Tilt - Alan Cumyn [24]
“The end of a bloody marvelous day,” she said and closed the door by leaning all of her weight against it.
—
Stan made dinner. Pancakes, his one dish. The recipe was in a beat-up old family cookbook with stained and smelly pages. They were low on fresh milk so he used powdered, which they were also low on. Stan’s mother usually did the weekly grocery shopping Saturday morning, so often Friday dinner was sparse.
Flour was in short supply, too, so he used more baking powder than usual and slipped in extra sugar to keep Lily happy.
Not too much of the batter splashed on the stovetop. And there was bacon — last week’s, still hanging tough.
If she’d just give him the money he’d do the shopping and they wouldn’t run out like this.
Stan’s mother wandered the house glued to Gary through her telephone.
“Well, what am I supposed to do? . . . I didn’t! I didn’t invite him! . . . I suppose somehow he’s been in contact with Lily. Despite our agreement! Why the hell would I be surprised by anything he does at this point?”
Ron’s phone was still in Stan’s backpack. But if he told her . . .
Now was not the time.
There was no oil so the pancakes didn’t stick together particularly well. They burned to the nonstick pan instead. The smoke alarm was going to go off any minute.
Water-paste pancakes, charred and crumbling. At least there was syrup. Lily might eat them yet.
“He told me that Kelly-Ann and Feldon have gone to stay with her uncle . . . She’s in pre-law. He’s got money to pay for that. Maybe they’re still using her family money. And he’s a fucking carpenter.”
She was in her work outfit still, her blouse and pressed pants, but with the sorry yellow knitted slippers she tended to wear around the house. Little pom-poms bounced when she thudded across the floor.
“I don’t know if she kicked him out or not!”
The smoke alarm sounded then. Not the family-room alarm, which was closest, but the upstairs-landing alarm. Stan called out to Lily to whack it with the broom.
“You’re going to have to do it yourself,” Stan’s mother said.
He only had batter left for another few pancakes. “Lily!”
“It’s a madhouse here,” his mother said into the phone.
Stan charged up the stairs and swatted the alarm off the ceiling. It howled on the floor until he pried it open with his fingers and released the battery into silence.
—
Later, when the blackened remains of dinner had been cleared away, the three of them, the rump of a family, watched a dating show on television in which former celebrities tried to give romantic advice to contestants whose prize was to end up with each other in full public view. Even Lily stayed quiet, hypnotized by the quick cuts, the glitzy narration, the thunderous commercials. Here was a troubled young woman lying on her bed in semi-darkness — without pants, for some reason, the whites of her legs glimmering — moaning about how easily she’d shed her clothes, and was she too inviting, and would he ever call the number she had made sure he had?
“The weirded-out thing is,” she said, “like, do I even like this guy? Is it, like, too late to be asking?”
She was wearing bangley earrings and her lips seemed puffed out. Nothing about her was attractive except . . .
. . . except Stan felt himself possessed of a ridgepole for no good reason whatsoever.
Sitting on the sofa with his mother and his sister as this young woman in her underwear moved her legs.
Where was the blanket? On the back of the sofa.
The young woman said, “Sometimes I just really want to jump a guy and I have no idea why.”
Stan twisted to retrieve the blanket, trying hard not to press — anything — against anybody.
“What’s wrong?” his mother said. Waking up from some thought.
The young woman wiggled her butt and said, “There’s nothing wrong with, like, healthy sexuality. But I really should be able to remember his last name.”
Stan settled the blanket on his lap. The young woman disappeared, replaced by a ripped guy pumping weights in the gym who said, “She let me in, why wouldn’t I?”
“Lily, I don’t think you should be watching this,” his