Mantua Bay (6)
“That yard, what a complete disaster,” Sara said for the third time from their bed.
She’d been annoyed already when she stormed into the house during the initial onslaught of rain, Steven on her arm cloaked in a soggy beach towel. But then she saw what had become of the backyard and had turned almost horrified.
“It is, babe. I know. I’m so sorry.” Jeff placated his wife absentmindedly while shaving to the din of rain hammering the roof shingles outside their bathroom window. Steven was currently in the middle of a post-lunch nap. “I’ll make an appointment with a landscaper and we’ll have us a makeover out back. The yard has been in sorry need of one. Well before the digging.”
It turned out Mara was just as clueless about the yard as anyone else was. Their real estate agent had dignified his text message with no more than a single question mark. That was it.
Jeff considered pushing the matter with her further, but found he no longer knew what he wanted to say, or what he wanted from her. Really, from anyone. It was a frivolity that quite clearly had served as a welcome distraction from a more pressing line of obligations. For one, there was taking care of the house they’d hardly moved into; finishing the painting, installing the plasma screen that still sat in a box in the living room, landscaping the yard he mostly destroyed. Then there was finishing the short story, hardly breathing on its own. With that finished, he could show Kass something of worth, and once again ensconce himself within the grouping of relevant, commercial authors Americans wanted to read.
As it turned out, people wanted his work adapted as well. That production company was ready to pay arm and leg for the Debts and Debtors rights, per Kass’s latest. The likelihood of the book getting trashed was high, but they decided to sell the rights anyway.
“It’s truly disgusting out there,” Sara agreed. “No more digging up the yard. End this fascination of yours. Please, Jeff.”
“You got it, babe.”
“Thank you. How’s the story going for Kassowitz?”
“Swimmingly.”
“Truth?”
“The truth.”
“Okay. We missed you today.”
“I missed you both too. Sorry for bailing on our beach date again. I really am.”
“I don’t want ‘sorry,’ Jeff. I want the time. Your son wants it too.”
“I know, babe. I’m going to make it better. It won’t be long until I get to the bottom of this story.”
Jeff wiped his face down with a washcloth and joined Sara on the bed. Fresh sunburns streaked the top of her chest and underscored crescent-shaped tan lines around breasts which poked partially from a loose tank. She smirked at Jeff’s checking her out, and shoved a palm playfully into his eyes. “How about getting to the bottom of me first?” she said.
Rain bore brutally down on the house and collected within the yard like a miniature canal. From the porch door, Agnes watched the rain-filled formation that overran the Fowler yard in fascination. Her eyes followed it toward the yard limits, where the low pines nodded in the storm winds. She took note of the bobbing limbs, where a little figure that might’ve been mistaken for a squirrel climbed branches. It descended systematically, taking one limb at a time before splashing into the yard, where it sank lazily into the grass like a slug.
