The Care and Feeding of Exotic Pets (20 page)

“What do you care?” Marcus retorted. “Just a guy. Believe me, she wasn't picky.”

But Jimmy had seen Oren throwing up and knew Fiona had moved in with another family. He snuck into the RV and all of Jill's things were still there, even her purse with her wallet and her favorite photo of herself. Then he broke into the trunk of the car and found Marcus' blood stained clothes in a plastic bag.

Fiona testified against Marcus in court, but the lawyers said Oren was too young. Marcus broke down at sentencing and cried that he was sorry, sorry, sorry. His skin had turned gray in prison and his muscles sagged and wobbled and the swagger had
left him. Oren hated him for changing, hated that he begged for a lighter sentence, tried to say it was all because he loved his wife so much. It was embarrassing to have Jimmy laugh in the courtroom and his father do nothing. Be an asshole, Oren wanted to shout, but be a real asshole. He had shuffled when they took him away.

Fiona went to live with Jill's parents and Oren went to the carnival owner he called Uncle Nolan and he never saw Marcus or his sister again. He never wanted to. He was better than them. All of them. A child truly could be nothing like his parent. It was not so odd for Lacy to be the opposite of her mother. Children could be completely different. In fact, children usually were so much better than their parents.

His heart swelled for Winnie, the poor stupid mother. How sad she must be that Lacy is more beautiful and more talented. He gave her a smile. He noticed her cheek was bruised. He touched it with one finger and she flinched. For the life of him, he could not remember when or how it had happened.

“Is this sore?” he asked.

“You tell me.”

She was so sad and angry about everything. He wanted her to feel good. He tried the thing that always worked for him.

“Tell me one thing you're good at.”

“What?”

“Tell me. Please.” He smiled at her. “Tell me what you're good at.”

She was thinking. He could tell. They were almost home. He would hop back on the freeway here. It was early enough that the 110 East would be empty. There was still time.

“Tell me,” he said to her. “Go on. Don't be shy.” He was the teacher. He was in charge.

“I am really good at laundry.”

“Like washing clothes?”

“Yes.” She was almost whispering. “I am good at laundry.”

“How can you be good at that?”

“My grandmother taught me. I do small loads,” she said. “I use less detergent than the box says. I take the clothes out of the washer right away, the instant it's done spinning. Same with the dryer. A lot of things I only dry halfway, just to get the wrinkles out, then I hang them up for the rest. I have really big fat hangers so the shirts or even the sweaters don't get lines or bumps in the shoulders. I don't use those dryer things—you know, those little papery things you buy and throw in? No. Every fifth load I wipe out the dryer with a cloth and lavender oil. The odor is barely there, but good and clean. Lacy says she loves the way her clothes smell. All the kids at school tell her how good she smells.”

Oren smiled. He liked thinking about the way Lacy smelled. He knew from her picture she smelled good.

“Good,” Oren said to Winnie, “Always remember what you're good at. It's who you are.” Her face had relaxed and he was proud of himself. “What else?” he asked.

“I don't mind cleaning the filter in the dryer. In fact, I like it. I know it's supposed to be old skin and bacteria and germs and stuff, but cleaning that lint screen is so satisfying, like starting fresh with a clean slate.” She actually laughed. “And I am a champion folder. I fold clothes like nobody's business. No one ever taught me, I just figured it out. I love the way clean clothes feel. I run my hands over a T-shirt right out of the dryer and the warm cotton is as soft and comforting as my own bed at night. I have a special table where I do the folding. I smooth out every wrinkle and I tuck in the sleeves just so. It's a pleasure to open a drawer of properly folded clothing. To pull something out and put it on without worrying about it being wrinkled or stained. I
am good at stains. I know all the tricks.”

He tugged self-consciously at his not so white undershirt. She noticed and shook her head.

“Look at me,” she said. “This tennis outfit wasn't exactly spotless when I put it on this morning. I've been falling down on the job lately.” She paused. “The past few months it just hasn't seemed to matter much.”

Winnie thought of the hamper at home full of dirty clothes. Things that should have been washed long ago. Lacy had been doing her own laundry for a while. Winnie took her work clothes to the cleaners. She washed a load of underwear when she needed it and threw it jumbled into her drawer. What was the matter with her? Dear God, she prayed, if I ever get home I will do the laundry perfectly again. I will never stop. But God would not save her for her laundry expertise. She wondered who would do those final loads for her after she was dead. Not Lacy, please, not Lacy. She wondered if the Salvation Army accepted dirty clothes, or if her laundry would just be thrown away. And what about the rest? At the back of her closet someone would find the shirt she had been wearing when she met Jonathan, out of date but preserved. They would wonder why the hell she had kept this shirt with this piece of paper pinned to it—a corner of the parking ticket she had gotten that day. The housekeeper would do Lacy's laundry at her father's house. Winnie hoped Lacy would miss the lavender. At a new school, on her father's side of town, no one would ever know that she had smelled so good, of love and special care. At her new school she would smell of Tide or however everybody else smelled.

“What about you?” she asked. “What are you good at?”

He shook his head.

“I know you're good at taking care of Cookie.”

He shrugged.

“What else? What are your dreams? Your goals? Maybe you could have a store for iguanas. Right? Or a zoo. There must be things you want.”

Suddenly she wanted so much it flooded her. It made her muscles tense and her hands strain against the ties. A sniff of Lacy's vanilla scent. A morning to make coffee. A future.

“You're so young,” she said. “Let's stop this and start over. You can let me out here and I'll shake your hand and we'll call it a day. Oren? Let's just start over.”

For a moment, his face cleared. He wanted it too. She could see it.

“We can do that,” she said, “We really—”

His cell phone rang.

“I better take this,” Oren said. “It's probably work.”

He started to answer his phone, but then looked at her. “I can't,” he said. “I can't talk to anyone without you screaming.” He sighed. “This is hard. I didn't think it would be like this.”

His phone stopped ringing. Whoever it was did not leave a message.

“Look,” he said. “We're almost home.”

He was exiting the freeway. She bowed her head. They were almost there.

Mary Krueger was annoyed. Oren had been rude to her on the phone—and worse than that, he was lying. He had some girl over there. Obviously. The second time she called he didn't even answer. She didn't believe his story. Ha. If he was sick at home, then she was a fairy princess. Then she smiled. She might be—she just might be a fairy trapped in human form. She patted the plastic fairy figurine hanging from her mirror. The tiny bell jingled. The glitter-covered wings sparkled in the sunlight. The rainbow ribbon was fading.

“Time for a new ribbon, Miss Twinkle.”

She zipped through a yellow light and around a corner. The tires of her little red car squealed. The white paper deli bag tipped toward her on the passenger seat.

“Shit!” She caught it just in time. Spill the soup and she would have no excuse for dropping by Oren's. As if she needed an excuse. They had been out on actual dates twice. Slept together three times. Well, made love. They had not done any sleeping, but that was coming. Twice he had gotten up and dressed and crept away; Cookie needed him. Once had been in the afternoon at his house. She liked his house although it could really use a woman's touch. Some pictures on the wall. A cactus in a pot. Some pink quartz crystals in a glass bowl on the coffee table to attract love and harmony. A blue glass mobile outside near the front door to ward off negative energy.
She could do a lot with that place.

But first she had to nip this other woman in the bud. He was home with another woman and that was definitely not okay.

She bounced the fairy on her palm three times. Jingle, jingle, jingle.

“Three miracles a day,” she chanted. “Three miracles a day. Thank you, Miss Twinkle.”

The first miracle was that her favorite pink blouse was not too dirty this morning. She had worn it once before and hung it up. Sometimes when she pulled things out of her closet, they were dirtier than she remembered, but her pink blouse had been almost perfect. A small spot from something she had eaten, but the ruffle mostly hid it.

The second miracle had been the boss taking the afternoon off. That meant she could leave and take an extra long lunch, maybe not come back at all. Things were slow at Carpet Barn. People were holding on to their old floor coverings. Didn't they know that something fresh and clean would brighten their entire lives? “And relatively inexpensively.” She said that out loud. It sounded so official and correct.

Jingle, jingle, jingle. “Three miracles a day.”

At the next light, she checked her face in the rearview mirror. Eye shadow, check. Mascara, check. Eyebrows, check. Mary had to paint her eyebrows on. She was practically hairless. The khaki colored hair on her head was wispy and fine. She looked bald after a shower. She had no hair on her arms to speak of and only needed to shave her legs every couple of weeks in the summer time. Her bush—more like a couple of twigs—was a source of great consternation to her. She envied those women who could shave their boyfriend's initials in their pubic hair. She would never manage even a lower case “o”. But fashions had changed and now she shaved what little she had as if she
wanted it that way. At least she had her “D-lightful, D-licious double D's” even if the bra straps cut into her shoulders and her back ached if she had to walk more than a couple of blocks. She sighed. Then she shook her head.

“Every day, in every way, I am better and better, happier and happier. Right, Miss Twinkle?”

But damnit, she was on the wrong street. They were all alike. It was right down here, wasn't it? She remembered the front door, solid wood with no window in it. Like the top of a coffin, Oren had said. And the garage door—just like every other.

“C'mon. Where is it?”

She should have looked up his address before she left the office. The personnel files were right behind her desk. She should have remembered from last time, but then she had been in the pre-sex haze, worrying too much about her breath, her deodorant, and when to tell him she loved him.

Was there a tree out front? He had pulled them into the garage. Maybe she would see his sexy black car. He kept it so clean; she had seen him wince at how dirty her car was. She stopped at a stop sign. A jogger with a long California blonde ponytail crossed in front of her. She wore tight yellow leggings with “juicy” written across her butt. Mary's plump hands squeezed the wheel. The soup smelled good. She was hungry. She had waited and waited for Pete to leave so she could duck out unnoticed. She had not ordered anything for herself. Maybe she would just go back to the office and eat the soup at her desk. If Oren really had a woman there, she would be the last person he'd want to see. She could really blow it if she showed up.

“I am likeable and capable and Miss Twinkle knows it. I know it. Oren likes me and I am just bringing him some soup.”

Her stomach rumbled and whined. When this was all over she would reward herself with a package of her favorite cookies.
Her fuzzy sweatpants and her old sweatshirt, her couch and the TV beckoned her. She had that to look forward to.

“I am likeable and capable. Better and better, happier and happier.”

She still had one miracle left. She did not want to waste it on finding his house. She would just systematically drive up and down every street in the neighborhood until she recognized it. It might take a while, but she would find it. She hoped he had a microwave for the soup.

The garage door closed behind them.

Winnie did not want to be here. While she was out in the world, rescue had seemed possible, freedom only one thin car door away. She should have done more; she should have leapt from the car, grabbed the steering wheel and pulled them into a tree or a truck. And the gun wasn't even real. It was plastic.

Oren was a puzzle. He wanted something, not money and not sex, not torture with a tool box or dismemberment. Something else. She wasn't sure why, but he had chosen her—some article he had read or something he had seen somewhere online from long ago when she was with Jonathan.

He turned the car off. She glanced at the switch for the garage door.

He exhaled. “I'm so tired.” And rubbed his eyes.

“Don't make me go back in there,” she said. “Tell me whatever you need to say right here. I'll listen. I'll be quiet. It's too hot inside.”

He dropped his hands and turned to her. “Really?”

“We can talk right here.” She held out her hands for him to cut the rope. “I'll listen to every word.”

He cut her free and put the knife back in his pocket. He seemed honestly pleased. “Great. This is great.”

He relaxed back in his seat. She opened her door and leapt out of the car. Her feet were free. She could run. She hit the
switch on the wall and the door began to open. She ran to it, fell to her knees and began to crawl out underneath. He grabbed her legs. She kicked herself loose. She wiggled away, got to her feet and started to run. She was out in the driveway when he grabbed her. She fought him. She screamed. Where was everybody? Not a door opened, not a single curtain moved. People had to be in these houses, a woman watching her afternoon talk shows, a man painting a bird house. Normal, suburban people.