All i want, p.8
All I Want, page 8
“Glad to hear it,” says Lindsay. “Because the story gets hairier. Dr. Fogel didn’t exactly die and leave the place to his estranged crazy niece and nephews. He went to jail, and they got it.”
“What did he go to jail for?” Emma isn’t sure she wants to know.
“Manslaughter, I think. There were some suspicious deaths at the clinic…”
“How many?” says Emma.
“I don’t know,” says Lindsay irritably. “More than three. Less than fifty.”
“Jesus Christ,” says Ben.
“Hate to tell you,” Lindsay says. “But they might be buried in your backyard. Hideaway Home had its own graveyard that saw more business than you might think. There was an ex-actor named Bobo who earned his keep working as their part-time gravedigger. Bobo? Can you believe it? Hello, Central Casting? Can you get us a gravedigger named Bobo? Broadway stars check in and they don’t check out.”
“Roach Motel,” Beth says.
“You got it!” Lindsay says.
Was that the graveyard Emma found? But why were the tombstones so small, and why were none of them marked with a name? Emma shivers, then catches Ben watching her. How is she supposed to react to the fact that their home might be a crime scene?
“I wouldn’t go digging them up,” Lindsay says. “But hey, it’s your land and—”
“Was there ever an investigation?” asks Emma.
“The clinic did what it wanted,” says Lindsay. “That’s what I heard. This isn’t the city, you know. It’s the Wild West up here. And those three old crazies, the heirs… After they took over, no one went anywhere near the place.”
For just a moment Emma feels slightly woozy.
“Emma?” says Ben. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine,” she lies.
“People have dug around in there,” Beth says. “Just a heads-up in case—”
“Who would excavate someone else’s yard?” says Ben.
“Freaks,” says Beth. “Ghouls. History buffs. Metal detectorists thinking Grandma must have been buried with her diamond ring. There’s a lot more metal-detectoring than people imagine. I work part-time for the county historical society. We have a ton of crap about local history. I’ve been digitizing it, but it’s slow. You wouldn’t believe the junk we’ve got in shoeboxes and storage bins.”
Emma thinks of her attic. Those journals and papers, shoes and coats…
Just then the door slams open and JD walks into the room. Maybe it’s just the noise of the door, but Emma notices that her heart is beating faster.
“Hi,” Beth says coldly.
Lindsay watches him without speaking as he pulls a chair up to the table without being invited.
“How’ve you been, sis?” JD asks her.
“Okay,” says Lindsay.
It’s not that Emma doesn’t recognize JD. Of course she does. What’s confusing is more like that feeling, in a dream, when a person appears in a wholly new context. What is he doing here? Why can he just breeze in as if he has every right? And why did he call Lindsay “sis”? JD and Lindsay had said they’d known each other, but…
Emma looks at Ben, who’s as mystified as she is.
“Wait a second,” Ben says. “Are you two… related?”
“Brother and sister,” says JD.
“Half brother and sister,” says Lindsay.
Emma’s trying to remember what they said about each other. Piece of work. And didn’t Lindsay tell them that the contractor she had in mind was a friend from high school?
Does Ben remember? He does. “How come we didn’t know this? Lindsay, didn’t you say that our contractor was a high school friend?”
“That’s my business partner,” says JD. “Luke. He’s been in Toronto taking care of his sick mom. It’s a long story. I lived in Florida when I was a kid. My dad left my mom to marry Lindsay’s mom and move up here. Then my mom died, and Lindsay’s mom died, and I came up here to live with my dad and Lindsay.”
It’s way more than Emma has ever heard JD say about himself. But now, only now, she realizes where she saw him before. It wasn’t at the gas station or on the road. He was the scowling blond kid, his face mostly turned away, in some of the family photos in Lindsay’s office.
“Then who’s Sally?”
JD hesitates for a moment, a long moment. Do JD and Sally have some unpleasant history he doesn’t want to discuss? Lindsay is staring at JD. What does—or doesn’t—she want him to say?
“Sally was Lindsay’s mom’s best friend.” There’s more to this, but no one’s saying.
Why did Emma assume Sally was Lindsay’s biological mother? Why did she assume anything at all? It feels strange, not knowing these basic facts about JD. But all they ever talked about was the cost of building materials… and getting rid of a bat.
“So now you know the whole sordid family history,” says Lindsay.
“It’s not that sordid,” says Beth. “It’s pretty ordinary.”
Silence.
“Anyway, awkward,” says JD.
“Seriously,” says Ben.
It’s almost as if the two men are ganging up on the women.
Lindsay shoots Beth a freighted look that Emma can’t read.
“Right. So now everybody knows everything.” JD smiles at Emma, who can’t help smiling back. Everyone sees. Do they think it means more than it does? No one else is smiling. Someone has to be nice to JD, someone has to welcome him, and it’s Emma’s impulse, even if it’s not her house. Lindsay has made it obvious he’s not welcome. What’s the truth about their half-sibling relationship? Emma wishes she knew. She certainly likes him better than Lindsay. And she’s grateful for how much work he’s done—so rapidly—on the house. She’s glad he’s not sitting next to her. Everyone would notice her uneasiness and make too much of it.
“What’s for dinner?” asks JD.
Lindsay glares at him.
“Fee-fi-fo-fum,” chants JD, in a giant’s deep voice. “I smell… asparagus.”
“Sorry,” says Beth. “There’s none left.”
“I could have some of Emma’s,” JD says, calling attention to how much she hasn’t eaten and suggesting they’re more intimate than they are. There’s a funny slur, or lag, to JD’s speech. He’s tipsy or high or both. Emma feels Ben watching her. Are she and JD so close that he can eat off her plate? She shakes her head at Ben, just slightly, so (she hopes) only he can see.
“You could have mine,” Emma says. “My appetite’s gotten all weird.” She’s thinking quickly now. “I can’t eat like I used to—”
“That’s all right,” says JD. “I wouldn’t dream of stealing a pregnant lady’s asparagus.”
He goes to the kitchen. They watch him return with a plate of something buried under red sauce and a tangle of wilted salad.
“You cut into the eggplant parm,” says Beth. “I mean… you could have waited.”
“I love eggplant parm!” says Emma. Why does she feel that she has to disarm every conflict, smooth out every rough spot? Beth turns to her, clearly grateful.
“It’s a company dish,” she says. “You can never be sure if your guests eat meat, so I always cook something vegetarian, just in case.”
What company is Beth talking about? Lindsay has already said they live like hermits.
“I’ve changed,” says Lindsay. “I eat meat now. For her.”
It’s the second time she’s told them this, but Emma tries to look as if she’s just hearing it now.
“Awesome,” JD says.
The tension is too thick to ignore. Some sibling problem, obviously. Why should Emma care? The truth is, everything’s gotten more interesting since JD got here. If only he was less handsome. Something about his looks makes Emma feel as if saying anything would put her at the end of a long line of women who’ve tried to impress him. So she’s glad for whatever problem he has with Lindsay. No one’s paying attention to Emma.
“Your wife’s amazing,” JD tells Ben. “The other day I was nailing up some Sheetrock, and she looked at it and said one edge was crooked by a half inch. I thought she was bullshitting me, excuse my language. But I got out my level, and guess what? She was right.”
Emma feels herself blushing. At the time her whole body had gone warm when JD complimented her: another hormone rush.
“I’m not surprised. Emma’s an artist.” Ben has said that before, but never with less enthusiasm.
“She’s got an eye,” says JD.
Emma pretends to cough so she can hide how pleased she is.
The conversation stops.
The only sound is JD, slurping eggplant.
“Dude, leave some for someone else,” says Lindsay.
“Brothers and sisters,” Emma says. “It’s always complicated. Even when they’re close.” Could she possibly say anything more banal?
“Brothers and sisters! That sounds like the start of a sermon,” says Ben.
Nervous laughter. Emma shoots Ben a look, but she isn’t sure what she means it to express.
More silence.
Finally, Beth says, “Can I ask what you guys are doing with the theater?”
For an instant Emma feels weirdly territorial. How does she know about their theater? But of course Beth’s seen it. Lindsay would have shown her the house before it sold.
Ben says, “Emma and I haven’t really discussed it. For now, we’ve decided to clean it up and leave it be for a while, maybe with some minimal improvements, just enough so it’s safe.”
“The reason I ask is… our town puts on a Nativity play,” Beth says. “We’ve been doing it for ages. The historical society has a giant file of pictures taken over the years. Since the Baptist church burned down, we’ve been doing it in the grade-school auditorium, over in West Covington. But it’s sort of grody. Wouldn’t it be cool to do it in the Hideaway Home theater once it gets renoed?”
Lindsay and JD both look like they’ve been thrown a curveball. Clearly, Beth hasn’t mentioned this to Lindsay. And JD is obviously out of the loop. Emma wonders if the town is going to flock to a Christmas play in a former dry-out clinic and haunted house. Maybe Halloween would be a more suitable occasion for their first community gathering.
Lindsay says, “Sure… I guess. And with Ben being in the theater, he could give us pointers.”
“Emma and I would need to talk it over.” Bless Ben’s sweet heart.
JD says, “There’s a ton of work to be done between now and then. A ton.”
Emma does the math in her head. “I’d be nine months pregnant by then.” She sounds like some annoying mom-to-be who can’t think of anything beyond her pregnancy. But it’s true. By the holiday season, she might be back in the city. Having a baby.
“You wouldn’t need to be up here,” says Beth. “We’d take care of the house. We’d be careful when we rehearsed. And you could come up to see the play.”
“I don’t know,” says JD. “Do we really want the preschool angels toddling after the angel Gabriel in a place where Broadway drunks got sober?”
Emma wishes he hadn’t said that. Rapunzel’s story wasn’t that simple. It wasn’t a joke. Emma feels protective of the diary writer whose name she doesn’t even know.
JD says, “If I say something here, will you promise to forget it by tomorrow morning when everyone’s sober?”
Could there be a better way of putting everyone more on edge?
“Everyone’s already sober,” Lindsay says icily. “Except you.”
“And me. I’m a little not sober,” says Ben. “I mean, I’m trying not to be sober.”
Emma is the only one who smiles.
“Emma’s driving,” Ben says.
JD says, “I’ve been having this weird dream since I started working on the house.”
Lindsay looks anxious. On guard.
Is there something else—something worse—that Lindsay hasn’t told them?
Lindsay’s watching, trying to figure out how to intervene, if she needs to.
Lindsay says, “Don’t you love listening to other people’s dreams?”
JD shoots her a dark look. But she’s not going to shut him up.
“Emma makes me listen to her dreams,” Ben says. “I have no choice.” Emma can’t remember one dream she’s told Ben. She makes a point of not boring him with her dreams. So why is Ben throwing her under the bus? Social discomfort makes people say strange things.
JD says, “I keep dreaming that I’m looking out the window of the house… and I see this girl with blond hair. She’s carrying a baby on her hip. They look like they come from another century. She doesn’t look happy. Then I look again, and she’s gone. It gives me the creeps. I wake up in a cold sweat.”
Emma tries to speak and can’t. She doesn’t know what she’d say. How can JD be dreaming about the girl she saw out the window? She hasn’t told anyone about it, not even Ben. Not since that first time they came down the driveway.
Wait. She did tell Lindsay. That day they came to look at the house. She told her she’d seen the girl and the baby and asked if Lindsay knew who they were.
Emma doesn’t believe in ghosts. She doesn’t believe in ghosts. She doesn’t believe in ghosts.
Words take shape in her head. She knows what she wants to say: How weird is this? I’ve seen a girl like that. A girl with a baby. I’ve seen her twice. JD’s dreamed about her, and I’ve seen her and…
Emma says nothing. How would she begin?
“Emma, are you sure you’re okay?” Ben gets points for noticing. The mere fact of his attention calms Emma, pulls her back from the edge of… what?
“I’m fine,” she says. “It’s just… the baby kicked.”
“Ooh,” say the two women, in the voices they’d use for a super-cute puppy. “Amazing!”
JD returns to his eggplant parm.
“Why can’t I feel the baby move?” says Ben. “It’s the strangest thing.”
“Maybe it doesn’t like you,” says JD.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Does Ben realize that JD is joking? If JD is joking.
“It means JD’s drunk,” says Lindsay.
“Right,” says Beth. “Sober, he’s the nicest guy in the world.”
“The nicest brother in the world,” says JD.
“The nicest half brother in the world,” says Lindsay.
“Also the nicest brother-in-law in the world,” JD says, leaning toward Beth. “Don’t forget.”
Beth sings, “How can I forget you if you don’t go away?” It’s hard to tell if she’s imitating someone with a good country voice, or if she just has a good country voice.
“I guess that’s my cue to be pushing off.” JD rises to leave.
“Are you okay to drive?” Ben’s right to ask. So why does Emma wish he hadn’t? It’s made him sound sort of stodgy, like somebody’s dad. Well, soon he is going to be somebody’s dad.
She likes the sweet JD who works on her house better than the slightly aggressive, slightly pushy person he is around his sister. Family often brings out the worst in people. Not her family, she promises herself.
JD leans down and kisses her cheek, right in front of everyone. He’s never done anything even remotely like that before. But there’s no way to say that. Emma touches her cheek where his lips have been. She wishes she didn’t feel that jittery buzz.
“Bye, boss lady. Bye, boss. See you Monday morning, bright and early.”
Then he’s gone, and Ben is still looking at her. Why does she feel guilty? She didn’t do anything wrong!
“Beth, can I help?” Emma gestures weakly at the dishes on the table.
“Stay where you are,” says Lindsay. “You’re pregnant.”
“I can carry a dish to the sink.” Emma’s trying to make a joke of it. It falls flat. Why did she and Ben move here? She misses her friends. She misses her old life.
Lindsay slumps in her chair, like a moody teenager. Beth rises to clear the table. Beth doesn’t protest when Emma picks up a stack of dishes and brings them into the cramped, messy kitchen. Hadn’t Lindsay said that Beth is a cook? In Emma’s experience, cooks are neat. She and Ben are.
Beth dries her hands on her grill master apron and turns to look at Emma, the first time she’s looked directly at her all night.
She says, “I’ll bet there’s some stuff about your house in the historical society archives. Records and ledgers from when it was a rest home. Patient charts, deeds of sale, stuff like that. Probably newspaper clippings. You’d be amazed how much crap there is. I think the local paper reported every time somebody took a dump.”
Emma says, “Text me the hours you’re open.”
“It’s pretty fluid. Text me when you want to come. It’s not like there’s a line out the door.”
“When JD’s using some toxic substance, it would be great to get away from the house.”
Oh, why had she made it sound like the only reason she was accepting was to escape a toxic event? She’s curious about the house, the doctor, his wife, and the woman who wrote the diary.
* * *
ON WEDNESDAY SHE drives into the city for a sonogram. Ben was supposed to come with her, but a last-minute meeting was called, and she has to go alone. Today is just a routine test, nothing important—she hopes. There will be more doctor’s appointments. It’s okay if Ben skips this one.
But she wishes Ben were here when Dr. Snyder glides the mouse across the slippery blue gel on her belly. If only doctors would learn to say Excellent, Great, Looking good, to keep up a constant stream of encouraging patter. She stares at the screen, at the marbleized patches of black and white, stretching and contracting. She turns away. She’s too anxious to look.
Finally, the doctor says what Emma has been praying to hear: Everything’s fine.
“Look,” he says. “You can see it.”
The blue cartoon arrow on the screen points at a shivering peanut.
“Wow,” says Emma.
“Country life must be agreeing with you. Keep it up. See you in a month.”
She’d planned to have dinner with Ben, but when she calls to tell him the good news, he says he doesn’t know how long his meeting will last. It’s about financing. Ben plans to float the names of actors who might be able to get them money if they are attached to the project.
