I reach the patio. I stand beneath the awning of Demi’s front door. The shades are drawn. I can’t tell for sure, but it seems like the lights are out. She was loud this morning, banging around like she knows she’s in a trap.
I pull back the screen and knock lightly on the front door. Quiet hovers in the air. I step back. The trees hang shadows over the back porch, across all the windows where the curtains are drawn. Every curtain drawn, every shutter pulled down at two in the afternoon. She’s hiding something, but what?
LYLA
Graham is thrilled about the gate. He came home after seven and spent ten minutes trying to fix it himself, in his superfine suit, with a hammer from the toolshed. “Did you do this?”
“Of course not. Why would I destroy our front gate?”
“To throw her off-balance. To scare her.” A scrim of sweat brightens his skin. He peels off his jacket, tosses it onto the patio furniture. “That’s always a good idea. People in a panic will do foolish things.”
“I didn’t do it.”
He frowns, as if disappointed, then brightens. “Did she?”
“She isn’t home,” I say, glancing at the street. She could come home at any moment, find us here discussing ways to scare her.
“Of course,” Graham says, forcing the gate shut and holding it that way, puffing slightly as he speaks, “she won’t admit it.” He releases the gate and it snaps back so fast, he leaps out of the way. He wipes his forehead, kicks the wood so it crackles. “It’s like a fucking booby trap.” He shakes his head and walks away. If something doesn’t offer immediate gratification, he moves on quickly. “Did the security system go off? Did anyone try to come inside the house?”
“No. Not that I know of.” I follow him in, carrying the hammer and his discarded jacket.
“Why would someone break the gate, then not come in?” He takes off his tie, loosens his collar. “It must have been her.” His eyes brighten.
“I don’t think she could do this.” I try to imagine Demi, the pale teenage-sized woman I met on the stairs, attacking the gate, forcing it so hard that the whole system snapped. “She’s thinner than I am.” I always think of people’s weight in relation to my own.
“She was struggling with the lock the other night,” he says. “Maybe she just lost it.” The dinner our housekeeper made is on the table. He pops off the plate cover and shovels it in without sitting down, starved by his exertions with the gate. “Maybe she’s nuts. Maybe we’ve got a crazy woman living down there.”
“Do you think Margo is setting me up?”
He bristles like I have crossed a line. “Of course not. I would know about it. Margo tells me everything.” He’s right, but it annoys me, thinking about their special relationship.
I hang his coat on a hook by the door, drop the hammer there, too. The housekeeper will put it all away. “There’s a strange van outside,” I say.
“I saw that. Disgusting. If you’re going to drive a serial killer van, at least invest in some bleach.” He chokes a little, coughs into his fist, then pours himself a glass of Mo?t.
“And Bean is barking all the time. Have you noticed that? I wonder if there’s somebody in there.”
“What, living in a van? Don’t be absurd.” One of Graham’s deepest blind spots is poverty. Not just poverty—he doesn’t believe in the middle class either. What’s the difference? Point is, they don’t have any money.
“People do live in vans,” I argue. “In Venice.”
“Where do they shit?” he asks like that ends the argument. “This neighborhood is going downhill.” He takes his seat at the head of the table. “Where’s the dressing? We need to move higher.”
I bring the dressing he likes in from the kitchen, then take my seat kitty-corner to him. I recite, “She moves in and the gate gets broken. The dog won’t stop barking. This strange van appears. It’s all a little weird, don’t you think?”
“She couldn’t have broken the gate.” He scoops salad into his mouth and keeps talking. “She’s tiny.” Like I didn’t make the same point two minutes ago.
“How do you know she’s tiny? Have you seen her?” My voice is suddenly threadbare, thinned.
“I caught her coming in.” His voice stays even, but he has a lofty look, a halo that circles his crown. He gets this way with the tenants: dreamier, more beautiful. It’s almost animal, the way it comes on, sharpens over time. He looks the way a peacock does right before it kills—I mean, fucks—like something crafted by the hand of God.