Through an open window, p.10
Through an Open Window, page 10
Had he been asked, Tom wouldn’t have been able to articulate the origins of that old animosity, that burning bit of coal in the hollow of his stomach that felt so much like fear. It had been with him for so long now, at the back of his every thought, in the blood that swam through his veins, in the voices he heard just before sleep; he’d long ago given up trying to elucidate the unknowable. He’d just always been able to tell that people preferred his brother to him, even though no one could tell them apart.
His parents hadn’t dressed them alike. Nor had they been given rhyming names like poor Tracy and Stacy Scoggins, the twins who had grown up around the corner on Albemarle Way and who still lived together in a condo in Clearwater, Florida. No, as far back as Tom could remember, both he and his brother had been treated as complete and separate individuals, a gift Lawrie had seized like a golden ticket, venturing off into his own curiosities and passions with the sort of confidence explorers must possess. There was something about that vigorous spirit that just drew people to Lawrie, and away from Tom. It was a competition Tom felt destined to lose from the moment he realized its existence.
Lawrie had decided to become a vet the day Tinker, the family’s wirehaired dachshund, got hit by a car. While both Tom and Mouse had stood wailing in the driveway, Margaret’s arms around their shoulders, Lawrie had helped Lawrence get the dog into the family’s old station wagon, never flinching once. With the stoicism of an army surgeon, he’d held the bleeding Tinker in his lap all the way to Dr. Banks’s clinic. The vet even broke his own rule and let eight-year-old Lawrie spend the night with the dog, sleeping on a pile of towels next to Tinker’s crate. Whereas once that dachshund had belonged to them all, when Tinker came home from his medical adventure, hale and hearty again, he was exclusively Lawrie Elliot’s dog and would be until eleven years later, when he died of old age.
From then on, when asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, Lawrie never wavered. “A veterinarian,” he’d say, fixing his inquisitor with a serious stare that invariably gave them pause. That sort of rapier focus was rare in a child. He volunteered at animal shelters all through high school, sweeping up and mucking out, and shadowing Dr. Banks at the clinic whenever he could, finding both experience and encouragement at the veterinarian’s side. Lawrie shot through high school and got his bachelor of science degree at Clemson with the sort of grade-point average necessary to achieve a full scholarship to the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, finally emerging from the halls of education at twenty-seven and returning to Wesleyan to open his own clinic not six miles away from where he grew up.
And then there was Mouse, quietly determined, always singing along to the radio in the kitchen, cooking dinners for them all, gifted not only with natural ability but with her eye on that same northern star as her brother, as certain of her path through the world as a bloodhound with a sure scent. That old brick icehouse back in Wesleyan that was home to Elegant Agatha’s was a place Tom knew his sister had envisioned for nearly the whole of her life.
“If you want to know who you are, look at what you love.” He’d seen those words scrawled on the wall of an underpass a couple of months ago and they’d brought tears to his eyes. Tom had no idea who he was. More than anything his siblings could buy or achieve, it was their surety he envied, and the lack of his own that plagued him. He knew both Lawrie and Mouse were living the lives they’d always wanted, certain of their place in the world. Tom couldn’t even imagine the feeling.
After high school, he’d migrated up to the University of Georgia along with most of his class, those who, like him, figured they’d stumble on a clear direction after a few business classes and glasses of beer. But Tom never did figure it out. He drifted through college without a fixed target till he hit the brick wall of graduation with prospects as dull and dry as the paper on which his business degree was printed. His choice of career had been random. He’d wandered into property development because it had seemed lucrative, and it had turned out to be just that, but it had never been his passion. Maybe things wouldn’t have turned out like this if it had been.
Making money had seemed almost laughably easy, too, like a grown-up game of Monopoly, all that moving it from one place to another to finance a life constructed so far above his means the air was practically thin. But a few missed payments, a few lost accounts, and Tom was finding it harder and harder to breathe.
He’d been living with the continual headache of financial fear for so long, afraid to open the mail or answer the phone, that when the group of investors out of South Carolina approached him about their intentions to develop a tract of desirable land inside Atlanta’s perimeter, Tom had thought this might be the answer to all those prayers he’d meant to pray. He could still see himself ensconced in a red leather chair at that corner table at Bones with a steak as big as his head on the plate in front of him while he listened to the polo-shirted group take turns telling him about the land they planned to acquire. A good thirty acres covered in old-growth trees, it ran alongside the neighborhood of Pinckney Green, one of the oldest in the city, its leafy streets full of families who’d lived there for generations.
“The people there will put up a fight,” said Tom, holding a rudimentary rendering of the multistory condominiums proposed for the site. “I’m sure of it.”
“Hell, son,” one of the men said, “by the time they get wind of this, it’ll be a done deal.” And they’d all laughed loudly, like it was funny.
But it hadn’t been funny to Tom. He knew someone who lived in Pinckney Green. She’d lived there for most of her life. She’d shown him pictures of her garden in springtime, brought him homegrown tomatoes in summer. He knew those ancient oak trees behind her house were full of bobwhites and brown thrashers. Her grandchildren played in those woods.
Tom’s eyes had traveled slowly around the table, taking in the smug faces one at a time, and that’s when it had happened: a rage bubbled up inside him from a source as deep and black as an untapped oil well. None of the men saw it coming, and by the time Tom had finished telling them what he thought, every one of them was as red in the face as a uakari monkey.
If he’d thought about it, no doubt he wouldn’t have done it, but Tom didn’t think. Instead, when the valet at Bones brought him his car, he climbed in and called every reporter and conservation group he knew of before he got back to his office. It had taken less than a week for everything to blow up and hit the local news. Petitions were signed, protests were organized, and the investors from South Carolina soon retreated to where they had come from, vowing to tarnish the reputation of Warren Creek Development at every conceivable opportunity. Tom had been taken off all his accounts, and his position at the company was quietly “being reevaluated.” He expected to be fired any day.
He hadn’t bothered to look at his phone this morning. He knew Meghan hadn’t called. He knew she wasn’t going to. Eight days of silence had confirmed what he should have known before he even opened his mouth to tell her what happened. So much for those archaic vows she’d parroted back to old Reverend Lamb in that little chapel at Callaway Gardens ten years ago. “For better or worse, richer or poorer,” she’d said. His forehead still pressed against the cool window, Tom would have laughed right out loud if his head hadn’t been throbbing as hard as it was.
She’d been such a catch, the ultimate prize to show off to his family and anyone else who’d ever counted him out. Tom could still see himself standing straight as an arrow at the end of that flagstone aisle as Meghan floated down it on the arm of her father, her blond head swiveling this way and that to take in the admiring glances, the June sun streaming in through all that abstract stained glass, splashing her white dress with triangles of color. Her constant frivolity had been an escape for him once, the mile-wide difference in their personalities a ceaseless source of fun. He could scarcely believe how she deferred to him, treated him like the boss he’d always wanted to be. And he’d liked the way she laughed things off, even though he truly believed she’d become more serious after they married, that her indifference to the more sobering realities of life was merely a symptom of her youth. He’d thought change was what people did, when they got older. It was what he’d planned to do.
* * *
—
Reluctantly, Tom turned from the view of the rain and the river and went to sit down at his large, cluttered desk. He’d requested this modern version of a workspace—in reality, nothing more than a long acrylic box—when the offices were being redecorated last year. As sleek and clear as a chunk of ice, of all the desks in the catalog Chuck Warren had handed him, this one had seemed to Tom to be the least complicated, the cleanest. That had appealed to him then, and still did. But of course, it had taken only a week before that bare, see-through surface was totally obscured by the sort of detritus normally shoved into the drawers that it lacked, and now it might as well have been made of something as heavy and dark as bronze.
Pushing away a teetering pile of industry magazines, Tom pulled a stack of fat red files closer and laid his head on top of them, shutting his eyes. His head was thumping harder than ever now. Was he sick? He felt like he might be, but then, he’d not slept well in so long, maybe that was just all it was. He needed rest—he knew that—a good, long rest, but he couldn’t even fathom getting that anytime soon, if ever again. He swallowed hard. His throat was really burning now.
The main door opened in reception, and Tom heard the familiar sound of the cleaning cart trundling up the hall in his direction. A moment later a plump, smiling face appeared in his doorway.
“Only light on in the place. Should’ve known it was you. What you doing in here this early, Mr. Elliot? What’s so important it could pull you out of a warm bed on a wet day like this one, huh?”
“Oh, you know me, Gloria. Early bird, and all that.” Tom’s throat felt raw when he spoke.
The woman took a bottle of Windex and a roll of paper towels out of her cart with one hand and pointed at him with the other. “I’ll tell you what, Mr. Elliot,” she said, refusing for the millionth time to call him by his Christian name, “it’s been days since I was able to get that funny-looking desk of yours as clean as I’d like to. I don’t never like to move anybody’s stuff around without them present. But seeing as you’re here right in front of me, and you don’t look too awfully busy, how’s about helping me move all those things, and let’s get that glass table of yours looking like it’s supposed to.”
Tom had known Gloria Hogan since the day he started at Warren Creek, straight out of college. As round as a Disney fairy and just as consistently cheerful, she’d been with the company since the nineties, when Chuck had first opened the doors of the old house on Juniper Street, and was a welcome fixture at every Christmas and birthday party, often baking the cakes for each occasion herself. As the company grew, she’d followed along to higher and higher offices until landing in this skyscraper alongside the river. Tom had watched Gloria’s close-cropped hair change color over the years, from owl brown to dove white, with a couple of unfortunate stop-offs at pink, but he couldn’t begin to guess how old she was and knew that he’d never ask.
The nature of their relationship made him do as he was told. Standing up, Tom began stacking files on top of one another and sliding them down to the end of his desk, scooping up paper clips and pens as he did so. Arms full, and aware of how hapless and disorganized he must look, he let the lot fall into a black leather chair sitting vacant in the corner, then stood quietly beside it, unsure of what to do or say next.
Squirting the desk with glass cleaner, Gloria looked over at him and cocked her head. “You okay, Mr. Elliot? You look a little peaked to me. Family all good? How’s that handsome brother of yours? Still the spittin’ image of Paul Newman?”
She always referred to Lawrie this way despite having met him only once, and though Tom got the flattering joke, it still irritated him more than he would’ve liked to admit. “Oh yeah…he’s…Everybody’s well, I guess. I mean, my mother’s…Well, yeah, we’re all good.”
Gloria turned to look at him, forehead furrowed. “Your mother’s what? She’s all right, isn’t she?”
“Yeah, yeah. She’s all right. I was just down there Saturday night for her birthday.” Tom walked over to the window and leaned against the sill, his back to the rain that continued to fall.
“Well, tell her Happy Birthday from me,” said Gloria. “I like Margaret, always have done. She sends me a box of homemade sugar cookies every Christmas, and I’m looking forward to those again this year, I can tell you. Been saving up the calories.”
“She does?” asked Tom. “I mean, she has? Since when?”
Gloria wiped the sides of the desk, squinting to see if any streaks of glass cleaner remained. “Oh, Lord…let’s see. Since way back when you first started here, I reckon. I met her the day she visited, when you showed your family around. You didn’t know?”
“No.” Tom sighed, theatrically. “But there’s probably a lot I don’t know.” He turned back around to face the window, catching his sullen reflection in the rain-spattered glass. He definitely looked ill. “For example,” he continued, “Margaret told us just the other night she’s seen someplace at the beach, on the internet, you know, and she’s actually thought about moving there. Can you imagine? At her age. Didn’t even ask us about it or anything. Dad’s only been dead seven months.” Tom pictured a For Sale sign sticking out of the ground in front of the big blue house. He felt his fingers curl again.
Gloria stood up straight and fixed Tom with a stare that he saw in the window’s reflection. He turned around, slowly, as she said, “Well, what’s wrong with that? You’re a grown man, aren’t you? Got your own life to look after, right? You let your mama do what she wants for as long as she can. She knows better than you what she needs. And as far as age is concerned, she’s a lot younger than me, so you just watch your tongue.”
Sensing a crosscurrent of meanings in this outburst, Tom chose to remain silent, knowing Gloria would continue without any encouragement from him.
Sure enough, she grabbed a feather duster and began wielding the thing like a saber, punctuating the air. “I swear to goodness, I wish somebody could tell me what happens to kids when they’re grown. You wipe their noses and their fannies when they’re little. Feed ’em and clothe ’em, send them to school and on out to the world, hopin’ they’ll find families and kids of their own. And they usually do. Then, just when you least expect it, here they come back again, knowing more than you do. Acting like you don’t know nothing. Telling you what you should do. When it ain’t one teaspoon’s full of their business.”
Tom let silence drift slowly down on the room before tentatively asking, “Is this about your kids wanting you to move again?”
“Don’t you just know it is,” said Gloria. “You want your mama to stay where she is, they want me to get out. They’re convinced it’s just a matter of time before something happens to the old neighborhood, and they want me to sell before it does. They’ve heard rumors, apparently. Say I’ll get a lot more if I get out right now. Want me to move to a condo. A condo? Can you picture me in one of them things? Strangers right there on the other side of your living room walls and no room for a garden?” She walked over to the corner chair, picked up the armload of files, and slammed them down on the sparkling clean desk. “Listen here,” she said, turning back to face Tom, “I don’t care what your mama wants to do, Mr. Elliot. Unless she’s up and lost her marbles since your daddy died, which I seriously doubt she has, then she’s more than able to decide for herself where and how she wants to live.”
Tom swallowed hard and winced. “I’m sorry, Gloria,” he said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” He turned back toward the window and noticed it was now raining harder than ever. “Shit. I didn’t mean to upset anybody.”
“Leave the swearing to the stupid, son,” said Gloria.
“I’m sorry,” muttered Tom.
“Quit saying you’re sorry. I’m not upset. Not at you, anyway.”
Tom nodded at Gloria’s reflection in the window before him. After hesitating a second, he said, “Listen, you can tell your family nothing’s going to happen to your neighborhood. I’ve heard those rumors about Pinckney Green. If that’s what they’re worried about, well…they shouldn’t be.”
Gloria grabbed the handle of the cleaning trolley and backed out into the hallway. “Well, I ain’t movin’, even if I’m the last one on the whole block. You can take that to the bank.” Pulling the trolley behind her, she turned back around to face him. “And if you’ll take some advice from an old lady, I suggest you leave here right now and go straight back home. You’re really not looking all that good, Mr. Elliot.” She gave him a wink that seemed more fuss than favor and left the room. Tom heard the cleaning cart trundle off up the hall.
He now felt sicker than ever. When he suddenly heard Gloria’s footsteps returning, the sound flooded him with embarrassing relief. Tom walked over to the door and opened it. “What’d you forget to tell me?” he said, sticking his head out into the hall.
An old woman in a navy-blue dress passed by right in front of him, trailing a sweet-smelling fragrance. Surprised, Tom took a step back, swallowed hard, winced, and then sneezed, his eyes closing with the effort. When he opened them again, the old woman was standing in the shadows at the end of the hallway, looking back at him. Blinking, his eyes watering, Tom stared as she gave him a tiny half smile. Then Gloria stuck her head out of the office two doors up. “What’d you say?” she called out.
