The Most Dangerous Thing - Laura Lippman [92]
Chapter Twenty-seven
The problem with Florida, Sean thinks, is that the weather means more yard work. Sure, its partisans would reply, but there’s no snow to shovel. Ah, but snow shoveling ends, eventually. Yard work never does, especially here in St. Petersburg, even with Duncan’s reluctant help. Duncan despises working in the yard even more than Sean does, but Sean is adamant that Duncan must have some household responsibilities. He rejected Vivian’s suggestion that Duncan do laundry or help with meals, two things he genuinely enjoys and might execute without protracted nagging. “Life isn’t just about having fun, doing what one likes to do,” Sean told Vivian yesterday. Even as he said it, he heard his father’s voice in his head, but it was too late to back down. Plus, the old man had a point.
What would Tim Senior have done with a son like Duncan? Not that Tim Senior would have had a son named Duncan to begin with. Like so many things in Sean’s life, this was Vivian’s decision. “Duncan” was mapped out years ago, back in Vivian’s college dorm room, or possibly in doodled daydreams in high school or even junior high. It was a plan of such long standing that Sean couldn’t begin to counter it when she laid it out after they became engaged. They would wait exactly two years into their marriage to start trying to have a child. They would have only one child. Sean was OK with both those decisions. If the child was a girl, she would be named Madeline; if a boy, Duncan. Sean did not approve of Duncan, but Vivian claimed it was a family name. Later, her mother admitted it was merely a name she loved and wanted to use, only she never had a son. Sean should have started a betting pool on how old Duncan would be before some kid at school started calling him Donut. That clocked in on the first day of third grade here in St. Petersburg, when they were new to the town.
What was less predictable, at least to Sean, was Duncan’s ability to roll with such teasing, deflect and thereby neuter it. Even at eight, he was a confident kid. “Just like you,” his mother said, and Sean would have liked to claim Duncan’s poise as his own. But he knew, even then, that it was different, that his own so-called confidence is all bravado. Duncan is genuinely comfortable in his own skin, which may explain why Sean feels this need to make him uncomfortable from time to time. It’s not that he’s competitive with his son, not at all. The kid just takes so much for granted. He wins races, he’s first chair in all-county orchestra, he gets the lead in all the school plays. Not the musicals, because he can’t sing well enough, but the straight plays. Anything he wants to do well, he does.
So it’s infuriating to watch him half-ass it around the backyard, acting as if he can’t quite understand what is required to prepare the garden for the hot months ahead. Sean doesn’t understand, either, but at least he listened to Vivian when she gave them their marching orders after lunch. She was very clear. Vivian is always clear about all her expectations. For example, if Sean decides he doesn’t want to do yard work at all, that’s fine: Vivian will hire someone to do it. Not some guy with a lawn mower and a truck, though. Vivian will hire the full Magilla Gorilla, a landscaping service, guys in uniforms, with mulch that costs about the same per pound as caviar, not that Sean has eaten much caviar in his life. Vivian’s family isn’t that fancy.
The full Magilla Gorilla. That was a Go-Go-ism, a mangling of the cartoon and the arch phrase, which he probably picked up from one of the gangster films shown on Picture for a Sunday