Refund: Stories Page 2

  “Daddy, no!” screamed the girl.

  “Please, God,” he muttered, hoarsely, into the bedsheets.

  Anna lifted the kicking girl into her crib. “Time for bed.”

  “Daddy, help me!” screamed the girl. “Help!”

  Her rage was awesome, tremendous. Anna closed the windows so the neighbors would not hear her screams. Anna touched her hair, softly. She did not know what to say to the child. “Please,” she pleaded with her child. “For God’s sake, please.” The girl glared at her mother until her father crawled in and stretched out on the carpet. In all of the lit homes, were parents making similar pleas of their children?

  “You also need to sleep,” she said to her husband.

  “No,” he said. “Sophie, I’m here.” The girl stood in her ball gown, clutching the bars of her crib, beaming.

  The boy was hurling the girl’s stuffed animals at the wall. “Look what she did!” he yelled. He opened his fist. There was a tiny shred of crumpled card in it. “Look!”

  She smoothed his hair and guided him to his bed. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Get me more for my birthday,” he begged. “I want to get fifty. Sixty. Please!” He rolled over and fell asleep.

  SHE LAY AWAKE IN THE DARK WHILE THE OTHERS FELL INTO THEIR dreams. Was it strange that Johnny the Weatherman had begun to shoot? Or was it stranger that Tyra Johnson, a beauty, had gained one hundred pounds and moved to Modesto, or that Brian Horwitz, the class clown, was president of his synagogue, or that Laurie Stone, who had held her hand tenderly as they walked into kindergarten, had been indicted for embezzlement at a local bank? She looked out the window, and all she saw was determined innocence—the bullish SUVs parked in the driveways, testament to dreams of safety, of endless oil; she looked at the houses of her neighbors, flocking here, to the edge of the desert, the only place they could afford in Southern California; she saw the development vanishing violently in a wild-fire, in a terrorist attack. Her own childhood home in Granada Hills was bulldozed for a luxury condo complex, her parents retired, taking medicine for their hearts, her father a math teacher now bagging groceries at Ralph’s for extra money, both of them praying that Social Security would hold up. The sight of her father, a man of six feet, gentle but bad with money, carefully guiding groceries across the parking lot made her ache with useless love. She could not save him. The houses were slapped together with drywall and paste.

  When she finally fell unconscious, she dreamed of Warren Vance. She dreamed that Warren bragged that he spent $800,000 on a day trip to the moon. She saw him standing on the moon’s white surface in his cheap suit, smoke trailing off the end of his cigarette. “Vance wants you,” he said, and he pulled her toward him.

  HER HUSBAND WOKE FIRST AND WENT DOWN TO MAKE BREAKFAST; Anna hurried to the front lawn and grabbed that day’s paper. The shooting had made the front page; eight classmates had been injured in the shooting, two were dead. Her throat felt cold as she read about the dead: Tiffany Mann, Harry Waters. She had just glimpsed them in the ballroom. Their high school faces smiled from the front page.

  Her husband was standing in front of the stove making breakfast. The hearty smell of bacon filled the air.

  “Read this,” she said, handing it to him.

  He glanced at the newspaper. The pale desert light poured through the windows, as though shoveled from a mine of diamonds. Her husband looked up at her quickly.

  “Two dead,” she said. “People were injured—”

  He looked at the paper and then at her and then lifted strips of bacon from the grease to a paper towel. His hand trembled.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I think so.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I hid under a chair.”

  He blinked.

  “Did you think of throwing something at him?”

  “He had a gun,” she said.

  He looked dissatisfied. “Did anyone try?”

  “We were afraid,” she said.

  “My God,” he said. He clutched the handle of the pan, trying to will all of them into an ordinary domestic scenario. Then he stepped forward and hugged her. They clung to each other, their hands grasping but awkward, as if touching these bodies for the first time. The girl hurled her bacon to the floor.

  “Hot!” she announced.

  “Don’t throw your bacon!” shouted the boy, joyfully. He slapped her arm. The girl shrieked and whacked him with her spoon.

  “Stop, everyone!” Anna said, pulling them away from each other. The girl threw the spoon across the room, where it hit the monthly calendar; it slid down. “Stop now!”

  “Have more,” said her husband, piling more bacon onto their plates.

  The sun made the children’s hair gleam. She felt the boy’s arm twitch, slow. The children resumed their breakfast. Her husband looked at her; he wanted to ask more.

  “Was there blood?” he asked.

  It was not what she had expected him to ask.

  “There was,” she said, and they waited for this to answer something. They were all balanced, barely, on the fragile sheath of linoleum.

  “More bacon!” yelled the boy. “Now.”

  SHE HAD FOUR APPOINTMENTS THAT DAY, AND SHE STRAPPED HERSELF in the car and set off. Her car joined the flood of others on their daily missions. Anna knocked on doors, looked at circuit boards, listened for unusual noises; tightened, aligned, cleaned, lubricated parts; brought out her RF leakage detector, her thermistor vacuum gauge, her hex wrenches; she turned machines on. She lingered in homeowners’ kitchens, chatting with them about warranties, prices, but really, she was looking around. There was the precise cleanliness of the floors, the proliferation or absence of family photos. She pretended to be checking a dryer to make sure it was running, but she was listening to the way the customers talked to people on the phone while she worked; she needed to compare the tenor of their fear to her own. They all were afraid of something, big or small—the shoddy work of a contractor or being too shy to wear a certain dress, or the results of a biopsy or a child’s bad grade on a test or the thought that the cat had spoken or the weird sound the refrigerator was making. And on and on.

  In the car, returning from the day’s work, she remembered Warren Vance as a young man. She remembered the first time they had sex, the frantic way he pulled her toward him, the way they both cried. He had lived in a tiny, dark apartment with his aunt, for his father was dead; his mother was in institutions sometimes, sometimes not, and his aunt worked as a telemarketer fifty hours a week, and the house was covered with a thin sheen of dust. Warren’s room was always very clean. It was plastered with cutout pictures of famous leaders who had risen from difficult circumstances. The apartment was a shoddy, barely furnished place, but it seemed holy with them in it. He did not have a particular career goal but wanted to assume the top post of various organizations: the head of Coca-Cola, the governorship of California, the presidency of the United States.

  She saw the cars lining up in front of her. Now she was here; she had made it to this life. She clutched the steering wheel so hard her hands ached.

  Her cell phone rang.

  “Hey, Annie,” Warren Vance said, in a soft voice.

  SHE MET HIM, TWO DAYS LATER, A HUNDRED MILES AWAY. SHE told the babysitter she would be working late; it was absurdly easy to arrange. She would meet him at his work—he said he wanted to talk business.

  The sky was white with smog above the freeway, which cut through San Bernardino, City of Industry, passing superstores selling electronics, discount clothing, sporting goods; she passed parking lots shimmering like dry lakes, warehouses containing patio furniture, used tires, drugs, mirrored cube office buildings, palm trees with thick furry necks. Fast-food franchises loomed off the freeway, hawking fried chicken and burgers and fries with bright orange and red signs. The freeway stretched on and on; she could see forever and she could see nothing. She turned off into an industrial area, aluminum warehouses lining the empty stre
ets. Vance’s office was located in a storefront in a crumbling mini-mall. It was a treeless block, and the sky above the street looked infinite. His office was bordered by a Subway sandwich franchise and a Family Dollar store.

  When she walked into Vance Real Estate, she noticed that he had a steel desk balanced on a tennis ball on one side, a glass coffee table with a crack in it, and that the ventilation between this office and the Subway store was so faulty that the room smelled of salami and sliced ham. Taped on the windows were posters of palatial homes perched in glamorous destinations: Beverly Hills, Paris, Monaco.

  He was sitting in his chair, which was made of a maroon material that resembled leather. “Anna,” he said, standing up. “How are you?”

  He stood, towering over her, and shook hands firmly. She felt her hand vanish into his. She was encased in the moment, perfectly still. Then he released her, and she felt the cool air again surround her hand.

  “This is where you work?” she asked, concerned.

  “Temporary,” he said. “Renovations at the main office.”

  He was a little out of breath.

  “How are you?” she asked. “Since the reunion, I mean.”

  “Fine. Vance is always fine,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “For what?” He strode over to a poster of the Eiffel Tower that was starting to peel off the wall and tapped it down.

  “You told me where to go.”

  He shrugged and adjusted a big silver watch around his wrist.

  “Did you hear about Harry? Tiffany?” she said. The room was silent. Nothing was the right thing to say. “Sandra Scone lost an eye,” she said. “They don’t know if Carl Blandon will ever walk again—”

  “Eh,” he said, shooing something in the air.

  “Don’t you care?” she asked.

  “They got in his way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Vance knew better,” he said, proudly.

  She looked at his face, the pores of his skin mottled like the peel of an orange. “You don’t really think that,” she said, wondering.

  He swept his hand through his hair. “Vance doesn’t think too hard.”

  “Weren’t you scared?”

  He shrugged. “Fear’s a luxury,” he said. He clapped his hands. “You’ve got to move. Margie,” he called. “Bring some coffee for my first love.”

  A girl with yellow hair so dull it looked gray came out of the back. She had the overly obedient manner of someone who had recently been released from something: mental hospital, jail. Smiling, she held out a Styrofoam cup with some instant coffee.

  “Margie’s been with me—two years,” he said.

  “Usually I work at the Subway,” said Margie.

  “Ha, ha,” he said, clapping his hands together loudly. “It’s been too long. Sit down. Glowing. You define the term—”

  “Oh, please,” she said, wanting him to go on.

  “Others—not so good. Georgia Haring? Sun damage. Looked like a leather suitcase. Brian Smith? Bald as an egg.”

  This appeared to be unchanged, his certainty about others’ failings, as though that hostility gave him a clear view of humanity. His confidence amid the bareness, the dirty windows, calmed her.

  “What do you do here?” Anna asked.

  “Vance is a real estate agent,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “Glamour properties. Lots. From bitter divorces. No money down. Good deals. Why should only the rich live like kings?” He set some brochures out on his desk. She picked one up: a half acre, beachfront, near Santa Barbara.

  “That’s a good one,” he said. “Rock star caught with seven assistants, quote unquote, wife sues him for every penny, he’s trying to get rid of this lot before she learns about it. Quick. Worth ten million dollars, he’s unloading it for five. From heartbreak comes opportunity.”

  They sat across from each other in the milky fluorescent light. Warren’s voice was hoarse with the same excitement it had as a young man. The sameness of his voice, its stubborn ignorance of the passing of the last twenty years, was somehow touching. How had he not aged like the rest of them? It seemed a supreme, thrilling force of will.

  A voice in the adjoining room cried out for a turkey sandwich. Warren lined up photos of beaches, vineyards, mountain lakes on his desk like cards in a deck. “How long have you been married?” he asked her.

  “Eight years,” she said.

  “I’ve been hitched for fourteen,” he said.

  “Oh,” she said. “How is your wife?” she asked, lightly.

  “Great. Hot. We’re off to Cozumel. Next week.” He whipped out a wallet and handed her a photo. She had expected to see a thin, glamorous starlet type, but the woman was perfectly ordinary, with a Dorothy Hamill haircut, purple sweat suit.

  “Why did you marry her?”

  “She said yes.” He howled with laughter. “We went to the Riviera last year. A dream, Anna, my life is a grand dream—”

  “How did you know where to go?” she asked.

  “Hard work,” he said. “Vance turned down no offers, he shook hands—”

  “No,” she said. “Out of the hotel.”

  “Oh, that,” he said. “Instinct. Vance keeps his eyes open. His mama taught him that by not giving a fuck about him. I saw the door, and I ran.” He paused, slightly out of breath. “Anyone can do it.”

  She did not know why she had followed him. Talking to him now, it seemed a questionable choice, but at that moment it had been correct. He was gazing at her, squinting, his eyes bright and his mouth just smiling. He leaned across his desk. “I have a secret,” he said. “Don’t limit yourself. Reach. Grab what you can.”

  “Like what?” she asked.

  “Move, Anna Green. Don’t just sit. That’s how Vance got out of there.”

  She listened. Move. He knew, somehow, how to say what she wanted. There was the faint, sad blast of a truck’s horn on the freeway. The walls rumbled. Warren Vance tilted back in his fake leather chair and lovingly examined a photo of a cliff overlooking a pure blue sea. “Wouldn’t you love to live here? Malibu. Fall asleep to the sound of waves.”

  “Someday,” she said.

  “What if we had been here, Annie. You and me?” he murmured.

  The husky intimacy of his voice intrigued and frightened her. She looked at her watch; she had a two-hour drive home.

  “I’ve got to go,” she said.

  “Wait,” he said. He stood up. “Hey. Call anytime. Been too long!”

  She walked slowly to the door. When she turned, he was standing like an enormous, discarded boy, arms dangling; her heart rose with sympathy.

  “I’ll think about it,” she said, and she drove the hundred miles home.

  TWO HOURS IN THE TRAFFIC’S WHITE GLARE MADE HER HEAD FEEL light. When she returned home, she felt blurry, unreal, the way she had when she returned from the shooting, but now she was also embarrassed. She hurried inside to find her husband at the kitchen table with the children. They were digging into a frozen pizza. The ceiling lamp cast a stale glow upon them. She walked into the room briskly, holding out presents she had purchased earlier for the children.

  “Hello!” she said. She said to the boy, “Hey. I got you a new pack of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards.”

  He looked at the pack and said, “I don’t collect Yu-Gi-Oh! anymore. Only Pokémon.” His facial expression had become slightly condescending, as though he had finally, after much searching, made a crucial decision. He threw them to the floor.

  “Oh,” she said. She turned to the girl. “And here, I got you . . . a pink pony!”

  The girl violently slapped the pony away. “I hate pink! I want yellow!” she declared.

  The children’s faces appeared more fleshy and solemn in the kitchen light. They had changed over the course of the day. It was something she generally noticed over weeks, months, the way their faces, arms, legs became larger, the way they acquired skills, but now Anna noticed the
small, precise shifts that had happened just that afternoon. Carefully, she took her seat at the table.

  “You want cheese or pepperoni?” her husband asked. There was a new streak of gray in his hair.

  “Cheese,” she said.

  “Did you know,” said her son, as though lecturing to a college class, “that Earth is mostly water?”

  “Really?” she said.

  “It is true,” he said, and he bit off a large piece of pizza.

  She did not know what to say. Their faces looked so innocent—of the trip she had made that day, of their own march to adulthood, old age, their passing—she was overcome with tenderness toward them. Her helplessness—at their growth, at her tumble toward Warren Vance—overcame her, and she began, quietly, to cry; then, embarrassed, she pretended that she was coughing. Her family stared at her. They proceeded with their pizza. The girl jumped up, climbed into her lap, and said, “I’m sorry.”

  “She learned it today,” her husband said.

  “I’m sorry,” the girl said, over and over, delighted with the word.

  THE NIGHT FELL UPON THEIR NEIGHBORHOOD. THE SKY FADED; THE golden hills rising beyond the development turned blue with dusk. The houses around them, identical with slanted red roofs, glowed with light. The children were bathed, dried, their teeth brushed, and eventually it was time for them to settle into their beds. Already the children were formed, moving into their lives with distinct approaches and confidence. The boy pored over his new cards as though they would tell him everything about his future and then abruptly fell asleep. Anna read a story to the girl and kissed her and placed her in the crib. The girl clutched her wrist and looked up at her with accusing eyes.

  “I want juice,” she demanded.

  This request was filled.

  Then: “I want my blue pony.”

  “Lion.”

  “Pink bear.”

  Her husband tried to fill all requests—first kindly, with a soft voice, and then, by the thirty-minute mark, with the silence of a slave. Finally, he settled himself in a corner of her room. Anna watched her husband sitting there, pretending to look at a newspaper, to appear occupied, but it was futile, as there was no light.