“That is of course our family pictures.” The woman rested a black breakfast tray on my lap. The tea steamed up into my face as I sipped it, and she went into the kitchen and came back with a small bowl of red grapes.
“Thank you,” I said. She smiled at the other end of the couch and put a cube of sugar in her mouth before she sipped her tea, placing the cup in a saucer on her lap. She was looking at my bare legs, the high hem of my cotton shorts, her face taking them in like my mother would. My cheeks flushed. I could hear the muffled noise of the carpenters cutting through wood above us, then hammering something, then cutting some more. The woman was sucking softly on the sugar in her mouth. The grapes were cold and sweet, but I wished I’d never driven up here last night and I put the tray on the table, sat up, and stood on my good foot.
“No, you must for rest your foots. Your friend must to the hospital bring you.”
I made my way around the table and hopped to the door. Draped over the edge of the silver table was the folded white towel, my blood drying all over it. “Thanks for your help, but he’s not my friend. I don’t even know his name.”
CONNIE WALSH WAS in a meeting when I limped up the stairs above the Café Amaro and told Gary I wanted to see her and I’m not leaving till I do. He looked down at my bandaged foot and asked what happened, but I sat without answering because I felt like killing somebody right then, anybody, but not him, especially when he dragged a chair over for me to rest my foot up on while I waited.
Connie Walsh’s morning clients were two women a little older than me and better dressed. They walked out of the conference room laughing, but when they saw me sitting there with my foot up on a chair that almost blocked their way, their laughter dropped down to smiles as they squeezed by and disappeared down the stairs.
My lawyer stood in the doorway. “What happened to you?”
“They’re tearing my fucking house apart.”
“What?”
I hopped by her into the meeting room that smelled like clove cigarettes. All the tall windows were open and the room was full of sunlight. I leaned against the table and crossed my arms over my chest to keep my hands from shaking. “They’re remodelingit. What are you going to doabout that?”
“Have a seat, Kathy.”
“I don’t want to sit down. I want to fucking kill somebody. How come they don’t even know they’re squatting in somebody else’s home? I’m tired of this shit.” I lit a cigarette.
Connie sat down and called out to Gary to please bring us two cups of coffee. She looked up at me with a patient look on her face. “The courier just brought over the paperwork from the county this morning. I was planning to review it and call you this afternoon.”
“I don’t want you to call me,I want you to call those Arabswho are cutting up my house.”My voice broke, but I wasn’t going to let whatever was under it break through. Gary came in and left the coffee. My foot felt swollen so I pulled out a chair, sat down, and rested my leg on another.
“What happened?”
“My yard is a construction site.”
“You were there, Kathy?”
“That’s right.” I emptied a whole packet of Sweet’n Low into my coffee, stirring it while Connie launched into a soft-voiced lecture on why it’s a good idea to stay off the property so she can do her work unencumbered.
“It’s very important we’re both clear on this,” she said. “Agreed?”
I looked at her, at the premature gray in her hair, at the serious look in her face, and I was still so mad at how far all this was actually going my throat felt closed up, but I said yes, then drank from my coffee. Connie excused herself to go get the paperwork. Outside, on the flat roof of the Roxie Theater across the street, two pigeons were perched on a brick chimney stack in the sunlight. They stood together looking out over the street below, their beaks jerking front and back, right and left, as they took in the scene.
My foot hurt. I smoked another cigarette and thought how at least today was my off day with the cleaning and if I was lucky I might be able to put enough weight down tomorrow to work. But on the drive over my right sole ached so much I had to sit almost kitty-cornered and use my left foot on the gas and brake pedals, making me sit as low in the seat as an old lady. I started to stand to go find my lawyer, but then she walked back into the room smiling, carrying a manila folder in front of her.
“I was right. They sent your signed statement with everything else. Here.”
I took it from her. It was the original statement both Nicky and I signed in front of the notary. I looked at his signature, each letter of his name written so neatly while mine was a hurried scribble. I used to think he did that so people wouldn’t have to decipher it, so he wouldn’t make things hard for anyone, so he wouldn’t leave behind a mess. I used to think that.
Connie Walsh said a few things and I looked up and nodded at her like I’d heard.
“And it’s obvious they decided to put it to rest with that statement, so I’ll fax them a letter today and we’ll follow it up with a phone call before offices close. If they don’t offer to rescind the sale immediately, we’ll sue the county for a bundle. Are you still at the motel?”
I shook my head no. “I want you to call those people in my house, too. They’re already more at home there than I ever was. That’s not right.”
My lawyer tapped her pencil in the palm of her hand. “Did you get their names?”
“I don’t know, Bahroony or Behmini, something like that. They’re Middle Eastern. Please call them up and tell them to put the roof back together and get out.”
She left the room and I heard her tell Gary to draft a letter for the courier service. The pigeons flew off, and I told myself I should feel good the county had sent the sworn statement that would get me back into my and Frankie’s house, but there were four holes of heat in my foot, a stiffness in my neck from sleeping in the car, a tightness in my throat, and for a second I saw myself emptying most of the storage shed into the Bonneville and driving straight back East, just pull into my mother’s driveway and tell her everything, that I had no friends, I was smoking again, I just scrape by cleaning up after other people, all I do is watch movies I don’t remember, my husband left me, and I lost the house, Ma; it’s gone.
“Where are you staying, Kathy?” Connie walked in reading some paperwork. She had on her round glasses.
“Nowhere.”
“You’re not with friends?” She was giving me eyes that were sincere but holding back too, and I pegged her right away for the kind of person who couldn’t live with herself for not doing the right thing, but also the kind who could never say no, so they really wanted you to lie to them so they wouldn’t have to dothe right thing like invite me to stay a week with her.
“Yeah, I’m with a friend.”
“You are?”
They always did that too, pushed your lie till it almost broke. “I want to be back in my house by this weekend, Connie, all right?”
“I can’t promise you anything, but we’ll do our best.” She smiled and stood and showed me to the door. As I hopped to the stairs, she said not to worry and she hoped my ankle would feel better soon.
IT’S ALMOST EASIER being down and alone than when you’re up and no one’s there to share the view with you. Not that I was feeling that great as I drove south on Skyline Boulevard through Daly City in the sunshine. Addicts are supposed to be famous for expecting disaster around every corner from good luck, but now I did have my hopes up a little Connie Walsh might have this mess straightened out by the weekend. I needed some distraction.