“HELLO,“ CALLED HOWARD, opening the front door. He listened to his own voice echo down the hall. “Hello? Anybody home?”
Deep within the branches of the dogwood tree, an invisible bird cried out three high, sundering notes. Howard cleared his throat and hesitated in the doorway, gazing down at the welcome mat under his feet, its faded pattern of twining green leaves. “Hello?” he called again. As he stood waiting for a reply, he had a sudden panicked feeling that he had somehow entered the wrong house, that at any moment he would be discovered, with screams, accusations, a call to the police.
Quickly he glanced over his shoulder at the lush entreaty of the Guptas’ blue-green lawn across the street. Fall into me, it seemed to cry. Next door old Mr. Applewhite, home at last from Florida, was watering his hydrangeas. The sky was a seductive pink; the air felt balmy and enveloping, with the slight carnival breeze that kicks up on summer evenings. From the Pilkeys’ backyard wafted the enlivening scent of lighter fluid. There was the sound of a motorcycle backfiring in the distance.
“Hi,” said Randi, materializing in the dim front hall, holding Jacob in his headdress. “How was your day?”
“Okay. Thanks.” Howard shut the front door behind him and set his canvas satchel on the floor by the coat tree. Someone had recently pruned all the coats from the coat tree, he noticed; today it held only his favorite old green windbreaker, which he hadn’t seen in months. “Get down,” he told the dog, who had jumped up and put her paws on his chest. He pushed her off with both hands. Martha barked, almost snarled, and jumped at him again. “Will you cut it out?” he said, fending her off with his elbow. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Martha,” said Randi chidingly, holding out her hand; the dog subsided, padding over to lick her fingers.
As if frightened by this display, Jacob clung to Randi’s neck, eyes averted, his bony little knees pressing into her sides, like a tiny jockey astride a horse.
“Hey buddy,” Howard said. Leaning over to kiss Jacob’s forehead, and mostly getting feathers, Howard accidentally brushed against Randi’s bare arm with his chest. Both Randi and Jacob had bits of grass in their hair.
“So how’s he doing?” he asked Randi.
“Just great,” she said, tickling Jacob, who was still wrapped around her neck. She bounced him on her hip until his headdress jiggled; still he refused to look at Howard. “He’s doing great, aren’t you Mr. Mystery Man?” She had appropriated Mirella’s nickname for Jacob, Howard realized. “We went for a walk to the harbor to watch the boats and feed the seagulls,” she continued. “Then we went to the library. There was this whole display? Costumes hung up and clay pipes and old dishes and pots. I got this book out called The Story of New Aylesbury. It’s got stuff about Indians who lived here and the Pilgrims and how they used to dry fish on wooden racks. Then we played in the backyard. We’re making a fort,” she said, widening her eyes and pushing out her lips as she looked at Howard.
“A fort?” Howard touched Jacob’s hair. Jacob gave him a wary sidelong glance, then buried his face again in Randi’s shoulder.
From upstairs came the clogged sound of Pearl’s weeping. “We’re being Pilgrims and Indians,” explained Randi. “Did you know wolves used to live around here?”
Howard smiled in spite of himself, aware that Randi was offering this anecdote of her day with Jacob the way wives on fifties television shows used to greet their husbands at the door with slippers or a cold beer. And suddenly it was exactly what he wanted, this instant of banter in the cool hallway, the simplicity of it, the cheering glint of benign flirtation. He smiled with relief. “Who are you going to be?” he asked. “Pocahontas?”
“Oh,” laughed Randi, crinkling her nose.
Howard tilted his head toward the staircase. “So what’s with up there?”
Randi grew instantly serious. “Well, Mirella came home early today because she wasn’t feeling well and needed to lie down. But then she got up and I think she was hoping to spend like some quality time with Pearl? Only I had already promised Pearl she could make another sock doll with me, and I think Pearl wanted to do that instead. We’ve got a whole family going.” Lightly, apologetically, she shrugged, then kissed Jacob’s forehead herself.
“Mirella couldn’t figure out how to distract her?”
“Mirella tried everything.” Randi smiled.
Watching her, Howard thought she seemed a person of exceptional tolerance just then, as wailing erupted once more above her and she stood calmly by the coat tree, holding his son, sharing with him a moment’s complicity. He liked her for that bit of sympathy for him, as much as he had liked her hostessy offering of Pilgrims and Indians. He also liked the roundness of her shoulders under her white T-shirt, the generous spread of her hips, not yet matronly, only full. Not that she was his type—he found her homely, in fact, with her wide face and round eyes, snub nose, like something a child might draw. But he liked looking at her tonight in the warm evening light, her hair lit up red and glowing. He noticed for the first time that her hands were unusually large, almost masculine; they looked shapely and beautiful, one spread against Jacob’s belly where his shirt had rucked up, one clasping the flesh of his bare leg. She smiled at him demurely, blinking a little, and he was reminded of his mother.
Pearl squealed out something overhead. “Stop it,” he heard Mirella demand in a brittle voice. “Stop it right now.”
“All right,” he said, holding out his arms for Jacob, beckoning with his fingers.
Jacob at first refused to let go of Randi. To Howard’s surprise, he hung on to her neck as she tried to disengage his fingers; she had to peel his fingers back one at a time, and then he kicked at Howard with his foot. Finally he allowed himself to be lifted onto Howard’s shoulder.
“You two have a nice thing going.” He pretended to cuff Jacob’s ear. Always Jacob had come quietly into his arms, more quietly than he went to Mirella, who sometimes had to coax him. He and Jacob had at least had that, a kind of physical affinity. Now Jacob stared over his shoulder, his arms limp, his face mutinously blank so that it seemed to Howard that he was not holding Jacob so much as retaining him. “Hey,” he said. “Buddy, what’s this?”
Jacob suddenly lunged forward, and if Howard had not just as suddenly tightened his hold, the little boy would have fallen to the floor.
“Whoops,” said Randi. “What do you think you’re doing?” she said scoldingly to Jacob. “Going sky diving?” She reached up to pat his head. “He has a mind of his own, doesn’t he.”
She smiled again at Howard, and with a beat of gratitude Howard realized that her affection for Jacob was at least partly for his benefit. Not that she didn’t care for Jacob, which she clearly did, but she also wanted Howard to know that she was doing a good a job for him. Asking what he wanted for dinner, reporting on her doings with the children, resurrecting his old coat. All the nannies fell a little in love with him. He’d come to expect it—not in a fatuous way, but realistically—and so, in one way or another, did the nannies. Falling in love with Howard made their job more interesting, lending novelistic possibilities to diaper changing and formula mixing and loading the dishwasher. He and Mirella had discussed all this with good-natured sarcasm before hiring Pilar, their first nanny. “Occupational hazard,” he said. “Part of our benefits package,” she said.
But these crushes did sometimes make things a little harder for Mirella. A moodiness could result on the nanny’s part, a lethargy, even a sullenness—Grete had been the worst in this way—which dissipated when he arrived home, transforming into helpfulness, a showy exuberance with the children. So far Randi seemed to be holding an admirably even keel. In fact, until this moment she had seemed more in love with Mirella than with him.
“I’ve had enough,” Mirella shouted from upstairs. “No,” shrieked Pearl. At the same moment, Jacob gave a grunting little wail and lunged again at the floor.
Howard sighed and handed him back to Randi, who held out her arms like a child who has tried to be good about sharing her doll. “I guess I’d better go up there before one of them gets scalped.”
“By the way,” Randi said, hugging Jacob, “somebody called for you a little while ago. She said her name was Nadine.”
Howard forced himself to continue smiling, his hand resting on the newel post at the bottom of the stairs. “Did she leave a message?”
“She just said to tell you she called. She said she’d call back.” Randi’s expression held the faintest note of inquiry, he thought.
“Thanks.” Howard gave a brisk nod, the sort of nod someone would give whose clients insisted on calling his home, a nod that said: what a nuisance these people are, always intruding, but what can you do? “Was Mirella the one who spoke to her?”
“No, I did. Hey,” Randi called after him as he headed up the stairs, “turkey loaf for dinner.”