Taz sits at the bar. Where she used to work. He peels at a label. Glances over to Midge in her car seat.
“And you’re pissed?” Rudy says. “That she’s cooking?”
“No, that you’re paying. Me and Midge, we’re not quite a charity case yet.”
Rudy waves it away with the neck of his beer bottle. “Can she cook?”
“Are you listening at all?” Taz says. “Even if you weren’t paying, she’s the babysitter, not like some nanny or something, some live-in caretaker.”
“You want me to talk to her? Make her stop? Let you take care of that, too, the shopping, the cooking, the cleaning?”
“Talk to her?” Taz looks around. “I just want you to leave it alone. I’m making this work.”
“Yeah, because she leaves you dinner. Because you have food.” Rudy snorts, one sorry laugh. He lifts a hand, calls for two more. “You know, since you’re almost done with that label.”
Taz puts the bottle down.
“She said you didn’t even know she was leaving you food. You want me to start telling you everything else you haven’t been quite tracking on?”
“What?”
“Hards?”
Taz looks blank.
“They’re moving. Anchorage. I told you that myself. We’re having a party. My place, though yours would work better.”
“You could have it at our house.” It’s what Marn always wanted, a place people could come to.
“And what, you’re not going to be there?”
“I, no, I mean, yeah, I’ll be there.”
“Taz, I’ll admit it, okay? We’re worried about you.”
Taz lays his hands flat on the table, spreads his fingers.
Rudy watches. Taps his bottle against Taz’s finger. “Personally,” he says, “I’m surprised you’ve got all those left. You’re the last person who should be working with power tools.”
“Who’s worried?”
“All of us. Your friends. Remember us? We’re worried you’ll fall off the edge of the earth and not even notice. That maybe you already have.”
“What?”
“Oh, come on, Taz! You never leave that house.”
Taz looks at the bar. The ground-out divots in the walnut. People gouging away with their quarters. “You were gone. Nebraska or wherever.”
“For two weeks. I didn’t move.”
Taz sits rubbing his thumb into a divot.
Rudy takes a drink. A long one. “Look,” he says. “Elmo says the place is a mess. That she cleans it for you. That the table’s covered in bills. Stacks of them.”
Taz stares across the bar. Marnie paid the bills. Nights, at the table. Her reading glasses on, hair falling down around her face. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.
“We’re afraid you’ll lose the place. Of what happens to you then.”
“Lose it?”
“The mortgage, Taz. Gas? Electric?”
He interrupted bill night. More than once. She’d leave her glasses on. Go all librarian on him.
“Taxes,” Rudy says.
Marnie meeting him at the door with the letter. “You didn’t pay the property taxes, did you?”
“Me?”
“Damn it, read this.”
It wasn’t easy. All legal mumbo jumbo. Bone-tired, he’d looked up at Marnie, blank.
She shook her head. “Some asshole paid our taxes.”
“Sweet,” he said. “Let’s get him a beer.”
“No, Einstein. Read the letter. They do it twice more and the house is theirs.”
“What? They can’t do that.”
She snatched the letter from his hand, read it out loud. Shouted it at him. There were tears in her eyes. “You know how much we have in savings?”
He stood there, tape measure dragging down his pocket. He shook his head. She did the bills.
“Not enough,” she said. “Not even close.” She crumpled up the letter, threw it at him. “And you just bought that stupid stove. Like we’ll be able to touch that kitchen before we’re eighty. Before we lose this place.”
Taz had blinked. She loved the stove, this ginormous old double oven. A cookie-making machine, she’d called it. Didn’t even need that much work. Probably.
She turned away, saying, “And you think we’re ready for a baby. Good god.”
Rudy snaps his fingers an inch from Taz’s eyes. “See what I’m talking about? Do you see?”
“See what?” Taz says.
“She’s worried about you.”
“Who?”
“Elmo,” Rudy says. “All of us.”
“Marnie used to do the bills,” Taz says.
Rudy rubs at his face. “Well, Taz, I hate to say it, but you’re going to have to come around to ‘used to’ not quite cutting it anymore.”
Taz looks up from the bar. “What isn’t cutting it, Rude, is you paying for my food.”
“Would you just—”
“I’ve got money,” Taz says. “All I do is work.” He takes a drink at last. “I don’t even know why. Like it’s all I can think to do every day. Robot motion.”
“So, you need Elmo, right?”
“I need somebody to watch Midge,” he says. “I don’t need anybody worrying about me, anybody paying my way.”
“Well, great then. So, what’s for dinner? What are you whipping up for me and the Midge?”
Taz takes another sip, sets the bottle down. “Finish up,” he says. “We’ve got shopping to do.”