The Parallel Apartments (61 page)

“What's gonna happen?”

“I'm in some trouble.”

“Jail?”

“Maybe—this is just the kind of thing probation officers like the least. Plus I never told him I was moving. You're supposed to inform them of every change of blah, blah. So, yeah, maybe, jail, maybe, yeah. Probably. I have to go back to court day after tomorrow.”

Rose never cried, except at the movies, and at that TV ad for dish soap where they wash oil-spill oil off of a baby sandpiper. Just thinking about that one could break her up. But real-world human drama, even six-digit casualties of natural disasters or the worst of her own failed romances, couldn't do it.

Until now. Rose fell onto Matt's knobby shoulder and cried. Having virtually no experience with people beyond the exchange of tarot-card markers for backpacks at his job—no girlfriends, ever, homeschooled, and the only child in a motherless family—Matt was inexperienced with, possibly even ignorant of, such close contact with tears: with his body wholly clenched, he stiffly patted Rose on the back and repeated “There, there,” over and over.

Eventually Rose stopped, more from discomfort than from depletion.

“Better? Finished?”

“Yeah.”

“You're a mess. I've got some old napkins from Wendy's on the floor of the backseat, hold on, lemme find them. They're unused.”

“What now, what now,” said Rose, mostly to herself. “I don't know what to do.”

“Want to abscond? I don't care about the bail. I'll help you.”

“I have to talk to Appleshortner first. He's not such a bad guy.”

“Call him from a prepaid cell so they can't trace it and bust you with a SWAT team.”

“You grew up in front of a TV, huh.”

“Yeah, so? It's coming in useful now, isn't it?”

“I need to talk to Justine.”

“Maybe you're better off without her.”

“You be quiet. You don't know what love is.”

“That
sounds like TV.”

“Fuck you, Matt.”

“If love is this, fuck love. Jail, blood, babies, snot? Who needs it?”

“Would you please get me the fucking napkins?”

Matt disappeared into the backseat of his Acura. The hood was cooling quickly. Rose shivered. Oh my, how she had blown it. More than the memories of collapsing auto glass, of eeking Aggies, of honk sonatas, of that blood-gelling “Freeze!,” it was the atavistic fear and childish relent in her voice that had been Rose's loudest memory of yesterday. Rose didn't even know what had happened to Justine. Had she walked home? Was she hurt? Had she miscarried? Had she gone right back to the clinic? Back to New York? Maybe she was fine. Maybe she was more than fine, doing super, maybe she'd been looking for a way out of a one-sided relationship. Now without impediment, she could go to the abortion clinic, then have a chance at a relationship with someone else. Maybe she was already having an affair with someone whom Rose could never guess. The screwball neighbor with the bowl of suckers, some internet blowhard. Maybe even some
dude.

“Couldn't find them,” said Matt, “but here's a
Newsweek
from the trunk. Will that do?”

“Yeah. Sorry I cussed you out.”

“It's okay. Me too. But I think you need to confront the truth that you are simply not a very good matchmaker. I can't even remember your last success.”

“It would've been you and Evenie if you'd just admit that you love getting rimmed and throat-fucked and tied to workbenches by female Faroe Islanders. Drenching ejaculations are always preceded by agreeable stimulation. That's a success, in my book. It's up to the two of you to keep it hot and stay together.
My
job is done, and done well.”

“Maybe you've simply been misinterpreting your signals. Maybe when you get one of your Bingos you should keep the two
apart,
at all costs. I was traumatized.”

“No, you weren't. You just don't want anyone to know you have a non-het side. Maybe a bi-i-i-ig side.”

“You think every heterosexual is covering up some bizarre sexuality.”

Rose sighed. If she sighed too deeply she'd start bawling again, so she kept her breathing regulated and issued an order.

“Drive me through Wendy's.”

Matt did. Then, her mouth crowded with fries and a Frostie, Rose directed him to the parking lot of Spinners, a Laundromat at the corner of Nitrate and Rug.

“Hey, you can see right inside,” said Matt. “Dryer-watching is a well known digestive aid. And we don't even have to leave the car!”

“Turn around. If you look across the street, between those two duplexes and through the fork in that dead pecan tree, you can see my front door. I just want to see if she's okay without bugging her.”

“Careful, or you'll wind up treading in a lake of restraining orders,” said Matt. “Look, can I ask you something? Is it her you want? Or her baby?”

Rose did not respond.

“Wait, isn't that her?”

Through the trees, a block away, Justine was visible, struggling to unlock the door to their apartment. She was dressed in the same clothes she'd worn the day before: a white polyester maternity dress block-printed with little red songbirds and the notes they were singing. Over it she wore an inadequate blue windbreaker, an article Rose had only ever seen hanging in their tiny closet. During the very few cool days they'd experienced together, Justine had worn none other than Rose's gray fake-down vest. The windbreaker made her seem not only off-limits but somehow less pregnant.

“Jesus, Rose, don't cry again. I can't handle it.”

“Go to Hyde Park.”

“What? I've got shit to do, not the least of which is go home and change out of this snot- and grief-covered coat. I'll take you to get your Jeep out of impound and you can drive yourself to Hyde Park to carry out whatever loonball scheme you're hatching. What is it, anyway? Your scheme?”

“There might be a peace offering there. I have to catch it, though. Drive.” In the older residential parts of town like Hyde Park, alleys bisected every block. In an alley between Avenues B and C, just beyond an old, neglected cedar fence, Rose commanded Matt to stop.

“Why—”

“Quiet.”

“—do potholes seem so much deeper the closer it gets to winter?”

“Wait for me. Are the back doors unlocked?”

“What? Why?”

“Just unlock them. I'll be right back. Leave the car on.”

Rose backtracked toward the fence, crouched down, and began yanking at the slats, one after another, until she found a loose one. She pushed it aside, revealing a weedy, weather-bleached backyard dominated by a distressed bird-mansion atop a tall, slightly leaning pole. Sotto voce, she called out:

“Dartmouth.”

This was insane. Did Texas have a three-strikes law? Maybe she'd get caught and go to prison for life, like people in California sometimes did if they got caught three times for things like smoking dope or robbing parking meters or lifting mascara from Vons.

“Dartmouth!” Rose called again, this time leaving off the sotto.

Rose could sense Matt's wincing disapproval, his unwillingness to abet, his inclination to take off and leave her alone.

“Dartmouth!” she said, loudly, a real dog call. And lo, a real dog, a pug, came around the side of the house. Dartmouth paused, espied his summoner, barked wetly, and raced over to her, tinkling and drooling in volumes more in accord with standard poodles or Shetlands. The little dog was creaky in his gait and gray about the muzzle, which he worked hard to jam through the opening in the fence. Rose reached in to help him, grabbing at a gather of loose skin at his shoulder blades, waking the colony of little cuts on her hands.

“Ow, fuck.”

“I'm calling the police right now,” came a voice. “You let go of him. Dartmouth, come here. I'm dialing right this instant. Dartmouth, come. Nine… one…”

A late-middle-aged woman, one hand pressed into her lower back, the other gripping a cordless phone, had appeared in the yard, wobbling rapidly toward Dartmouth and Rose.

“He's not yours!” shouted Rose, “and I'm taking him to his rightful owner.”

At the moment Dartmouth's loyalties were to Rose, and he was working hard, snurfling and sliming and whinnying for his freedom.

“That is my dog,” said the woman. “I've had him for almost twenty years, and he's fragile and you let go this instant. The police are on their way.”

“Good. This is my girlfriend's dog, lady, not yours. The police will arrest you, not me.”

With a splintery thunk Dartmouth succeeded in forcing his head through the gap, but was stopped by the rest of his cobby, roast-like torso. The woman dropped her phone and grabbed hold of the animal around his middle. She pulled and dragged, glaring at her opponent.

Rose was arrested by the woman's big green eyes. As if it were Justine herself fighting for the animal.

“You're Livia, aren't you.”

“Who the dickens are you?”

“This is your daughter's dog, not yours, and so you better let go. Livie, darling.”

Dartmouth seemed not to mind being the means in a tug-of-war.

“You… who are you?”

“I'm Justine's tuck-in friend and this is her dog that she got for Christmas in 1987 and you better let go or you'll hurt him and you better believe they've got some serious animal-cruelty laws in Texas plus Justine will hate you more than she does now if that's even possible,
Livia,
so leggo of her baby.”

And, surprise, she let go. Rose allowed herself to sit back in the alley weeds. The woman stared at Rose with a look she'd seen only once before: Olympe's expression, lit by the dashboard light of the Fiat they'd escaped Tegucigalpa in, somewhere near Coatzacoalcos. Dartmouth remained trapped between the slats, halfway to liberty, struggling and
nyrk
ing like Winnie-the-Pooh stuck in Rabbit's front door.

“She's here?”

“That is none of your business.”

“Is she all right?”

“Never you mind.”

“You tell me, she's my little girl.”

“You call the police back and tell them to not come.”

She picked up the cordless phone and showed the back of it to Rose.

“It doesn't have any batteries. No one's coming.”

She had more than just epidote-green eyes in common with Justine—there was something peculiar to her movements, a cautiousness, a balancing, that she noticed in both women. And not just them; Rose had seen it in other women, too, certain women that she would later learn were

“Pregnant. You're… pregnant, aren't you?”

Dartmouth had reversed, abandoning his quest for freedom in favor of comfort. At long last, his head uncorked. He gave it a good, colloid-flinging shiver, and then ran off down the side yard.

Matt honked, rolled down his window, and shouted: “Rose! C'mon. We'll get fucking arrested.”

“Rose. You're my little girl's… friend.”

“You
are
pregnant. Aren't you in your fifties?”

“I am sixty-five, and I don't appreciate—”

“Justine told me you were…”

Rose paused. “You're…
Charlotte
?”

“I am she. Hasn't Justine ever shown you pictures?”

“And you're pregnant?”

“It is not unheard of at my age.”

“I don't know, I think it's pretty fucking rare.”

“Norris McWhirter has not come knocking. And I do not care for cuss words as ugly as that one.”

“Rose, Jesus, come the fuck on.”

“I want you to tell me if Justine is all right,” said Charlotte. “I will not interfere with your lives. I just want to know whether she's well and happy. And tell her I'd like a phone call now and then. It's the same number. Dammit.”

“I'm leaving!” shouted Matt. “Rose? Last chance. Look, I'm driving off… better hurry… right now.”

Rose did not move. Matt, lathered up with impatience, screeched off, dropping tires into every pothole.

Charlotte and Rose stared at each other through the six-inch-wide breach.

“Can I come inside?” said Rose. “I have an idea.”

“You certainly may not,” said Charlotte. “You are a complete stranger, a felon, and a corrupting young person.”

“I am your granddaughter's true love, I'm pretty sure, but she's upset with me and might have even might just broken up with me because I did something stupid, but I think together—you and me—we can get her back.”

“There is,” said Charlotte, her voice threatening to break,
“so much
you don't know.”