Bad Things (11 page)

 

The drive across the desert from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Santo Verde, California, had taken five stressful hours. Between Shelly's sullen silence, the cat's yowling, Cody's manic good cheer, and Rick's own doubts about the intelligence of moving back, it had, in fact, been hell on wheels. But now, as he pulled past the open iron gates and up the long, long driveway into the veritable jungle surrounding the Piper family elephant, Rick had to smile as Cody oohed and ahhed as if he'd never seen a tree before. Of course, he hadn't seen that many.

Rick noticed that the front grounds were more overgrown than ever. After parking the car next to the stone path that led to the house, he thought that he might enjoy doing some of the work himself.

“Look, Daddy!” Cody cried in his ear. “Lemon trees! Can we make lemonade?”

“Sure, we can do that.” Farther up the driveway, past the garage and outbuildings, Rick saw a slice of the modest citrus grove behind the house. The trees were lushly green, some laden with lemons, most with still-greenish oranges. Rick knew the Zapata cottage was nestled within the trees, but he had little memory of the back otherwise. He'd rarely entered the grove, because the crush of trees, even in broad daylight, had frightened him.

“Can I pick some lemons?”

Rick turned to look at his son. “Later, okay?”

Cody nodded, his attention focused on unbuckling his seat belt. “Okay!” In a flash, the boy, eyes bright with excitement, was out of the car.

“What a dump,” Shelly observed as she opened her door. “This place is a wreck.”

“We're going to fix it up,” he told her as he stood and stretched. The cat yowled from his carrier on the backseat. “All right, already.” Ignoring the cat's accusing glare, Rick pulled the cage out and set it on the ground at his feet.

“This is cool!” Cody cried, and took off at a tear up the long driveway. A moment later, he was back. “I like it, Daddy! I'm gonna look at the front yard now.”

“Don't go near the pond,” Rick called after him. “It's dangerous.”

“I won't.” The boy disappeared down a shady pathway.

“It sucks,” Shelly countered. “It's filthy and I want to go home. Now.” She put on her little-girl face. “Please, Dad? I could go live with Dakota and Lil. I want to go home.”

“We
are
home,” Rick said firmly. “You'll love it. It just needs a little paint.”

“Like a million gallons,” she said, already reverting to her I'm-a-teenager-and-I-hate-you voice.

“Hush,” Rick said softly. Shelly was wrong—it wouldn't take a million gallons; twenty or thirty would do the trick. The stucco, once a pale peach, had faded to the color of unwashed flesh, and the formerly white trim was dirty gray and peeling. He wondered if the interior was as bad. Over the years George McCall had repeatedly told him the place needed fixing up, but Rick hadn't wanted to hear it because there wasn't enough money in the estate account for renovation of the house or yard. Frankly, he'd gone out of his way to ignore this place, hiding his head in the Las Vegas sand every time the subject of the house came up.

Now he'd have to do something, and he thought it might be fun to do some of the work himself.
My poor wallet.
Fixing up the place should raise the property value enough to make it salable if he decided he just couldn't stand living here.

The neighbors would be pleased. They probably hated the Pipers at this point. Fortunately, the house couldn't be seen from the street, but the overgrown foliage that hid it probably horrified the owners of the huge Victorians, Tudors, and haciendas that lined Via Matanza. Those houses had perfect paint and perfect yards, not a blade of grass out of place, while he had an award-winning collection of shaggy bushes and award-winning weeds.

He picked up the carrier and started toward the house, his heart thumping unreasonably hard. “Come on, Shel,” he said, and reluctantly the girl dragged her feet behind him.

Wildflowers exploded in the beds lining the walkway, and the grass was very long, making Rick recall that while the neighbors had their lawns mown once a week, Piper grass demanded cutting two or three times a week. Grandfather always said it was because the greenjacks lived here.

Rick forced the thought away, his gaze falling on the koi pond a hundred feet in front of the house. It was full of dark green water, and lilies floated on its scummy surface. A memory, so vague that it consisted only of the smell of cold, swampy water and an overwhelming feeling of dread, made him stop walking.
What? What happened there?
He shivered, despite the heat, relieved that memory wouldn't come.

“Dad?” Shelly asked sullenly. “You got a problem?”

“No,” he said as he realized he was standing in the shade of the old oak. The gnarled wood rose out of the ground, twisting and knotted, a trunk so thick, it would take three people to ring it with their arms. Rick had hoped that the tree wouldn't seem so huge now that he was grown, but it was even bigger than he remembered. Staring at the trunk, he recalled his old fear of the tree, recollecting the cold terror he felt whenever its upper limbs scratched against his bedroom window on the second floor. The window was dark behind the leafy branches, and he found that he felt no fear now. Pleased, he wondered if he'd feel the same way after sunset.
Yes,
he told himself forcefully,
I will.

“Let's go inside,” he said as Cody ran up. He took the key from his pocket.

“Where's that housekeeper you said we get?” Shelly asked. “Where's your aunt?”

“Carmen took Aunt Jade shopping. They won't be back for hours.”
I hope.

The black iron handrail flanking the steps leading up the wide front porch jiggled when Rick grabbed it. The art of reattaching metal to stucco, or whatever was beneath it, was a mystery to him, but he felt sure he could figure out how to do it. In all honesty, it sounded like fun.
Maybe this is what the nesting instinct feels like,
he realized with amusement.

The top step was loose, too, he noted as he stepped onto the wide wooden veranda. A moment later he noticed a frayed wire on the porch light and that the doorbell was broken. The house was definitely going to be a challenge. At least the heavy, dark door, arched and adorned with black iron fixtures that made him think of the Spanish Inquisition, appeared to have nothing wrong with it. He inserted the key and pushed the door open.

The house exhaled a pleasant, nostalgic breath of lemon wax and cinnamon potpourri, though the underlying odor—poodle—was nowhere near as pleasant.

“It's big!” Cody said, running into the middle of the room and turning in circles. “It's got stairs!”

Smiling, Rick found that the living room looked eerily as he had remembered, only older, tireder. The dark green wool carpeting had been cleaned within a thread of its life, and many of the same pictures decorated the walls, including his parents' Robert Woods prints and Jade's horrid big-eyed children and dog prints—poodles, of course—from the sixties. The portrait of Grandfather Piper that used to have the place of honor above the reclining chair had been removed, and he wondered where it was. It had been the only decent piece of art in the house. In its place was one of the hydrocephalic children with hyperthyroid eyes holding an equally deformed poodle in a beret.

From his carrier, Quint let out a bloodcurdling yowl. “You said it, cat. These pictures have got to go.” In fact, it was all going to go, he decided, and if Jade didn't want to hang the big-eyed children in her room, he'd toss them in the trash. The little U-Haul trailer he'd towed behind the car contained a half dozen exquisitely framed Edward Hopper prints as well as a few carefully chosen original pieces by relative unknowns who also captured the dark Americana feel Rick had first discovered in Hopper's work. He liked the darkness at the edges, the bright, sunshiny houses with inhabitants staring uneasily off into the shadows and woods, as if they were waiting for

Piper,
he told himself with a little chill,
you're twisted
But he felt so good that he didn't mind. Here he was, standing in the place he feared most in the world, and he was thinking about painting and redecorating. It made him feel like he'd broken free of a set of chains he'd worn all his life.

The van would arrive with his furniture next week—not a lot, but nice, and it would fit in here—and he could buy whatever else he needed. Happily he envisioned polished wood floors with Navaho area rugs. With paint and plaster patch, a level and a sander, he'd scour away the bad memories. He'd rip away the bad things, like the forest green carpet that reminded him of grass in shadowed woods and the heavy, dark draperies that matched. He'd get white vertical blinds, put them under light nubby drapes, lined to keep the darkness out at night. And the sun out in summer, too.
I'm not afraid!
He was very nearly giddy.

The thick swirled plaster on the living room walls was dirty and yellowed, as was every other wall in the house, he assumed. No one had painted since his parents died—and it was obvious that even Carmen's deadly bucket of TSP couldn't get rid of the years of tobacco yellow from Uncle Howard's nasty little Tiparillos.

God, I'd forgotten that.
He had a sudden clear image of Uncle Howard tilted back in a white metal chair, feet up on the front porch railing, a fifth of Jack Daniel's sticking out of his crotch.
Little brown turd, don't I love you,
that's what he sang to his Tiparillo, as he sat out there getting meaner and meaner. When it got too cold, he'd come in and do the same thing in front of the TV, tilted back in the recliner. Howard would croon to himself and watch the fights, grabbing whoever walked by and demanding this, cussing that, taking an occasional punch.

He used to pretend to be asleep when Uncle Howard was drinking.

Surprisingly, he was glad to have this memory. It seemed so . . . so normal. An abusive drunken uncle made more sense than little green men flitting around in the trees.

“Dad?” Shelly asked impatiently. “Dad?”

He looked at her. “Yeah?”

“Jesus, you're always telling me that
I
space out. You—”

“Don't be rude.”

She glared at him, and he had to remind himself how unhappy she must be. He said no more, but it didn't lessen his desire to lock her in the closet until she was ready to leave for college.

“What's back there?” She pointed at the wooden folding doors sealing the living room arch.

“That's where your aunt Jade lives. The rest of the house is ours.” He walked over to the monstrous brick fireplace, thinking that it, like the oak tree, was as big as he remembered. “So, Shelly,” he said, seeing that his daughter was peering up the stairwell, “how do you like the house?”

Shelly replied with a sullen glare, but Cody came running out of the dining room, calling, “It's great!” He crossed to the fireplace, tried to look up the chimney, then moved to one of the built-in bookcases beside it and counted the shelves, patting all the ones he could reach. Rick hoped he didn't accidentally find the secret latch that would open it, and resolved to fill both cases with books as soon as possible.

Shelly snapped her gum. “This place is boring,” she said, popping her gum. “It's totally dead.”

Silently Rick counted to ten. “Give it a chance, Shel.”

“I hate it here.”
Snap. Snap.

I will not blow up I will not blow up I will not blow up.
“Please, Shelly,” he said, trying to sound patient and understanding. “Give it a chance.”
She's just left all her friends behind in Vegas,
he told himself again. Friends like Starman the Bellboy and Lil and that girl gang she ran with. Okay, not a gang exactly, but he didn't like the way they all wore at least two pierced earrings in each ear. Several had nose piercings, too. It wasn't natural. At least he'd removed his daughter before she'd put extra holes in her lobes. Probably. Casually he tried to catch a glimpse of her ears.

“What?” she whined, catching his gaze.

“Nothing.” Her ears were hidden in her hair. Probably just as well, he decided. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

“Where's my bedroom?” Cody asked.

“Shall we go upstairs and pick one out?”

“Yeah!”

“I'm choosing mine first,” Shelly announced. “I'm older.”

“Shelly,” he said evenly. “I thought you might like the big bedroom in front.”

The room he and Robin had shared was the second largest in the house, and in deference to his old fears, he decided that, for his own piece of mind, it would be best not to put a male Piper in that room. For Shelly, however, it would be perfect. “It's nice and airy,” he told her. “You'll like it.”

“Is it the biggest bedroom?”

“Except for the master suite, and I'm taking that,” he said firmly.

“I don't want it if it's got stupid paint.”

“You can choose your own paint, dear heart,” he said, knowing he'd live to regret his words. No doubt she'd choose black.

She nodded. “Show me.”

Rick walked up the stairs, Cody dancing ahead, Shelly dragging behind. With every step he saw new projects, from replacing the worn carpeting to replacing a missing bracket on the dark mahogany handrail. At the top of the stairs, he set the carrier down and opened its door. Tentatively Quint peered out, took a step, two, sniffing, then all at once, took off down the hall.