The Color of Law_ A Novel - Mark Gimenez [96]
“No money?”
“We have some money, but not enough to keep this house.”
Boo nodded. “When Cindy’s dad got fired, they had to sell their home. You said that would never happen to us.”
“I was wrong.”
“And you’ve got to sell the cars?”
“The bank will just take them.”
“Are we poor now?”
“No, Boo, we’re not poor. Poor people are like—”
“Mama and me,” Pajamae said.
“So all these bad things, Consuela, the cars, the house, your job, Mother leaving, it’s all because McCall’s mad at you?”
“Yeah…well, maybe not your mother.”
“Mama always says she’s bad luck.”
“Pajamae, your mother’s not to blame. I made a decision. And decisions have consequences. Sometimes bad consequences.”
They were quiet for a long moment then Boo said softly, “Mother was crying. She said I’d be better off without her.”
TWENTY
JULY EXITED THEIR LIVES and August entered, ushering in the dog days of summer when hot air masses called Mexican Plumes settle in over Dallas like mushroom clouds, fending off cool air from the north and rain from the south and trapping the occupants of the land below in an unmerciful mixture of 110 degree temperature and 80 percent humidity, day after day after sweltering day. The winds subside and the air is so still that even the slightest breeze feels like a blue norther. Pollution watches reach level purple, which means just breathing the air can kill you. Sidewalks are vacant of pedestrians, dogs lie all day in the shade, too weary even to engage their tails to swat the flies buzzing about their hindquarters, and TV reporters inevitably fry eggs on the sidewalk as stunts for the evening news. Time seems to slow to a crawl. Women’s hairdos and their prizewinning gardens wilt, car radiators and drivers’ tempers boil over, and incidents of road rage rise dramatically, as do domestic violence calls to 911. The reservoirs supplying Dallas’s drinking water run precipitously low, the city rations lawn watering, the green grass bakes to a crisp brown, and the pest control business picks up as the entire rat population emerges as one from their nests in search of a drink, usually from the family pool. Poor people without air conditioners die.
The only thing Dallas has going for it in August is knowing it’s worse in Houston. Houston’s a goddamned swamp. If the heat and humidity don’t kill you in Houston, mosquitoes the size of small birds will.
“It’s hot,” Scott said.
Life in Dallas in August is lived indoors and in pools. Where Scott Fenney now was, sitting on the steps of the backyard pool in the cool water and wearing sunglasses, a sombrero-style straw hat, and a number 50 sunblock to protect his fair skin from the deadly UV rays. He sucked iced tea through a straw from a big plastic mug like he was siphoning gasoline while Bobby sucked on a cigarette. Boo and Pajamae were playing with a Frisbee in the shallow end of the pool, Louis was sitting in the shade of the patio awning, and out front the FOR SALE BY OWNER sign was slowing traffic on Beverly Drive.
Scott had decided to sell the place himself, without a real-estate agent, an unheard-of transaction in Highland Park. Selling your own house was way too similar in job description to mowing your own grass or washing your own car, manual labor that no Highland Park homeowner with pride, money, and a religious upbringing dared engage in, for to do so called into question the whole concept of divine infallibility: “If the good Lord wanted us to mow our own grass and wash our own cars, then why did He make Mexicans?” Or so the prevailing thought went. Bottom line, if you’re too damn cheap to pay a real-estate commission, then you’re too damn cheap to live in Highland Park. But as he watched his income evaporate before his eyes, Scott had become damn cheap lately.
His asking price was $3.5 million, the market value. But market value didn’t mean squat when the seller was desperate and everyone in the market for a Highland Park home knew it. The best offer to date was $3 million, only $200,000 more than he owed. A broker’s six percent