She was flushed now, and her eyes were wet. She took the towel without looking at me. Wiping her hands, she said, “I’m sorry — I have to go change.”
She left the kitchen through a side door. I used the time to walk around the room, opening drawers and doors and feeling like an imbecile. Nothing more ominous in the cupboards than housekeeping aids and convenience foods. I looked out the door through which she’d left, found a small bathroom and service porch, and checked them out too. Washer and dryer, cabinets choked with detergents and cleansers, softeners and brighteners — a treasury of things promising to make life shiny and sweet-smelling. Most of them toxic, but what did that prove?
I heard footsteps and hurried back to the table. She came in wearing a loose yellow blouse, baggy jeans, sandals — her hospital uniform. Her hair was loosely braided and her face looked scrubbed.
“Sorry. What a klutz,” she said.
She walked to the refrigerator. No independent movement from her chest region, no nipples.
“More iced tea?”
“No, thanks.”
She took a can of Pepsi, popped it open, and sat down facing me.
“Did you have a nice ride over?”
“Very nice.”
“It’s good when there’s no traffic.”
“Yes, it is.”
“I forgot to tell you, they closed off the pass to widen the road...”
She continued to talk. About the weather and gardening, creasing her forehead.
Working hard at being casual.
But she seemed a stranger in her home. Talking stiffly, as if she’d rehearsed her lines but had no confidence in her memory.
Out the big window, the view was static as death.
Why were they living here? Why would Chuck Jones’s only son choose exurban quarantine in his own faltering housing development when he could have afforded to live anywhere?
Proximity to the junior college didn’t explain it. Gorgeous ranchland and plenty of country-club communities dotted the west end of the Valley. And funk-chic was still alive in Topanga Canyon.
Some kind of rebellion? A bit of ideology on Chip’s part — wanting to be part of the community he planned to build? Just the kind of thing a rebel might use to dampen any guilt over making big profits. Though, from the looks of it, profits were a long way off.
Another scenario fit, too: abusive parents often secreted their families from the prying eyes of potential rescuers.
I became aware of Cindy’s voice. Talking about her dishwasher, letting out words in a nervous stream. Saying she rarely used it, preferred gloving up and using steaming water so that the dishes dried almost instantly. Getting animated, as if she hadn’t talked to anyone in a long time.
She probably hadn’t. I couldn’t imagine Chip sitting around for chitchat about housework.
I wondered how many of the books in the living room were hers. Wondered what the two of them had in common.
When she paused for breath, I said, “It really is a nice house.”
Out of context, but it perked her up.
She gave a big smile, sloe-eyed, lips moist. I realized how good-looking she could be when she was happy.
“Would you like to see the rest of it?” she said.
“Sure.”
We retraced our steps to the dining room and she pulled pieces of wedding silver out of a hutch and showed them to me, one by one. Next came the book-lined living room, where she talked about how hard it had been to find skilled carpenters to build solid shelving, no plywood. “Plywood gasses out — we. want the house to be as clean as possible.”
I pretended to listen while inspecting the books’ spines.
Academic texts: sociology, psychology, political science. A bit of fiction, but none of it dated after Hemingway.
Interspersed among the volumes were certificates and trophies. The brass plate on one was inscribed: SINCERE THANKS TO MR. C. L. JONES III, FROM LOURDES HIGH SCHOOL ADVANCED PLACEMENT CLUB. YOU SHOWED US THAT TEACHING AND LEARNING WERE JUST PART OF FRIENDSHIP. Dated ten years ago.
Right below it was a scroll presented by the Yale Tutorial Project to CHARLES “CHIP” JONES FOR DEDICATED SERVICES TO THE CHILDREN OF THE NEW HAVEN FREE CLINIC.
On a higher shelf was yet another tutoring award, issued by a fraternity at Yale. Two more plasticized plaques, granted by the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Connecticut at Storrs, attested to Chip’s excellence in graduate teaching. Papa Chuck hadn’t lied.
Several more recent testimonials from West Valley Junior College: the Department of Sociology’s Undergraduate Teaching Citation, a gavel on a plaque from the WVJC Student Council thanking PROF. C. L. JONES FOR SERVING AS FACULTY ADVISOR, a group photo of Chip and fifty or so smiling, shiny-cheeked sorority girls on an athletic field, both he and the girls in red T-shirts emblazoned with Greek letters. The picture was autographed: “Best, Wendy.” “Thanks, Prof. Jones — Debra.” “Love, Kristie.” Chip was squatting on a baseline, arms around two of the girls, beaming, looking like a team mascot.
Cindy’s got the tough job. I can escape.
I wondered what Cindy did for attention, realized she’d stopped talking, and turned to see her looking at me.
“He’s a great teacher,” she said. “Would you like to see the den?”
More soft furniture, crammed shelves, Chip’s triumphs preserved in brass and wood and plastic, plus a wide-screen TV, stereo components, an alphabetized rack of classical and jazz compact discs.
That same clubby feel. The sole strip of wall not covered with shelves was papered in another plaid — blue and red — and hung with Chip’s two diplomas. Below the foolscaps, placed so low I had to kneel to get a good look, were a couple of watercolors.
Snow and bare trees and rough-wood barns. The frame of the first was labeled NEW ENGLAND WINTER. The one just above the floor molding was SYRUP TAPPING TIME. No signature. Tourist-trap quality, done by someone who admired the Wyeth family but lacked the talent.
Cindy said, “Mrs. Jones — Chip’s mom — painted those.”
“Did she live back east?”
She nodded. “Years ago, back when he was a boy. Uh-oh, I think I hear Cassie.”
She held up an index finger, as if testing the wind.
A whimper, distant and mechanical, came from one of the bookcases. I turned toward it, located the sound at a small brown box resting on a high shelf. Portable intercom.
“I put it on when she sleeps,” she said.
The box cried again.
We left the room and walked down a blue-carpeted hall, passing a front bedroom that had been converted into an office for Chip. The door was open. A wooden sign nailed to it said SKOLLAR AT WIRK. Yet another book-filled leathery space.
Next came a deep-blue master bedroom and a closed door that I assumed led to the connecting bathroom Cindy had told me about. Cassie’s room was at the end of the hall, a generous corner space done up in rainbow paper and white cotton curtains with pink trim. Cassie was sitting up in a canopied crib, wearing a pink nightshirt, hands fisted, crying halfheartedly. The room smelled baby-sweet.
Cindy picked her up and held her close. Cassie’s head was propped on her shoulder. Cassie looked at me, closed her eyes, flopped her face down.
Cindy cooed something. Cassie’s face relaxed and her mouth opened. Her breathing became rhythmic. Cindy rocked her.
I looked around the room. Two doors on the southern wall. Two windows. Bunny and duck decals appliquéd to furniture. A wicker-back rocker next to the crib. Boxed games, toys, and enough books for a year’s worth of bedtime reading.