A Hole in the Universe - Mary McGarry Morris [6]
“C’mon, Gordon, just give it a chance, will you? I know people. Lisa’s dad—I got all these contacts. I’m not going to let you down. You know I’m not!” He turned too fast into the narrow driveway, annoyed yet again with the hard bounce over the concrete berm, their father’s barrier against rainwater surging in from the street, even though the driveway was pitched higher than the road: his life’s energy squandered on petty projects, meaningless chores like his beloved rosebushes overrun now with weedy vines.
“I know,” Gordon said before he got out.
A curtain moved in the window of the house next door. Gordon looked away quickly, but Dennis waved. “Always on duty, the old bitch,” he said through a smile as Mrs. Jukas peered from the side of the curtain the way she used to when they were kids.
“She must be lonely without Mr. Jukas. He was a nice man,” Gordon said.
“Yeah, nice man, always bird-dogging Mom.” He didn’t tell his brother, but after their mother died Mrs. Jukas had cornered him at the funeral home to say she hoped he wouldn’t be selling the house to Puerto Ricans now the way everyone else had done. It wasn’t his to sell, he’d said, enjoying the sour pucker of her mouth. His parents had left it to his brother.
Even freshly painted with new blinds and curtains, the wallpaper borders, and Lisa’s delicate stenciling in the kitchen, it still looked the same. Tired, cramped, the kind of place you’d live in only because you had to. When Gordon had seen it last week, he had been amazed by the changes, the furniture, the big television on its laminate wooden stand, the cordless phone. Even the metal storm door, he had said, entering the kitchen, overwhelmed to think they’d bought all this for him to live here. Dennis had to explain that things seemed new only because he had never seen them before. Most of it had been bought by their parents after he went away. Went away, the euphemism, their code for imprisonment, for the wrenching turn their lives had taken. Gordon had gone away, taking along laughter and whatever good times there had been. Now they were gone and he was back.
Gordon’s big feet thudded up the stairs. He can’t wait to get out of the suit and tie. What was that all about? Dennis wondered. Just a favor he had to do for me? Go through the motions, never being honest so people won’t get mad at him? So they can’t get too close? Dennis called up to remind him that Lisa was expecting him for dinner Friday night. “She wants to know if you’re bringing Delores,” he added.
“It’ll be just me.”
“But you said you were going to ask her!” When Dennis had run into Delores the other day, he’d mentioned dinner, foolishly saying that Gordon would call her.
“I know, but I didn’t.”
“So call her now. She’s dying to see you. She told me.”
Looking down from the top step, Gordon shook his head. “I don’t want to.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t feel like it.”
“Jesus, she’s your friend! I mean, she’s been writing and going up there for how many years now?” Not much to look at, maybe, but she was exactly what his brother needed right now, a good woman and a good job. Gordon’s impassive stare was maddening. Goddamn sphinx, he should consider himself lucky Delores even cares. Lucky she’s so desperate. “You gotta call her, Gordon. It’s the least you can do.”
“What time should I come?”
“Anytime.” Dennis grinned with the rare concession. “We’ll probably eat at six-thirty or seven, but you know Lisa, the earlier the better!”
CHAPTER 2
As Gordon came down Nash Street, he wondered if the Dubbin family still owned the Market.