sheets from the table. It was a medical questionnaire of some kind. She began to read it halfway down the page.

Rennie saw the questionnaire too. “The end of the line for the Little Red Trolley,” she said to Holly.

Munro collected the sheet of paper from Holly’s hand and brushed her wrist back into her lap. He squeezed her hand, keeping it in her lap. “Behave yourself,” he told her.

The tour included a visit to an occupied apartment. Snyder explained that the gentleman who lived in the unit received a decrease in his monthly maintenance fee by agreeing to show his apartment. His unit had a spectacular view, dead square at the elbow of the Cliff Walk, right above the historic old Tea House Pagoda perched on a ledge of rock. If it wasn’t for this selling point, Snyder might not have bothered with the bristly resident who followed them from room to room. “Closet space galore,” Snyder said.

“Can anyone reach the top shelf? Want to try it? Who wants to volunteer?” the stranger said.

“Waste disposal and trash compactor. Built in,” Dick Snyder said.

“I need a compactor for my S.S. Pierce sardine tin. I don’t have the strength to crush it. Christ.”

Rennie started to laugh at the man’s bitter remarks.

“Everyone has full cable hookup.”

“
I
should be Ted Turner,” the man said, with great theater, as if he had recited the remark in the same way, every day, for months. “We were born too soon, weren’t we?” he said to Rennie. “Before fiber optics. Before satellites.” This, too, was well rehearsed.

“What did you do for a living?” Rennie asked him.

“I ran a little paper mill over in Westerly. The paper went to Connecticut Valley Envelope Company, exclusively. They produce window envelopes for banks, other banking supplies.”

“My son is in the banking business, he probably uses those window envelopes, don’t you, Munro?”

“No. That would be regular bank operations. My department does not use window envelopes.”

“He’s got watermarks on his stationery. A big shot,” Rennie said about Munro.

“You’re telling me,” the man said. He stepped up closer to Rennie. He looked at her. “Just who am I talking to?” he said to her. “Do you mind if I take a closer look?”

Rennie was trying to gauge the absurd question.

The man went over to a desk drawer and took out a magnifying glass, a large blurry lens with a long SureGrip handle. It was the kind of tool poor-sighted individuals might use to read the
New York Times
or the
Wall Street Journal.
The man waved the glass up and down Rennie, then kept it six inches from her face. He squinted through its warped circle. He saw her.

“You’re an attractive woman.”

“Listen to this,” Rennie said.

“I’m not a pushover. I’m particular,” he told her. “Your eyes are nice.”

“In a coon’s ass,” Rennie said. “Did you have cataract surgery? Did they leave the stitches in too long?”

The group laughed in nervousness, a simultaneous release of disguised emotions, almost like something in an Up with People grande finale. It was all that was necessary and they left the man’s apartment to go inspect the dining hall.

Once or twice, Holly noticed the way Rennie studied a detail, as if she was really looking through a window into another life. More than usual, Rennie appeared physically frail. Her ankle wobbled on the uneven pavers and she didn’t recover her balance as quickly as she might have. The next moment she was trying to prove her pep, stooping to pick up a pine cone and sailing the sticky pod at a catbird
perched along the second-floor eaves. Holly was surprised to see the eccentric man at his window. He was pantomiming a scene, jerking an invisible rope around his neck, as if struggling with a noose. Snyder guided Rennie ahead. Holly kept watching. It was a disturbing sight because the man didn’t stop when they acknowledged him. He wasn’t interested in the audience reaction. He stood at his window and jerked the invisible rope; his tongue protruded, waggled for air.

They stopped inside the building that housed the formal dining rooms. They waited before a velveteen signboard that listed the luncheon entrees.

“It’s all so programmed.” Rennie turned to Munro. “I don’t always eat at the same hour. I don’t rise and shine
with the crowd.
”

“Someday you will appreciate that, you’ll be grateful for a schedule,” Munro told her.

“You’re stampeding me,” Rennie said.

Snyder was becoming impatient. He didn’t see a sale looming on the horizon any longer and he excused himself when someone called him away.

Munro turned to Holly. “Could I see you for a minute?”

He walked into the empty dining room and turned around to see if Holly was coming in there.

“What does he want?” Holly asked Rennie.

“He just wants to complain about me to someone. Go ahead.”

Rennie sat down in a wing chair and Holly went into the dining room. Munro pulled her wrist until she was out of view of his mother. They walked behind a big table already set with a new white cloth, flatware, and bowls of low-fat imitation butter pats. “I thought you were going to help me,” he said.

“I never said I was helping you—”

“Do you have any common sense? She’s a sick woman.”

Holly picked up a gleaming silver-plate salt shaker and turned it over. The white grains started to sift onto the white tablecloth. She pulled it up and unscrewed its cap. Again, she poured it out. The salt spilled, an instant gritty mound. She lifted the pepper shaker. Munro grabbed her wrist.

“You’re just what I thought. A nut case. Listen to me. My wife doesn’t want her living with us. You understand? I’m between a rock and a hard place.”

Holly didn’t believe that Munro was worried about his wife; he looked like someone who knew how to juggle women. Perhaps he had a wife
and
a lover and he didn’t also need his mother. She was having these skimming thoughts and before she knew it, he was cupping the ends of her shoulder-length hair. He was crushing her hair in his hands.

“Mercy,” he said. “Just give us a little mercy.”

Who was he talking for? He might have meant, give a mother and her son some help, but Munro had edged closer in a sudden wave of heat that made her spring backward, out of his way.

“What are you trying here?” she said.

“Tell me if you aren’t interested.”

“What?”

“Don’t rush. Just tell me if I’m wrong. I’ve seen you—” He meant that he had seen her, a woman alone in her spare arrangements. Maybe he knew about Willis. She studied his fingers for any trace of the silver spray paint. His fingers were clean and pink. He watched her carefully. Perhaps he was thinking she was pathetic and just a bit of trouble to get around.

“You’re just as crazy as your brother,” she said, testing
it out. She hated herself for her sudden ridicule of Willis.

Munro took her elbow and walked her out to where Rennie was sitting. Residents were beginning to show up for lunch, and Rennie was watching the parade of strangers. Most of the crowd looked vigorous and at ease. Then a row of oldsters arrived in wheelchairs. Two stooped ladies hobbled through the lobby with aluminum walkers.

“We have to skip lunch,” Holly said. “I feel sick.”

Rennie brightened. “You probably caught something here. These places are hotbeds for germs.”

Holly pulled Rennie out of the dining room. Dick Snyder was missing from sight and he didn’t try to retrieve them. Munro stood on the sidewalk and watched as Holly put Rennie in the car.

“It was very educational,” Rennie told her son. “It was good hands-on experience.” Rennie adjusted the sun visor and leaned back in the seat.

Munro ignored his mother and told Holly, directly, that he appreciated her help. He would be in
touch.
He was smiling at her, but she didn’t let on that she felt his threat.

Holly drove back to the house. She stopped on the road and reached into her mailbox. She found an airmail letter from Jensen. She tore the frail tissue envelope while the car idled. Inside the envelope was a tiny bean with an ivory stopper. She tugged it open expecting the usual elephant carvings, but the tiny ivory shavings were startling. The glistening flecks of tusk were perfectly carved phalluses. Miniature bones with swollen heads. “That lewd creep,” she said.

Rennie pressed her fingertip against Holly’s palm to lift one of the carvings up to her eye. “Cobra,” Rennie said.

“You mean these are snakes? Are you sure?” Maybe Rennie was correct. Whatever it was, Jensen was continuing
his harangue from abroad. The flecks of horn were difficult to collect and return to the little bean. Rennie watched as Holly pulled her fingertip across the tiny opening until each flake was deposited. Then Holly walked Rennie up the steep porch stairs. She waited for Rennie to rest and catch her breath before she put her key in the door. Rennie weaved slightly, like someone three sheets to the wind, but she was just exhausted. Holly told her, “Maybe you should eat something. It’s two o’clock.”

“Too tired to eat.”

“I’ll put the tea kettle on anyway.” She walked over to Rennie’s big white stove and turned the knob. Nothing happened.

“Matches are in the can,” Rennie told her.

Holly struck a match and dabbed it at the black circle until the gas ignited one side, then it traveled around, making a complete halo of blue flame. “I have to be at work in an hour. It’s my turn to do Pizza Night.”

“It’s your turn? Well, go ahead. Go home. You need to retrieve your wits for something like that. Pizza Night.”

Rennie sat down in her chair. She was staring at the afternoon sunshine coming in the fanlight, her eyes losing focus. She wasn’t falling asleep; she seemed to be studying an internal thread that Holly couldn’t gauge.

Holly gave Rennie a mug of tea and a bottle of pickled herring. Rennie couldn’t twist the rusted cap. Holly tried it. Then Holly found a bottle of Scotch in the pantry and poured one golden inch into a juice glass for herself. “Want some of this?” she asked Rennie. Rennie declined.

“Have some herring,” Rennie said.

Holly sat down across from Rennie and used a fork to stab the contents of the bottle. Together, they ate the cold, winey fish from scalloped Spode saucers.