“Can I just stay with them tonight? I don’t want to play with Mike and Terry.”
Julian understood and sympathized. Like their father, James’s cousins were wild and obnoxious. But as he explained to his son, he was closer in age to them than Megan, and a boy, and since they were coming over to his house, it was his job to be a good host and entertain them. “Tell you what, though,” he said. “You don’t have to stay in your room with them. I’ll let you guys hang out in the living room and watch TV. Put on anything you want. Cartoons. That should keep them occupied.”
“And Grandma and Grandpa can stay with us!”
“If they want to.”
That seemed to satisfy him, and the two of them headed downstairs together.
Their guests began arriving soon after: Claire’s parents first, then her sister’s family ten minutes later. As always, they ended up separating into groups, women in the kitchen, men in the living room, and Julian saw James shoot him a look of anger and betrayal as Claire herded the kids upstairs. He vowed to make it up to his son after dinner and rescue him, allowing James to hang out with the adults and letting the bratty cousins fend for themselves.
Claire’s dad criticized the furniture arrangement, then complained about the comfort level of the chair he settled into, and Julian turned on the television, switching to an Albuquerque newscast, hoping the weather or sports or whatever was on would lead to a more general discussion. He would much rather have been in the kitchen with the women—their conversation was sure to be more interesting—but he was stuck here and knew he had to make the best of it.
On the television, a reporter was standing in front of a pueblo, talking to a Zuni spokesman about recent vandalism at one of the tribe’s sacred sites.
“Don’t even get me started on those Indians,” Rob said.
This was not a subject Julian wanted to pursue, but Claire’s dad took the bait. “What happened?”
“This college boy who’s working for us found some pieces of pottery with his backhoe, so he went and told someone, and now the entire site’s shut down for two weeks until they can dig up all that Indian crap. Meanwhile, we got a whole crew’s not getting paid.”
“Yeah,” Julian said. “Those college boys are nothing but trouble. People should never try to get a higher education. It only leads to problems.”
Rob’s face turned red, though from anger or embarrassment, Julian couldn’t tell. Claire shot him a warning glance from the kitchen doorway, and Julian knew he’d better keep his opinions to himself for the remainder of the evening.
Which he did, as hard as it was.
After dinner, Megan immediately went back upstairs to hide in her room. Diane told her two boys they could go play, but before James could finish pushing out his chair and dejectedly follow them, Julian told his son that he could stay if he wanted or watch something in the living room. James shot him a grateful look that made it almost worth putting up with everything else.
Almost.
Luckily, everyone left early, with mutual assurances that they’d had a wonderful time, and after putting the kids to bed, Julian helped Claire with the dishes and both of them retired to the living room. “Long day,” Julian said, settling onto the couch and flipping through channels on the television. He stopped on a rerun of the original Star Trek.
“Thank you,” Claire told him, sitting down to his left.
“For what?”
“Putting up with them.” She patted her lap, motioning for him to lie down and use it for a pillow. It was something they used to do a lot but had done less and less frequently over the years. When they were first married, they would watch movies this way, Blockbuster rentals, and sometimes, after a hard day at work, he would even fall asleep with her running her fingers gently through his hair, although, generally, it was a prelude to sex.
Laying his head on her lap now, he could smell her arousal, a heavy, musky odor that permeated the crotch of her jeans. The scent of her made him aroused, and he turned his head to the side, pressing his face into her and breathing deeply. Neither of them had to say a word after that. Julian sat up, then stood, and both of them walked down the hall to the bedroom, where they closed the door, locked it and got undressed.
He was already naked when Claire took off her panties, rubbing them gently in his face. He could feel their dampness.
“I bet your mama doesn’t know you do that,” he said.
“No one does.” She bent over the side of the bed, presenting herself to him, and he took her roughly from behind as she screamed her pleasure into the thick quilted comforter so the kids wouldn’t hear.
Seven
Robbie wasn’t talking.
The two of them were sitting on the field in the park, drinking Slurpees, while Robbie’s younger brother, Max, practiced baseball with his Little League team. Robbie’s dad was the team’s coach, and he was having the kids take turns batting. James had just asked his friend about the night he’d stayed over, about why he’d been so desperate to leave. He was hoping to hear that Robbie had felt the same thing he had, and the reason he hadn’t brought up the crying was that he didn’t want Robbie to get all defensive. He wanted an honest answer.
But Robbie wasn’t saying a word.
James changed the subject, talked about the latest episode of a Cartoon Network show they both watched, asked about the day camp where Robbie had spent the past week, complained about his annoying cousins who’d come over the other night, wondered about whose class they’d be in this year at school. But then he brought it back again: “How come you wanted to go home so bad?”
Robbie shrugged.
James tried another tack. “Do you want to stay overnight next weekend?”
“No!” his friend said quickly, then hastily added, “Maybe you could stay over at my house this time,” saying it in a way that tried to make the notion seem casual and unimportant.
Actually, that sounded like a fine idea. Although James had managed to convince himself that their new home was friendly rather than creepy (with the exception of the basement—which he would never like), the truth was that he was often tense inside the house. If he was with Megan or one of his parents, or if he was busy with something such as reading, watching TV or playing a game, he was fine. But when he was by himself with nothing to do and time on his hands … well, then he started noticing things. Like the way the stairs creaked sometimes, even though no one was on them. Or the way some of the windows didn’t let in as much light as they should. Or the way he saw movement out of the corner of his eye when nothing was there.
So the thought of staying overnight at Robbie’s sounded like a relaxing respite.
“That’d be fun,” James admitted.
“I’ll ask my dad.”
Robbie refocused his attention on the batting practice, and James saw his chance at a real discussion slipping away. Glancing over at his friend, he decided to come clean. “I don’t like the basement in our house,” he said. He watched for a reaction but saw none. “I think it’s creepy.”
Robbie didn’t respond, continued to watch his brother’s teammates swing at softly lobbed balls.
James didn’t know what more he could say. Maybe he’d been wrong all along. Maybe Robbie hadn’t been scared by the basement.
“I thought I saw something,” his friend said finally. The boy spoke so softly that at first James wasn’t sure he’d heard right. Robbie refused to look at him, his eyes remaining focused on the Little Leaguers. “In the cellar. Not when we first went down there. That was cool. But later, before we went to bed, when I went into the kitchen to get a glass of water. I was the only one in the kitchen, and it was kind of dark, and the cellar door was open. I didn’t think it was open before; I remembered it being closed, and then I thought maybe your mom or dad was down there, getting something. So I walked by, peeked in. …” Robbie’s voice trailed off. He stopped talking, suddenly becoming very interested in the latest batter, and for a moment James thought he was going to have to prod his friend to continue. But then Robbie said, “It looked like there was a man down there. Maybe there wasn’t, but it looked like there was, and I got scared and hurried back to where you were.”