Mulch Read online

  He leaned back and took a pack of unfiltered cigarettes from the limp pocket of his shirt. Then, thinking better of it, he put them back. He regarded Louise and Bill with a challenging look. “There’s one thing about you guys I wanna know,” he said. “I wanna know how you guys learned how to move so good. You’re like professionals.”

  Bill smiled ruefully. “That’s because we’ve had so much practice.” He looked at Louise. “Right, honey?” She nodded agreement.

  Joe’s assistants, Earl and the two older men, lounged in the kitchen doorway, drinking their beers but eyeing an open bottle of Weller’s bourbon glowing dark amber on the antique pine table.

  Noting this, Bill asked, “Would you like a shot? It’s mighty smooth stuff.”

  The offering, thought Louise, just like in church. She uncrossed her long legs and got up stiffly. “I’ve got some paper cups somewhere in the kitchen we can use.” The men stepped aside deferentially as she passed.

  “Thanks, ma’am,” said Joe. He poured himself a shot of whiskey and then passed it to the others. Louise could smell their sweat as they hovered over her to reach for the cups. She didn’t want to guess the last time they had showered. She pulled her own wilted skirt down a little. Bill, who came through life’s dirtiest experiences looking clean, had emerged immaculate, from his blond, disheveled hair to his white shirt and tan pants.

  Joe quickly threw back the shot, then heaved a sigh of satisfaction. Then he said, “Another thing is, you guys got good taste.” At this he cast an experienced eye at the furniture. “I like this old stuff. You knew right where you wanted it. Not crowded either. Betcha threw out a lotta stuff.”

  “We had to,” said Louise. “There’s less storage space here.” She wondered how long this ceremony was going to take.

  “You got that little hut out there.” He pointed his massive arm toward the front door. This was the arm that guided Louise’s precious piano to safety, so how could she be impatient? “You coulda put lotsa stuff out there.”

  Bill looked at Louise and then at Joe. “That addition, or hut, as you call it, is going to be Louise’s studio. This is the first time she’s had a place of her own. There’s no way she’ll let anyone store things out there.”

  Louise saw one of the movers, flushed now from the straight bourbon, whisper to the others. She caught the tail end: “pussy-whipped.” They all chuckled, even Earl. Louise was a little disappointed in the beautiful young man. She had thought him more refined than the others.

  “Yeah, now,” allowed Joe. “It’s a nice hut, with that nice little woodstove and them big windows. And this is a real house in the woods. I like it.” With that they all stared out through the tall windows into the darkening woods beyond. This is our silent communion, thought Louise; might as well get into it. She sat back and found herself relaxing for the first time all day. Suddenly there washed over her the sense of camaraderie that comes after working with others. She found herself beaming at her friends the movers, who only hours ago were strangers and who would be strangers again within minutes.

  Then, abruptly, the ceremony was over. “Well, that’s it for peace and quiet,” said Joe, hefting his large frame up straight in the chair. “Mr. Eldridge, why dontcha sign these papers—you gotta sign each one—and we’ll get outta your way.”

  He handed Bill the papers. While he was signing them, the mover pointed his Herculean arm again, this time toward the woods. “Little lady, you got a swamp way out there, depending on where your property ends. There’s a low spot and standing water near that clump of—what is it anyway?”

  Louise walked over to the window. “Bamboo,” she said. “Yes … it looks like an invasion, doesn’t it? I know for sure the little pond is on our property. It will take fill dirt to fix, but we don’t know how a truck will get in here.”

  “Gotta carry it in bag by bag, most likely,” intoned the mover. “Just like they built the pyramids, stone by stone.”

  Louise didn’t hear. She stared out at the yard and the hovering forest so close to their house and was filled with momentary panic. She knew what it was: the moving blues, moving in. Out there was the strange new yard. Another yard. Gone for good their old one in New York, the yard of a rented house, but still their yard, its garden soaring with midsummer bloom. Tears formed in her eyes. All the new things to fix and contend with. New friends to make. What would happen here? How would just the fact that they moved here change their lives? She knew it would, just as in the Ray Bradbury story of the man who entered prehistoric time. By straying from the path and stepping on a butterfly, he altered evolutionary history. She shook her head. But surely not that significant a move. Roughly she brushed tears from her cheeks and turned back to the others.

  Joe had remembered something. “You lads, didja set up that bed in the backmost bedroom? Nope? Earl, you do it while the other fellas load the pads onto the truck. Missus, go with him to tell him where you want it.”

  Louise was impatient now for them to leave. She unwillingly trailed the young man down the hall. He banged the frame together, then leaned over to set up the headboard. The bed was out of place by a foot. “Right about here is where we’ll want it,” she said, shoving the frame briskly. Then the skirt of her dress caught in the steel, forcing her to remain crouched over, close to Earl. “Oh,” she cried.

  Without saying a word he slid his hand around her right breast and pulled her toward him.

  She lurched awkwardly backward as far as the dress would allow. The hand was reluctantly released. She hissed at him: “For heaven’s sake, what do you think you are doing? My dress is caught. Please get me out.”

  “Oh,” he said, his face aflame. “I guess I thought …” His strong hands busily parted the two pieces of steel and gently removed the dress fabric. “There—there, you’re free.”

  She straightened and looked at him, her eyes flashing.

  He got to his feet slowly. She could smell his sweat, or maybe it was her own. In spite of herself she felt a little twinge in her groin and her body flush with heat.

  He looked at her with frightened eyes and said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry. Please don’t tell him.”

  She glared at him. “I won’t tell him, because I suppose it would mean your job. But I’m really curious: what made you possibly think that I …”

  “You were so nice to me. I thought you were comin’ on to me.” He raised his chin a little. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  She sighed and shook her head. “You know, Earl, you really should try to go to college. I think you’re probably a nice person. But … get out of moving.”

  “I’ll talk to my mom. Maybe I should. You know, you’re sort of like my mom—real nice.” He smiled at her. “No hard feelings, okay?” He put out a timid hand for her to shake. She shook it. It was callused and rough and made her feel guilty. This person at eighteen was already a poor, working stiff with calluses a half inch thick. She retracted her own smooth, manicured hand.

  “Okay, Earl,” she said, all business now. “Let’s get going.”

  “Louise,” called Bill from down the hall. “Are you coming? We have to say good-bye to these folks.”

  She joined him at the front door and they drifted with Joe and the moving crew down the front walk to the large truck at the curb. Parked nearby were the scarred and dented cars driven by the mover’s helpers. Bill shook Joe’s hand, transferring several folded bills into his palm, then shook the hand of each of the others. “You did great for us.”

  “Good-bye, ma’am,” they said to Louise. All except Earl cast a last appreciative glance at her legs.

  As they walked back to the house, Louise and Bill slipped their arms around each other’s waists. “I can’t believe it,” Louise said. “They acted just like Janie said they would—and we acted just like Janie said we would. We plied them with beer and bourbon, tipped them, and sent them off in their twenty-ton truck and dilapidated cars to drive drunkenly home.”

  �
��You’ve forgotten, Louise. That kid understands everything much better than we do.”

  “Scary,” said Louise.

  Bill looked at his watch. “It’s five o’clock. Moving in took seven hours. That’s not so bad; beats our last move-in by an hour or so. And you know what I’d like to do now?” He slid a hand down to her hip and gave it a jaunty pinch. “Test our bed. How about it?”

  She looked up at him. “You must be kidding. Or as Joe would say, ‘You gotta be kiddin’.’” She looked at him again. “You are kidding.”

  “You don’t know,” said Bill, propelling her gently into the house. “Maybe I have no other motive than that we just lie down for a minute and relax. I have to prove to you I’m as charming as that young guy Earl.”

  She looked at him. “You noticed. What a hunk, hey?”

  “So did he put the moves on ya in the bedroom?”

  “What if I said yes?”

  “I’d say, I’d have beaten the guy up if I’d known it.”

  “It’s okay, darling. I’m still all yours.”

  They went into their bedroom, dodged empty boxes, and plopped back on the bed together like two children. They rested, hand in hand.

  Then Bill murmured, “This isn’t going to work, you know.”

  “Why not?” asked Louise, already half asleep.

  “Something … somebody will disturb us.” Seconds later, he began snoring noisily.

  The delicate net of near sleep was broken, and Louise’s eyes popped open.

  She lay very still and stared up at the skylight over their bed. Lying here reminded her of games she had played in her youth. At dusk in summer she and her brothers had lain in the empty lot by their house, hiding from their mother’s call to come in for the night. She had lain on hillsides in summer with young men who wished to possess her but were lucky to get a kiss or two. She had always felt that, even if you were an attractive female, lying down and staring up was not a submissive position but rather, an inquiring mode in which to study sky, sun, moon, and stars, and possibly God. She had no idea when they bought the house how delightful it would be to lie here with their private view of the universe. On the left was the top of a tall forest tree, probably sweetgum. It swayed ever so gently in the August night. In the rest of the frame she could see pale stars emerging. Maybe later the August moon would climb into the picture.

  Louise suddenly felt at home. It was as if a load had been lifted from her. They had moved everything they owned from one place to another place hundreds of miles away. And they had survived. And now this was home.

  Like a cat she wiggled her neck and her back against the familiar mattress. Then, unbidden, she felt a rush of sexual desire. She hoped Earl had nothing to do with it.

  She sighed. A lot of good it would do her. Bill had stopped snoring but was motionless beside her, his hand heavy in hers. For a moment she contented herself with staring at the hovering tree in the skylight. Then she impatiently moved a leg, preparing to get up.

  “No, I’m not.”

  She turned her head and looked at him. “You’re not what?”

  He smiled, but his eyes were still shut. “I’m not asleep any more. You thought I was asleep.”

  His eyes opened then and he leaned over her and threw a hand over her belly. She could smell his familiar buttery smell. “It’s been a long time, baby,” he said. “Nine days, I think. It’s always, ‘Honey, I’m too tired—we’re moving.’”

  “I’ve been thinking the same thing. But do you think we’re too sweaty?”

  “Who cares?” He murmured into her neck. His hand sought out her breast.

  “And Janie … Janie might come back.”

  “No worry there. I checked it out. Some dishy lady lives across the cul-de-sac. Her daughter’s Janie’s age.” He moved his hand and began gently massaging the muscles down the length of her back. “And I’ve taken the liberty of locking you in here with me.”

  “You devil, you.” She turned to face him.

  Bill stopped his massage. He leaned his head on one elbow and gently tapped her on the breastbone with a forefinger. “But before we go any further, do you promise me you’ll shed no more tears for the old friends we left behind?”

  “Oh,” she moaned. She sat up abruptly and put her hands on either side of her head. “Why did you remind me? In my mind I’d almost moved; I’d almost forgotten them. And the garden … I’d almost stopped thinking about the garden.”

  Bill gently pulled her down again beside him. “I’m sorry, honey. Please don’t go away from me. I just want you to be all right.” He grinned. “And yet I don’t know why I worry about you. Today you’re mourning lost friends and in about two months you’ll be in the middle of something, people will be running in and out the front door again….”

  She began to snuggle in comfortably against him. “We already have our friends from the last time they made us move here. I’ll just hop on the Beltway and in forty minutes I’ll be out there.” She stiffened a little. “But they won’t be home. Beth teaches, and Ann has her business….I’ve just got to decide what I’m going to do. Maybe freelance.” She turned and gave him a searching look. “Don’t you think it’s time I grew up and got a real job? Don’t you get tired of always being the one who brings home the bacon?”

  He gently smoothed her dark hair and outlined her lips with gentle fingers. “I like bringing home the bacon to you and the girls. You can do what you like. You won’t have any problem: If you don’t find excitement first, it’ll reach right out and grab you.”

  “Oh, you don’t say,” she said, slipping her arm around his stomach and pulling his shirt out. “Well, I could use a little excitement right now. I’ve waited long enough.”

  They kissed, then tumbled Bill’s clothes free, but the buttons on Louise’s dress impeded them. “This dress … where did you get this infernal dress?” muttered Bill. “It doesn’t want to cooperate.”

  “It’s been nothing but trouble today,” murmured Louise. “I bought it for Janie or Martha. They wouldn’t wear it, so I decided to….”

  He mastered the last of the buttons and stripped off her garments. “Give it back,” he said. “It’s too old for you.”

  She laughed and reached over to him.

  3

  New Friends

  THE VIRGINIA NIGHT TREMBLED WITH WET heat. Out-of-sync cicadas screeched in the woods so that the eleven people on the patio—the entire adult population of the cul-de-sac—had to raise their voices to be heard. Louise noted how wet they all looked, herself included, despite the powder she had dabbed on her face before she and Bill crossed the street to join the party. Sweat glazed faces, bare arms, and legs. She smiled in the light of the high torches, thinking of another patio, her favorite, the one in Tel Aviv. The garden there had been buffered against the dry, hot desert winds by filigreed brick walls. Once inside, it was an oasis of calm and color, with soaring palms, clamoring roses on the wails, and Turkscap lilies swaying in the breeze. Prize stands of tulips, an ancient heritage of the Middle East, bloomed in spring, so perfect the blossoms seemed to be carved of translucent soapstone. Amidst this beauty, she and Bill and friends sipped their gin and tonics and talked about the state of the world. That seemed so long ago.

  Her eyes refocused on the present, and on the strangers-cum-friends in the lively circle around her. She knew Washington well, not only its unrelenting tropical summer heat, but the political heat present in almost every activity, and the competitive heat as people clamored for success and status.

  This Washington fever was represented best in the question people asked soon after they met them for the first time. “And where did you get your degree?”

  “Cook County Community College,” Louise always felt like answering, but didn’t, of course, being a well-trained foreign service wife. Bill’s Harvard degrees conferred immediate approval. Her degree worked two ways: Northwestern was good; English, wimpy. She had gotten used to it years ago, but these days, tart retorts cam
e to mind.

  Now she studied her neighbors and wondered how much of this Washington pressure burbled within them. Some had paid welcome visits during the past few weeks; a few they were meeting for the first time. The sweat and vocal competition from the cicadas made everyone seem a little frantic. And the alcohol was obviously working faster in the heat, as if introduced intravenously. Suddenly she conjured up a mental picture of everyone in the Washington area sweating and straining and getting drunk together in this soupy summer night.

  It was obvious these people were used to having fun together. Bantering, jousting, silly, a close-but-not-too-close-knit group of people who genuinely liked each other. With hosts Eric and Jan gracefully leading the way, they had gathered her and Bill in like old shoes.

  Louise had learned a little about them all: Sam Rosen, a congressional aide, living next door to them. Roger Kendricks, on the international desk at The Washington Post. His wife, Laurie, owner of a thriving boutique in nearby Alexandria. Eric Vande Ven, the host, Washington city planner. Hostess Jan, an elementary school teacher. Ron Radebaugh, consultant on businesses in the Pacific. His wife, Nora, a poet, of all things. Then Richard Mougey, a State Department employee like Bill, an expert on the Middle East. His wife, Mary Mougey, a fund-raiser for international causes. An interesting collection, thought Louise.

  No sexual jealousies here that she could perceive, although Nora, who was leaning over talking to Bill, was a smoky woman with eyes luminous in the torchlight. She looked like the sort that all men fall in love with.

  Richard slumped down beside Louise and turned his pale Modigliani face her way. “I can see you’re suffering, my dear. You should be drinking gin like me instead of that 7-UP. Or maybe Eric and Jan should have entertained us all inside in the air-conditioning.”

  “Oh, no,” she said, smoothing back her long, damp hair. “We might as well get used to it again. I didn’t remember it being this sticky but tonight brings it all back to me: One is insane to stay in Washington in August. One should just go off to Maine, or Michigan.” She didn’t know why she had fallen into this pompous style of speech. She was downgrading Richard Mougey by assuming this drivel was what he wanted to hear. She sounded like the kind of person she hadn’t liked in the foreign service crowd. The kind who talked in their own little code and sent each other little verbal signals like “n.o.c.d.,” standing for “not our class, darling.” And spouted worldly little aphorisms beginning with “one should” or “one is.”