A Castle in Brooklyn(69)
“Well, then,” said Mrs. Stein as she rose from her seat, signaling the end of the conversation, “I think this will work out just fine,” adding as the other woman followed suit, “My friend, Florrie here, will take care of the rent collection each month, and I’ll be heading back to my brother’s in Florida.”
Before extending her hand to the two women, Francine touched the fake pearls at her neck.
“And please don’t forget to visit Georgia on your way there,” she said.
Francine had had enough. The yelling, the door slamming, all of that name-calling, was too much. If she only had the money, maybe she would take off for a little farm, somewhere with green grass and long cornstalks, and nothing but sky and the stars at night.
But instead of looking for farms in the Midwest, Francine checked out the newspaper, and sitting down with a cup of Starbucks, let her index finger slide down the listings in the realty section. She jotted down the info on house rentals that could accommodate a family of five.
She got up and surveyed the room and then looked out the double window. Standard Motel 6, standard dirty parking lot in the back. She picked up the phone and dialed the first number. No rain predicted in the forecast tomorrow, a perfect day for some house hunting. She would tell Patrick all about it after she signed the contract. He was of no use anyway.
It wasn’t long after the family moved in that Patrick started complaining. The weather was too cold, there were bees in the backyard, and, worst of all, there was no liquor store in walking distance.
Francine sat at the kitchen table, having her coffee, black with three sugars, and watched as her husband stooped to put the drops in Kiki the Chihuahua’s bulging eyes. The fourteen-year-old dog was nearly blind. Patrick, at age sixty-six, was a bit rough around the edges and mostly a pain in the you-know-what, but he did have a sweet streak when it came to his dogs, from Gracie, the German shepherd, to Mel, the fat bulldog with the ugly underbite, to Kiki, the eldest. Still, anyone who met Patrick for the first time would swear that there was nothing he loved more than a cold one followed by a nicotine drag. And maybe there was some truth to that.
She sat back, letting the hot liquid burn her tongue and slide down her throat as she mentally appraised her husband of forty years. At six foot two, Patrick was once a tall drink of water, but in the past few years, the hunch in his back had become so pronounced that now he was shorter by a couple of inches. As always, he had on a pair of buff-colored trousers and a wrinkled Braves T-shirt, a dangerous thing to wear, she thought, in Yankee territory. But Patrick didn’t go out much except in the middle of the night to breathe in the cooler air, or when his body ached for another smoke.
Gracie, the German shepherd who had been lying in the corner of the kitchen, got up and stretched her haunches lazily before walking over to sniff at Francine’s bare toes. She scratched the top of the animal’s head, but before she could lift herself up to get the leashes, she heard the screech of the front screen door. At once, her two sons burst into the room. She wondered what they were up to now.
Francine shot up from her seat, but her husband, as usual, didn’t blink an eye as he put down the bottle of eye drops and rubbed noses with Kiki.
“I thought someone was gonna order pizza,” exclaimed her eldest, a thirty-eight-year-old broad-faced man with thinning hair and already an ample paunch. Probably about fifty or sixty pounds over what was healthy, over what he looked like when he was in his twenties and still handsome. She still couldn’t understand why Patty, his wife, had left him and their newborn baby thirteen years ago. He grabbed a green apple from a bowl on the counter and began chomping on it.
Francine placed her hands on her hips and glowered at him like a person who was well aware of the power she had over her children.
“Albert, you are a full-grown man with a kid. Are you not old enough to order your own pizza without Mama having to do that and wipe your nose too?”
Albert shrugged and took another bite out of the apple.
“Well, I would do that, Mama, if only I knew where there was one of them New York pizza places I heard so much about. We’ve only been here two days, for God’s sake! Where’s the phone in this place anyway?”
It was well past midnight before Francine, still in her jeans and polo, got into bed. Albert was downstairs listening to the Stones, no doubt with young Billy by his side. And she hated to think where Elias, her youngest, was at this hour of the night. Probably somewhere in town, smoking weed. She stared out the bedroom window into the blackness, catching sight of the tip of Patrick’s cigarette, its blue light floating up from the curb. How long had he been out there? Or perhaps the better question was: How much longer would he be outside? Again, she thought of going to sleep, of doing battle with her insomnia in a king-size bed that she would have all to herself, which was just the way she liked it, what with Patrick being an incorrigible snorer. Lately, it was only her recurring fears about the family’s future that kept her awake.
Her thoughts settled now on the tall elderly woman with the funny name who lived next door and who would soon find out it wasn’t just her and Patrick living in the home, but three others along with the animals. And if that happened, Francine mused, standing at the window as her eyelids slowly drifted downward, where on earth would they go?
To look at Francine, most would think that she was a woman who was tired of living, with her pale, doughy face and the rolls of fat that billowed down her hips and thighs. Her eyes, puffy, without color, suggested she had been run over by life like a steam engine, a woman whose dreams had already been spent. But Francine, at age sixty-three, did, in fact, have big dreams, dreams no one, not even Patrick, knew about.