Lunar Park - Bret Easton Ellis [57]
“He’s, um . . . bipolar,” I told the gardener.
“Yeah, he looks like a problem . . . I guess,” the gardener murmured.
I didn’t say anything.
“I’ll hose it down and . . . we’ll just hope it doesn’t come back.”
(But it will, I heard the woods whispering.)
That was the extent of the conversation. It wasn’t going to proceed anywhere else so I left the gardener and as I started walking back across the yard I could hear voices from the side of the house that faced the Allens’. I moved toward them.
When I came around the corner, Jayne was standing with our contractor, Omar (there had been lengthy discussions recently about adding a skylight in the foyer), and they both had the same stance: hands on hips, faces tilted upward toward the second floor. Jayne noticed me and actually smiled, which I took as an invitation to smile back and join them. Walking over I also looked up. Surrounding the large windows of the master bedroom, and above the French doors that framed the media room situated below it, were huge patches where the lily white paint was peeling off the side of the house, revealing a pink stucco underneath. Omar was holding an iced coffee from Starbucks, Persols pushed up on his forehead, totally confused. At first glance it looked as if the house was peeling randomly, as if someone had blindly scraped at the wall in a rushed and curving motion (could that have been what Robby heard in the middle of the night?), but the longer you stared at the swirling patches they began to seem patterned and deliberate, as if there was a message hidden in them, some code being spelled out. The wall was telling us (me) something. I know this wall, I thought to myself. I had seen it before. The wall was a page waiting to be read. At our feet were flakes of paint so finely ground that they resembled piles of flour.
“This shouldn’t be happening,” Omar said.
“Could it be kids? A Halloween prank?” I was asking. “Could it have happened the night of the party?” I paused and then, trying to gain favor with Jayne, added, “I bet Jay did it.”
“No,” Jayne said. “This started happening at the beginning of the summer and it’s just been accelerating.”
Omar touched the side of the house (I shuddered) and then brushed his palms off on his khakis. “Well, it looks like . . . claw marks,” he said.
“Is that some kind of tool?” I asked. “What’s a clawmark?”
“No—like something’s clawing at it.” And then Omar stopped. “But I don’t know how anybody—whatever it was—got up there.”
“Well, who lived here before?” I asked. “Maybe it’s just naturally peeling.” And then I reminded them of the heavy rains from late August and early September.
Jayne and Omar both glanced at me.
“What? I mean, why was this painted over?” I asked, shrugging. “That’s . . . a nice color.”
“The house is new, Bret,” Jayne sighed. “There was no other paint.”
“Plus that wasn’t the base color,” Omar added.
“Well, maybe the paint’s oxidizing, y’know, the enamel, um, underneath?”
Frowning, Omar grew quickly tired of me and pulled out a cell phone.
Jayne took one more look at the wall and then turned my way. She seemed inordinately cheerful this morning, and when she looked at my face she smiled again. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and I reached out to touch it—a gesture that only widened the smile.
“I don’t know why you’re smiling, baby. There’s a dead crow in our Jacuzzi.”
“It must’ve happened after you got out of it last night.”
“I didn’t take a Jacuzzi last night, babe.”
“Well, there was a wet pair of shorts on the railing by the deck.”
“Yeah, I saw them but they aren’t mine,” I said. “Maybe Jay stopped by.”
Jayne’s forehead creased. “Are you sure they’re not yours?”
“Yeah, I’m sure, and hey—did somebody from the decorating company come by this morning?”
“Yeah, they forgot a gravestone.” She paused briefly.