First of all, I’m not hungry. And I’m also having my period.
And the connection is…
I’m not in the mood, that’s the connection. I’m not looking forward to seeing her.
He leaned over the kitchen sink to wash his hands. Forced himself to remain calm, expressionless, before the painful spectacle of his tranquility vanishing in a blink if she refused to make peace with her mother and prolonged her stay at his place, sowing a disorder that she thought was invisible—whereas he could follow her every trace, with her scents, her reflections, her hair that he rinsed down with the spray nozzle and that clogged the drain, that he had to dig out with his fingers, her unmistakable presence.
Anyway, your father will be out soon. This won’t make him happy. Be smart about it. The first thing we learned was how to stay low. Let things fly over your head, that’s my advice.
He wiped his hands vigorously. For an instant, he wondered what she was going to do with her tampons, if he should furnish his bathrooms with little plastic bags before it became a problem—such as waking up one morning with a blocked toilet and Mona shrugging nonchalantly.
The place was packed. The room bathed in an odor of food, alcohol, and sweat—the nights were still chilly, but most of the guys were in T-shirts, like most of the women, one group to show off their biceps, the other their chests, their tattoos, and all this unwrapping required a certain comfort, a certain temperature, they could feel the cold biting every time the door opened onto new arrivals—and the music wasn’t great, either, the thousand things you heard a thousand times, but Nath and Marlene had taken off their coats and were waving their bare arms at them.
After they were seated, and mother and daughter had exchanged a few furtive glances, Nath grabbed up the menu and proclaimed that they shouldn’t get fish, the season was over.
Marlene ordered a martini. Nath looked daggers at her. Marlene chose to ignore it and appeared delighted to see her niece, laid a grateful hand on hers. We waited for you to order, she said. We just had drinks.
Nath folded the menu and looked at her daughter. I took the opportunity to change your sheets, she said. I’m sure you understand.
Dan got up to fetch the drinks. He hoped the hardest part would be over by the time he returned to his seat, and the mere thought of returning home and finding the place empty left him almost euphoric.
It was time for Richard to take back the reins. Dan observed the three women at the table across the room and instinct told him to keep his distance, not butt in. Richard was in for no fun. Managing those three, holding out on all fronts—forget it, the task seemed insurmountable. He wouldn’t have wanted to trade places. He wished him luck.
Whatever the case, Mona’s bag was packed. Dan himself had put it on the back seat while she remained silent, with a faraway look. He reckoned that bag made her departure inevitable, that there was no turning back.
I’ve given her back her room, Marlene announced.
He hadn’t seen that one coming. On the spur of the moment, he found nothing to say.
I’ll manage, she finally added, looking away.
He didn’t take the bait. She could think what she liked.
The fact was, she wasn’t surprised. She hadn’t been here long, but she was starting to get to know him, see which of his screws were a bit loose. A guy with problems.
Nath had explained all that to her, that nearly all of them came back with a marble missing, something broken. A few of them were at the bar, planted there since they’d leaped off the train, staring at a Beyoncé video with vacant eyes, as if they were knocked out standing. And yet they were strong guys, perfectly healthy-looking.
Will you buy me a drink, she asked.
Listen, he answered, don’t ask me to put you up. I hope you won’t take that the wrong way.
No, that’s kind of you, but I have a room at the hotel.
Until I can find a place.
He nodded, looked at her a moment, longer than he would have liked, without making any headway in deciding whether the woman was fish or fowl. Her wood-framed glasses didn’t help. He glanced around him. It was a small town.
COMMUNITY
Drop your guard, even for a second, and you could wind up stone dead or caught in some implausible situation that would turn your life upside down, make you into some other person you never would have become had you remained vigilant. Dan knew what he was talking about. He was able to go for days straight without shutting his eyes. The other guys slept soundly when it was his watch.
He grimaced at her.
Does it bother you if people see us together, she asked.
No, it doesn’t bother me.
That’s how it seems to me, Dan. I might be wrong, but I get the impression you’re tense.
Why would I be tense. I’m happy to see things return to normal. It’s probably just exhaustion. I adore Mona, but I’m glad she’s going home. Inviting herself to my place didn’t help anybody.
Marlene nodded. It was becoming complicated with him; things didn’t progress much. She had quickly understood that Dan was more or less part of the family and that she’d do well to stay on his good side, but he didn’t hold up his end. At least he wasn’t hostile. Which at this point, with a little distance, she considered a minor miracle.
She glanced over at their table.
Looks like it’s going okay, she said. I don’t think they’ll exactly kiss and make up, but still.
Let’s bring them their drinks, he said.
Outside the sky was clear, a deep black. They hugged goodbye on the sidewalk while Nath fished for her house keys. It was midnight. Eucalyptus trees were getting shredded in the keen air, waving their torn leaves in front of her house.
Nath said she’d make something simple for Richard’s return, maybe lasagna, there wasn’t much to celebrate.
Dan moved to pick up Mona’s bag but the girl beat him to it. He could expect her not to say a word to him for weeks to come; it was the price he had to pay. He raised his collar and watched the three women filing into the house. He shut his eyes a moment before tearing himself away.
In front of his house, he ran into his neighbor, a guy who lived with his wife and kids and went off to work every morning in a suit, behind the wheel of his hybrid.
A dentist or something; the family went to church on Sundays. He had thrown a duffle coat over his pajamas and was dragging a briard on a leash in the moonlight.
This neighborhood reminds me of Switzerland, he announced. The calm, the quiet, the clean streets. You feel safe here, especially when you’ve got kids. We try to raise them the best we can, right. Adults have to set an example.
You didn’t have to think too hard to read between the lines. A retiree lived across the street, a former accountant whose wife had up and left him without a word. Farther on, the house of a judge, the one who had given Richard three months without parole. In another, with its flowered white balcony, an angry-looking woman raised her Down syndrome child who spent his time in the pool, shouting and making faces.