Chapters (46)
“Naw, anything else?”
“What is it?”
“Just look.”
“I’m too tired to look.”
“Look anyway.”
“I’m too tired, Simon. Just tell me.”
“Come on,” he urges.
“You got a haircut?”
“Jesus, no. Just look around.”
“Tell me.”
“The rug. The fucking rug. I picked up my rug from Dougan.”
She rises on her elbows and looks blearily at the Bokhara.
“Nice.”
“Nice? It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah. It’s beautiful.”
“Don’t you like it?”
“Sure I do, honey. Right now I wanna close my eyes. My eyelids are the best thing to look at right now.”
Simon sets her shoes under the bed and crawls in next to her, wrapping his long body around her.
“You smell like lemons.” He nuzzles her neck. “And medicine. Stitches in ER. Heart attack in the afternoon.”
“Good nose. Quit wiggling.”
“Ten city blocks and a fire at the Chinese restaurant on Nicollet.”
“Mmmm. Shut up.”
“You gotta work tomorrow?”
“I gotta work every day.”
“Let’s take a trip.”
“Sure, honey. Be quiet.”
“The Dells, or Duluth. We got a car. We can do it.”
Irene is asleep. Simon turns on his side as her breathing takes on the regularity of traffic and the long even stretch of afternoon runs itself out as the sun leaves the carpet in shadow to sweep up over the mildewed and cracked plaster walls.
I’ll do those next, he thinks. I’ll spackle them and paint them. I’ll level the stove that always sends the bacon grease to one side of the pan. I’ll get new Formica for the counters, hinges for the water-swollen cupboard doors, and I’ll shave them with a hand plane so they close good. I’ll regrout the bathroom tiles. New plywood for roof decking, and tar paper and shingles for the whole building. I’ll scour every brick. I’ll wipe away all that time, that mess. I can fix all of that. I can lift the Balmoral and reset the stone foundations, put in copper pipe instead of lead. Insulate the crawl spaces. I can replace the cracked bricks, put in paving stone sidewalks and sweep to the curb. I can make the whole street new. I can fix all that.