Part 11 (1/2)
”How come-”
”That's all you have to worry about. Okay? Okay?”
”Okay.”
She smiled grimly, as if she found it satisfactory to hear me say ”okay,” but she didn't look satisfied. She looked like her suit was too tight and she wasn't eating enough red meat and her shoes hurt. She had little gray smudges under her eyes, and her hair was pulled back in a bun, which was an extremely bad look for her, and usually she knew better than to try it. Her mouth was pinched together, bitter and worried, and for the first time I saw what Vince had seen instantly under the skin of my smart, ferocious sister: an old schoolmarm in a rage because the world had overlooked her.
”Hey, Lucy,” I said, feeling completely awful all of a sudden. ”No kidding, Lucy. Maybe we should just offer to split it with them. Even split five ways, we'd all end up with a ton of money. Has anyone offered to split it?”
”I don't believe that's been discussed, no,” she said, with a kind of infantile brightness that had yet another sneer behind it.
”Yeah, I guess that's pretty stupid,” I said. ”Sorry. 'Compromise.' What a boneheaded idea.”
”You said it, not me,” she murmured under her breath.
She left. And I decided to stop asking questions n.o.body had any answers for anyway and just let things happen.
10.
THREE DAYS LATER, WHEN LEN CAME BY TO CHECK IN ON CURRENT events, he was not particularly happy with the state of his mossery. He was thoroughly appalled that someone had been messing with his trays, knocking over bags of mulch, and tossing shards of gla.s.s all over the floor. During our abortive but completely memorable makeout session, Vince and I had also, it seems, damaged a display containing a delicate species of hornwort, several large sections of which had turned a distressing shade of mottled brown. The picture of the tree was so far askew it looked like it was about to fall off the wall.
”For seven hundred dollars a month, I think it's understood that the mossery is protected s.p.a.ce,” he informed me, straightening the picture with annoyed precision. ”Your mother took great care with it; you, I see, do not have her touch. I'm going to have to ask you to refrain from even entering my room unless I am here to supervise you.”
”It's not your room, Len,” I reminded him, a tad defensive, since I knew he was right. ”You're just renting it.”
”Renting it from whom, that's the question,” he said with a sharp little nod of contempt. He leaned past me to open the tiniest sliver of a closet door that was squashed between the refrigerator and the wall. He retrieved a whisk broom and a dustpan, which had been hung just inside the door at eye level. I watched as he swept the shards of gla.s.s together and disposed of them in the plastic dustbin next to the sink. Then he swept the floor again, and then he did it a third time, each time picking up ever more delicate pieces of broken gla.s.s. Then he reached up, pulled a roll of paper towels out of the cabinet above the moss, and dabbed carefully at every corner of the linoleum, finding little sparkles of gla.s.s dust everywhere. He folded the paper towel, put it to one side, and considered the dirty red wine stain that had spilled in ugly blotches everywhere. Honestly, when Vince knocked his winegla.s.s over, it hadn't seemed like there was much in it. But there was more than I thought and now those little spots of wine had set. Len glanced up at me, his face a mask of disappointed annoyance. ”How long has this been here?” he asked, exhausted by my incompetence.
”Just a day. I was going to clean it up. I forgot,” I said, trying a little too hard not to sound like a ten-year-old.
”And how did it happen?” he asked.
”I, um, I met that guy, Vince Masterson? He lives on the fifth floor?”
”Yes, I'm aware of where he lives,” Len said, even more coolly disinterested, if that was possible.
”He wanted to see the apartment. So I invited him up. And I was showing him around and he dropped, he had a gla.s.s of wine and he dropped it, so-anyway I met the Whites too, I might be doing some babysitting for them.” Len considered this possibility as he ran a paper towel under the faucet and started working on the wine spots.
”Babysitting?” he said, raising his eyebrows, as if he'd like to see that one.
”Yes,” I said. ”I'm good with kids. And, you'll be stunned to hear, I could use the money.”
”Your mother never had any money,” Len observed, glancing up. ”Bill didn't either. I used to ask them about it. They were both eligible for Social Security. But Bill wouldn't cash the checks. There was some sort of pension out there, but Bill wrote to them and told them he had moved. So those stopped coming too. Neither one of them had any money, really, at all.”
”They didn't cash the checks?”
”Bill wanted to live off the grid.”
”He lived in New York City!”
”Yes, that's true. Nevertheless. His need for privacy went beyond any other concern in his life. Except, perhaps, his love for your mother. If you had any real interest in the details of their life here together-”
”Of course I'm interested!”
”You might have put two and two together and realized that for Bill privacy was everything. Everything.”
”Why are you so mad at me?”
”Why are you letting people parade in and out of your home?”
”Well, the Drinans parade in and out because they think it's their home-”
”Which you are determined to dissuade them of, even though they were both raised here.”
”The only other people parading in and out are my sisters.”
”And?”
”And, okay, the real estate people, but what am I supposed to do about that?”
”And?”
”And you, you're the only other person 'parading' in and out. I don't know what you're talking about.”
”Stop acting like a child.”
”What is the big deal! It was one person!”
”A trustworthy person, I'm sure. Someone with una.s.sailable character. Who will treat this apartment and its history with the respect it deserves.”
”You were the one, you told me to make friends-”
”Whatever you say.”
”Oh, for crying out loud. You're a guy who talks to plants!”
”Then why do you care what I think?”
He turned back to check on his hornwort. He was right; I did care. I so did not want him to be mad at me.
”I'm sorry,” I finally said. ”I mean it. I won't let it happen again. I didn't know. I mean, I knew that privacy was important to Bill, but how was I supposed to ... I mean, people knew they were in here! Didn't they? They went out and stuff.”
”They did not.”
”But they-they weren't really off the grid, were they? In the middle of the city? You can't live off the grid in New York City. They had heat and water and telephones, and television.”
”Bill set up a trust that his lawyer took care of. The rest was absorbed by the building.”