Mr Peanut - Adam Ross [87]
It was bright outside, and when Eberling entered the house, his eyes had to adjust from the glare; and there, in the kitchen, emerging as if from this blackness, was Marilyn, kneeling down before her boy, holding him by the arms as if she were cross. She whirled on Eberling suddenly.
“How could you be so inconsiderate?” she said, then stood up.
“Oh,” she said. “No. I’m sorry, Dick.” She looked over his shoulder. “I thought you were Sam.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Sheppard. I should’ve knocked.”
“No, no,” she said. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.” She shook her head and laughed. She was wearing shorts and pressed her boy’s head to her naked leg. “Call me Marilyn,” she said. “Mrs. Sheppard sounds so old.”
In the van now, Eberling rolled down his window. It was getting hot, and when it did you could smell the cleaning solutions in the back, the Fantastic and the Windex and the rags still stained with Pledge, the faint scent of ammonia and oil soap that clung to the mops. He had four houses to clean today. Everybody was having a party for the Fourth and wanted their house to look as pretty as a diamond so their guests would think it was always like that; that instead of the little smudge of shit on the toilet seat or the dog hairs all over the couch or the caulk clots of toothpaste in the sink, you always saw your reflection in the fixtures and faucets and could eat safely off the floors. Then the envious guests would think how much cleaner and shinier and nicer this house was than their own, and therefore how much better their hosts’ lives were—and did anyone thank Dick’s Cleaning Service for his good work? Hardly. No one ever thanked him except Marilyn.
In the distance, at the Sheppard house, Eberling saw a figure appear at the bedroom window. He was sure it was her. He got out of the truck and the breeze hit him, hard and cool. From the bushes beneath the house, a pair of boys bolted down the stairs and then up the beach. It seemed to Eberling that Marilyn was looking over here, and he wondered for a moment if she could see him as well. And if she knew it was him, would she raise the window and wave? Would she give him some kind of sign?
Three days ago, after finishing up, he went and knocked on the jamb of the enclosed patio at the back of the house, looking over the lake. It was just after lunchtime and Marilyn sat at the table with her boy, eating brownies and drinking milk. She wore white shorts cut high on the thigh and a white blouse that revealed her tan skin between the buttons, and a glimpse of her white-lace bra.
“I’m all done here, Mrs. Sheppard.”
“Thank you, Dick.”
He watched her watching Chip eat his brownie and felt a sharp stab of something like hunger. “If you want, you can have a look around before I go,” he said.
“No, that’s fine,” she said. “You always do a good job.”
Eberling smiled and when Marilyn smiled back he noticed she had more green than brown in her hazel eyes. Then the boy knocked his glass of milk off the table.
“I’ll get that,” Eberling said. He pulled a rag from his back pocket and wiped up the milk, staring for a moment at the kid’s fat little legs dangling from his chair, at the balsa-wood airplane down there whose wing Eberling pressed his knee against until he heard it snap. When he was done, he went to wring out the cloth in the kitchen sink. Marilyn got the milk bottle out of the refrigerator and a new glass, but before going back out to the patio she asked, “Can I offer you some brownies?”
Eberling raised his eyebrows and pointed to himself.
“I just made them this morning,” she said.
“That’s nice of you,” he said; then he waited.
“Come,” she said. “Join us.”
“All right.”
He washed his hands thoroughly and, not wanting to disturb the neatly folded towels by the sink, rubbed his palms against his pants. When he came out onto the patio, a large glass of milk was waiting for him along with five brownies on a plate, the china as white as the milk and Marilyn’s shorts and blouse, her skin sun-dark like the treats