A canvas drop cloth is twisted around Lorraine, and Cece works hard to pull it free. After a final tug, Lorraine stands before her, paint chips in her hair, a pair of safety goggles dangling from around her neck. “What happened?”
“I’ve been meaning to repaint that shed for three summers. I finally had some time today, but that damn ladder gave out on me,” Lorraine says. She touches her ankle gingerly and winces. It already appears double its normal size.
“How long have you been stuck there?”
“Oh,” Lorraine says, cocking her head to one side and shaking out her hair. “A few hours or so.”
“Jesus, you could have died. You can’t be doing stuff like that. You should just hire someone. What if I hadn’t come home?”
Lorraine waves away Cece’s concern. “But you did. What’s with the getup?”
Cece sees that her reprimands won’t have the desired effect, so she decides to let it go. If Lorraine wants to die because she needs to scrape some paint off her decrepit shed, so be it. Cece can barely take care of herself; she’s not about to start looking after others, too. “Job interview in the city.”
“You don’t seem pleased.”
Somewhere on the street, a screen door slaps, and a car starts, the engine turning over once, then twice before catching. “It didn’t go well,” Cece says. “Mostly because I didn’t want it to.”
Lorraine picks something off the tip of her tongue and flicks it into the night. “Ooooo! Sabotage. So, you didn’t want the job?”
“No,” Cece says. “I guess not.”
“Do I need to start worrying about your rent check being late?”
“It’s not like that. I’ve got something going on now, but this was a better opportunity. A no-brainer.”
“How so?”
“It’s a real job. Generous benefits. Well paying. Good company, too. Kind of like my old gig.”
Lorraine shrugs. “I never met a real job I didn’t just hate to death.”
Bernard’s barks crescendo. “I don’t know…I just think there’s something wrong with me.”
“Could be something wrong with you if you take it, too,” Lorraine says, before patting Cece’s shoulder with a filthy hand and hobbling off to the house.
Reminder to self, Cece thinks. Don’t end up like that—alone, at risk of perishing at the hands of a ladder.
After a longshower, Cece takes Bernard out for a walk around the neighborhood. Twilight deepens to night, and Cece wonders if the answers to her questions are out there somewhere. What will she say to her mother? How will she explain her reasoning when she can’t even explain it to herself? Kim will surely call her every name in the book: entitled, spoiled, and delusional. She won’t fight it. She’s deserving of her mother’s wrath. And what will Jonathan say? Will he understand Cece’s predicament? Will he see the choice she sees?
A creature of habit, Bernard quickly veers in the direction of Morgan’s house, but Cece isn’t in the mood to remember her mistakes. It was fun, a whim—now it’s time to forget it. She has bigger concerns at the moment. If only he didn’t live so close!
Bernard quickly embraces their detour, snout to the broken sidewalk, vigorously inspecting the new sights and smells: crabgrass sprouting through cracked pavement, newly bloomed irises, purple and majestic, a forgotten recycling bin still on the curb. With flip-flops on, the breeze feels good against her oxygen-starved feet as she walks down to the water, seekingrespite from the lingering heat. Tree branches hang low, and Cece ducks underneath, shrouded momentarily in cooler shadows. From open windows, the murmur of televisions and calls for dinner.
Bernard strains the leash and tugs them forward. Cece, not ready to leave her reverie, holds firm, until she looks up and sees the reason for his excitement. In the distance, two figures—one big, one smaller—walking toward her. Cece doesn’t have to see his face. She knows that gait and bulky frame, baseball cap pushed back on his forehead—Morgan. She looks back, hoping she might be able to retreat into the darkness, but it’s too late; Bernard is barking, Morgan raises his hand in a tentative wave. Is this the other woman? The girlfriend? The wife? Cece wonders, preparing herself for the worst. Men are dogs! Why had she ever let herself forget it? Maybe he’s the one who should be dashing down a side street! But the figure is too adolescent, awkward, and rangy. A girl. Twelve or thirteen if Cece has to guess. “Is he friendly?” she asks as they move closer.
“Absolutely,” Cece says, looking at Morgan for some kind of explanation.
Bernard licks the girl’s open palm inquisitively and promptly rolls over, groveling for belly rubs. She obliges him, running her cherry-red fingernails through his fur.
“This is Lacy, my daughter,” Morgan says. “Lacy, this is my neighbor Cece.”
“Nice to meet you,” the girl says without looking up. “Your dog’s really cool. What’s his name?”
“Bernard. He’s actually my parents’ but I’m watching him for a while.”
Morgan mouths a silentI’m sorry. Cece is too bewildered to respond. Morgan is a father.
“We were just going for our postdinner walk,” Morgan says. “Lacy’s visiting from Providence.” His eyes are wide, and it seems like he’s trying to communicate some unsayable thing to Cece from across the space between them.
