Kept Animals Read online

  Gus got a hand on the chair and sat, feeling welcome now. But there were other voices in the house—a garble of Spanish. There, the radio on the counter, the term NAFTA a life raft in an otherwise unrecognizable sea of words. Gus had mostly picked up curse words over the years. “I’m a stray dog, looking for scraps.” There were three more cans on the counter, drained and buckled. Mi amigo.

  Jorge said something to Sonja and Sonja leaned into the hallway, yelling to Tomás—the boy yelling back, “Claro!” Tomás was taller and ropier than his mother or Jorge—clearly another man’s son—but Jorge treated him as his own. Yes, a couple of stepfathers—they had plenty in common.

  Sonja put a kettle on and riffled in the fridge, peering into repurposed cottage cheese containers until she found what she was looking for, shaking two rolls onto a paper plate that she set in front of Gus. He brought the cold fist of a roll to his nose. It was one of the cheese-filled rolls she baked in the mornings. “It’s frío,” he said. His tongue felt thick.

  Jorge and Sonja were speaking in rapid-fire Spanish now. What was this warm orange light? The walls were marmalade.

  Sonja waved a hand between them at the table. “Those were for Tomás.” Rice. He’d have liked rice, maybe chicken or ground turkey, a meal that would stick to his stomach. He found Sonja’s face, her narrowed eyes. “Eat,” she said. “Then Jorge will make coffee for you.”

  “Cabrón,” Jorge said, not yet getting up.

  Gus lifted the roll and forced himself to chew. Sonja took a beer from the fridge and set it in front of Jorge. He had seen them squabble once or twice before, always drawing together again easily enough. Jorge cracked open his beer. Gus wanted one sip. Just one.

  “It’s the last,” Jorge said, sensing Gus’s longing, and slid the can toward him.

  This—the can across the table—tipped Gus’s thoughts to Mona, to the ever-available movie in his mind, her sliding a drink to another man, one of her regulars, leaning over the burnished wood of the bar, her breasts right there, inches from the always faceless man’s hands.

  “That’s a hazard,” Gus blurted. He’d found the source of the orange glow: a scarf thrown over a lamp in the living room. “A fire hazard,” he said, pointing. His mouth was full, fizzing with beer and dough.

  “We’re not working now,” Sonja said.

  The teakettle was whistling, growing louder. Jorge got up.

  “If you live here,” Gus said, “in this house, on this land—” He took one more sip, to clear his throat. “Then you are always working—”

  “Why are you not home, Señor?” Sonja asked. “You need time off, no? You should be home, in your kitchen.”

  Indeed, Gus thought.

  Jorge was stirring instant coffee into the mug, the chink of the spoon against the porcelain.

  He leaned toward Sonja and whispered to her before setting the mug down in front of Gus. Sonja walked away, cursing under her breath. She pulled the scarf from the lamp and disappeared around the corner.

  Gus raised the mug. A door slammed. His hand shook. “Buenas noches,” he called to Sonja, his eyes still adjusting to the sudden light.

  * * *

  RORY OPENED THE window and stepped out onto the narrow lip of grating. It was a place for setting plants, not people, but June stepped out, too, sitting on the windowsill, not yet bothering to look down, focused on the rolling paper, the thread of weed she had pinched there, saying, “It’s going to be an easy competition, really. And your mare is so fit now. You should totally come.” She was quick with her hands, creasing and tightening. She was talking about Ram Tap, the three-day in Fresno that she and Wade, in his half-assed way, were training for. “I mean, why not enter?” she asked, flicking her lighter to the end of the joint.

  “Money,” Rory said, blurting out the impolite truth, June having seen how they lived.

  “Oh,” June exhaled. She handed the joint to Rory and then she looked down. “Shit,” she said, “That really is some place.” She lowered herself in beside Rory.

  The half-smoked butts Rory had lifted from Mona’s ashtrays, smoking them out here, had her expecting the burn on inhale, but this was better, the taste lusher. They had to pull their knees up to their chests and pass the joint on the outside of the bars. They sat like that, pressed together, until the pool lights came on beneath them, like the opening of a show.

  “They really can’t see us up here?” June asked.

  “Nope.” A lightness had come over Rory, as if the iron grating were floating away from the house. June’s bare foot was up against hers. “The lights are on a timer,” Rory said.

  June smiled. “How often do you sit out here, Scott?”

  Rory took it for granted that the trees concealed her, though one of the gardeners had looked up once, shielding his eyes from the sun, and Rory had waved to him, a tic of cordiality from working at the ranch. “Our TV was broken for a while,” she said.

  June laughed, a high shrill laugh that she let roll on too long.

  The week before, Rory had watched Mrs. Price overseeing a delivery of succulents, while her diapered son smudged his face against the glass of the sliding doors.

  June knocked one knee against Rory’s. “Look, look,” she said, pointing at the house.

  Someone was moving behind the white curtains. “That’s the mom,” Rory said.

  “Mrs. Sarah Price,” June announced, trumpeting into the shortened joint.

  Mrs. Price came outside in a sleeveless, white, ankle-length nightgown that glowed against the darkened yard. She walked past the pool and June crouched into herself.

  “She can’t see us,” Rory said, though a chill moved through her.

  “Can she hear us?”

  “I don’t know.” Rory whispered. “I’ve never sat out here with anyone, talking.”

  Mrs. Price and Vivian had the same long, amber hair, the same light-footed gait. She was eyeing a flower bed near the sandbox now, a spade in her hand. She began digging.

  “She knows it’s like fucking night out, right?” June said. “Does she always do shit like this? Dressed like that?”

  Rory shook her head. She thought Mrs. Price looked like the subject of a painting, a photograph.

  * * *

  McLEOD REFUSED TO talk about the missus. “No,” he said. “How about you tell me what Merriam Prep has you reading this summer instead?”

  “Conrad,” Vivian said, rolling away from the view of the garden. “So two years ago …” Her mother was outside now, being weird.

  “Heart of Darkness?” McLeod asked.

  “Hmm. I’ll be back in AP next year.” She was on top of her comforter, the phone cradled between her ear and her arm. She knew he could hear her breathing.

  “Good, so they recognize you’re capable. Tell me what you’re reading for fun, then.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Shame on you,” McLeod said. “Well, what are you doing for fun, then?”

  She didn’t answer. There was power in the pause. She heard the creak of his chair, his settling in, enjoying her. “See, McLeod,” she said. “You already know. I’m calling you for fun.”

  “Don’t.”

  “McLeod, Mickey McLeod, keep talking to me,” she sang.

  “I can’t. And there’s our trouble, Vivian. I should go.”

  “Should,” she said, “suggests you might not.”

  “I am hanging up.”

  “Tell me it was good to hear my voice.”

  “And your breath in my ear,” McLeod said.

  * * *

  OUTSIDE THE OFFICE, Gus stood in the light pooling on the ground by the back door, retracing his thoughts. Your kitchen. Sonja’s admonishment. He knew Rory was most likely home alone, eating cereal for dinner again. He never talked to her about Mona, about the nights when she didn’t come home at all. A man can get used to anything.

  He looked in the window, at the pink ribbons of innards laid across the wood plank; the fox’s fur still attached at the
ears and muzzle, like a shirt drawn over a head.

  Maybe Rory already understood everything about Mona. How there were days that she danced into his arms, when her laughter was contagious, right up against days full of animosity and dissappearing. Maybe Rory didn’t need to talk about it. Maybe it was Rory who could teach him a fucking thing or two about getting along in this world. Just rolling with it.

  He felt in his pockets for his keys. He did want to be home. Sitting with Rory in his kitchen, eating anything at all.

  * * *

  AN ACCORDION OF time had spread open: ten minutes, an hour?

  They’d watched Sarah Price go in the house and come out again. June remained quiet, mouth open. Rory felt light and tired, half-steeped in a pleasant dream. She was wishing for her bed, when Vivian Price came out of the house. June covered her mouth as if she’d been about to shout. Vivian was wearing the black one-piece, her hair pulled up in a high bun, a towel slung over her shoulder. Rory straightened, feeling she’d just made good on a promise.

  Vivian looked in her mother’s direction, but neither of them spoke. She dropped the towel at the pool’s edge and stepped onto the first stair, the marbled light of the pool dancing against her skin. Rory let out the grip of her ribs as steadily as she could; she’d been holding her breath. Vivian’s dive into the water was silent. She came up, swimming a breaststroke, her face rising and dipping at the water’s surface. June began to laugh a scoffing, quiet laugh. She put her hand on Rory’s knee, as if to steady herself.

  “What?” Rory asked.

  “I mean, are they, like, vampires?” Her laughter pealed higher, her hand still on Rory.

  “They are pale,” Rory said quickly, somewhat worried Sarah Price could hear. It wasn’t true. There wasn’t anything sickly about the Prices. Vivian Price, especially. She was beautiful. Rory knew this from the magazines, but she knew from this distance, too. It was clear in the way she carried herself, as if leading others behind.

  When Vivian stepped out of the pool, she slung her towel over her shoulder without drying off. June’s hand loosened. It wasn’t until the sliding glass doors closed that Mrs. Price looked up in Vivian’s direction, her daughter already inside.

  “You think she’s pretty,” June said. “I can tell.” She was facing Rory—the proximity of her breath, its disrupting warmth. “I’ll light this again,” she said, lifting the joint to Rory’s mouth. “There’s one hit left.” Rory inhaled, smelling the lighter’s fuel. “Now keep it in,” June said. Her hand was back on Rory’s knee, the other on Rory’s shoulder turning her until June’s cropped hair hung like a curtain around their faces. “Now exhale,” June said, her mouth already on Rory’s mouth as she spoke.

  Not a kiss. Rory recognized this was not a kiss. June was inhaling, pulling the smoke up out of Rory’s lungs and into her own. Rory started to cough, and June sat back, her lips sealed, her breath held, until she smiled. “I wasn’t sure you’d let me do that,” she said, a thin ribbon of smoke escaping the side of her mouth.

  * * *

  OUT IN THE yard, in the dark, Sarah was more at ease. The heat more tolerable. Or maybe it was hormones. Perhaps she was beginning to menstruate again; she hadn’t since Charlie was born. Everett always suggested hormones whenever she complained, so quick to imply that women were mere animals.

  Earlier, after she’d gotten Charles to bed, a mockingbird had started up and she’d picked up the phone dimly mistaking the bird’s prattle for the phone’s ring, overly hopeful, only to hear the monotony of the dial tone. She’d gone ahead and called Everett then, in Toronto. She listened as he answered sleepily, “Hello … hello … hello.” Then, “Sarah, is that you? Sarah, don’t let Charles play with the phone. Please, Sarah. Hang up. I’ve got a four a.m. call, for Christ’s sake. I need sleep, Sarah.” Everett needed sleep! When she called again, she found herself incapable of making words, though she wanted to tell him how hot it was, how unbearable, truly, it would be to sleep next to him anyway. Was Toronto nice this time of year? Had he been to the hotel pool? Of course she knew how busy he was, but wasn’t there time for dinner with the cast? They talked this way, in her head for a while. When she tried again, it only buzzed, a phone left off its cradle.

  Whenever Everett called of his own volition, it was always in the middle of the day, just as everything around her was so bright she couldn’t focus. Not that they ever spoke about Charlie. She would have liked to talk about Charlie. She felt if Everett would just remind her that the sleepless nights, the boy’s rebelliousness, this heat—it was all normal, hearing that from him would bring some relief. His validation. Why did she always yearn for his validation?

  Oddly enough, Charlie had gone down fine that night, even before dark. He’d napped only briefly on the drive back from the market that morning. Perhaps that was the trick, simply wear him out. But he was going to wake up again. He always did, needing her as Vivian and Everett did not. Had Vivian come outside? But of course it was Everett who needed sleep.

  Digging in the soil, her nails painfully edged with earth, in the far corner of the garden, she began to worry she would not hear him when he woke. Though the way he could cry, she often heard him long after he had stopped, like a stifled alarm in her own body.

  * * *

  JUNE DROPPED ONTO Rory’s bed. “Next time, I’ll bring more. Then you won’t have to kiss me again,” she said, smirking.

  Rory was in Carlotta’s old rocker, her pulse in her ears. “It’s okay,” she mumbled.

  Only the bathroom light was on. There was a lamp on the bureau, but Rory couldn’t will herself up to turn it on. June was looking at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers above the bed, clustered in the pitched peak of the roof.

  “Wade says it’s Sarah Price who’s the rich one. Everett’s famous and all, but apparently Sarah’s dad left them some ridiculous inheritance when he died.”

  Rory rocked the chair. “From what?”

  “Fuck, I don’t know. Whatever people die of.”

  “I mean, where did his money come from?”

  June shrugged. “Where’s any of it come from?”

  June’s father was a doctor and their money seemed otherworldly, yet Rory heard envy in June’s voice.

  “I hope you’ll forgive my lingering, Scott. I don’t like driving when I’m high.”

  “You’re not,” Rory said, fingers busy at the seam of the chair’s cushion. “You’re not lingering, I mean. Stay, if you like.”

  June rolled to her side, her face backlit by the bathroom light, unknowable, but Rory could feel her eyes. “Wanna pass the time over here?” She patted the bed.

  “I’m good,” Rory said, her mouth, her hands, trembling.

  “I’m only teasing,” June said. “No need to fear the lesbo, Scott.”

  “Oh,” Rory started. “It’s not that. I just—” She stopped, listening to an announcement from the bridge over the creek, the ba-dum, ba-dum of a crossing car.

  June was smelling the air. “We should’ve used a dryer sheet.”

  Be Gus, please be Gus, Rory thought, but his truck and Mona’s car made two distinct sounds, and this was Mona, and because Mona moved with a lizard-like swiftness, she was already inside and hollering, “Rag-Tag! You here? Whose Mercedes is that? Where the hell’s the truck?”

  Rory jumped up and closed her door. It closed as if a wind had snapped it shut.

  Then louder, but muffled: “Rag-Tag? You hear me?” That ludicrous nickname followed by the click of Mona’s heels on the stairs. “I came home early. Bar was too slow.”

  The room had lost all its air. June was feeding the leather strap of her sandal through its buckle, her big round sunglasses already back on.

  * * *

  A CAR KEPT coming up behind Gus and dropping away, making him feel rushed and woozy. He was driving in his socks; it was easier to feel the pedals under his feet, switching back and forth between the gas and the brake, taking the curves—one after another—like the barrel racer he’d
briefly been, back in Wyoming, where quarter horses were king. Where the loyalty of one’s wife was expected. He pounded his fist to the wheel and felt its bounce.

  As soon as he thought the other car was gone altogether, it caught up with him. He recognized that car. Someone he knew. He bumped off the road, thinking to let them pass on the straightaway, but all he saw in his mirror was the ghost of the dust cloud his tires had kicked up.

  He pulled back out again with his eyes to the road ahead, thinking of the animals. Coyotes and coons were easy to spot, moving in packs, but the deer. Sometimes they’d come out of nowhere—dumb in rut, heads full of steam, as deadly to a driver as to themselves. Gus had never hit one, but he’d been in the car plenty of times when his father had. His father had said it was better to steer for them when they appeared, that you had to take them with intention. Hitting deer being as common and shruggable an offense as striking your own children.

  * * *

  SARAH KNEW CHARLIE would wake up soon. She felt it. He always woke up three to four times a night.

  She wasn’t feeling right. The heat, surely. She went through the house opening the French doors, the windows, even the front door, begging for a breeze to come through—something natural. Of nature. She hated the peaty stink of Everett’s beloved central air. A cold washcloth, that would help. She lay down and let the water drip over her temples, her neck. Maybe it was another migraine coming. She was worried about the sun, about how soon it might be up. Was it really only 10:32 p.m.? Truly? So she could, she actually could fall asleep, but the sleep that beckoned was a deep, definitive sleep, and knowing this, sensing this, she remained hovering, lying there, so awake, until there he finally was, his little voice. “Mama,” he called. “Mama, in.”

  * * *

  VIVIAN HEARD CHARLIE, but he wasn’t calling to her. Sometimes he did. Sometimes, Vivian thought, she was more comfort to him than their mother. She turned up the television: Headbangers Ball, a show she detested (that ass kiss of a host, Riki Rachtman), but the noise drowned out her mother’s anxious voice in the hall, pleading with Charlie. What would it be to have this house to themselves? Just her and Charlie. They would color the walls in crayon, sing to one another through the intercom, eat ice cream for breakfast. She’d buy back that blue lounger they’d had two houses ago, the one that reclined with a hand crank, the fabric of its arm worn to a thin velvet where she used to sit beside her father. She’d find it again and she’d sit Charlie in her lap and she would read him all the fairy tales her mother had deemed too scary. She’d get him the bunny he wanted. Two, so they’d have a thousand babies, scurrying and sniffing and flopping all over Charlie’s feet.