Cherry Money Baby (29 page)

“It’s my home — I can do what I like,” said Spanner.

“
Your
home?”

“I’ve lived here since I was nine years old.” She smiled slyly. “Besides, I’d never eavesdrop. That would be
repugnant.
”

Cherry tucked her hands under her arms. “Don’t fall and break your neck or anything.”

She followed Ardelia into the basement, happy the gloom hid her face.

Cherry woke moaning and clutched at her temples. A Mack truck rumbled through her skull.

“I know that look,” a voice said. “You’ll want vitamin C and ginger ale.”

She opened an eye. Sunlight was boring in through the bay window. It took her a moment to remember where she was. She looked left and saw the dent in Lucas’s pillow. Sometime after the movie (something black-and-white,
Philadelphia Story
) they’d stumbled up to bed, wine-drunk and giggling. It was all they could do to pry off their shoes and drop onto the mattress before passing out.

She looked around the room for some sign of him. The person who’d spoken was bent over in the middle of the room, gathering Cherry’s discarded clothing. The person stood. She looked about fourteen with nasty acne and an overbite. Cherry sat up. “Who?”— she winced and lay back down —“are you?”

“Eve,” said the girl, stuffing the clothes into a wicker hamper she lugged with her across the carpet. “And I’m not the cook and I’m not your servant, so if you want something, ask Oliver. I just clean and do the washing.”

It sounded like
dew ther warshing.
Her accent was different from Spanner’s and Ardelia’s. It was rounder and heavier, a bobbing pelican to their fluttery songbirds.

Cherry held a fist to her forehead. “I do my own laundry.”

“They all say that the first day,” said the girl, addressing an invisible listener in the corner. “Then it’s,
Oh, Eve, I got a little stain. Oh, Eve, can you sew this tear?
” She scowled. “When you feel better, the others are by the pool. There’s a swimsuit in the WC.”

She left, slamming the door. Cherry’s fillings rattled.

The shower was bliss. The taps conjured instant, lusciously hot water that stayed just the right temperature, and Cherry lingered, reveling in the endless supply. Lucas’s toiletries were arranged on the vanity, clustered in a tight group as if afraid to take up too much of the spacious white marble. Cherry spread them out, along with her own things. They deserved to be there, after all. They were
guests.

She considered her reflection in the full-length mirror. She’d put on weight since the fire. Mr. DuBois’s Cajun cooking was delicious but rich, and her pointiest angles had softened. She was glad to see her chest was a little fuller, but that usually happened around her period. Would it all go to shit after the baby? In a way, Ardelia was lucky. She couldn’t get pregnant, but then, she’d never have to put on baby weight or deal with breast milk or go through the Unthinkable Thing that happened when the baby came out — Cherry sure as shit didn’t want to think about it. For now, she put on the navy boy shorts and bikini top slung over the towel rack, smacked her ass, and said to her reflection, “Damn if that ain’t Cherry Kerrigan looking fine in her new swimsuit.”

She made for the back stairs. As she passed the second floor, she nearly collided with a little old man coming around the corner with a breakfast tray. Tufts of gray fuzz clung to his scalp, and he wore spattered black overalls. A penguin in a paintball tournament. The breakfast plates rattled as he steadied himself.

“Oh, you scared the wits out of me.” He spoke with the same bobbing syllables as Eve. “You don’t want breakfast, do you? I’ll have to put a new kettle on.”

“I’m Cherry,” she said, extending a hand to shake, then realizing he had no free hand to shake with. “Ardelia’s friend.”

“Oh! The American girl with the belly for rent!” He smiled, reminding Cherry of the sweet, sort of inappropriate old men who frequented Mel’s for the early-bird special. “Look at you in your skimpies. This isn’t a slumber party, dear.”

Cherry laughed. “It’s a
bathing
suit. Are you Oliver?”

“Unless my mother told me lies. I’ll be preparing your meals, if that’s fine with you.”

“I used to work as a line cook, actually.”

Oliver raised a furry eyebrow. “So did I! Aboard the HMS
Exeter.
Where were you stationed?”

“Burrito Barn,” said Cherry. “Massachusetts.”

“Never heard of the vessel.” Oliver shook his head. “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Cherry, though you’ll forgive me if I forget your name, what with the chorus o’ young women running around this house.”

“I’m the
nice
blonde,” Cherry said, and Oliver’s foggy squint vanished. He smirked.

“I’ll have to keep an eye on you, I can see.”

“Take it easy, Oliver,” Cherry said, and headed down the stairs.

“At my age, I don’t have much choice,” he answered.

For two years, Vi had a pool, an aboveground that was terminally clogged with leaves and algae until the afternoon that Vi, Cherry, and two other girls performed an Omni-Cannonball and the sides split, flooding Mrs. Ravir’s garden. Ardelia’s pool was sunk into a raised patio on the side of the house, with a spectacular view of the grounds, the cherry orchard to the east, and a symmetrical and stuffy-looking garden, complete with a shady stone grotto, to the west.

The patio itself was white hot, the pool, blue crystal. A table and umbrella were set at one end, and Ardelia sunned herself in a skimpy green bikini (which made Cherry’s good body feelings wither). Spanner, Cullen pale, sat in the shade with a magazine. As Cherry approached, Ardelia’s phone hummed. Spanner picked it up and flipped a page.

“Hello, Chip. No, she’s not available next weekend. Ardelia’s recreational time is extremely limited, you know that. I
told
you not to call her this week. Well, you can try again, but you’ll only get
me.
That’s what I thought.” She added a singsong “
Good
-bye.”

“Morning!” Lucas waved to Cherry from the pool. He swam to the edge and sipped at a glass of orange juice waiting for him there. The drinking glass looked like it might be crystal.

“Is that my boyfriend, or did I just wander into a Kanye video?”

Cherry smiled at Lucas’s bashful grin. He was enjoying himself.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” said Ardelia. “Can you believe this weather? You must be a good-luck charm.” She looked at Cherry over her shades. “How do you like the suit?”

“It’s cool,” said Cherry. “Kinda giving me a wedgie, though.” She picked at the fabric around her butt. Spanner clucked.

“Good thing you didn’t go with the thong,” said a voice behind her.

Cherry spun so fast, she nearly lost her footing. Relaxing under his own umbrella, his stomach lily white and hairless, was Maxwell Silver.

“What the
fuck
are you doing here?” Cherry said.

“Cherry!” said Ardelia. “That’s rude.”

“You’re supposed to be in the Netherlands.”

“Nice to see you, too,” said Maxwell. “How are you enjoying the
Lifestyles of the Rich and British
?”

“Shooting doesn’t start for another three days,” Ardelia explained. “Max’s joining us for a few days.” She hesitated. “I hope that’s all right?”

“Oh, Cherry wishes she was the only one with a boy toy,” Spanner said. She gave Cherry a smile dripping with honey. “Isn’t that right?”

“Whose boy toy are you?” Cherry asked Maxwell, working to keep the grit from her voice.

Maxwell grinned around Cherry at Spanner and Ardelia. “I suppose I’m to be shared.”

“No one wants to share you, Maxwell,” Ardelia said, raising her paperback. “You’re not a Toblerone.”

Lucas laughed from the pool.

Cherry turned, feeling Maxwell’s eyes on her back as she took the lawn chair beside Ardelia’s. Ardelia said in almost a whisper. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“I know he’s a pig sometimes, but it’s just an act. Ignore him. He’s mostly harmless.”

“You said he was the devil incarnate,” Cherry whispered back. “And besides, I thought
you
were mad at him.” She nodded toward Spanner. “Because of . . . you know.”

Ardelia blinked slowly and hid behind her shades. “I’m not sure I follow you. But it doesn’t matter, anyway,” she added in a louder, more cheerful voice. “We’re all friends here, aren’t we?”

“Super-friends,” said Maxwell. “Say, Lucas, you were going to show me how to do a jackknife.”

“Can you believe this guy?” Lucas said to no one in particular. “What, they didn’t teach you sweet dives at Oxford or wherever?”

Cherry expected this to go over like a lead balloon, but everyone laughed, even Spanner. Maxwell leaped up, tossed his shades onto the grass, and cannonballed Lucas. A plume splashed inches from the girls, who squealed and rained happy insults on the boys. Lucas had his arm around Maxwell’s neck and was pretending to hold him under. Cherry’s imagination roiled with alternate versions of this scene: Lucas, bat-shit crazy with jealousy, slowly suffocating Maxwell. Ardelia, furious at Cherry’s betrayal, shouting herself hoarse.

The play battle raged toward the shallow end. Then Lucas lost his footing. He went down hard, clipping the cement edge before going under. Everyone froze. Cherry’s mind went blank.

Lucas surfaced, waded slowly to the ladder, and sat on the grass.

“Oh!” Ardelia clapped her hand over her mouth. “Is he okay?”

Maxwell swam over, stuttering apologies. The paralysis broken, Cherry leaped to her feet and ran to his side.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

He touched his ear, gingerly. “It’s just a scrape.”

“Baby, you’re bleeding!” She turned his head. Blood trickled from his earlobe.

“Don’t bleed in the pool,” Spanner said. She rose slowly and came to Lucas’s side. “Let me see.” She tipped his chin, angling the ear toward the sunlight.

Maxwell held on to the pool’s edge. “Well, don’t I feel like an ass.”

“You shouldn’t have tripped him,” Cherry snapped. Maxwell swallowed, looking like a scolded dog.

“It’s okay,” said Lucas.

Spanner rose. “Come with me. There’s a first-aid kit in the pool house.”

She cinched her robe and made for the tiny outbuilding at the edge of the patio. Lucas followed. Cherry was left crouching on the concrete, her heart thrumming in her throat.

“I really am sorry,” Maxwell said, reaching for her shoulder.

“Why are you
really
here?” she hissed so Ardelia couldn’t hear. “Are you fucking with me or something?”

Maxwell was wide-eyed and innocent. “I’m really not. I’m sorry, I didn’t think it would make you uncomfortable.”

She glanced in the direction Lucas had gone. “Well, it fucking does.”

“Relax,” Maxwell said, and she turned on him, ready to fend off his sleaze with her fists if necessary, but his look was serious, that of a longtime conspirator who knew how to hide things. “You need to
relax.
”

Cherry swallowed, composing herself. “Excuse me.”

She hurried to the pool house, a tiny cabana with wicker doors. In the shady interior, Spanner sat on an all-weather lounger. Lucas lay with his head in her lap, the damaged ear turned toward the ceiling. In one hand Spanner held a bit of bloody gauze, in the other a dropper of antiseptic. Something made Cherry stop near the door, just outside their line of sight. It was the way Spanner was leaning over Lucas, intimate but not sexual, her lips moving quickly, the words too faint for Cherry to pick up. Lucas looked straight ahead, his face expressionless.

Spanner dabbed his ear, and he winced, though not, Cherry thought, in physical pain.

After cucumber sandwiches (pale, flavorless wafers that piled in Cherry’s stomach like rubber cement), Ardelia suggested a walk through the orchard. Soon Cherry’s flip-flops were squishing through the wet grass. They went along, not talking, beneath the cherry blossoms hanging in damp clouds from their branches. Cherry couldn’t enjoy the view. Her eyes stuck to the back of Lucas’s neck, counting the hairs, studying the place where his hair stopped and smooth skin began. She wanted to reach out and touch it. He’d been quiet since the pool house. That was okay. Lucas could be quiet. He was a quiet guy.