Burning Down the House (5 page)

S
HE WOKE FROM
a long nap on top of the velvet bedspread, one foot touching the purple T. Anthony suitcase that was still open and unpacked and spilling with clothes from her earlier rummaging. The ceiling of the room was painted with tiny gold starlike shapes and she blinked up at them as if she'd landed on the moon. The towel had unwound from her body into a twisted, discarded bandage and her naked limbs splayed out on the bed as if she had fallen from a great height to land here.

She barely remembers what happened at the pool, has dreamed it away. What she remembers she writes off as dysfunctional family dynamics, a phrase she had learned by the time she was ten. She is still half dreaming, half happy, half alive.

Her head felt tight around her skull and the muscles behind her eyes pulled taut in knots. She sat up and looked around. She'd stashed some pills in the suitcase—the reason she hadn't wanted anyone else to carry it—and she sat up and dug her hands into the inner side pocket of the bag and retrieved a bottle. She unscrewed the top, fished out a pale peach-colored pellet with her finger and put it in her mouth. She sat up a little straighter and closed her eyes and made some spit and swallowed. Then she opened her eyes and swallowed the last powdery bitter spit. The tiny stars on the ceiling retreated into their distant galaxy and spun away into a painted heaven. After a while she rose and dressed and went out to look for the rest of her family.

Her family. She always tells people that her family is like the House of Agamemnon or something out of Faulkner because everyone in it can be so mean. She has no idea how appropriate the references are, or how much more there really is to tragedy. She does not realize the wide discrepancies between what she thinks of these people, how she feels about them, and the images she has of them in her mind. She carries with her an image of Steve that is benevolent, magnanimous, and generous, although she also knows him to be controlling, manipulative, and cruel, and her feelings, her feelings about him are entirely different from her thoughts and images. Her feelings for him are radical and gigantic and too much for one brain or heart to bear. They dwarf her. Next to them she is the smallest blade of grass. They walk all over her. They trample her. It is only possible to see these feelings as enormous masked figures enacting a drama in an amphitheater. The moonlight casting long shadows so that the people in the audience are alternately lit up and obscured. And she, she is that blade of grass, watching the play from between two stones where the slightest growth of green has been bestowed by a fortunate accident of sun.

They were nowhere in sight. The house was quietly bustling with staff. There were maids making beds and men filling vases with flowers and assistants of one sort or another placing bottled water in every room. Some of the headset men were moving pieces of furniture around. In the portrait gallery on the second floor, which ran practically the entire length of the house, long tables were being arranged and set for the rehearsal dinner tonight. It was the first event of the wedding weekend at which real guests, nonfamily members, would be in attendance. Miranda and Jonathan had invited at least a hundred and fifty people to the intimate affair and three hundred were expected tomorrow for the ceremony. A tent was being set up outside, not for the wedding but for the babysitters and young children. Inside, it housed a trampoline, video games, many televisions, sports equipment, a refrigerator, and several playpens filled with baby toys. Poppy wandered around, drifting unreal through a circus of childhood, a museum of distraction. Eventually she left the tent out an opening on the far side and found herself in a small garden with a wrought-iron bench. She fished out a second pill from her pocket and let the acrid fire burn its way down the length of her throat.

There was a fountain in the middle of the garden with a bronze fish jumping and drooling and the stone basin had been occupied by the debris of visiting tourists trying their luck, pennies and other foreign coins lay drowned at the bottom of the gray water with bits of lichen and oxidized green upon the surface of the metals. Huge trees hung around the perimeter of the garden and threw a cool darkness over the fountain and on closer inspection the fish held several rusty coins in its mouth, diverting the flow of water and creating a drool as opposed to a spout. Poppy stood blinking in the very early evening stillness. Then she saw the outline of a boy. It was just a subtle disturbance in the distance and it led her toward a path that branched off of the garden. She swiped a cold nickel from the fountain and set out after Felix.

She took the path down toward a fork and realized at the fork that one of the paths led to the pool. She was still following a hint of boy way up ahead of her. She entered a stretch of the path which reminded her uncomfortably of her earlier escapade with Jonathan and then made her way up a rise in the road which swerved her mind around to more uplifting thoughts or perhaps it was the little pill kicking in now and here she was at the pool again. Her clothes had been fished out of the water and laid on the wooden table. The pile of towels had been set up on one of the lounge chairs. Next to the drying clothes some helpful groundskeeper had placed a neat array of all the dead pieces from Jonathan's broken phone. Felix was picking them up one at a time, investigating, seeing if he could fit them back together.

He was fingering the dead bits when he looked up and saw Poppy. He stood there very still but for his radiant smile.

Poppy! he called out.

I see you found my mess.

Mess?

I believe I am responsible for this mess, she said. All that junk on the table.

Felix ran to her as she approached him and he clasped her around the waist. This isn't a mess: these are specimens, he said into her T-shirt. The remains of a visit from aliens who came down and took a swim and left some of their robot parts behind. You could never make a mess, he said.

Poppy grabbed him close. She kissed the top of his head. You are a genius and my best friend and the only grown-up around here, she whispered into his hair.

Felix is her little mystic. When she is with him she feels understood and the world seems understandable. His compassionate expression, his sensitive remarks. His laugh is the chuckle of a philosopher. He has an X-ray vision that sees that she is a good person. She holds on to his vision of her, grasps it, whenever she can. Sometimes he puts his hand on her shoulder as if he is Aristotle pondering the secrets of the ages and she feels so much gratitude that she melts from his touch.

They sat down next to each other at the edge of the pool with their legs dangling in the water. Felix was wearing a bathing suit and an SPF long-sleeved shirt although by now it was approaching dusk. Long days in June that graze on time and fade never completely into night. After a while Felix slid into the pool and swam funny, short width-wise laps. He made his way back and forth and back and forth enjoying the simple pushing of his feet and touching of his fingers on the rough side of the structure. He liked knowing and feeling the boundaries of this domain. Then he propelled himself underwater and circled the perimeter like some baby shark of a thought testing the outer limits of a wholly wretchedly limited but endlessly shifting and renewable consciousness.

T
HE DINNER WAS
in the past now, the long tables in the portrait gallery disassembled and put back into storage, the dark red linens waiting to be laundered. The flowers dying. Poppy was lying naked under the covers with her clothes spread all over the room and on the bed around her when a knock came at the door and the door opened.

She opened her eyes. Through the late-night haze she could make out the slim silhouette of Patrizia. Poppy rolled over onto her stomach.

Patrizia entered the room and sat on the bed beside her.

She reached down and with a long finger pushed Poppy's bangs to the side.

Hello there, said Patrizia.

What do you want?

To talk. We didn't get to talk at the dinner. So many people.

Poppy was rolling over and sitting up with the covers held to her collarbone. They drooped slightly from her light grasp and she sat there practically exposed.

What the hell? It's the middle of the night.

I just wanted to chat. I didn't mean to upset you.

You are upsetting me. Because you are waking me up.

Is it true that you told people last night that you are not going to apply to college? I won't get angry, I'd just like to know.

Why? Who cares about this?

Steve. He wants to discuss your future.

My future?

Yes.

What future?

The future that comes after today. Tomorrow, et cetera.

I can't think about that.

He says that you must. You know what that means?

Now?

Poppy groaned and pulled some clothes from various points on the bed and hauled them over her head and legs. She pulled on the low boots and put two pills wrapped in Kleenex in her right bootleg and stood up next to the bed pulling on a long cardigan sweater over her T-shirt.

Patrizia was still sitting on the side of the bed in her silk bathrobe. Her legs were crossed. She had a large ring on one of her fingers, which she examined while Poppy got dressed. When she saw what emerged once Poppy had scrambled into clothes she shook her head.

Did you have too much to drink tonight? she said.

I don't drink, said Poppy. I only take prescription drugs.

Patrizia ignored this.

College is a big party. Why wouldn't you go?

I don't want a big party. I want to begin my life.

Please, Poppy. Don't be so melodramatic. No one ever “begins” their life. And anyway, you'll get so many perks if you go to school: an apartment, an allowance, new people.

I'm sick of school. And people.

Patrizia eyed her. She slid the big ring up and down her finger. What do you want to do? she said.

Work.

Work, said Patrizia. That would be a novel experience.

Poppy looked plaintively at Patrizia. She looked at her hair. Patrizia's shoulder-length hair was brown, the color and sheen of high-quality leather or very expensive chocolate. Sometimes Poppy could make out tiny strands of gray mingling amid the rich gloss. Didn't you work? asked Poppy.

I came from Italy when I was twenty-two, right after university. I worked as a business reporter. Working all hours, slaving in the system. It was fun and interesting for a while, but it couldn't contain me. If I hadn't met Steve I don't know where I'd be today. I was unfulfilled. He set me on a path to salvation. I would be sitting in a small apartment by myself drinking rosé in front of costume dramas or worse if he hadn't found me. He saw something in me worth investing in and he sees something in you.

Now who's being melodramatic?

Just come with me and talk to him.

They walked down the dark hallway with Patrizia glamorous and ghostly in her pale silk rippling and Poppy sullen and slouching behind her like something being taken into captivity. They passed by many closed rooms where the draft wailed under the doors and by paintings on the walls that hung patient and speechless in the night.

Steve was occupying a suite of rooms at the farthest end of the house. Patrizia opened the door to a passageway that led into the central living area. The walls were covered in an oversize toile print that in the dim lighting made it seem as if tiny people frolicking in boats and swings all over the room were being thrown into larger shadows on the walls. Patrizia strode in her wafting robe to the opposite side of the room where Steve was wearing headphones and sitting at a desk.

He was staring at a laptop, with his tablet out on the table and a book open on his lap and papers and two phones atop the desk. Patrizia tapped him on the shoulder and waited. Steve typed away and listened and read and did not look up. Poppy could hear a faint whistling and clanking from some antique faraway pipes. Other than that there was only the sound of Steve's tapping fingers.

When he was finished he took off the headphones and turned around. He looked at Patrizia and then he looked at Poppy and then turned back to his laptop and he read over what he had written on the screen. He nodded and shut the computer and stood up letting the book fall to the floor and paying no attention to it. He kicked it slightly as he maneuvered from between the chair and the desk. The book ended up open and askew on the floor, pages side down, flat and praying that it would not be kicked again.

Steve took large steps over to Poppy and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Then he motioned to two upholstered chairs at one end of the room facing a fireplace and led the way in that direction. Patrizia headed out of the room and closed a door behind her. Sit down, Steve said.

Poppy sat in one chair and Steve remained standing, leaning against the fireplace. He had a commanding presence, but he was not in good shape. He wheezed very slightly as he arranged his body against the mantel. So you have essentially completed your studies, he said.

What studies? said Poppy.

Your schooling. Your education.

Poppy looked up at Steve. She sat cross-legged on the wide seat of the chair and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. I want to work, she said.

Work, he said.

Yes. Be out in the world. Begin my life.

You have a life. It began seventeen years ago.

I mean my real life.

What do you think your real life is?

I don't know. I have to go out and find it.

Where do you think it will be found?

If I knew that I wouldn't have to look for it.

What kind of work do you want to do?

What you do.

What I do?

Yes. I want to work in real estate.

He stared at her.

Isn't that what you do? she said.

I suppose that is what they call it.

Steve squinted at her. Do you have any idea what I really do?

Make deals, build buildings, move money around. I don't know. That's what I have to learn. It seems practical to just get started soon.

Steve sighed and nodded. He walked over to the other chair and fitted himself into the seat with his legs stretched out far ahead of him like oars off the side of a boat. He was floating, for a moment, preparing to change direction. Holding the oars in the current to shift the vessel. In taking a new tack he would be playing a different role. It was as if he had been sailing in a fierce regatta and now he had decided to gently glide in a canoe.

He tilted his big chin downward and nodded his head. He appeared to be changing his mind.

I admire your spunk, sweet Poppy, I really do, he said in a mellow voice. But there's no reason to rush. Why don't you want to go to college first: get an education, have fun, then you can come work for me?

Poppy looked at Steve. He had his eyes shut. Poppy pushed her hair back behind her ear again. She licked her lips and looked over at the corner of the ceiling. I'm sick of people my own age.

I'm afraid you're stuck with them, for now. But they will get older. Whom would you prefer to spend time with?

You.

Steve leaned his head back and smiled. Ah, he said. Flattery will get you everywhere.

I'm not flattering you. It's true.

He slowly rearranged his body and twisted and leaned forward in his chair so that his face was suddenly enormous to her. He looked very deeply into her eyes.

Bravest little girl I have ever known. No one in this family has endured as much as you have. Your mother sick, then dying when you were so young. Ever since the day you were born I have considered myself your father. Did you know that?

Yes.

And it's what your mother wanted. She fought and died in that hospital room and you were the most valiant little soldier. Through the tubes and machinery she told me to take care of you and I promised that I would. Forever.

Steve leaned forward even more. I fought for you. That nanny wanted you. Then that imbecile sister of mine in the Midwest can you imagine? Friends gossiped, said Patrizia didn't love you. My God we kicked the shit out of them giving you everything. And those barbarians who ran your school, they did not always understand the difficulties you had and how you needed to be treated with special understanding. What a bunch of savages some of those kids were—remember that viral video three years ago—I had to pay a lot to get that taken down from the Internet. Did you know that? You are exceptional and eccentric and I have always protected you. Steve shook his head. He seemed reluctant to say what evidently he felt he was required to say to her. A moral obligation.

I didn't know that, said Poppy. Thank you. But I still don't want to go to college.

Steve leaned back. He inhaled and exhaled deeply.

He appeared to be changing his mind yet again, but he was simply changing his tactics.

What we are confronted with in today's world are cruel degenerate people with no sensitivity or psychological awareness. Savages with no feelings. Maybe it's always been this way, but it's worse now. They are in charge. We are talking about people who are so numb to their fellow human beings that they think they know better how everybody should live. And do you know what happens to people who know what's best for everybody? They destroy the world. That's what they do. They dismember and disembowel the individual and boil her flesh and entrails down in a stew with everybody else.

It is bad enough in the universities but it is far more dangerous in the so-called real world. In the real world people will sell the idea of security but what they are really doing is stealing the most important thing you have: your freedom. This is true. I may be a crony capitalist myself but that is only because there is nothing left to be, do you see what I'm saying? The government, the elites, the billionaires, the trillionaires: what they don't already own they are in the process of taking, under the guise of being caring and helpful, magnanimous and just. I don't want to send you out to the front lines at the tender age of seventeen. How could I do that to the memory of your mother?

He paused. And then:

I don't think there's any question that higher education is a scam to indenture the middle class with the inflated price of tuition and an inside track for the children of the plutocracy to acquire ever more privilege or spread the gospel of globalization or both. But this is what we are left with. This is reality.

He was watching Poppy. She looked uncomfortable.

My princess, said Steve. I want you to be safe and I think the safest place right now for you to be is in school. I am being honest with you, sharing the ways of the world. I am not sugar-coating this with platitudes about the liberal arts or the life of the mind or the skills necessary for being a global citizen or what a long rave of pleasure and extended adolescence you will be missing out on if you do not attend college. I am speaking to you as an adult.

He leaned even farther forward and put his hands on his knees. And I promise I will let you work for me when you have finished school. We will conquer the world. There will be an office waiting for you with a big desk and two assistants. Teams working under you. You will ride up seventy stories on a construction site wearing a hardhat and high heels. But you're still young. There is time. Am I wrong? Can't this wait? Do you have to run before you can walk?

Steve's voice had become mellow and intense at the same time. He inclined his head to one side and looked at Poppy with a sovereign benevolence, another swerve in strategy. Poppy pursed her lips and they twisted to the side and curled as if a balloonist were finishing off a birthday party poodle. She hugged her knees. She widened her eyes at him.

Why can't I just come work for you when I finish high school?

Poppy, you're breaking my heart.

Steve was beginning to look tired.

You don't really care about school, she said.

I know but I care about you.

If you care about me you'll let me live my life now.

I'll think about it.

That means yes!

I'll think about it.

Oh thank you, she said, leaping up from the chair and embracing him.

I love you so much, she said.

I know you do.