Objects of My Affection (8 page)

A bearded man bustles out to where I'm standing in the kitchen.
“Miss Marva darling!” he calls out when he sees me. “You have company!”

“I'm not company,” I say. “I'm here to help clean out the place.”

He looks away from me and shouts, “The maid is here!”

For crying out loud—my sweater is cashmere. “I'm not a maid.” That's when I notice that he is wearing one of those scrubs shirts with the wacky patterns. I'm assuming medical profession—a nurse or medical technician (as I doubt a doctor would be wearing a cupcakes print). “I'm here to see Marva, but … is she okay?”

“Yep. Give us a few more minutes. I'm fixing her up with an IV drip.” He pulls a face as he looks around him. “She says there's bottled water in the fridge. I'm afraid to look in there if it's anything like the rest of this place.”

I find myself strangely defensive of Marva. “The refrigerator's fine. The house only recently got this way, and that's because we're organizing. Sometimes you have to make a mess to clean a mess.”

Maybe I will use the line on Will because this guy seems to accept it. He heads to the refrigerator and opens it. “You're right, not bad. By the way, I'm Nelson.” He shuts the refrigerator door. “I'll be popping in for the next few days.”

“I'm Lucy, the professional organizer. Obviously, I'll be here a while. So why does Marva need an IV?”

“Sorry, that's information for family only.”

“I'm working closely with her. If she's sick, I need to be aware of her limitations,” I say, hoping that whatever those might be, they don't slow her pace even further. “I don't want to strain her.”

He regards me as a bouncer might a pimply teen proffering a shady-looking driver's license, but eventually says, “It's a mild infection, but a persistent one. Not uncommon in people with diabetes. We've got her hooked up with antibiotics. The good news is, she'll be able to move about”—he gives another look around the house for effect—“or at least try to.” He screws the cap off the water and heads toward the hall that leads to Marva's office. “Back in a jiffy!”

When Marva and Nelson emerge a few minutes later, she's walking
with a cane in one hand and pulling an IV pole on wheels with the other. She's wearing a silky poncho and slacks, full face of makeup as always. That astounds me. When I'm sick, I tend to look as lousy as I feel.

Nelson gives Marva instructions on how and when to remove the IV, then he's on his way. It seems overly intimate for me to be hearing her medical instructions. It occurs to me for the first time how exposed Marva must feel. Her house and her possessions and her hoarding habit and even her health problems are splayed open for me to see. Whereas I haven't had to reveal anything, not that she'd care to know.

“Are you up for getting started?” I ask. “We can do the mudroom first since there's that nice big chair in there.”

She harrumphs, which I interpret as a yes, not taking offense. I'd be cranky, too, if I had an IV port buried in my arm.

The mudroom is a few steps from where we're standing in the kitchen. With anyone else, I'd wheel the IV pole. I have a hunch I'll find it skewered through my gut if I so much as offer.

We walk over, and before she sits, Marva says, “You seem relatively intelligent. Think you can handle remembering what I'd said I wanted to keep or dispose of yesterday?”

“Sure,” I say, giving her a pass on the
relatively
.

“Take care of it. I have other things to do.”

Yeehaw and hallelujah. I'm thrilled I'll be able to work in peace. I don't let it bother me that it's a total waste of time that she's now trusting me to redo what she made me
undo
because she didn't trust me.

Without having to wait for Marva to debate every decision, I'm finished so fast that I treat myself to a salad at a deli up the street. I can eat the peanut-butter sandwich I'd brought with me for dinner instead.

When I get back, Marva is ready to work, which means I have to slow my pace to hers. It's like that sound of a screeching halt they always play in TV shows—
eeeeeeerch
—as Marva says, “I wonder what's in this drawer here.” Next thing I know, we're sitting next to
each other on dining room chairs I swept free of piles. She's painstakingly taking out each item from the cabinet drawer and reflecting on it. “This kachina doll … I believe it's from the Hopi tribe … or Zuni …” She's talking to herself more than to me, but I “mmm-hmm” her and tease it from her hands as quickly as I can. The sun sets and then rises again, and then days turn into weeks, months into years, as we make our way through that one drawer.

I'm getting antsy as I wait for her to thumb through a bound manuscript she's found. When she closes it, I see it's the screenplay for the movie
Pulp Fiction.
There's an autograph scrawled across the front that appears to be Quentin Tarantino's.

“That was a great movie,” I say.

She grimaces. “He's so pompous, as if I'd want his signature. Do be a dear, will you, and put this in the theater room?” She says the word like thea
tah.

“The theater room?” There's only one room I haven't yet seen, and that's Marva's bedroom—must be one and the same.

“One door past the office.”

Glad for the chance to stretch my legs, I head down the hall that leads to her office. There are only three doors: her office, a bathroom, and what I'd assumed was her bedroom but must be the mystery theater room.

I struggle to push open the door. It's catching on a life-size golden Oscar statue on the other side of it. Nudging it out of the way, I flick on the light.

This is obviously the master bedroom. A bed shoved up against the far wall is cleared off enough to be currently in use, and clothes are strewn everywhere. But I can see why Marva refers to this as the theater room. It's packed with movie posters and memorabilia and thousands of DVDs and VHS tapes. There's a path from the bed to a large-screen TV in front of a bank of vintage red velvet theater chairs.

He would love this room.

He'd go absolutely nuts in here.

Annoyed, I chase the thoughts from my head, but it's too late.
That's the problem: Most of the time I'm braced for missing Ash. So I'm on constant heightened alert for anything that might remind me of him.

But this isn't about Ash.

It's about Daniel.

Looking about the room, I find that the sadness isn't hitting me so much head-on as it is creeping up my legs, tendrils spreading over me. It devours me slowly, lazily, like those evil plants in
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
—a movie that Daniel has made me watch about five thousand times because it's his favorite.

S
even months ago now Daniel dumped me. I once read that for every year you're in a relationship, it takes half a year to get over it. So it looks like I have a couple years to go.

I met Daniel when I was working as a copywriter for McMillan Advertising and PR downtown. I'd been there two years when he was hired as a graphic designer. Only about forty of us were there. Normally there'd be quite a bit of speculation among the women about a new guy who was single and in his thirties. But we were all busy nursing wild crushes on the company vice president, Buck Henson. Buck had those sort of chiseled good looks that walked into a room before he did, and the charm that made it clear when he talked to you, you were the only woman in the world—even if five other flush-faced females next to you were feeling the exact same way. So in came Daniel Kapinski—kind of skinny, baby-faced, with a tendency to walk hands in pockets and slightly leaning back, as if always being blown by a strong wind.

He wasn't the sort you noticed.

But
I
noticed him. Though not right away. Not until we were thrown together on a project. I remember sitting with him at his Mac, going over drafts of an annual report. He'd been at McMillan only a couple months, but he'd already amassed such a ridiculous collection of toys and figurines there wasn't much desk space for anything else.

“You want to move Malibu Barbie there so I can put my folder down?” I said.

“That, I'll have you know, is an action figure of Brandon Lee in his role in
The Crow.
He was killed during filming by a faulty popgun. It's quite valuable. Great film.”

“Never saw it. And this is lovely.” I picked up a bloody, knife-wielding baby doll perched on the edge of the desk.

“Chucky, from
Bride of Chucky
. Sadly, not Chucky in
Child's Play 3
, which are harder to come by.”

He took the doll from me and set it back in its place. Then he picked up a felt bowler hat and set it on my head.

“Don't tell me,” I said. “The hat is from
Mary Poppins
.”

“A Clo
ckwork Orange
. Just a replica though. Looks good on you.” He smiled at me. Not Buck Henson's dazzling smile. More boyish. A sweet overbite.

“I never saw that one either. You know what else I've never seen? A James Bond movie, or
Rocky
, or”—I tried to list off the manliest films I could—“or any of the
Godfather
movies.”

He faked being stabbed in the chest. “You're killing me here. Seriously. We need to work on your film education. I can't continue to work creatively with someone who has never seen James Bond. There must be some sort of HR policy protecting me from that.”

What can I say? I was smitten.

We slipped so easily into dating I barely noticed that we were—except that eventually we started having sex. That I
definitely
noticed. Then Daniel started saying crazy things like “I've never felt this way about anybody before.” I started doing crazy things like letting him store his collection of vintage movie posters under my bed—even though I
hate
having stuff under my bed.

We'd been at it for months when he said, “So, when am I going to meet this kid of yours?”

“Huh?”

“Ash? The son you claim to have? Eighth grade? Rumored to dislike
pizza but love Lucky Charms cereal? Surely you've noticed him there in your house.”

“I was wondering who that was.”

“Seriously,” Daniel said, “don't you think it's time you introduced us?”

In truth, I'd been stalling. One doesn't casually parade men in front of a boy whose own father all but abandoned him. I didn't want to see Ash get hurt again. “At some point,” I said.

“Luce, I'm tired of sneaking around like a couple of horny teenagers trying not to get caught. I'll admit it was kind of hot at first. But it's getting old.” He held my face in his hands the way they do in corny romance movies. “I'd like to meet the most important man in your life. I promise I won't embarrass you.”

“I never thought you would.”

“He doesn't even have to call me Dad on the first date.
Sir
is fine. Or maybe
Your Eminence.
”

I gave in—how could I not? After a brief discussion, we decided some wholesome family fun such as putt-putt golf or a movie would be a nice, low-pressure way for them to meet.

Only, as luck would have it, the three of us had a chance to get together before that. It was a Friday, when Ash was spending the night at a friend's. Daniel and I, taking advantage of the empty house, were engaging in some fun of our own. Of the not-so-wholesome variety.

“Did you hear something?” I said, propping myself up on my elbows in the bed.

Daniel, busy kissing his way down my naked belly, impatiently tugging my panties down, gave a response along the lines of “Hmmph?”

“I heard a noise. Like a banging.”

“Yeah?” He didn't break stride—we were almost fully naked and sex between us was still too new to worry about things such as noises … or banging … or bedroom doors bursting open or—

With the reflexes of a ninja, I yanked a blanket over us.

“Hey, Mom, do you know where the—” Ash stopped, hand on the doorknob. “What the … ?”

“You ever hear of knocking?” I snapped.

Daniel, his face inches from mine, mouthed,
Fuck
, which I'm sure accurately completed Ash's sentence.

“Oh,
gross
,” Ash said in utter disgust, piecing together that two heads and four feet peeking out from his mother's blanket was about as cringe-worthy as it gets.

“Go,” I said firmly, gathering my wits enough to take action. “I'll be out in a minute.”

With only a grunt of contempt, Ash left. I fished around under the covers for my bra, as if, if I got dressed fast enough, this would never have happened.

“That's not the first impression I was going for,” Daniel said. “I don't think he saw anything, though. You were pretty swift with the blanket. I had no idea you could move that fast. Impressive.”

“It's not funny, Daniel. He saw his mother having sex. With a
stranger.
”

“Technically, we weren't having sex. That was foreplay. If it were sex, we would have been—”

“Stop it!”

He stopped. “I'm sorry. What do you want me to do?”

“Just … I have to think.” As we pulled on our clothes, I reeled with regret. Here was a guy I was falling for—but this just blew it. It was over. Ash would never want to have anything to do with Daniel after meeting him in such an awful way. As much as it might hurt, I had to respect that. Ash came first. “Let me go out and talk to him, okay?”

“Whatever you want,” Daniel said, tugging his T-shirt over his head.

I finished getting dressed, then went to find Ash. He was in his room playing a video game.

“I'm sorry you walked in on that. I didn't expect you home.”