On Turpentine Lane(28)

I wasn’t expecting to feel this self-conscious about everything, about my humble five rooms, about me in jeans, my hair in a ponytail. Had I thought this through? Would we be breakfasting in bathrobes? Commuting in one car or two? Using the same bar of soap? All of this seemed to be manifesting itself as social paralysis.

“Faith?” he prompted. “You okay with all of this?”

I said, “Yes, of course. And now the tour . . . this is what I call the parlor. This will be the dining room as soon as I get a dining-room table. This is my china closet. There’s plenty of room if you have dishes. Or stemware.”

“Hmm . . . stemware,” he said. “I don’t believe I do. But thank you.”

Next was the kitchen. “It’s probably self-explanatory,” I said, but narrated anyway: stove, breadbox, sink. “It’s soapstone,” I said. “The original sink. I keep my cleaning products under it . . . Here. Whatever you need.”

“And would this by any chance be the refrigerator and the toaster?” he asked.

I confessed that I was a little nervous. It wasn’t his being here. It was seeing my very modest house through new eyes. Maybe he’d been expecting something bigger or grander or newer.

He said, “You’re forgetting the large number of photos you showed me between your first visit and your moving in. So cut it out. It’s great.”

“Even if I don’t have a microwave?”

“I’m antimicrowave. And I don’t like big houses. They’re so . . . big. So pretentious. So head of school.”

“Whew,” I said. “Thank you.”

“Who’s thanking who here? I could be at The Evermore. Or on Reggie’s couch.”



We ate turkey meatloaf he’d brought from his ex-refrigerator. I supplied macaroni salad and a corkscrew. Unsolicited, he confided that the meatloaf was from the deli counter at the Big Y. No one at his former address ever cooked anything. “Do I sound like a throwback? Like I expected my girlfriend to cook? I didn’t. But she had so little interest in food that I think it was somewhat pathological.”

As much as I would have enjoyed deconstructing that criticism, I thought it was best not to. I volunteered that Stuart had been a vegetarian, but called himself a vegan to win extra points. I helped myself to another piece of the meatloaf and pronounced it very satisfying, then ventured into the arena of meals in general. “I hope you know you can help yourself to anything in the refrigerator.”

“Thank you. Of course, I want to contribute.”

I said, “I think you’re forgetting the service you’re providing.”

“Oh, right . . . as ghostbuster. When do I see the evidence?”

The dreaded album, he meant, which I’d buried out of sight in the china cupboard’s creaky bottom drawer. “If you insist,” I said. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Had I expected that a man would be more stoic? He wasn’t. He closed the book after only a few seconds. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he said. “Pictures of babies’ corpses? Who did this?”

“I don’t know. Let’s not say ‘corpses.’ It makes them sound so . . . I don’t know . . . so call 911.”

“You know for a fact that this album belonged to the previous owner?”

“Those infant seats were on my kitchen counter.” I swept the room rather grandly. “These babies were photographed here.”

It was at this point in the conversation that Nick put an imaginary phone to his ear, and said, “Ding-a-ling-a-ling.”

“Huh?”

“You’re calling the previous owner and getting to the bottom of this. We’re practicing.”

“She lives in Maui. It’s the middle of the night there.”

“Hawaii? Just the opposite. It would be . . . he checked his watch. “Five hours difference, or six? The middle of the afternoon.” Then he repeated, “Ding-a-ling-a-ling.”

“Are we role-playing?”

“Exactly.”

“In that case . . . Hello.”

“No, you’re you, the caller. I’m the daughter. Pretend you’re making conversation with a perfectly reasonable woman who sold you her childhood home. Think of fund-raising calls. Pleasantries first.”

“That helps. Okay . . . ‘Theresa? This is Faith Frankel, the woman who bought your house?’?”

Nick said, his voice a cartoony half octave higher than real life, “Well, hello, Faith. It was a pleasure doing business with you.”

I said, “No, it wasn’t. She’d never say that because I paid way below her asking price.”

“Okay, take two. Well, very nice to meet you, Faith—telephonically, that is. What is it that you’re calling about?”

Already stumped, my first try was “Well, you know that the house went through an inspection, top to bottom—”

Baritone Nick stepped out of character to say, “No. Don’t go there. Didn’t she have to shell out a lot of dough for the repairs?”

“How about ‘I found a photo album in the attic, in a cradle, and I thought maybe you’d want it.’?”

“What would I want with a cradle?” he falsettoed.

“No, I meant the photo album. It was wrapped in a receiving blanket, and it had pictures of babies in it.”