Plus-One With A Vengeance : 2 / 29

[ An Altered Fates Story ]
by Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

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"It is better to live in a corner of a roof
Than in a house shared with a contentious woman."
— Proverbs 21:9

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You must have seen a cartoon image of a man sitting on a tree branch, sawing diligently. It's funny — or supposed to be funny — because he's sitting on the wrong side of the cut. He doesn't know he's going to fall. You know it; it's obvious. As soon as the saw gets through the branch, down he goes! He doesn't know, though, so he keeps on working hard. We don't need to see him fall. It's inevitable.

That man was me. I was living in my Dad's house, spending my days fixing the place up, getting it ready to sell. It never occurred to me that I was sawing away the branch on which I was sitting. As soon as we finished our tasks, the house would go up for sale. There was no doubt: the house would sell pretty quickly, and after the closing Dad would head off to Florida. He took to spending two or three hours every evening looking at the Florida housing market, while his friends down there kept their eyes and ears open on his behalf.

"If I find the right place down there," he told me. "I'll buy it right away."

"Like right now? Before you sell this place?"

"Sure! My buddies can look it over for me and keep an eye on it until I get there," he said, rubbing his hands together in satisfaction. "Although there is another way it could work... Listen, how would you feel about this? I could give you power of attorney on the sale of this place, and that way you could handle all the documents up to and including the closing."

"I've never done any of that," I protested. "What if I screw it up?"

"Don't worry! I have an agent and a lawyer on my side. They'll send me copies of everything. Whatever it is, they'll read it, you'll read it, I'll read it, and if I say it's okay, you sign it for me." He patted me on the shoulder, then added, "It doesn't make you liable for anything. Power of attorney makes it so your signature stands for my signature. That's all. You can talk to the agent and the lawyer about it if you got any doubts."

"Okay," I agreed, uncertain. "But wouldn't it be simpler to send the documents directly to you in Florida so you could sign them yourself?"

"The delay. They send the documents. I read them, I find a notary, I sign the documents. I send them back. That's a minimum of three days. If you have power of attorney, it could be a matter of minutes." He started to walk away, then stopped himself with a little smile. "You can look up real estate power of attorney on the internet. Isn't that what your generation does?"

Actually, I *did* look it up on the internet later that night, and it was pretty much as he described.

 

---

 

Working on the house was fun. I had no idea that Dad knew how to do and fix so many things. Together, we insulated the attic. We pulled up carpet upstairs and tore out linoleum in the kitchen. We put in all new windows. We re-tiled the bathrooms and put in new fixtures. We painted the kitchen cabinets and got new cabinet doors. We took out the old kitchen counters and put butcher block in its place, along with a new kitchen sink. We cleaned everything.

We found enough room near the back door to create a decent-sized mudroom.

Dad got a deal on some second-hand doors, and those doors gave a whole new look to the front and back. We painted the entire house, inside and out.

After clearing out the garage, we realized that shoring up the building might be a bit beyond us. "Honestly, I'm a little afraid to be standing inside here," Dad confided, and the two of us quietly exited the structure. Dad did a bit of networking and four guys who were friends of the brother-in-law of one of Dad's friends came and set the garage to rights in the space of three days, including roofing, painting, and hanging a new garage door.

The only other things we didn't do ourselves were (1) re-roofing the house, (2) removing the dead tree in the backyard, and (3) pruning and trimming the live trees and bushes.

When at last all the work was finished, and the house was bare of pretty much everything except for two beds, a table, two chairs, and the TV, Dad looked over the numbers and pronounced himself satisfied. "We did pretty well," he boasted, rubbing his hands together. "We came in way under the estimate from that bossy contractor."

"We didn't pay for labor," I pointed out.

"True, and we saved a lot by using second-hand finishings. That contractor wanted to go will all-new, high-end materials. But I think we did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself."

"I think so too," I said.

"I guess it's time to call in your friend Kitty," he informed me with a broad grin.

 

---

 

Dad liked Kitty. Everybody liked Kitty. I know *I* did, and Max did, and pretty much every boy in our high school class. There was something about her: a quiet confidence, an understated girl-next-door look, an open, accepting personality... Unfortunately for us, Kitty paired up quickly with Claus, whose family moved here from Germany in the middle of freshman year. Claus and Kitty made a very quiet, low-key couple. They fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, and after that, no other male had a chance with her. It was quite some time before I realized that no other female had a chance with Claus, but it was a long time before I stood on that side of the equation.

They were like an irreversibly covalent molecule: when a molecule like that forms, you can't break it apart again. It's incredibly stable, and (I suppose) perfectly happy.

That was Kitty and Claus: as soon as they touched each other's hands, they were bound together for life. Perfectly happy, perfectly stable.

It made Kitty very easy to be around: where you've got zero chance, there's zero sexual tension.

So, why call Kitty now? Backing up a bit, to a month before Dad and I finished our labors, I ran into Kitty at the grocery store. We chatted, we caught up a bit. We went to get a coffee together and caught up some more. She asked me about the startup, and my answer was probably a lot longer and more emotional than she expected or wanted, but once I finished, I had the presence of mind to ask, "What's up with you?"

As it turned out, among her other news, Kitty told me that she ran a fairly successful staging business.

"Is that something to do with the theater?" I asked. She laughed.

"No. I suppose it could, if someone wanted to hire me to dress a stage, but usually what I do is go into a home for sale, and make it look more desirable. I bring in furniture, wall hangings, knickknacks... Basically, I make it easier for potential buyers to imagine themselves living in that home."

"When the house is sold, does the furniture go with it?"

"No. All the furniture is rented. Or it comes from my warehouse. I take it all away once the house is under contract."

I took her card and passed it on to Dad, but at the time I didn't think he was interested.

Now he was.

Kitty came with her helpers, and they absolutely transformed the house. She made it beautiful, livable, desirable — just as she promised.

"Do people ever want to buy... the whole look?" I asked her. "I mean, I'd love to live in a house like this."

"I guess you will live in it — at least for a little while," she giggled. "But yeah, one time a buyer from overseas bought everything, all the way down to the knickknacks. The whole kit and kaboodle. Sometimes people want individual pieces, but most of the time I end up hauling it all back to my warehouse."

Dad was so pleased with how it all looked, that the very next day he gave me power of attorney over the sale. He had whittled his earthly possessions down to a size that fit in his Toyota. We stood in front of the house next to his car to say our goodbyes.

"I won't let you down, with that power of attorney thing," I assured him.

"As long as you sign your name legibly, that's all you need to do," he laughed.

Then he drew a long breath, stood up tall, and said, "Two last things: wherever I live, there'll always be a place for you, kid. You're welcome whenever you feel like coming."

I teared up a little, and said, "Thanks, Dad. I appreciate it. But— and no offense, but I don't think Florida's quite the place for me."

"Naw," he agreed. "It's the state for old people and crazies, am I right?"

We laughed. I hugged him.

"Oh, what's the other last thing?"

"I love ya, kid."

"I love you, too, Dad."

 

---

 

I slept on an air mattress that night, which I carefully stowed out of sight in the morning. Today, like every day this week, was going to be an open house, and I needed to stay out of the way of potential buyers.

"My idea is to show the house for a week," the agent said, "and we'll accept offers from Monday morning to Saturday night. Sunday we'll evaluate and hopefully decide."

After making sure I'd left no mess, no trace of my presence, I got out of the house and into my car.

Once again, just like the day I was fired, I felt at loose ends. For the first time in months I had nothing to do and nowhere to be. It was autumn, and too chilly for the beach. I didn't have the right shoes for hiking, so that was out. I hadn't had breakfast, so I went to a cafe in Town Center. I took my time. I dawdled. I window-shopped in the nearby stores.

At first I thought I was only killing time. Then I realized what I was really doing was hoping I'd run into someone. It wasn't happening.

I got in my car again. I drove by my old startup, but I didn't pull into the parking lot. I drove by my elementary school, then my high school. I considered driving to my old college campus, but it was too long a trip. I considered stopping at the Train Stop Diner, but I had no room in me for food.

I drove by Max's parents' house. To my great surprise, Max was pulling up to the curb. He was alone. So I pulled in behind him. He was genuinely glad to see me. We didn't hug; we gave each other a manly handshake: a firm grip, shaken meaningfully. Max's mother appeared at the door, called us both by name, and said, "Get in here!" laughing, happy.

It was like old times. She hugged him. She hugged me. She sat us at the kitchen table and tried to feed us. She stood behind us, one hand on my shoulder, one hand on Max's shoulder. We talked, all three of us.

Max's mother didn't have a lot of news of her own, just a few family things. She mentioned that Max's cousin Nessa would marry in the Spring. Asked whether Max had RSVP'd.

"Elliot, I wish you could come, too!" she told me. "It would be so nice to see you there!" I thanked her for the sentiment. I shrugged.

"You can't invite everyone," I replied. "Besides, I don't know Nessa at all."

"She's a nice girl, you'd like her. And that boy she's marrying — he's perfect for her."

"Doesn't he have a dog's name?" Max teased. "Fido or Rex or..."

"...or Max?" I suggested.

"His name is Tag," Max's mother informed us, swatting her son's shoulder in mock disapproval. "I don't know what on earth it's a nickname for, but the invitations read Nessa McLanahan and Tag Curran. Tag. Who knows what his birth certificate says."

"Probably something embarrassing," I offered.

Max's mom fell silent, and fixed her eyes on her son for a bit. He noticed her stare, and said, "What? Did I do something?"

"I don't know," she replied. "But if you did, I don't know why you didn't tell your own mother."

"What are you talking about?" he asked, genuinely confused. In response, she picked up his left hand and looked at his fingers. He still didn't respond, so she rubbed his ring finger with her thumb.

"Oh, Mom — come on!" he protested. "I'm not getting married."

"A lot of people think you are," she informed him.

"A lot of people are wrong," he told her.

"They sound pretty sure," she said in sing-song. Max shook his head.

"If I was getting married, *I* would be the first to know."

"Then where are these rumors coming from?"

Max looked down for a moment, considering. Then, in a quiet, serious voice he said, "It must be Amber," he admitted. "She wants to get married. She tells me every day, in one way or another."

His mother looked dubious. "Do you want to marry her?"

"No. I think we're fine the way we are."

"Apparently she doesn't agree."

"Right. Like I said, she wants to get married. I don't. She ought to quit pushing." He looked me and his mother with an expression that asked can we talk about something else? His mother nodded and asked me what I'd been up to.

I gave as brief a version as I could of my startup woes, then talked about my work with my Dad, power of attorney and all.

"Sounds like fun," Max commented.

"It was," I said.

"When the house is sold, are you off to Florida with your Dad?"

"No," I laughed. "I couldn't live in Florida."

"Then where are you going to go?"

Okay — I know it sounds stupid — it probably *is* stupid of me — but the question never occurred to me before that moment. I confessed my perplexity, and Max's mother immediately had a solution:

"You could stay at Max's house!" she declared. Max smiled.

"With Amber?" I couldn't help but blurt out my objection.

"On the basement level, there's a mother-in-law apartment," she explained.

"Suite," Max corrected. "It's a mother-in-law suite."

"It has its own entrance," she pointed out. "And its own kitchen."

"Kitchenette," Max said. "Don't set his expectations too high!"

"Kitchenette — whatever!" she concluded. "It's nice! If I didn't have this house, *I* wouldn't mind living down there."

"Won't Amber mind?" I objected. "I'd be a live-in third wheel. It would really encroach on your privacy."

"Not if you don't go wandering through the house," Max told me. "It's supposed to have good insulation, and that deadens sound."

"But I'd be right underneath you!"

"You wouldn't be under the bedroom. I don't think Amber would mind. I don't think she could mind."

"You'll love it!" Max's mother enthused. She gripped my arm. "You have to do it! It's a perfect solution!"

I hesitated. I didn't want to tell them that Amber despised me. "I don't know... If you really think I won't get in her way..."

Max shook his head. "The only place we'd cross paths is the driveway. It's not a big deal." Then, struck by a thought, Max asked, "You don't have a car, do you?"

"Yes, you saw it — it's right outside."

"Oh, yeah — of course! Stupid me. Well, you'll have to find a place to park it. That's the only problem. I mean, I have a two-car garage, but Amber's car and my car are already in there. So — no room for a third. You can't park in the driveway, and there's no on-the-street parking in that neighborhood."

"I'll figure out something," I said. "I think one of my Dad's friends..."

Max's mother clapped her hands, happy that she'd helped to resolve a problem.

 

---

 

Or did she create one?

Max could see that I felt uneasy. He assured me that after I saw the setup, I'd feel more comfortable about the arrangement.

"Listen," I said. "You have to ask Amber how she'd feel about it. If she has ANY qualms about it, I don't want to do it."

"She won't," Max assured me.

Oh, how wrong he was! In retrospect, this was the trigger event, the one that inevitably led directly to the Silent Big Bang on Christmas Eve. If I'd never moved in, none of what follows would ever have happened.

 

---

 

Amber is a deep study. On the one hand, many of her moods are right there on the surface. They're very plain to tell. For instance, you know when she's angry, happy, suspicious, offended — in other words, obvious stuff is obvious. On the other hand, it's impossible to tell what she's thinking. Most of us follow habitual lines of logic and association. If you know someone well, you can often predict what they'll say or do, or how they'll react. You can count on it, and if you're wrong, you're surprised. If your friend knows A, B, and C, you assume they'll get to D. Amber, on the other hand, if she gets A, B, and C as inputs, she'll disregard them. Instead, she'll look at the person who told her fact A, and ask herself, "Why did she tell me that now?" and that question will lead her off into an internal wilderness. Relying on what she calls "intuition" and "emotional perceptions" she arrives at an outlandish conclusion. In other words, she mashes together unrelated facts and cooks up implausible theories about "what's really going on." Although she doesn't call them theories. She regards her crazy convictions as solid, uncontestable facts. You'll see what I mean.

Also, Amber's moods and emotional states live on a subterranean level deep, deep inside her. You can't see them or feel them. Friends who are very empathetic admit they cannot read Amber. She buries her reactions, her true feelings, under some internal concrete, tucked way out of sight.

I wasn't there when Max informed Amber that I would be moving in downstairs, but much later — months later — he described the scene for me vividly. They were in their bedroom. Both were still fully dressed; they'd just finished dinner and come upstairs. He explained how the work on my father's house was complete and that soon the house would be sold — the market was pretty hot, so it was expected to sell quickly.

As he went through his presentation, he stopped to tell her, to emphasize and repeat, that if she had any qualms about my being there, for whatever reason or even for no reason, that I wouldn't move in. I'd find someplace else to live.

She listened without interrupting, her face set, impassive, cold. Then, when he was completely done, he looked at her, and waited a few moments for her response. When none came, he said, "Well? What do you think? Is it a yes or a no?"

Her backbone ramrod stiff, she told him in a steely tone, "I see what you're trying to do here."

Puzzled, he asked, "What am I trying to do?"

"You're trying to trick me into a ménage à trois with this Elliot person," she replied, and rose to her feet.

"WHAT!?" he exclaimed. "I'm doing no such thing!" Bewildered, shocked, and stunned, he waved off what she'd said. "No, no. That's ridiculous."

"That's my emotional perception," she informed him — which was to say, I've read this situation, and no matter what you say or believe, what I've said is the underlying reality. Amber could never be shaken from one of her "emotional perceptions."

Max picked up his phone. "I'm calling Elliot right this minute and telling him to find another place to live!"

"No," she commanded. "Don't call him. I need to think." She rose to her feet. "Don't follow me."

With that, Amber went downstairs, all the way down. She looked through the mother-in-law suite, entering every room, opening every closet, cabinet, and drawer. Then she went outside, into the garage.

From there, she called me — of all people! She asked me to come by the next day so she could show me where I'd be living. She explained that she wanted to give me the tour herself, and that I should meet her in their driveway at eleven. Of course, I agreed. She told me — note that I'm saying told, not asked — she told me not to tell Max. She wanted it to be a surprise.

Knowing her distaste for contradiction, I didn't point out that Max had already invited me, so it could hardly count as a surprise. I didn't say any of that. I just thanked her and told her I'd see her tomorrow.

She returned to Max after a half hour's absence. She told him that she'd worked it out, that she'd spoken to me herself, and that Max wasn't to "call or otherwise interfere" by getting in touch with me.

 

---

 

The next morning at nine the real-estate agent called to say she'd already received several attractive offers to buy Dad's house. "I'd like to keep showing the place, but I think we can stop on Thursday. Friday we can evaluate the offers."

"Won't we just choose the highest bidder?" I asked.

"Maybe," she said, "Probably. But we also have evaluate whether the buyer can make good on their offer, and see whether they set any conditions that we may or may not like.."

"Oh, I hadn't thought about that," I confessed.

"That's why I'm here!" she replied brightly (emphasis on the *I*), and rang off.

 

---

 

The next morning was a little brisk; I wore a light jacket. My Dad's house was a little more than a mile from Max's, so by the time I got there, I was carrying my jacket over my arm.

The whole way I kept trying to prepare myself for my one-on-one with Amber, although I had no idea what I should or even could do to be ready. I'd only met her two or three times, and we hadn't spoken much. Mainly I was surprised that she wanted to meet with me — after all, she'd made it pretty clear that she had nothing but disdain for me. She'd told me to my face, more than once, that she considered me a waste of time.

And yet, she wanted to show me around, give me the lowdown, on where I'd be living. That meant she was okay with my moving in. At least, that was a reasonable inference, if you could make reasonable inferences about Amber's thoughts and intentions.

Although I arrived ten minutes early, Amber was waiting. She stood in the driveway, wearing her strawberry blonde hair loose, like a mane. She wore jeans, a loose red top, a shiny black leather jacket, and high-heeled black ankle boots with pointed toes. It was a casual ensemble, but somehow she made it intimidating. She smiled when she saw me, but her smile ran a chill through me.

Without preamble, she said, "Follow me." She turned and walked toward the garage.

"Uh, Amber," I called, "Why are we heading toward the garage? I won't be needing a parking sp—"

"Good!" she interrupted. "I was sure you didn't own a car."

I let that comment blow by. "Anyway," I continued, "Isn't the mother-in-law suite down in the—"

"You're not going to be staying down there," she said, interrupting again. "What kind of sense would that make?"

Her bluntness threw me. Later, of course, I came up with plenty of responses; reasons why it made perfect sense for me to live in a house, in a separate space in a house, in a house owned by my best friend, who'd specifically invited me to live there.

In the moment, however, I was struck as in a hit-and-run. Amber wasn't stopping. She opened a door on the side of the garage. For some reason I noticed there was no way of locking the door: There was no lock built into the knob. There was no deadbolt, or even a hook-and-eye.

A few steps inside, and she ascended a rough set of unfinished wooden stairs. By "unfinished" I don't mean that any stairs were missing. I mean that the wood had no finish on it. There was no stain, no paint, no polyurethane. Just plain, unfinished wood. At the top of the stairs was a door without a doorknob. Clearly, there used to be a doorknob, but someone had taken it out.

Amber had led me into a room above the garage. She stood in the middle of the floor and gestured with her hands, turning both palms up as if to say, behold!

It was a dump.

"You just finished fixing up your father's house, didn't you," she stated. It didn't sound like a question, but I replied, "Yes."

"And how did it come out? Good?"

"Better than good! It looks great now. Better than it ever looked."

"So you know how to fix places — how to fix them up." She nodded as she spoke, and without giving me a moment to answer, continued, "Here's your chance to fix a place up for yourself, and to do me and Max a big favor at the same time."

My mouth fell open. Sure, I could do it. In fact, as I glanced around, I found myself automatically making a list: insulation all around (including the floor), new cabinets (the current ones had no shelves), new sink, new fridge...

Yes, I could do it, but it was pretty shitty of her to ask me to live in such a place, all the while acting as though she was doing me a huge favor.

I hadn't said a word yet. Amber was watching my face, and enjoying the show. "You won't be paying rent, so it will be your way of contributing, right?"

"Yeah, right," I said. Clearly she wanted to screw me over -- and I knew that, but at the same time, I began looking forward to the project.

Also, I got the idea that she was trying to scare me off, but her challenges were having the opposite effect. She wanted me gone? I just dug my heels in deeper.

"Good!" she said. "After all, beggars can't be choosers, right?"

I let that one blow by. Beggars? Clearly, Amber thought I was broke. She probably thought that *I* had asked Max if I could move in, rather than the other way around. In actual fact, I had a pretty nice pile of money saved up — after more than two years of not paying rent (Dad wouldn't accept it), of not buying clothes or food (the startup provided all that). Although I had a car, it hadn't needed repair, and in fact nowadays I'd gotten in the habit of riding my bike or walking everywhere. I could afford to remain unemployed for several years, and with my experience, I could get a job as a programmer in a minute. I was the opposite of broke. But she didn't need to know that.

I just had one question. "Does Max know that you're putting me out here?"

Her face hardened.

"Why do you ask that?" she demanded. "That's between me and Max. It's none of your business! Not your business at all!"

"Fair enough," I replied. She'd thrown down the gauntlet, and I happily picked it up. "Thanks for the opportunity, Amber."

"Hmmph," she said. She finished by saying, "Don't screw it up, and don't make a pest of yourself. They'll be no need for you to come sniffing around the main house."

"Understood," I said. The main house? Where were we, Downton Abbey?