"Should I be thinking about renovating my house? Is this something I should be doing?"
"It has nothing to do with you," Elaine says.
"Your father talks about fixing up the house so we'll get more money out of it. We're not going anywhere, how are we going to get money out of it? Besides, what do we need a bathroom downstairs for? If someone has to go, go upstairs in private. I don't have to be informed every time someone goes."
"It has nothing to do with you," Elaine repeats.
Her mother points at a pillow on the living room sofa. "Where'd that come from?"
"I don't remember," Elaine says.
"Yes you do."
"No I don't."
"Bloomingdale's," her mother says.
"Pier One," Elaine says.
"I knew you'd remember," her mother says. "I could use a couple of pillows like that. Do you think they still have them?"
Elaine shrugs.
There is a sound outside, an incredible clatter, like a thousand things falling at once.
"What's that?" her mother asks.
Elaine looks out the window. "Lumber. The wood has arrived."
A man presses against the plastic wall; his nose makes a dent. "Excuse me," he says, his breath making a wet mark. "Excuse me." He tries to get Elaine's attention.
Elaine turns toward the plastic. "Yes," she says.
"Sorry to bother you." His voice is gurgly, as if he's speaking underwater. "Have you got some ice? I hit my hand."
"Oh, sure. Of course," Elaine says, "we have plenty of ice." She goes into the kitchen, fills a plastic bag, wraps it in a kitchen towel, and goes back into the living room. She is standing on one side of the plastic, the man is on the other. She tries to lift it from the bottom to pass the ice under-but it's tacked down. He's pulling from the top to no avail.
"Stand back," he says, penetrating the plastic with a sharp blade. His hand juts into the living room, the fingers purple and swelling.
"I think you might have broken something," Elaine says, handing him the ice pack.
"I wouldn't put it past me," the man says.
"I meant to tell someone," Elaine says, speaking directly into the trapdoor. "There's a hole in the master bedroom ceiling; it leaked on us last night."
"I'll send a guy in."
"Thanks," Elaine says. "If you need more ice, just holler-I've got a freezerful."
"Do you want me to leave this open?" the man asks, gesturing at the trapdoor.
"Close it," Elaine says, thinking of the dust, of Sammy.
"Hello, stranger," Elaine hears her mother say. "Long time no see. Have you got a kiss for your grandmother? Well, I've got one for you."
The image of Daniel in the kitchen, being kissed by her mother, floods Elaine with a peculiar rush of discomfort. She thinks of the fat woman from the magazine, the woman whose legs have to be held open in order to be fucked, she thinks of her lipstick in the Ziploc bag in Daniel's drawer and wonders what it means.
She hurries into the kitchen and glares at Daniel.
"How'd you get in?" she asks.
"Door," he says.
"Did someone leave it open?"
"Lock's broken," he says, looking at her strangely.
She nods. She doesn't know how to talk to him.
"I need Polaroid film," he says, "for a project."
She imagines him taking photographs of fat women on the streets of Scarsdale, riding his bike to Mamaroneck and Yonkers, prowling for bulk, waiting outside the Weight Watchers office, hunting down chubbies at Overeaters Anonymous meetings, using his allowance to buy film, to buy Twinkies and HoHo's, to bribe the fat girls to show him their padded parts.
"I need some coffee," Elaine says.
"I need film," he says.
Need this, need that. Need ice. Need film. "Then get it," she says.
"What's your problem?" he says.
What's yours? she wants to ask.
He goes upstairs.
Elaine waits for the eruption. She counts the seconds.
"Who went in my room?" he yells less than a minute later.
"It's not your room," Paul shouts from the bedroom. "It's my room. I own this house."
"You went in my room? Why did you do that? Why would you go in my room?" Daniel runs down the hall, screaming.
"Why would you put a lock on the door?" Paul hollers.
"Because I didn't want anyone to go in my room."
"That's why we went in your room." "Because of the lock?"
"You bet."
Elaine wonders if she should go upstairs and moderate. "We bought you a new comforter," Elaine calls up the stairs. "We were trying to fix things up for you and Sammy."
"You sure fixed it," Daniel shouts.
"Whose shirt are you wearing?" Paul asks Daniel.
"Not yours, that's for sure."
"Who the hell do you think you are?" Paul shouts. "What kind of monster are you?"
"I am not a monster," Daniel yells back.
"What the fuck are all the Ziploc bags?"
"Evidence."
"For what, what are you trying to prove?"
"I don't know," Daniel shouts. "I don't know, I read about it in the junior-detective book. You don't own me," he yells, crashing down the steps, pushing past Elaine, heading for the door.
"Where are you going?" she asks.
"Out," he bellows.
"Look," Elaine says, "if you want more privacy, all you have to do is say so, but no padlocks on the doors. If there's a problem, let's talk about it."
Daniel stops. He turns to her. "Dad is a lazy fuck, and you're pathetic," he says.
A switch flips. She goes from being the concerned and confused mother to pure rage. Daniel is everything that Paul is and worse. She hates him.
She takes off her shoe and hurls it at him. "Brat."
Daniel runs out of the house.
Elaine's mother starts to say something.
"Shut up," Elaine says, before she can get a word out. "Just shut up."
Her mother makes a gesture like she's zipping her lips.
Paul comes down. "Did we handle that well?"
Elaine's mother clucks.
One of the men knocks on the door. "You have a hole?" he asks, stepping in.
"Upstairs," Elaine says, "in the master bedroom-look up and you can see the sky."
"What's the suitcase for?" Paul points to a suitcase by the kitchen table-Elaine hadn't noticed it before.
"I can't take it anymore," Elaine's mother says. "A woman of my age, of my position, deserves more." She pauses. "I'll stay in one of the boys' rooms. You can talk all you want, you can fight, you can make love, you can kill each other for all I care, and I won't say a word."
Elaine imagines her mother upstairs, discovering the lump in Daniel's bed, lifting the mattress. Her mother flipping through the stack of Chunky Bunch magazines.