Chapter 7
BING BONGSQUONK!
Avalon jumped and clapped a hand to her heart.
She craned her head and through the beveled glass of the front door she saw a pair of shadows shaped like her parents.
She quickly entered a note on her phone:Fix squonky doorbell.
Then she opened the door and her parents stepped wordlessly in the foyer. It was filled now with hazy gold sunshine thanks to a skylight that dizzied with views of blue skies and pine tops above. Below, a black-and-white checkerboard of marble gleamed. The little fang-like crystals on a nearby chandelier sprinkled tiny rainbows on the walls, the floor and, incongruously, her dad’s nose.
She’d called her dad a few hours ago to tell them the news, including her plans to flip the house quickly, hopefully to her friend Rachel, to whom she’d texted photos.
“But... that place has aturret,” her dad had finally said in an aghast hush after a long silence. He’d madeturretsound likeblack mold. “Do you have any idea how much it costs to replace those curved windows in aMMMPH.”
His grunt was followed by a lot of crackling and rustling.
“We’ll be by around three, honey,” her mom said brightly, bravely, resolutely. She’d wrested the phone from her husband.
And now her dad was holding a big box full of things that clinked and clanked. A pot lid was balanced on top. Her mom was carrying the gym bag Avalon had left behind at the house this morning. It was now mysteriously plump.
“We brought you some things we thought might be handy,” her mom said.
Their expressions, however, suggested they were picturing her with her toe stuck up the faucet.
“Iswearto you I did not pull an Oy Vay. I can handle this,” she reiterated by way of greeting. “I’m a great project manager and I’m pretty persuasive. Rachel is already excited about it, because it’s the kind of space she wants and she doesn’t want to do the work. IknowI can flip this for a profit, even after renovations.”
There was a little silence.
“Guess you’re going to have to now, eh, pumpkin?” her dad said with mordant resignation. He gave her a shoulder pat.
She took the box from him and the bag from her mom and carried them off to the main room to deposit them on the floor. Her parents followed gingerly through at first, like people trying virtual reality goggles for the first time.
The scale of all the rooms seemed soprofligate. Ceilings soared up to rounded corners, trimmed all around with stucco carved into birds and fruit and vines. Right smack dead center of the small ballroom (it had a freakingballroom) was a crystal chandelier with as many tiers as a tycoon’s wedding cake. The floors were a sea of golden parquet. They really needed refinishing.
She and her parents fanned out like a SWAT team.
Her dad peered into the toilets (most of them tall, old, and rather grand) and flushed them; he tried all the faucets in the bathroom and kitchen (water gushed forth, a little rusty at first); he bounced on the floors to see if they squished around the (clawfoot!) bathtubs. None did. He used a little device to check whether the outlets were working. Three weren’t.
Then her dad wandered in one direction and Avalon trailed her mom as her mom poked around.
They were quiet for a while. She knew her mom was starting to relax; she was smart enough and experienced enough to recognize the quality of the place.
“You know, I remember how you used to look at him,” her mom said suddenly, running a finger along the grout in the kitchen. Avalon made a note in her phone:Replace kitchen grout. She did like the tile, though.
“Who... Corbin?”
His name in her mouth felt strange, like she’d been pronouncing it wrong, or misunderstood its meaning, all these years. She’d spent all of fifth grade pronouncing “superlative” as “superlaytive” and had been scorchingly mocked by her siblings when she’d said it out loud at the dinner table.
“Mac Coltrane.”
Avalon went still. Hearing his name in her mother’s voice was like a sudden little shock, both delicious and painful. Like when she was a kid and rubbed a balloon on her hair and then poked her brother in the arm. She wondered if her mom had any inkling of what she and Mac had gotten up to during the summers between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. Her parentshadbeen working pretty hard at the Misty Cat those years.
It wasn’t until that day that she realized that Mac had kept their affair a secret because he wasactivelytrying to hide it, not because secrecy was more romantic.
“Probably I’d never seen a rich kid before. I probably stared at him the same way I stared at a three-story building the first time I saw one. Or that huge motor home Mrs. Morrison once drove into downtown.”
Her mom snorted. “Youwerepretty captivated by that thing. Maybe you should have bought one of those instead of a house. But oh my goodness, look at thatgarden!” She stood on her toes and peered out the huge window over the kitchen sink.
