The turtle house, p.21
The Turtle House, page 21
I stifle a yawn. I was up late last night, my thoughts flip-flopping between Grandminnie’s house and seeing Darren. The excitement of one and the disgust at the other are combining in my body and giving me some sort of trembling push. And Grandminnie slept deeply beside me, snoring like a diesel motor.
I think of her, poring over the books at the library yesterday, how her face lit up to see the insides of homes that simply looked familiar to her. How she marveled at the beautiful library, at the students quietly working, all friendly with an old Japanese woman flipping through international design journals. How the color photocopier was like magic to her.
I put the stack of cards down near the cash register and grab a past issue of Architectural Review from my purse. I. M. Pei stares back at me. It’s a retrospective of his work, including the small collection of homes that he has designed, one in Fort Worth that is the middle of every local modern architecture junkie’s bingo card. I go to the dog-eared page and trace the triangular facade of the entry.
I remember Mrs. Grant showing us a slide of this beautiful structure the first day in her Design VI class. I had never had a female architecture prof before, much less one so earnestly delighted with all aspects of architecture, residential included. The weather threatened an ice storm outside, but the warm hiss of the slide projector flipping through Mrs. Grant’s favorite buildings made it cozy in the classroom. She was a Pei aficionado, and it made sense why Darren had gifted me that book at Christmas.
Mrs. Grant turned out to be sharp, funny, and very thoughtful in her teaching approach. She wanted to focus this semester’s project on multiuse architecture. She explained that ever since ancient times, the ability to live where one works has been a natural impulse. We would look at this interplay, working with already-standing structures, remodeling them into something new and more usable.
“This is just a tricky way for us to design some houses,” Bradley had complained as he picked a chicken strip from the twenty-piece box we were sharing.
Antares wiped his hands on a napkin and then wadded it up, clearly irritated with Bradley’s negative talk.
I had been given the assignment of redesigning a dormitory on the UT campus, originally built in the 1920s and then added on to in the 1950s. Instead of my previous bouts of near-crippling doubt, I already had a plan forming in my head. I wanted to include modern amenities where students could study and be social, and the warmth of a traditional home, so students could feel comfortable and safe within their new environment.
“It’s not residential, it’s mixed use. It’s a tweener,” Rochelle said. She was tasked with redesigning an automotive assembly plant into an office building and apartment homes.
“I like her,” Antares said. “She’s sincere.”
After staring at the magazine for a while, I force myself back to work. I look closer at the greeting cards. YOU ARE SO LOVED. On a rock, sunbathing in the middle of the watercolor river, is a tiny turtle. If you weren’t looking closely, it wouldn’t be visible.
I take the stack of cards and find what I feel is their proper location: “On your moving day.” I nestle them into the cubby.
The bell chimes, and I turn to see the shiny, overly rouged moon face of Mrs. Whitehall, who was in Aunt Mae’s high school graduating class and is the mom of one of the girls I went through school with. Her daughter, Krissie, went off to Tech, and married the pitcher, who is now playing in the majors in some midwestern town. I’m not a baseball fan, so I can’t ever remember which one, except the rumor is that he could be the next Nolan Ryan.
We had all attended her wedding because most of the town had been invited. The event, from its gold and white flowers (team colors, I was informed) to her nine bridesmaids, irritated me somehow.
Mrs. Whitehall wiggles her fingers at me and asks how my mom and aunt Mae are doing. She asks about my cousins’ weddings, wonders when they’ll make it back to Texas. She says what she always does—that I’m the spitting image of my aunt at my age. I nod and thank her. Folks on my mom’s side say I’m the spitting image of her at my age. I’ve asked Grandminnie about this, and she says that people see what they want and do not listen to any of it. I look like me.
Mrs. Whitehall picks up a package of silver tissue paper and starts looking at cards. She asks about a gift she ordered a few weeks ago and I go into the storeroom to find the two-fake-wood-angels-holding-a-heart figurine and check the box to make sure it is in good condition. At the cash register, Mrs. Whitehall signs her name to a check with a giddy flourish.
“I’m so glad you’re back, Lia. This town needs young blood like you to keep it going. And you’re doing a great job here. But if you ever want to get back to what you were doing before”—she pushes her sunglasses back down from her head and onto her face—“I know someone. My cousin in Dennis. He’s in architecture.”
“Oh, really? That’s very helpful. Thank you.”
“Designs sheds. Nice ones, of course, for yard equipment, mowers, hay, that stuff.”
She gathers up the sack I have just expertly prepared for her and throws me a little wave before leaving, the bells tinkling again.
I sit on the stool behind the cash register and open a bag of Reese’s Pieces. At first, I just pick out a few of the orange ones to eat. Then, frustrated, I pour the whole bag into my mouth and chomp down.
I come in the back door, quiet. Sun has set and Dad’s truck is in the drive. After work, I drove around, thinking about silly old Krissie Whitehall and her baseball-throwing hubby, thinking about how much infinitely cooler Austin is compared to wherever they live and how I miss it so much. Before I knew it, I was out at Grandminnie’s land, where the house once stood. I had spent holidays there—July Fourth, especially, and we’d go early and stay until the last bottle rocket had been shot and my aunt Dimple no longer was muttering, “Well, there goes his eyebrows.”
I expect to feel remorse or dislike for this spot, but I don’t. It was a happy place for me. A place where I trailed behind Sallie and Sam and played hide-and-seek, a place where there were old toys to dig through—things my father played with as a boy—and a barn that smelled dark and damp. There were almost always cattle, but sometimes a goat, a few times chickens. My grandmother’s house was where misfit farm stock went to spend their golden years.
Of course, I sprung up after the shadow of my grandfather had left the house. And maybe I could feel it, a tinge of coldness to the edges of rooms, a history that I didn’t understand fully. Grandminnie was always too busy hosting us to spend much attention on me. But I see now that it wasn’t intentional as much as the aftermath of something.
I layer the new knowledge with the old feelings. I see how memories and misunderstandings soak through life, like our days are as thin as coffee filters.
At home, I sneak upstairs just as my father comes out of my room. He has a look on his face, like he’s smelled something foul and is investigating where it’s coming from.
“Your phone was ringing off the hook.”
My father’s face is doing this thing where I know he’s ping-ponging thoughts all over the place, but his forehead and lips are trying to remain calm and still.
“The library. You got an overdue book.”
I nod, but Dad still doesn’t move out of my way.
“So, no sooner than I hang up with the librarian, you got another call, some man this time. Darren. Said he really needed to speak to you about something important. Left his number. Are you applying for a new job or something?”
“Daddy, you don’t have to grill me, I’m an adult.”
“You’re living at home and hanging out with your grandmother every spare moment. Adult is not the word I’m thinking describes this situation.”
I let out a groan. My father cocks his head. See? his look says.
“Lia, honey, do you have something to tell me?”
I am stalling but trying to come up with a good reason for stalling.
“Corporate at Bags-N-Bows said that they are interested in developing my career path so that guy is with HR.”
My father is both visibly relieved but also irritated that I’d even consider staying with a franchise gift-wrap store. I take a deep breath. Here goes.
“But you know, I’m not interested. I’ve been thinking about Stephie and moving back . . .”
Dad reaches out and squeezes my shoulders.
“Atta girl!” He breaks into a grin. “I knew you’d come to your senses!”
“Yeah, well, I’m going to call that Darren back and tell him I’m not interested. At all.”
I say this with faux bravado.
“I won’t keep you then! Mom’s got dinner in the oven, staying warm for you. Just come down and eat when you’re done. And she made sugar cookies.”
Grandminnie is right, no matter what I decide, I’ve got to get out of this house.
The Design VI semester flew faster than any before it. I felt at ease within this project and Mrs. Grant was supportive of us all, overseeing the desk crits with a firm but gentle hand, introducing new members of the critique jury, including a couple local architects whom she knew personally and who framed their opinions carefully and constructively. Darren was noticeably absent from the jury, and when I saw him in the hallway one afternoon, I asked him why. It was an innocent enough question—he had been a major player on every other critique team.
“Why, what did you hear?” Darren said. And I didn’t know how to respond. He was remarkably tan.
“Nothing. Nothing at all. I was just wondering. And you haven’t been around much this semester.”
“Miss me? I’ve been busy with some projects for administration. Paperwork is killing me.”
Before I could say anything else, Darren pulled me around the corner and behind the false wall that hid the custodial closet door.
“Lia, I need to tell you something. Be careful with Madeline. She’s not what you think. She’s been saying some stuff and, well, she’s a snake.”
I must have frowned because Darren shook his head. I couldn’t imagine Mrs. Grant misleading anyone.
“Lia, she’s not going to help you like I have, no way. She doesn’t have the chops. Please, trust me. And if you need any help, call me. I want to be there for you.”
He turned and left quickly, leaving me confused.
I asked Bradley if he had heard anything, since he was usually at the pulse of all the architecture gossip. He said that he had heard that Darren and his wife were breaking up. That something had happened and he was looking for a bachelor pad near campus.
“I don’t believe it,” I said.
“It’s true. Someone saw him walking out of the building with a Realtor, talking about locations.”
“That could have been about anything!”
Bradley also said that someone had overheard him telling the dean that Sandy had been gone for two months and had no plans to come back from her family’s place in Aspen, and he’d be happy to play tennis with the dean anytime, since he had no one at home anymore and that’s what he was doing in his spare time.
“That would explain the tan,” I said.
“And why I’m heading to the courts later,” Bradley said.
Despite his best efforts, Bradley never got an invite to bat around a tennis ball with Darren. He also struggled with his mixed-use project and it was Antares, Rochelle, and me who stepped in to help him figure out what he was doing. The models were larger than anything we had worked on in the past, and we spent more time than ever in the studio. I wondered how many brain cells I was killing off with cyanoacrylate and the acetone used to remove the glue from my fingers. But my work was beautiful. My dormitory had large two-story windows that allowed light into the study lounge, and I even figured out how to get a gaming room into a former basement. For the first time in a long time, I was having fun.
Darren came by one night, or, more accurately, one morning, about two a.m. The room was still relatively busy, half of us working the night away, portable CD players and long cords, candy bar wrappers littering the flat surfaces. We all had the scent of humans away from a bar of soap for too long. I sniffed myself as Darren came closer and then removed my bright yellow headphones.
“You look awful,” he said, laughing.
“I should. I’ve been here three days straight. But look—” and I stepped away from my model, a wall of glass made from plexi that I had hand-painted to reflect the campus.
But he had already turned away and was pulling something out of a Brooks Brothers shopper, a large white bakery box that was wrapped in layer after layer of plastic wrap.
“What the hell is that?” Bradley asked.
“This, my beloved students, is the remnant of a building destroyed.”
He sliced open the plastic with my X-Acto knife and lifted the lid of the box. Out came a cake in the shape of a perfect cube, decorated with fondant that had been stamped with an intricate pattern. The fondant sweated a bit, as if having been frozen and thawed.
“I just came from a party,” he said. “And it’s my anniversary. Would have been.”
I didn’t know how to respond. His eyes were glassy. I realized that he was drunk.
“Is that your wedding cake?” Rochelle asked.
“That was my wedding cake. In the deep freeze for three years, now thawed and ready for you to enjoy. I found it, looking for vodka.”
“Wait! Is that the top of the Cleary Building?” Bradley put his face a few inches from the frosting.
Classmates gathered near, squinting. It was. The intricate stamping was from the etched glass that gave the Cleary its one-of-a-kind look and put Darren Miles on the map.
Darren took the X-Acto and slowly sliced the cake into thirds, working to create perfect skinny slices.
“This is weird,” Rochelle whispered to me. I nodded. But we both accepted a piece of cake that Bradley was helping to serve, using a stack of fast-food napkins. He gave me an I-told-you look, and I felt sad.
“So let me get this right,” I said to Darren when he came closer again, wiping white fondant on his black tuxedo pants. “You went to a fancy party tonight, went home, looked for some vodka, found the top of your wedding cake from a marriage that I’m guessing is now over, and decided to bring it here, to the studio, to share.”
“I didn’t need it in the house anymore, and it had been a really good cake, really expensive, and very, very tall.”
“I’m sorry. About Mrs. Miles.”
Darren shrugged as if all of it was just one of those things that happened.
“Your model—it’s nearly done, I see.”
I took the last bite of very dry cake and watched as Darren squatted level with my updated version of the dormitory. In addition to the building, I had created a section of a dorm room, working with watercolor to paint the comforter of a miniature bed and constructing a small L-shaped workspace for a student. I was very proud of this part.
“The construction is well done, very clean. It’s a fantastic model.”
I waited. “And . . .” I prompted.
“It’s functional. I can tell that you are listening intently to Mrs. Grant.”
But Darren wasn’t smiling. He shoved his hands into his pockets. He started to say something, but then stopped. I looked over at the plastic-wrapped cardboard that had held the cake and all that was left was crumbs.
“You need to decide who you are, Lia. As an architect. Do you want to go for the big jobs or do you want to do something more smaller scale? Residential, maybe. Only you can decide. You can’t be both.”
Then he left, leaving the sack and the white cake box on the shared table.
“What the fuck was that?” Bradley asked. But I couldn’t respond. I instead straightened my space, putting the cap back on the X-Acto knife, stacking the odds and ends of my supplies. Slowly the volume turned up on the room again, and I slid my headphones back over my ears. I didn’t know how to account for my feelings. I tried to strip his words from the event, run them over in my head, and tell myself that it was nothing, that it was okay, that I was still good at this, that I was still worthy.
The phone rings on my desk and I let it go, worried it is Darren again. I refuse to call him back. The downstairs phone immediately starts going off. I hear Dad answer, then his heavy footfalls climbing to the landing.
“It’s your grandmother,” he calls out.
I get up and stretch, make my way to the extension that’s on the landing, and answer.
“You didn’t come by today. We have a lot of work to do.”
I don’t know how to tell her I just couldn’t. That I got stuck in my own thoughts and couldn’t move forward.
“I’ll be by tomorrow. Wait, I have to work. I’ll be by after that.”
“You don’t sound so good. What’s going on?”
I want to tell her. About how Darren’s still finding a way closer. But I hear a click on the line, and I know that my mom or my dad has picked up and is listening in. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Grandminnie.”
“Lia-chan, you can always trust me. Maybe you will tell me tomorrow.”
Chapter 22
Curtain, Texas
September 1961
Evangeline Thomas went by Evangeline, not Evie or Lena. The full name. Hard to say. Four syllables chock-full of vowel traps. By the time Mineko was invited to the book club at the Thomas ranch, she had long since given up saying “My name is Mineko, but you may call me Minnie.” Now it was just Minnie from the start.
But on the day of the book club, Mineko was feeling grateful. Eight years in Curtain. Eight years struggling with a new place, a new language, her kids always the spark for improving her English. Paulie, the nearly nine-year-old prankster, tried to get her to say tongue twisters, The old gray rat ran up the roof with a lump of raw liver. When she had realized that he was teasing her, she had grabbed him by the arm and swatted his bottom with a wooden spoon, but then, as the tears came, she ran her hand through his hair and fished out a handful of gumdrops from the fat-pig cookie jar where she kept them and pressed them into his hands. I’m so sorry.
