A Lady Under Siege(13)

“Suit yourself.”

He had a wrench in his hand, but the fence prevented her from seeing what he was working on. He bent down out of sight. She could hear hammering, metal on metal, then cursing. Then more banging, and a grunting noise, the sound a man makes when he can’t get a bolt to let go of its nut. “Fuck it,” she heard him mutter. Then, “Good enough.”

Then he appeared again, looking at her from over the top of the six-foot fence, as if he were standing on a chair. “Come over here, would you?”

She stood still. She had an urge to run back inside the house, but even at the tender age of ten she had her pride, and didn’t want to be dismissed as a child, they way her parents had just done. She wanted to stand her ground. He watched her, waiting for an answer. She stared back at him.

“Cat got your tongue? What’s your name, anyway?”

She almost said it, then didn’t.

“Sorry, didn’t realize you were a mute,” he said.

That got her back up. “I’m not supposed to talk to you,” she retorted, dressing the words in a child’s snobbery.

“And why’s that?”

“My mother doesn’t like you.”

“Whatever. I’m difficult. Difficult to like, impossible to love, or so I’m told.”

Betsy began to walk in tight circles on the wooden deck. Certain boards underneath her feet made different creaking sounds. She could play them like music. She stopped and looked at him.

“How come you never go to work?”

“Is that your question, or your mother’s? I don’t work. I don’t have to.”

“Everyone has to work,” she told him.

“Wrong. That’s what they want you to think. I have a little nest egg and I dole it out carefully. You can get by on almost nothing if you don’t worry about appearances. I call it creative indolence, or shabby happiness. I’m living it.”

“It sounds weird,” said Betsy.

“I disagree. I think the world is weird, and I’m the sane one. I’m centered, and consistent—compared to me, most people are bipolar.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It’s just a label. The whole world is bipolar, you see it within five minutes of turning on a TV. Two hundred people incinerate in a hideous plane crash, then zooooop, next second, you’re supposed to worry about how white your smile can be! Everyone’s expected to have the psychological resilience or appropriate brain chemistry to pull constant complete 180s on our emotions, well screw that, I can’t do it. I stay home, quarantine myself from the craziness, right? Stay above it. Stay high, you know what I’m talking about? I’m talking about alternate states of consciousness, which is meaningless to you because you’re still a child, and your consciousness is still growing, it’s elastic and malleable and unformed. Someday when you’re older you’ll go, ‘Shit, my consciousness is so f*cking formed it’s gone stale, I wish I had an alternate,’ which is why grown-ups love alternate states of consciousness.”

“You shouldn’t swear.”

“Sorry. What’s your name again?”

“Betsy.”

“That’s old-fashioned. Heavens to Betsy.”

“More like to hell with Betsy’s all I hear,” she said.

Derek laughed. “That’s pretty sharp. But don’t pity yourself. You’re young and nimble, sweet and petite. Look at me. By comparison I’m old, slow, slovenly, and overweight. I should be complaining, not you.”

“You are complaining.”

“Good. Order has been restored. Now listen up. I want you to come down to the middle of your lawn, and stand just opposite me here. C’mon, you’ll like it!”

She kept her arms stiffly at her sides to show her reluctance, but she did as he asked. He stepped off the chair he had been standing on, and disappeared behind the fence. She could still hear his voice.

“Are you facing the fence?”

“Yes.”

“Close your eyes,” he said.

“No!” She giggled nervously.

“Come on, Betsy. For the full effect you gotta close your peepers for a sec. Are they closed?”

“Yes.”

“Keep ’em closed.”

“They’re closed.”

Her ears were assaulted by a burst of unhappy metallic scrapes and squeals, and un-oiled springs stretching and straining.