Tumbledown (51 page)

“She has an impairment.”

“It doesn’t bother me.” Billy shrugged happily. “I mean, it’s not like she’s completely out of it, just slow on the uptake. And she’s beautiful, you know? I mean,
god.
”

“She loves you? You love her?” His fists clenched. He wanted to punch Billy. He wanted to punch his best friend in the face.

“My first wife didn’t even pretend to love me, but I didn’t want her to leave. I mean, you only live once and all that. I’m not exactly a spring chicken, and if I waited for the perfect girl, I might be alone for the rest of my life.”

“Goddamn it, Billy, she’s
mentally retarded.
”

“But she’s a U.S. citizen.” He shrugged again. “Six of one, half dozen of the other.”

“I got you that job. Doesn’t that mean anything? You’re here fucking one of my clients.”

Billy winced. “Well, not yet. I mean, we’ve only been married since Monday, and I didn’t want to rush it.”

“You’re married but not sleeping with her?”

“I’ve been sleeping on the carpet, beside the bed. It’s what I thought she needed.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Does to me. Not that I’m not planning—
we’re
planning—to have sex, kids, the whole bit, but we’re both hesitant to . . . It’s just, what’s the rush? We have our whole lives to do it.”

Candler dropped his head. He had not shined his shoes this morning. He recalled the trucker stashing the toothpick in his hair and then retrieving it, sticking it back in his mouth.

“It’s
love,
” Billy said. “It is—all I know of love, anyway. I don’t know what you and Lolly have. Or you and Lise. Whichever turns out to be the real thing. I only know this. It’s what I’ve got. And I’m happy. Can’t you be happy for me?”

“No,” he said. “If this gets out, you’ll be fired.”

“Who’s gonna tell?”

“And if I’m the director? And I
know
. . . Do you see the position you put me in?”

“I didn’t mean to. Stuff happens, Jimmy.” Billy was still smiling. He scratched under his arm, waggling his head. “We’re happy.”

“I should turn you in.”

“We’re going next month to L.A. so I can meet her family.” Candler turned and walked to his car.

“My mom cried when I told her,” Billy said. “She and Dad can’t wait to visit.”

Candler just shook his head.

“It’s love,” Billy insisted. He left the porch, running in his socks and boxers to the car. “Karly said she loves me ’cause I’m always nice to her. All these years of being nice to girls, and finally I find one who likes it.”

Candler paused at the car. The shiny red roof of the Porsche separated them. He was close to screaming something.

Billy kept talking. “I came over the first time just to help her out, you know? Wash her clothes, vacuum. Put in deadbolts. The place was such a mess, and the guy who used to help her had just up and left. And what the hell, Jimmy, if you need to turn us in, I don’t mind. I love the job and all, but I know you’ve got responsibilities. I mean, I knew you’d be pissed, but I hoped you might be happy for me even if you were pissed, but what the hey? Fire me. I’ll go back to pizzas or there’s a Buy-N-Go in town that could use a good man. Just don’t ask me to leave her.”

Candler only stared.

“I can
talk
to her,” Billy said. “We talk. We listen. I tell her things. She tells me things. It’s good. And this house is paid for. I can take care of her. And she . . . she’s . . .”

“Just because she’s good-looking,” Candler said, “doesn’t mean—”

“She’s
kind,
” Billy said. “Her first impulse is always kindness.” Candler opened the car door. He counted his breaths to calm himself.

“Good-bye, Mr. James Candler.” Karly had on a shirt now but she was still barefoot, and she stepped into the yard, crossing it to join Billy. “You look so good in that car,” she called.

Billy put his arm around her. He kissed the top of her head.

The drive to the Center passed unnoticed. He must have steered, must have stopped at signs and watched for pedestrians, but somehow he did not notice the drive. The parking lot was almost empty. He stumbled getting out of the car, falling to one knee.
If I’m on my knees, I must be praying.
Fucking Billy. That fucking idiot. Candler used his key to enter the building. From his office window, he spotted the tractor. It had not moved, but somehow it could only be seen from above. He sat on his desk and looked up the number for the chairman of the board. He got an answering machine.

“It’s James Candler calling. I know you’re making the decision today or tomorrow. I’m withdrawing my application for director. Clay Hao is more experienced and better qualified. He’s a better person for the job.”

Afraid to say anything else, he hung up.

The knock on the door caused Maura to look at the clock. It was probably one of the girls on this floor, locked out of her own room, or maybe it was Castro, coming with news. Maura imagined what info he might have to give her at this time of the night—an ill parent, sibling hit by a car. It couldn’t be good news. The tapping was rapid but not hard. She opened the door only a crack. She liked wearing the oversized pajamas, but she didn’t like people to see her in them.

No one was there. Yet she heard a voice whispering her name.

On his hands and knees, just outside her door, was Bellamy Rhine, and he didn’t look good, his narrow face sweating and red, an awful contortion straining his features.

“What’re you doing here?”

“I’m very
worried,
” he whispered.

“Of all people,
you,
breaking the rules, going to get us both in trouble. I would’ve guessed a thousand names of who might be at my door at midnight before I guessed
you.
”

“I’m very worried and I need to talk to you.” He was still whispering, still on his knees. “It’s eleven thirty-seven,” he added.

“I would’ve guessed Bush and Schwarzenegger and Amy Wine-house before I guessed
you.
Don’t you understand I don’t want to talk to you? I am
nothing
like you. I don’t give a flying fuck about you and Karly. Why aren’t you slobbering and sweating at
her
doorstep?”

“I’m here to get your help,” he said and he wiped tears from his face. Real ones. “I’m very worried about Mick.”

“Mick?” She opened the door, and Rhine poured himself through. “How did you get up here? Is Mick downstairs?”

“This is a very nice apartment, Maura,” he said, getting to his feet. “Very nicely appointed.” He nodded his tiny head in rhythm with his speech. “I’m afraid Mick is in a hurtful state because Karly has chosen me over him, and when I was afraid Karly had chosen him over me, I was in a very hurtful state, and I think we need to see that Mick is all right.”

“Karly’s living with a dude, is what I hear.”

Rhine started making her bed. He was shaking his head so hard sweat was flying. “Karly and I are going to be married, and we have to worry about
Mick.
I do not,
cannot
believe it’s possible that there is, living in Karly’s house, any . . .” He shook his head harder while he searched for a word.

“Dude,” Maura offered.

“. . .
dude
living with her.” He fiercely tucked the bed corners, and Maura realized he was going to lose his shit. That he had long ago lost it.

“You’re right,” she said. “Just teasing. You know me. Sorry.”

“Apology accepted, Maura, but teasing isn’t nice when there is so much . . .” He took a breath and another and another. His lips moved. He was counting. She let him finish, and he did seem calmer.

“How’d you get up here?”

“I could be in a great deal of trouble,” he agreed, nodding. “I asked the dorm attendant, and he would not let me go up the elevator but some people outside started yelling at each other, and he left to talk to them before I could ask about the stairs.” He took another deep breath. “I tried to go to bed tonight, but I kept thinking that Mick might do something bad.” He was nodding. “Sometimes people do bad things to themselves.”

There were reasons for the rules,
she reminded herself.
It had been a mistake to sneak out of her dorm.
Not more than another second passed before she replied. “Okay, I believe you. Let’s get on your scooter and go to Mick’s.”

“I can’t
find
his house,” he said, tucking in the top sheet, fluffing the pillow. “I’ve never been there, and wherever I turn, it’s the wrong way. I was looking, looking, and it’s a
cycle.
”

“I have a city map,” she said.

“Can you read it?”

“You’re trembling, Rhine.”

“I’m
very
worried.”

“Close your eyes,” she said. “I’m getting dressed.”

In a matter of minutes, they were in the basement. Maura pushed Rhine through the window before climbing through herself. They would get caught, and she would be grounded or worse, but she didn’t have any choice. Rhine’s fear had rubbed off on her.

She climbed onto the scooter and wrapped her arms around Rhine’s ribs, yelling directions in his ear, which he repeated over and over. He was an annoying clod, and if this was a wild goose chase, she would make endless fun of his trembling. Maybe. Maybe she liked having an excuse to go to Mick’s house anyway. She had never been there, never met his mom or brother. They had become exotic creatures in her imagination, these people who lived with Mick, who shared his genes. Besides, she liked having the wind in her hair again. If this meant she was still sick, she’d have to learn to live with it.

“Turn left on the next street,” she said.

“Turn left on the next street. Turn left on the next street. Here? Turn left here?”

“Yes, for fuck’s sake.”

“I’m turning left, Maura. Here we go left.”

There was no traffic to speak of, and she had to admit that Rhine was pretty good with the scooter. How late was it? It couldn’t be much past midnight.

“Do I go straight, Maura? Maura, do I go straight?”

“Or what? Go in circles? Yes, straight. This is his street.”

“This is his street,” Rhine said. “This is his street.”

“It’s going to be on this side,” she said, tapping his right arm. “We’re almost there.”

“I’m not going to cry, Maura,” he said, his tears blown back onto her face. “Maura, I’m not—”

“Pull over. Here.”

“Here? Right here?”

The house was two-story but narrow, as if built to fit between the trees on either side of it—spooky trees with black leaves as big as boxing gloves. All the windows were dark except for one around the side and upstairs. Mick’s bedroom was upstairs; she knew that much from talking to him. She had made a plan on the ride over, and she followed it now without thinking. She ran to the door and rang the bell, pounded on the door, rang the bell again.

“No!” Rhine called. “You’ll be rude!”

“Mrs. Coury!” Maura yelled, pounding and ringing. “Mick!” Lights and noise came from the house, a rumble of movement, and the door flew open. It was Mick and it wasn’t Mick, just awakened, a T-shirt and pajama bottoms, his lovely bare face. “What? What is it?” And then calmer: “You’re Mick’s friends.” The brother. The little brother. He was fifteen.

“We’re here . . .” she began. “You’re Craig, right? We need to see . . .”

A woman in a robe appeared behind the boy, her face probing the dim room.

“We’re very worried,” Rhine called. He had put his helmet in the empty spot beneath the seat of his cycle, which had made him slower getting to the door. “Hello, Craig Coury. Hello, Mrs. Coury. It’s Rhine. I’m very worried about Mick. Maura and I both are very worried. This is Maura Wood.”

Only then did it dawn on the Courys that Mick alone had not responded to the ruckus. Mrs. Coury—her name was Genevieve and she was forty-two years old—turned and ran up the stairs.

“Death—or near death—whatever this turns out to be, it makes me want to fuck,” John Egri told James Candler. They were sitting apart from the others in the waiting area and speaking softly. There were eight altogether at two a.m. waiting for news about Mick Coury. Candler was surprised by their number and surprised, too, by their clothing, the asinine T-shirts and cartoon-laden pajamas, the terry-cloth slippers and other inappropriate garments (Bellamy Rhine wore a motorcycle helmet), and the casual manner they assumed, how they chatted and mixed powdered cream into their coffee while they waited, Bellamy Rhine asleep on the couch, his knees bent, his socks the color of bubble gum, his helmeted head in the lap of Maura Wood, and another boy in Batman pajamas—Mick’s brother, evidently—playing a handheld electronic game, and how no one cried or collapsed when the ER doctor told them the boy was alive but not out of the woods. “Not just fuck, but procreate,” Egri continued. “Spread some seed. You counter death with life, I say. Not that I’m going to wake Cheryl up by climbing onto her Mount Olympus, but I feel the urge, you know.” He eyed Genevieve Coury meaningfully.

Candler did not know what Egri meant and did not catch the ogling. He had been at home, on the couch with his laptop when the call from Mick’s mother came. He had declined Lolly’s invitation for a private viewing of her new bathing suit, her new nightie, and god knows what else she had bought.
Some work to finish up,
he’d told her, and when she asked, he said, yes, it had to do with the promotion.

She left him alone then and Violet was already in bed, which permitted Candler to get online and advertise the Porsche on craigslist.
Must sell,
he had written.
Tyvek cover included.
Within the hour, he had a dozen responses. Another decisive act, he told himself. That he had dropped out of the competition for the job—his first decisive act—he had told no one. He felt a powerful urgency to take action on all the tattered, flapping things in his life, and there was no shortage.

The car would soon be history. Next? What would be the next decisive act?

He would move out of his house.

He could not possibly ask Lolly, who had come all the way from London, to find an apartment. She could stay as long as she wanted. Bob Whitman had a cabin in the Laguna Mountains that Candler had used when his place was being fumigated. Maybe he could camp there again. Or maybe he would take a room in one of the old motels in Onyx Springs. Or a hotel in San Diego with a view of the ocean.

Was he serious?

Yes, he would move out of the house. He did not intend to break it off with Lolly, necessarily—probably but not necessarily. But they shouldn’t live together. They had rushed things. He was still tangled up with Lise. There was another decisive act to undertake: he had to tell Lolly about Lise.

That would be part one. Part two: he had to quit seeing one or the other.

Or both. He had let himself believe that he had to choose between the two women. Was that the issue? Whatever it was he was going through, he was not required to choose one of these two women. He could cut it off with both. He could go back to his carefree bachelor ways.

Though it was harder to imagine his life without Lise. Had he cheated on the Mendez report merely to impress her? He had already told her the story. Whatever impression there was to make had been made. To keep from lying to her? Given the amount of subterfuge in his life recently, he was unwilling to accuse himself of a wanton bout of honesty. Then why? Because the kid shouldn’t have to go back to war? Because Candler wanted to be able to sleep at night?

The phone rang, and Candler answered it.

“This is not your fault,” Genevieve Coury said, and in the minutes and hours that followed (and in the months and years that would follow) Candler was (and always would be) grateful to her for that greeting.

“I think I’m responsible for this,” he told Egri. He started to explain but Egri cut him off.

“Get all of this self-flagellation out of your system tonight,” he said. “You don’t want any of that muck floating around. Not that the board members would hold you responsible, and they might even like that you’re such a bullshit martyr, but it could make it hard to immediately put the crown on your balloon. Follow my drift?”

“We shouldn’t be talking about that stuff now,” Candler said, imagining for a moment how Egri would respond when he found out Candler had withdrawn. “That boy almost died.”

“
Almost died
is nothing,” Egri replied. “Like
almost pregnant
or
almost indicted.
”

“He’s a good kid, and he might still die.”

“So what if he’s a good kid?” Egri demanded. “If he was a bastard you wouldn’t care whether he lived or died?”

Candler had no reply. He recalled something he had discovered a couple of days earlier—that his sister believed it was Pook who had knocked out her front teeth by swinging a baseball bat. “It was something like a blessing,” she had said to Candler. Her teeth were crooked but as long as their slant caused no real trouble, their parents couldn’t see any reason to have them corrected. But the injury required braces, and when they came off, she was suddenly attractive. “It made me distrust personal beauty,” she explained. “And I never would have been drawn to Arthur otherwise.”

“I thought I’d knocked your teeth out,” he insisted.

“That’s not the way I remember it,” she had said.

Billy had been there, tossing a pretend curveball, and their mother had thereafter banished them both from the house. No, it was he who had done the damage—and provided the unexpected benefit. Why was he thinking about his sister’s teeth in this awful hospital corridor?

Egri tapped his arm. Mrs. Coury stood just inches from them. Her hands blossomed at her waist as she spoke. “He’s going to make it,” she said. “They’re still concerned, but I can tell. I’ve been through this before. He’s going to make it. He’s going to be his old self.”

“Thank goodness, madam,” Egri said softly.

Candler could not speak, knowing that
old self
meant the boy he knew and not his old old self, the boy who would never consider taking his life. Candler did not feel he could put much faith in the woman’s pronouncement. She was telling them what she needed to believe. She was cheating death, or trying to, denying its proximity. When he had lived with Dlu, one of her many ethical obsessions concerned grocery bags. She had hated them and collected canvas bags and insisted the checkout clerks use them. This was a common practice now, but Dlu had been ahead of the curve. Candler had dutifully kept a stash of canvas bags in his truck, but he inevitably forgot them until his goods were being scanned, until the clerk actually said the words
paper or plastic.
He recalled lugging the plastic bags to his car and repacking the items in the canvas bags. How many times had he done that?
Keeping the peace,
he’d thought at the time.
Staying out of harm’s way.
Or just
cheating.
Pretending to be better than he was.
In the desert, it’s the same deal,
Mendez had said. They were just boys pretending to be soldiers and dying in the process.

Candler understood then what he had long worked to ignore:
he should have married Dlu.
He had rightly determined that it would have been a difficult marriage, and the strain would have made him unhappy. But at this moment, in a flash of insight he would regret, he under stood that happiness was maybe not the most important thing after all, and that if human life was capable of even the smallest moments of exaltation, they might require work and, for one such as himself, a partner who was willing to embrace such work and by her own example encourage it was invaluable.

How the holy fuck did people know what to do with their lives? Candler gave them tests to help them see where their interests lay, but shouldn’t they know what interested them? Shouldn’t that be one of the things in life that was absolutely obvious? The constraints of work—he couldn’t leave that out. They had to work for a living, spend their waking days laboring, and that work might be more bearable if it related to their interests, their passions, and it ought to be work that made use of their talents and did not make demands on their intelligence or physical abilities to which they were not equal. That’s where the evaluator came in, juggling all those factors, weighing them in his palms, and then discerning a pattern.
If you pursue your passion for XYZ, you’ll be happy.
Or at least you’ll have a shot at happiness, but should happiness be the goal? Everyone wanted the happy ending, but there had to be more important things in this world than happiness.
Can’t you be happy for us?

Mrs. Coury patted his shoulder before moving to the next group.

“Moses and Mary, would Mr. Ralph like to go spelunking with her.” Egri gripped Candler’s arm, shook it slightly. “Don’t make any more blunders, and leave the rest to me.”

Blunders,
Candler thought. How were the living supposed to avoid them? Egri stepped over to Genevieve Coury and spoke softly to her. They embraced, and he stared over her shoulder at Candler.
Blunders.
Egri had just unwittingly blamed this on him, Candler realized. His cell phone vibrated, a text message. Candler waited until Egri had been swallowed by the elevator doors before looking. It was from Lolly:
I’m up.

He texted back:
No news.

Then he distanced himself from the others and phoned Lise. “He’s unconscious, but they don’t seem concerned about that.” He was standing down the hall from the waiting area, his cheek up against a window. “I don’t know why they’re not concerned. It seems like being unconscious should worry the hell out of us.”

“I’ll make coffee if you want to talk. So I can stay awake, I mean. I don’t expect you to drive all the way down here, but we can talk on the phone.”

“I’m exhausted,” he said, “but I don’t want to leave just yet. I’m too tired to talk.” But they did talk. “If that boy dies,” Candler said a dozen times without ever completing the sentence. “I thought I was helping by making him face the truth, but maybe that’s a crock. I should have kept my mouth shut.”

This would be James Candler’s final conversation with Lise Ray, the last time he would hear her voice. In the days to come, he would tell Lolly about his decision to move out, how she could stay as long as she liked in the house, and then he would drive to Ocean Beach, the Porsche sold by then to a San Francisco buyer who would pick it up the coming weekend—his last drive in that awful car. The housing crash that would make his stucco barn worth less than what he owed had announced itself, as well, and politicians were scrambling before the election to come up with a response. Candler could not foresee all that was to come, but he did understand that he would walk away from that drafty monstrosity. He parked on the street in Ocean Beach, outside her building, eyeing overfilled trash cans joined by a pair of giant cardboard boxes. The boxes, damp with dew, held more trash.

Someone is moving, he thought.

The note was tacked to the door, a folded sheet of paper bearing his name. He pulled it loose, unfolded it.

The note would be the final push that would usher him along to the next phase of his life, but he would not see it for a few days yet. He held the phone to his ear, his cheek against the cool hospital windowpane, and listened.

“There was one time,” Lise said, “somebody asked me—demanded—to explain what in my life had put me in the situation I was in. I don’t want to go into details, but I was in a bad place. At first I gave him the usual baloney, but he wouldn’t bite, just kept smiling and shaking his head. I spent a long time trying to figure it out.”

“What did you come up with?” Candler asked.

“I had made compromises,” she said. “Not like you can have the bathroom first on Mondays and Wednesdays, and I’ll take Tuesdays and Thursdays. That other type of compromise, when you let some part of yourself be dented or tarnished or sold because it’s easier than protecting it, or because everyone else is doing it, or—I’d tell myself it was temporary and meant nothing. Just until I got my bearings, but that’s like sticking your head in a river and saying
It’s just until I can get a full breath of air.
”

The quality of Candler’s attention changed, and he propped an elbow against the glass, his head in his palm. “Was this a therapist who asked you to—”

“Not a therapist. It was a friend . . . my . . . it was my dad, actually. He and my mom were worried about me.”

“What does your dad do for a living?” Candler asked.

“He’s an electrical contractor. My mom works for the phone company.”