Last year, Kendra and Monica had gone on a lot of shoplifting trips. They’d left school at the end of the day in Monica’s car and gone to a string of convenience stores around Redding. At each stop, one would talk to the cashier while the other lifted something. They took turns. They got a lot of magazines, paperback books, candy, and beer, or other malt beverages. There was always the chance of being caught at any moment, and Kendra had felt swollen and giddy with simultaneous fear and delight. It was an intoxicating concoction of excitement that made Kendra feel like she was really doing something, like she was living.
She missed those days, and she wanted to do something like that again – or something completely new that would excite her just as much, something she hadn’t thought of yet. But she had no one with whom to do it. That made her sad for a while. She wondered where Monica was now and if she had managed to keep out of jail. She wondered if Monica ever thought of her, as Kendra sometimes thought of Monica.
Of course, all of this depended on whether or not Mommy would let her stay in the trailer by herself the next time Mommy got a temp assignment, or when she went out dancing at night. And sometimes it felt as if that would never happen.
Kendra was always defeated by the dread words, “We’ll see”…
Three
Reznick had been in the trailer park for five weeks. During that time, he’d kept to himself. Before that, he’d lived for a while in a smaller, more run-down park on River Valley Drive on the other side of the river, but the place had become so run-down that he couldn’t stand it anymore. He wished he could afford to live in one of the better parks with mostly senior citizens who lived in expensive double-wides. Of course, what he really wanted was to live in a house again. But that was down the line. Way down the line. He had to build up his business again first. He still had some of the money his father had left him, but not much. The rental of his office took big chunks out of it. What he needed more than anything was not a new trailer park or a house, but more business.
After his nap, he got up and dumped the chicken bones in the garbage, then tied the bag off and pulled it out of the can. It was Tuesday night, and the garbage man came early Wednesday morning. He took the bag outside and put it in the big green can, then wheeled the can out to the edge of the narrow paved road that ran through the park.
He heard voices. He slowed down as he returned to his trailer, then stopped and listened. The voices were nearby, but he could see no one, and he could not pinpoint their source, but they were close. Then he looked up.
“Hello, neighbor,” a woman said. She peered down at him from the roof of the trailer next door. She was lying face-down on the roof, leaning on her elbows.
“Hello,” he said.
He’d seen her around, but he’d paid her no attention. They hadn’t spoken. He thought she had a daughter, if he wasn’t mistaken.
She seemed to be smiling down at him, but it was difficult to tell because her face was in shadow. “Have you ever watched the sunset from your roof?”
“No, can’t say that I have,” he said.
“You should try it, it’s really beautiful. We’ve got a great view from up here. You want to come up and join us?”
He almost said, without even thinking about it, no. Then it occurred to him that if he went back inside, he would stare at the television and brood.
“We have ice tea if you’ll bring a glass,” the woman said.
“Are you serious?” Reznick said.
“Yes. There’s a ladder on the other side of the trailer, in front. We have room for one more. I’m Anna, by the way. Anna Dunfy.”
“Marcus Reznick.”
“Well, come on up, Mr. Reznick. The sun’s about to set.”
Reznick scratched the back of his head, then thought, What the hell. He went inside, got a glass. Conan followed him out of the trailer.
“Can I bring my dog up?” he said. “He’s small.”
“Sure,” Anna Dunfy said.
Reznick picked up Conan, then went around to the other side of his neighbor’s trailer to the ladder, which he climbed awkwardly. Once his head and shoulders had risen above the top edge of the trailer, he set Conan on the roof.
“Oh, look at you!”
Reznick was faced by a second woman on the roof, not the one who had spoken to him. Not a woman, really – a girl. And suddenly, he could not move. He stopped climbing, stopped breathing for a little while.
The girl had been lying face-down on a blanket, which was spread over a large foam-rubber egg-carton pad, but when she saw Conan, she quickly got up and turned toward Reznick, sat up and crossed her legs. She sat between Reznick and Anna Dunfy.
Reznick was frozen in place by her. Had she reached out and plunged her hand into his chest and clutched his heart and ripped it out of him, she could not have stunned him more than she did simply by sitting there petting Conan. His heart had completely lost control of itself. It wasn’t simply beating, it was thundering. His insides were tense. He was overwhelmed by a bone-deep hunger, a need so great that he set the glass on the roof before he shattered it with his squeezing, white-knuckled hand.
Never in his forty-two years of life – not even in his hormone-addled youth – had he ever wanted a woman so deeply, so desperately, so instantly.
“Oh, he’s so cute!” the girl said.
Her mane of golden hair hung down on both sides of her face as she bent forward to pet the wiggling little dog. Even in the dim light, he could see her face – a beautiful face that glowed the way a pregnant woman’s face glowed. She lifted her head and looked at him and he stopped breathing. Her smiling eyes were so big, he was afraid for a moment that he might fall into them if he climbed any higher on the ladder. Her lips – had there ever been lips more custom-made for kissing? They were plump and her mouth was perhaps just a fraction too long, but it made her kind, sympathetic smile all the bigger and more pleasant. Her mouth was open as she looked at him, and she ran her tongue slowly around her lips. Creamy cleavage rose up out of the red halter top from between her round, heavy breasts. The halter top revealed an expanse of flat, pale belly. Between her legs, small golden hairs curled out around the narrow, raggedy crotch of the very-short cutoffs she wore. Her toenails were painted a delicate red on her bare feet. Her legs were long and slender and shapely.
For a moment, he felt light-headed. He clutched the sides of the ladder with both hands for fear of toppling over backwards.
“You okay, Mr. Reznick?” Anna Dunfy said as she peered around her daughter.
“Yeah, yeah, just… a little, uh… a little dizzy. I’m not, uh, you know, crazy about heights.”
“Oh, well, you’re almost here, just a little bit more.”
Reznick was surprised by how much effort it took to pull his eyes from the girl. It almost hurt to look away from her. He climbed up onto the roof as the girl stretched out on her belly again on the blanket between Reznick and Anna.
“Just lie down on the blanket, Mr. Reznick,” Anna said.
“Call me Marc,” he said.
“And you call me Anna.”
“And you can call me Kendra,” the girl said as she smiled at him.
He tried to speak, to say hi to the girl, but nothing but breath came out the first couple times. “Hi, Kendra.”
“I’m her daughter,” she said. She was chewing gum. He could smell it – it smelled of grape flavoring.
Reznick smelled something else, too – just a whiff of it, a slight hint. Something… disturbing.
“Ni-nice to meet you, Kendra,” he said, barely getting it out. He looked at the gentle slope of her back, the rise of her ass in the small patch of blue denim, the dimples on the backs of her knees.
“Just stretch out beside Kendra, there,” Anna said. “There’s room.”