“What’s it to you?”
“Oh,” I said. “Excuse me. Let me rephrase that. Why have you come through our window on a Saturday morning looking like a failed featherweight?”
She drew a deep, patient breath. The kind that came from people who thought they needed to talk slow and loud to the elderly. I drew the same kind, to indicate I was neither stupid nor hard of hearing.
As I held my lungful of air in an asinine attempt to prove my acuity, she sighed and gathered the rest of her garbage off the floor, pocketing a men’s deodorant, a few charcoal pencils, some scattered coins, and an order pad. Then she walked to a folded piece of paper lying near the base of the window. She sat on her heels to pick it up, and didn’t smash it into her apron like the rest of her junk. She slid it into her back pocket instead, careful not to crumple it.
I exhaled, frustrated, and asked no one in particular, “Is breaking and entering a felony?”
She ignored me and strolled around the room, running her fingers along the dresser, pausing to look at Carl’s old wedding photo, taped to the mirror. She leaned in a little closer, her nose inches from it.
“Please don’t touch that,” Carl said.
I said to him, “And so now, finally, he speaks.”
She turned to Carl, jaw set. “Look. I came because I wanted to see you.”
I said, “Nice try again, but visitors usually come through the front door.”
“No joke,” she said to me, “but I’m pretty sure I’m not on the visitors’ list.”
“There’s no list. Where do you think you are? A federal prison? This is our home. We have a coat check, even.”
“Super, but today I didn’t feel like messing with some welcome-desk bullshit, so I walked around back, looking for another door in, and then I saw that note on your window.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“When I saw his name on the little sign—”
“There’s no sign.”
She smirked. “Stop it.”
“You stop it.” I marched to the window and ripped the blind cord down, ready to point to nothing. The room flooded with light and blinded me, but, sure enough, when colors started bleeding back into my sight line, there, tucked in the corner of the windowpane, was a forgotten sun-bleached index card meant for Jorge. It read Carl is napping. Keep it down! (Por favor.)
Her smile widened. “So I let myself in.”
I snatched the card and balled it in my fist. My voice dropped into a timbre I hadn’t needed to use in years. “Enough. Why are you here, you little piece of—”
“Duffy,” Carl chided, poised to stand, though knowing him, it was only a threat.
She met his eyes, looking downright earnest. The girl was a pro, all right. She said, “I really thought you’d be happy to see me. I planned on spending the week here with you.”
“Nuh-uh. Nope. No way,” I said, and went for the door.
I was nearly there when Carl yelled frantically, “Wait!” He looked as surprised as me at his outburst. Nevertheless, he followed it up with an emphatic whispered, “Wait.”
“For what?” I said. “She’s hustling you.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
I blinked at him, hardly able to speak myself. “It is a hustle . . . Right?”
Another hard swallow, then finally: “She’s telling the truth.”
“Christ almighty,” I breathed.
“Thank you,” Josie said to him. And then to me, “See?”
For a moment, I got dizzy. Maybe from the surprise of it all. Maybe from the knife in my back. When everything finally straightened out around me, I heard Nora singing. We all did. The hymn filtered into the room from somewhere in the hall, growing closer and louder.
I swore a few times and walked in a circle. Carl stood, his legs bowing like they do, and wrestled his walker forward to brace the door from opening. Locking it did no good; Nora had the key and never hesitated to use it if she had cause for concern.
Josie watched us, confused. “What are you guys doing?”
“You shouldn’t be here like this,” Carl said.
“Can’t. She can’t be here like this. This is worse than Milton sneaking in his cat and his cigarettes, and think of what happened to him.” When Josie didn’t move, I stopped pacing. “Well? Hide already.”
“Fine. God. So much for this being your home.” She swept past us into the bathroom, hopped into the shower, and whirled the curtain closed.
Nora’s voice came to hover right outside our door. Carl’s walker hiccupped as she tried to let herself in. “You boys okay? Why aren’t you at breakfast yet?”
“We’re coming,” I yelled, then hissed at Carl, “That girl’s not staying here.”
Carl whispered back. “Let’s talk about it.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
He tottered around to look at me with this horrid mix of desperation and pain. “Please.”
The walker skidded back as Nora forced her way in. “What is going on in here?”
A suspended second followed with all of us standing there, and during it I had an odd feeling—one I couldn’t quite place. It tugged just below my heart, near my gut. Made it hard to breathe, and it got even worse when I looked at Carl, with his forehead pleated all the way to the crown of his balding head.
I nudged the bathroom door shut and slapped Carl on the back. “We’re talking, is all.”
Nora crossed her thick brown arms, propping up her big bosom.
I looked back at her, dopey-eyed, hoping it would disguise the flush creeping up my neck. Carl fussed with his sweater, checking the buttonholes to make sure he hadn’t missed one. We went on like this until she hummed an unconvinced mm-hmm, and backed into our bedroom door to open it.
“I tell them,” she said to the empty hallway as if it held an audience, “don’t be acting like you’re blessed special, because you’re not, but still they’re walking around misbehaving, huffing Janelle Pratt’s oxygen—”
“That was so long ago,” Carl protested.
“And it was a joke,” I said. “We were just trying to have some fun.”
She wagged her finger, her voice quiet. “You know Miss Sharon calls an ace a spade if it gives her a reason to sell your spot for twice the price. And for you, Mr. Duffy, she might even consider taking a cut.” She added a dramatic pause, then went back to hollering into the hall. “I tell them all the time, but do they listen?”