White Elephant Read online

  Maybe then she could gain control of her businesses and turn a profit she could keep, something she could grow into a fortune all her own. She felt a little bad for kicking Grant. Not awful—why would he embarrass her in front of the Millers? But he was right. So far she’d always sold her companies too late. If she’d been a little more savvy she would have had quite a little nest egg by now.

  “Ready to be a stage widow?” Ted said.

  “He might not get the part.”

  “Oh, he’ll get the part.”

  “It’ll be good for us. Get him out of the house.” She zipped her lips with her first finger and thumb. “I didn’t say that.”

  He laughed, which made Suzanne smile. She couldn’t help enjoying the thought of silent evenings: Adam in bed, the house all hers. A play would be a positive distraction for Grant. And it would keep him from running so much, an idea that pleased her. Her feelings toward his running were admittedly schizophrenic. She didn’t want him to stop. She just didn’t want him to be better than she was.

  Theater was a good hobby, an interest they didn’t share. Grant was a ham. His sisters told terrible stories accompanied by hysterical laughter about his childhood, when he dressed in a bow tie, slicked back his hair, and sang for their parents’ guests.

  Their first date had been an odd one. She hadn’t even known it was a date. Grant gave Suzanne a ticket to a community theater production of Mame, in which he was playing Patrick. She sat alone in the front pew at the church. The usher grinned at her a lot. “You’re as pretty as Grant said you were.” As pretty? He was her lawyer, not her lover.

  At the time she was working for a tobacco company, which was against her principles, but they were the ones who made the best offer when she graduated from Kellogg, and as earning a good living was among her goals, she accepted the job.

  In those days she had been one of only a handful of women who held positions higher than assistant at the company, and it was quickly made clear that she was never going to be one of the boys. The men talked over her in meetings, claimed her ideas as their own, and when they bothered to ask her to join them for drinks or lunch, “kidded” about which one of them she was going to sleep with. When, after many such incidents, she indicated, finally, that she was tired of being harassed, they accused her of not being able to take a joke. She suspected she earned less than they did, but if they ever talked about their salaries, it must have been during their frequent golf outings—to which she was never invited, even though she had taken golf lessons for that very purpose. She wanted out nearly as soon as she got in, and thus she worked on building her own business—Pop!—nights and weekends, preparing for the day when she earned enough money with her own ingenuity that she didn’t have to put up with their sexist palaver.

  She’d met Grant when the owner of Pop—no exclamation mark—a small, Wichita-based company, threatened to sue her. The man claimed that her popcorn business threatened his business selling custom-designed items—T-shirts, baseball caps, and the like—for fathers and grandfathers (Pop Pop was a subsidiary). Grant solved the problem with a well-crafted letter on his firm’s letterhead.

  Maybe if he’d been a little less handsome she would have had the good sense to keep the relationship strictly business, but he was cute and affable. She wasn’t meeting anyone except the jerks at the office, so why not? He was so different from her other boyfriends. She’d had two: Geoffrey, a fellow athlete and merit scholar, whom she’d dated from the day they met in AP English junior year of high school until they graduated from UVA, and Daniel, a brilliant fellow Kellogg student whom she’d been with from the first day of graduate school until they accepted jobs in different cities. He’d wanted them to stay together, to have a long-distance relationship, but she said no. It seemed silly to her. So inefficient.

  After she and Grant started dating, she got him to take up running and join a gym, and to stop partying with his old high school friends, who’d graduated but hadn’t moved on. She showed him how to style his hair with gel instead of a blow dryer, and went with him to buy a wardrobe that was more Brooks Brothers and less JCPenney. He was her Eliza Doolittle. All signs pointed to his continuing to develop as the years went by, gradually shedding his second-rate ways entirely.

  Had she been a little smarter, she would have instituted a probation period. Then she would have seen that he would only get so far before he stopped short, but she’d met him toward the end of the window of years when—according to the Life Plan she had created as a college freshman—it was time to get married. Thus what should have been just a poorly chosen boyfriend at most, became not only her husband but the man who fathered her child—something that was not on her Life Plan at all, but had penciled itself in of its own accord when her back was turned. She was glad that it had, of course; Adam was her dream child, so smart and determined. He reminded her of herself when she was young, but with all the advantages of a two-parent home.

  She still had hopes that Grant would get his life back on track now that they had moved. His job in Rosslyn had potential, and he might meet new, more ambitious friends if he was in the play. Then he could finally let his old friends go. He was still quite involved with them, texting or calling one or another of them incessantly. How many times a day did he look at his phone and burst out laughing? There was Dave, the insurance agent with the poly-blend shirts and the goatee; Pete, the smarmy restaurant manager who was always giving her the eye; and chubby little box-jawed Marie. She was in love with him, obviously, but Suzanne had seen pictures of Grant’s continuous string of girlfriends in high school and college, all tall and pretty. Marie would have had to come to terms with the fact that they would never be more than friends years ago.

  “I like your house,” Suzanne said, returning to the present. It was like a fairy-tale cottage, small and cozy and full of books.

  “I grew up here,” Ted said.

  “I grew up in an apartment,” Suzanne said.

  “I always thought elevators were exciting when I was a kid.”

  “Ours broke a lot.”

  Adam climbed up the porch steps and plunked himself down on Suzanne’s lap.

  “Hi, little fellow.”

  “Can Grammy come this weekend?”

  She fingered the scarf on his head. Silk. “Are you playing pirate?”

  “Allison put it on me. For my headache. Can Grammy come, Mommy?”

  “You have a headache?”

  Jillian jumped up the steps and grabbed a cookie from the plate. She was a wholesome-looking kid with freckles and straight brown hair, a human Peppermint Patty. Suzanne searched for the resemblance to her parents. Perhaps a bit more of Ted. Eyebrows that she would eventually want to pluck. Ted’s wide, expressive mouth. Straight hair in contrast to Allison’s curly. Jillian twisted her arms around one another, like a pretzel, then unwrapped them and twisted them the other way. “Come back out, Adam. It’s boring.”

  Adam broke free from Suzanne’s embrace, assaulting Grant when he and Allison returned. “Daddy, push me!” Soon the men were on the lawn, pushing the kids on the swing, Adam on Jillian’s lap. Adam laughed, his scarf waving behind him like a young Amelia Earhart.

  “What’s wrong?” Allison asked Suzanne.

  “Things aren’t going as planned,” Suzanne said.

  “What things?”

  “My life. My life is not going according to plan.”

  Allison laughed. Her cheeks were high and round, like ripe peaches, making it look as though her eyes were closed when she smiled. “Does it ever?”

  Yes! Suzanne wanted to say. It does! It must! “I’m screwed.”

  “Why?”

  “Half-day kindergarten. Three measly hours—which basically means I’m a full-time mom. I have a business to attend to. I can’t spend my days making cookies.” Allison’s eyelid ticked, just enough for Suzanne to realize she’d insulted her. “I mean—”

  “I’m a photographer,” Allison said, a beat too quickly.

&nb
sp; “Oh! Should I have heard of you?”

  “I don’t know. Should I have heard of you?”

  They caught eyes, then both of them looked away at the same time, into the yard, where Grant was pushing the kids up to the heavens.

  “Hold on tight,” Suzanne said, wanting to tiptoe back through the conversation, to the moment before she put her foot in her mouth. No wonder she didn’t have any friends.

  “How about first grade? He’s so bright. Have you thought about him skipping a grade?” Allison said.

  “They don’t recommend it.”

  “Who are they?”

  “You know. Them.” She moved her arm around in the air. “The ones who write the books and articles.”

  “Are ‘they’ going to pay the psych bills when you go crazy from a surfeit of cookie baking?” She smiled, forgiving Suzanne her gaffe.

  Suzanne smiled back. She allowed herself a fantasy: Adam at school every day till three, getting so much intellectual stimulation he’d nap all afternoon, letting her work. “Hm.”

  “Mmm,” Allison echoed. “Listen to that.”

  “What?”

  “Silence. Do you hear that? The silence between the songs. It’s like the white space on the page.”

  Suzanne wasn’t sure what she meant, but it sounded nice. The white space. Was it about seeing positives where there were negatives? Or vice versa? She took a cookie from the tray. “I like your shawl,” she said, fingering the fringe.

  “I made it. I have a loom.”

  “You made it? All I make are appointments.”

  Allison laughed.

  “What made you think my mother died?” Ted was asking Grant when they came back to the table.

  “Nina Strauss told us. When we saw you in the road the day we were house hunting,” Grant said.

  “Nina!” Ted and Allison said, as one. “You can’t trust Nina.”

  “My mother died before Jillian was born . . . ,” Ted said.

  Grant and Suzanne looked at each other, Suzanne wondering what else Nina had lied about.

  “That was the day Nick Cox cut down the trees,” Ted said, his voice low, nearly biblical in tone.

  “Oh!” Allison said. “Don’t bring up the trees!”

  They all were silent for several seconds, as though giving the trees the moment of respect they were due.

  “Have you met Nick Cox?” Ted said.

  “No,” Suzanne said.

  “He cut down the tree we planted for Jillian. It wasn’t even on his property. I should sue him. You’re a lawyer. Do you think I should sue him?” Ted asked Grant.

  “Ted’s obsessed with that tree,” Allison said.

  “I’m not obsessed,” Ted said.

  “Does this Cox have a gold SUV?” Grant said.

  “The only one in town.”

  “I think he’s the guy I met at the hardware store. Buying a grill.”

  “Someone delivered a grill to our house by mistake the other day,” Suzanne said. Grant looked up sharply, then down again.

  “That’s the Coxes’ house,” Allison said, pointing next door.

  “That house and the one over there. The White Elephant. Rumor has it that it’s going to have a racquetball court,” Ted said.

  “How about that, Grant?” Suzanne said. It was a joke between them. He refused to play after Suzanne beat him a couple of times when they were dating.

  “The new house he’s building?” Ted said. “It’s so close to our house, you can nearly touch it. I stood on the edge of the yard and reached out a broom handle. I got within inches.”

  “You did?” Grant said.

  “It’s getting out of control. There has to be some way of getting those fat cats out of here. Get the town to reconsider letting them build these huge things,” Ted said.

  “Do the other neighbors feel the way you do?”

  “Most of them. No question. What’s in it for them?”

  “Higher property values, I’d guess,” Grant said.

  “I think it’ll lower them. People move to Willard Park to get away from all that,” Ted said.

  “Yeah?”

  “You want to live in a big house, move to Potomac.”

  Grant seemed to make a mental note.

  “It used to be nice out there. Horse country. Now it’s just mansion after mansion.” He shook his head. “That’s where Willard Park is headed, I’m afraid.”

  “Draw up a petition. If you have enough interest, you might be able to get a building moratorium. Other towns have done it.”

  Ted beamed at him, an expression not unlike Adam’s on the swing.

  “Look at your son,” Allison said.

  “When’s the last time you had that much fun?” Ted said.

  “Probably when—” Grant began.

  Suzanne cut him off. “It was a rhetorical question.”

  “My head still hurts,” Adam called when he saw the adults watching him.

  Grant went out to the yard, and gave him a big push, edging him up to the second floor. Adam shrieked.

  “Grant! He just said his head hurts,” Suzanne said.

  Grant slowed the swing down awkwardly. Adam sat down on the ground and howled. It was time for them to go home. She couldn’t be the only one who felt it.

  Grant offered to give Adam a piggyback ride home, but he wanted Mommy to do it. “I wish I could, pumpkin,” she said, and Adam hit her leg. She briefly considered hitting him back.

  They smiled and thanked and pledged to do it again, soon, at Suzanne and Grant’s, once they got it fixed up, oh you’ll have it to your liking in no time, looking forward to it, good luck, good night, good night, they called to one another. Good night. Good night. Suzanne, Grant, and Adam walked down the path to the sidewalk, past the Coxes’ party—still going strong—and down the street, toward home.

  6

  OCTOBER 28—DAY

  A bunch of grapes was in the lead. It seemed unlikely, with all those purple balloons wiggling to and fro, but there she was, a girl of maybe ten, outrunning the bewigged pop stars and the superheroes in their padded chests and capes. The kids’ Halloween fun run was a quarter mile long, around the green a couple of times; the adults’ race was three miles through the neighborhood. Grant was warming up for it, jogging in place in his jodhpurs. He snugged the string of his cowboy hat tight against his chin, hoping the flapping wouldn’t slow him down.

  The cast of Annie Get Your Gun had been given cowboy clothes to wear, things Allison found at Mitchell’s Variety: a little advance publicity for the play, of which Grant was now an official cast member. It was lucky Mitchell’s didn’t carry cowboy boots. You couldn’t run in cowboy boots. He held his phone out, made a wry smile, and snapped a selfie, messaging it to the gang. Their message thread was a comfort—like carrying his best friends around in his pocket.

  Adam, dressed as a vampire, sat on the curb, fake blood painted by the corner of his mouth, white plastic fangs in hand.

  “You should’ve run it, buddy,” Grant said. “You could have won in the five and unders. Being five would have given you a huge edge.”

  Adam tore open a bag of miniature pretzels, tossed to him by a clown on an oversize tricycle.

  “Jillian’s going to babysit you while I run if Mommy’s not back.” Grant pointed to a table on the other end of the soccer field, where Jillian and another girl handed out water in cone-shaped paper cups to kids in the race. The girls wore the black T-shirt adorned with the white outline of a ghost that many of the older kids wore.

  A note in the town newsletter laid out the times of the races and the costume parade, during which the Willard Park fire truck would make a special appearance. In the afternoon the kids were invited to trick or treat at the local shops. The day would be capped off with a potluck, followed by ghost stories and music on the green after dark.

  Residents were reminded that the town council supported the healthy Halloween initiative sponsored by the town Halloween Fun Committee. They offered a
list of suggested alternatives to candy such as carrot packs, stickers, and pencils. What a bummer. Grant liked those little candy bars. He had looked forward to stuffing them in his suit jacket pocket to nosh on during stressful moments at work, of which there had been none too few in the weeks since he started. He anticipated more of them. Extended hours of them. “Can I have a pretzel?” he said, and Adam gave him one.

  A faint buzz in his pocket. A text back from Marie: Giddy up, cowboy! R u seriously running in that? Haha. Then one from Dave that said simply, Dude.

  The Beast was walking toward him. A small, matching blond boy accompanied him, a tiny groomsman. The Beast costume was clearly a rental: a purple velvet jacket and black boots, furry arms and horns. His beastly hair cascaded down his back.

  “You missed my party,” the Beast said, his voice muffled through the mask. He extended a paw.

  Grant shook it. “Cox? Is that you in there?”

  Nick Cox took off his mask and held it in his arms like the head of John the Baptist. “I cooked bison on the grill. Did you ever eat bison? I have this idea about tasting every mammal on Earth before I die.”

  “Humans?” Grant said.

  “Why didn’t you come?”

  “Never got an invitation, I guess.”

  “You kidding me? I invited you personally.”

  They introduced their sons, who looked about the same age. Adam extended his hand as Suzanne had trained him to do; Nick’s son looked at it as though he were handing him a fish. “Did you see the tree?” Nick said.

  “The tree?”

  “My neighbor, the tree.” He pointed to Ted Miller, standing on the café porch. Branches were stuck to Ted’s sombrero and his arms and legs were covered with leaves. He wore a green sandwich board, the front of which said DON’T STUMP ME OUT!

  “I guess you heard about the petition,” Nick said.