The Wrong Family(3)

From where Juno lay, she imagined that he was glancing over the mess of angrily spilled wine as he drank straight from the bottle. He had a lot to be aggravated about, in her opinion. Two days ago, Winnie had taped a husband to-do list to the side of the fridge. Juno had paused to read it, flinching at the tone. It wasn’t directly addressed to him, of course; it never was, but there was an underlying assumption that these were his jobs. The top of the notepad said Projects, underlined three times:

-Fix the doorbell.

-Stain the back deck before it rains.

-Remove wallpaper from bedroom near stairs.

-Dig up the plum tree. It’s dead!

-Clean the gutters.

She heard a cabinet open and close. Juno knew it was the one under the sink by the sound the loose hinge made; he was grabbing a rag. Then the sound of running water and the rustling of a sturdy black garbage bag being shaken open. And then, listening to Third Eye Blind on full blast, Nigel began to clean the mess his wife had made the night before. It took him fifteen minutes, and at one point she heard the vacuum going. When he was finished, she heard him lingering near the front door, probably considering if he should give the doorbell another go.

There was nothing wrong with the doorbell; it worked perfectly fine. Juno was of the strong opinion that Winnie was spoiled.

“It’s too loud,” Winnie had complained. “Every time someone rings it, I feel as if we’re being robbed at gunpoint.”

Juno wasn’t sure what chimes had to do with being robbed at gunpoint, but the lady of the house wanted the bell switched to something “more soothing.”

By now, Juno knew a thing or two about this family. For one: Winnie was a too-much girl. There was always too much spice on her food, too much mustard on her sandwich, too much cologne on Nigel. If Nigel tried to do things his own way, Winnie would watch him like a hawk, waiting for him to mess up. And he did—he always did. If someone were waiting for you to mess up, well then of course you would. She was like a door-to-door salesman, the way she demanded everyone conform to her whims: once her spiel started, you were screwed into listening.

And for two: Nigel hated color—hated it. His den was decorated in defiance of Winnie’s garish collection of designer decor, which was sprinkled across the house, meant to look unassuming and missing by a long shot. Mr. Crouch did most things passive-aggressively. Juno had a great deal of respect for the passive-aggressive. They got things done, in their own way, though if it went unchecked, it led to trouble. She’d seen it in the couples who’d dragged each other into her office, demanding that she fix their spouse. “You can’t fix it if you don’t know it’s broke,” she’d tell them. And Nigel didn’t know. The rules by which he lived were the result of being an only child and being an only child to a single mother. Winnie was his priority—he had an innate need to take care of women, and specifically his woman—but he was bitter about it. Maybe he hadn’t been in the beginning, but he was now.

The box at the door (which Nigel had ordered) said the new bell played “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Winnie had squealed excitedly when she saw it, and Juno had smiled knowingly into her elbow. Juno knew that Nigel had been snide in his choice, yet his bubbling blond bride was pleased as pudding.

She heard him linger for a moment longer before he moved on. There would be no doorbell installation tonight.





      2


WINNIE

It was 6:47 p.m. when Winnie’s car pulled past Mr. Nevins’s ancient Tahoe and into her own driveway. As soon as her car was in park, she cast an irritated glance in her rearview mirror. The Tahoe, a rusty beige thing festooned in bumper stickers, was parked on the street directly outside her living room window. It had been there for the last three weeks, and Winnie was tired of looking at the yellow rectangle that said You Mad Bro? that Mr. Nevins had slapped drunkenly on the back passenger-side window. Yes, she was mad, and she didn’t need that sticker calling her out every time she happened to look that way. But tonight was not the night to be angry at the neighbors; tonight was a celebration.

She checked her makeup in the visor mirror, having freshly applied it at work before she left. It looked like she was wearing little to no makeup, of course. That’s how Winnie rolled: she liked to make things look easy when really everything she did had a lot of sweat behind it.

Stepping into the drive, Winnie tiptoed across the gravel, being careful not to sink her heels into the dirt. Her bag under her arm, she opened the side gate, hearing Nigel moving around the kitchen before she could see him. She felt bad about last night; she’d overreacted. She knew that now. Her plan was to apologize right away, get it out of the way so that they could enjoy the rest of their kid-free night. She hadn’t meant for things to get as heated as they had, but lately Winnie had felt off balance emotionally. It was her own fault; sometimes she looked for things to be upset about, as if a lack of problems was its own problem in her mind. Nigel would rather pretend that nothing was wrong, though he hadn’t always been like that. Her husband hated confrontation, and that comforted Winnie. The kitchen window came into view, and Winnie saw that Nigel had left the back door open.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she stepped into what she thought of as the belly of the house. It was clean, the spills from last night mopped and cleared away—not a speck of her Pyrex on the floor. She felt more positive than she had even five seconds ago. Nigel was a good man; he’d cleaned everything up so she wouldn’t have to, even though she’d been the one to pick the fight.