“Sold.”
“What about the cupcakes?” Typical: Elinor’s so self-absorbed she forgot about Kat’s challenges for the day.
Kat smashes a beetle on the blanket with her fist. “Safeway.”
No matter what time of day, the inside of Ray and Eddie’s Tavern is that perfect kind of dark that makes everyone look young. At night, the bar is lined with contractors who’ve been demolishing ranch houses to replace them with hacienda-style mini mansions. Once in a while, Elinor, Ted, Kat, and her husband, Jack, stop here for nightcaps after an outing. They’re usually overdressed, in their restaurant or symphony clothes, but Elinor always feels at home, the informality of the place as comforting as big flannel pajamas.
Now only a few students from the nearby community college are hanging out—playing darts and drinking dollar beers out of jelly jars. Elinor and Kat park themselves at the bar and order shots of tequila with beer chasers. As Elinor swallows, a flame of heat expands in her belly, and the lemon burns against her lips. She tugs her sweatshirt over her head to cool off. Her silk camisole is much more comfortable. Technically, it’s probably underwear. She’s not sure. She’s been wearing office clothes for so long, she’s been having trouble cobbling together a sabbatical wardrobe. All she knows is that she’ll never wear Dockers again. The bartender sneaks a sideways peek at Elinor’s chest. She dips her head to see that the camisole is drooping in the middle. Her nipples are visible through the silk. What the hell. She can’t remember the last time she felt sexy.
“El,” Kat whispers, shielding her mouth with the back of her hand. “Are you sure you’re supposed to wear that without a shirt over it?”
Elinor takes another shot, wincing and sucking air in through her teeth. “Yeah, I don’t know.” The tequila burns through her anxiety and dread. She orders a third shot.
“It’s a camisole, aka underwear.”
“Who gives a rip?” Elinor sips her beer, the bubbles tickling the inside of her mouth. Drinking feels dangerously good right now. She turns to Kat. “Do you know how lucky we are that we have breasts—that we don’t have breast cancer?” A mutual friend of Elinor and Kat’s died last spring. Their neighbor, Joanna Fried, just started chemotherapy.
Kat nods, peeling the label off her beer and reassembling it on the bar. “We’re lucky in a lot of ways. So, are we celebrating by drinking tequila in our underwear?”
“I guess so.” Elinor tips back her head and peers through the thick bottom of her shot glass. “Tequila gets the job done. I hate cosmopolitans. Can I just say that?”
“You can say that. But are you sure you’re okay? You’re like Thelma and Louise wrapped into one.”
Elinor burps, a harsh gurgle roiling in the back of her throat. “Back in a minute.” She slides off her stool and heads barefoot across the old wood floor toward the bathroom. Peanut shells and dust stick to the bottoms of her feet. She tries to make her tequila sway look purposeful, in time to the Steppenwolf song on the jukebox.
Two college guys playing pool look up at her, smiling. Are they laughing with her or at her. Don’t be paranoid, the tequila says. She stops, places her hands firmly on the pool table, and leans across the green felt at the boys.
“You like my haircut?” she asks them.
“Sure!”
“I cut it myself.”
“Great!” Both of the guys are Levi’s-and-washboard-abs-cute. They’re like an ad for youth.
“You know how much a woman’s haircut costs in suburbia these days?”
The boys laugh, shrug.
“A hundred and fifteen dollars. That’s why I wasted my thirties in an office building. So I could get hundred-dollar haircuts.”
“Bummer,” one of the boys says. He is James Dean handsome—Levi’s and white T-shirt and damp hair, as though he just got out of the shower.
With horror, it occurs to Elinor that she is older than both Mrs. Robinson and Blanche DuBois. Forty is the new thirty! the tequila counters.
“Can I buy you a drink?” James Dean asks.
“No thanks.” Elinor covers her mouth, afraid she might burp again.
“Aw, c’mon,” the boy insists. “Just one beer can’t hurt.”
“ ’Kay . . .”
But then Kat is at her side. “You challenging them to a game?”
“Sure.” Elinor digs in her pockets for quarters and slides two on the table. She has dispensed with her purse. Lightened her load to cash, car keys, license, and lip gloss.
“I wanna be on your team,” the beer-buying boy tells Elinor.
“Oh, yeah?” Elinor walks around the table toward him. A Stevie Ray Vaughn song comes on. The boy’s arm circles Elinor’s waist, pulling her into a dance. His chest is warm and hollow, as flat as his belly. He has no soft spots. He smells like Marlboros and beer. He smells like college.
Kat cues up the balls, keeping an eye on Elinor.
The boy twirls Elinor away from the pool table, gently pushing her through a doorway and into the hall by the pay phone and restrooms. She closes her eyes, a swirl of orange light buzzing like neon. She hears Kat tell the other boy, “She’s going through a rough time.”
“I hear ya!” the other boy says. The pool balls crack. “You’re up.”
The dancing boy nuzzles Elinor’s neck. His cheek is remarkably soft. “You’re totally fun.” He said fun. Not old. Not crazy. Fun. The boy accidentally backs into the wall. “Whoops!” he says. A surge of strength rushes through Elinor. She throws his wrists over his head, pinning them to the wall, and slides one knee up the inside of his thigh. He reaches forward to kiss her. It is the first time she has kissed anyone other than her husband in how many years? Probably six. You’re separated, the tequila says. The inside of the boy’s mouth is cool and tangy from the beer. Elinor would like to take him home. A Ray and Eddie’s door prize.
“You joining the wrestling team?” Kat leans in the doorway into the hall.
“Oh, my mother’s here.” Elinor giggles, pulls away from the boy. “Just having some fun.” Elinor licks her lips, moist from his. “Better than a hot stone massage,” she adds. “Cheaper, too.”
“I don’t know if Warren would approve of this.” Kat raises her eyebrows.
“Warren your husband?” The boy tugs at the waist of Elinor’s jeans.
“Boyfriend,” Elinor says huskily. She leans forward, pointing her forehead toward the boy like a bull about to charge.
“Oh.” The boy sounds indifferent. He smiles and lets go of the belt loop.
“I’d watch it if I were you.” Kat steers Elinor by the shoulders toward the bathroom. “Warren’s a big guy.”
“Whoa, a big guy!” The boy laughs, stepping backward away from them.
Elinor waves to the boy as Kat ushers her toward the women’s room. Arm in arm, they bumble through the door. The room won’t hold still and the tequila won’t stay down. Elinor lurches toward the sink and turns on the cold water. Before she can splash her face she gags and throws up into the drain. A bitter taste burns the back of her throat. She looks up. Her watery reflection in the mirror is scary—pale face and sunken eyes and damp hair stuck to her forehead.
“How attractive,” she tells Kat.
“Don’t worry.” Kat presses a wad of cold wet paper towels to Elinor’s forehead, then her cheeks. “You’re the life of the party.”
Elinor’s hangover awakens before her, driving pilings into her head as she drifts up from the gluey clutches of sleep. How did she get home? Taxi, she remembers with relief. She recalls the boys—she never got their names—leaning into the window of the cab to bid her good-bye. Kat rolled up the window on the sleeve of one of their shirts. Elinor thought this was the funniest damn thing she’d ever seen. “We caught one,” she howled.
“Don’t worry, she already barfed,” she remembered Kat telling the driver. Lovely.
The drapes are drawn and morning light seeps through. She has slept all afternoon and all night, and she’s still in her jeans and ca
misole. She spies a large glass of water and two ibuprofen on the nightstand and a note from Kat:
Call me. XX-OO.
Elinor is debating whether toast or more sleep would be better when the doorbell rings. Her legs are numb and heavy as she slides them out of bed.
She opens her front door to discover a broad-chested man in khakis and a dress shirt standing there in the sun. He’s almost completely bald, the light making the tanned top of his head shine.
“Morning,” he says cheerfully.
Elinor looks at the papers in his hands. For a horrible moment she imagines that he’s a lawyer serving her with divorce papers from Ted. She clutches her forehead, the urge to vomit tugging at her gut.
“You okay?”
“That depends. What do you want?”
“I’m the city arborist.” He looks at his hiking boots a bit shyly.
“Okay.” Elinor had no idea such a job title existed.
He hands her a business card. NOAH ORCH. CHIEF ARBORIST AND TREE SURGEON. There’s an embossed tree beside his name. “Some of the trees in the neighborhood are sick.” He motions toward the street. “I’m afraid your tree here has sudden oak.”
Elinor steps onto the porch. She shields her face with her hand from the morning’s glare to see where he’s pointing. Warren. “That sounds awful. Is there such a thing as gradual oak?”
He laughs, tipping back his head. His thick salt-and-pepper mustache is neatly trimmed, and Elinor notices he’s not completely bald; a band of salt-and-pepper hair scoops in a U-shape around the back of his head. “I’m sorry,” he says. “You’re going to lose the tree.”
“Oh, but.” Elinor’s knees wobble. She needs a cracker and a shower. She sits down on the porch, the concrete alarmingly cold through her jeans. “Isn’t there something you can do? A spray?”
The man, Noah Orch (what kind of name is that?), shakes his head. “I’m sorry. It is a beautiful tree.” He holds his paperwork to his chest, looks up respectfully at Warren.
Noah goes on to explain that the tree has cankers, which have spread into the trunk. “All those bugs? They’re bark beetles. They’re eating the tree.”
Elinor rests her forehead on her knees, closing her eyes. This morning needs to go away.
She looks out at the empty street. “What’s tree surgery, anyway? You can’t operate?”
“It’s just glorified pruning, really.”
Elinor turns her head and rests her check on her knees, looking sideways at Noah Orch. “Sorry. My head’s too heavy to hold up right now.”
Noah cocks his head, smiles. “Home sick today?”
Elinor nods. “You see, I only just started to appreciate this tree.”
“Oh, well, that’s nice. Most people don’t even really notice their trees.” He winces. “The city’s coming Monday.”
“The whole city?”
“The city tree service. With the chipper.”
“Jesus. You call that surgery?”
“I’m sorry. It’s the cycle of life,” he adds, trying to console her. “But we’ll plant you a new tree. There’s a short list of city-approved trees that you and your husband can choose from.”
“My hus—He’s not. We’re separated,” Elinor finally says. She believes she’s capable of carrying the mortgage and taking care of the house without Ted, but choosing a new tree overwhelms her. That’s one of the things she liked best about being married: making decisions, no matter now mundane, with a partner.
“I’m sorry,” Noah says, digging the toe of his hiking book into a crack in the brick porch.
Elinor turns to rest her forehead on her knees. She will not cry in front of a man named Noah Orch. “Mother Nature is just cruel sometimes, you know?” she says to the concrete below. “Mother Nature can be a bitch sometimes.” She wishes she didn’t believe this.
To her surprise, Noah says, “I know.”
She lifts her head, turns to him. His mustache and sideburns are surprisingly thick, given how little hair there is on his head. He’s handsome—one of those attractive people who probably don’t think they’re very good looking. It’s been a long time since Elinor’s kissed a guy with a mustache. Has she ever slept with a bald man? Why is she thinking this? First the kids at the bar, and now the tree guy. She notices the absence of a wedding band on Noah’s finger. Maybe he has to take it off for work. It might get caught up in tree-trimming equipment.
Noah points to the trees lining the other side of the yard. “That cypress over there is in a little trouble. I think maybe its roots have been damaged. Cypresses have roots that grow very close to the ground.” He holds out his hand, forking his fingers to illustrate. “Trees have major roots and minor roots, sort of like arteries, that carry water and nutrients to the tree. You can cut one of their major arteries, but not two. If you cut two, they often die.”
Elinor feels like her two major arteries have been cut. Her husband, her chance to have children. “Will you be there?” she asks Noah.
“Sorry?”
“When they cut down the tree, will you come, too?”
“No, I have to . . .” Noah Orch looks out at the grass, then at Elinor. He pats her arm. It’s a gentle gesture, but it’s not condescending. “Sure,” he says. “I’ll be there.”
9
Here’s the thing Roger hates about cleaning houses: When women ask what he does for a living, he has to say, “Clean houses.” Who’s going to date a twenty-six-year-old guy with a crappy car and overdue student loans who’s a maid? The only person who wants to sleep with him is Sallie Mae. Maybe he’ll start saying he’s a physics teacher. His friend Phil is a high school earth science teacher and girls love that. Oh, a teacher! Like Phil nailed himself to a fucking cross.
Roger’s a kick-ass cleaner. Bathtub rings? Ammonia and baking soda. Cat hair? Two swipes with a wet rubber glove. Blood? White vinegar and hydrogen peroxide. Thank you, Internet. He could mop up after a mafia murder, if it weren’t for his weak stomach.
His client Mrs. Wilcox made him clean a tent once. “Get the pine needles out,” she demanded, pointing a tent pole at the floor of a green-and-yellow-striped circus monstrosity pitched in her backyard. She wanted it spotless. What’s the point of camping? Roger plucked pine needles and dead spiders, scrubbed mildew. He dried the walls with a hair dryer at Mrs. W’s insistence, a long orange extension cord snaking out of her house. He imagined wrapping the cord around her ankles and felling her large body like a tree.
Roger hates it when people are home while he’s cleaning. Then you can’t blast the radio or check out their medicine chests. Then he has to talk to people, take their bullshit. So he’s disappointed when he gets to the house of his new client, Mrs. Mackey, and clearly she’s not going anywhere. When Roger rings the bell, she opens the door slowly, shielding her eyes and peering out like a hibernating animal. Roger focuses his eyes on the mailbox, because she’s not really dressed. Men’s pajama bottoms hang from her waist, and her nipples show through a pink tank top that says THE RAMONES. A cordless phone is cradled between her shoulder and cheek. She looks at Roger’s vacuum and bucket of cleaning supplies blankly. Then she seems to remember that she called him and smiles, revealing a mouthful of perfect little teeth like baby teeth. She waves him in.
“Ted can shove the Zone up his ass,” she says to the person on the phone. Roger takes a step backward. “I’m doing Atkins. Eggs and bacon every morning. So there.” She opens the door wider. He notices that she’s wearing clunky hiking boots, the laces all undone around her ankles. He drags his canister vacuum cleaner rattling over the threshold.
“Is this a bad time?” he whispers.
“I’ll just be a minute,” she whispers back. “Have a seat.” She points to a chair in the hallway. Roger sits dutifully. He likes the implied intimacy of their whispering. Mrs. Mackey disappears through a swinging door into the dining room, the laces of her hiking boots flying and snapping. Roger can still hear her on the phone.
“I’ve stil
l got ten IVF pounds to drop. Tell me what’s worse than being fat, tired, and not pregnant.”
The hallway smells like wool and lemons—like grown-ups. Ruby-red Oriental carpets, mahogany antiques, gold-framed mirrors—the place is like a museum. In college, Roger visited kids who lived in houses like this. Real houses, with entryways and art on the walls. Not like his mother’s rentals, with their cheesy wood paneling and indoor/outdoor carpeting that served as a feeble barrier from the cement slab below—from the fact that they always lived in someone’s converted garage or basement, in the dank shadow of a real house.
“Yeah, just don’t eat the bun.” Mrs. Mackey explodes back through the swinging dining room door. She clicks off the phone and smiles at Roger. Her short blond hair is all over the place. She looks like Meg Ryan after a hurricane. “Thanks for coming,” she says. “Sorry to make you wait. Wow, I love your pants.”
“What? Thanks.” Roger looks down self-consciously at his plaid polyester pre-cuffed trousers, which he bought at a thrift store. If he weren’t so damn skinny, they’d fit better. He likes to clean in a T-shirt and old pants from men’s suits circa 1980. If they get trashed with bleach or something, he can just toss them.
Roger can’t decide if Mrs. Mackey is cute or annoying. She picks up his canister vacuum and carries it into the kitchen. This is the first thing he likes about her. Why is she carrying the vacuum? Okay, maybe her nipples and the hiking boots were the first thing.
In the kitchen, Mrs. Mackey offers Roger coffee, eggs, and bacon. He just takes the coffee, even though he’s hungry, because he never manages to eat breakfast.
“Sorry, I’m not quite dressed yet.” Mrs. Mackey looks at her feet in the boots. “For fifteen years, I got up at five thirty, put on panty hose, and commuted to an office. Now I’m on sabbatical and can do whatever I want.” She glances around her kitchen, which smells like Denny’s, but is pretty clean. “You’d think I could at least get dressed and clean my own house.”
Roger notices a worn copy of The Iliad on the kitchen counter. “You a professor?”