He placed his pack inside and closed the door after him. The room was appointed with furnishings that were threadbare in a genteel fashion, a funky array of rummage-sale finds. A faded oriental rug covered the central portion of an oak floor. Carmela had decorated the top foot or so of the walls with the intricate designs she was always doodling, a variegated band of geometric patterns that twisted and flowed with a suggestion of movement. The whole effect was subtle but striking. It must have taken a long time to complete.
“You’ve been busy,” he commented, stopping in the middle of the room. She turned and followed his gaze up to her handiwork.
“Yeah, I did that last year. I’ve started the kitchen cabinets. See?” She walked into the kitchen and pointed to the outlines sketched on the corners of the cabinet doors. “But I’m kind of stalled out on it.”
He nodded to indicate that he knew what it was like to be stalled out.
“Hey,” she continued, “I’ll show you around later, OK? I’m doing some alterations for my mom now—I’ve got to get them down there by nine, when they open.”
He raised an eyebrow and pulled out his watch. “It’s almost nine now, isn’t it?”
“No, quarter till eight.” She indicated a clock on the far wall.
“Oh, man.” He smacked his forehead. “You guys are in a different time zone, aren’t you?”
She laughed. “Time zone. I don’t know why, but that makes me laugh. Time zone.” She repeated it once more in a slow monotone, then shook her head and said, “Come on.”
She led him through a set of French doors into a small room down the hall from the kitchen. “This was just a closet, but Manny and my brother Felix expanded it for me to work in. I was set up in one of the bedrooms, but if we ever have babies, we’ll need all our bedrooms.”
She sat behind her sewing machine and took up her work with a whispered sigh. Folded clothes sat on her table, among scraps of material, boxes of thread and other items of her craft. An iron stood steaming on its board. The shelves held linens embroidered with her motifs. A needlepoint sampler she’d made when she was a child was framed on the wall.
“It’s nice in here,” he observed.
“They did a good job,” she said, tinkering with her bobbin. “Manny got the cool old doors from a salvage yard. He got these natural spectrum lights for cheap, too. They’re great—I can see true color in here when I do my needlework, like working in sunlight.”
He sat in a plush armchair, feeling comfortable in the moment. She zipped along in her sewing.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call and tell you what was going on,” he said. “I had to wait for my check, then I hung around to cop a ride off Gloria.”
“What’s the deal there, you and Gloria?” she asked, head bowed to her task.
He rolled his eyes and slumped. “Oh, I’ll tell you about it later. I can’t even think about it now. It’s just too stupid is all.”
“OK,” she replied.
Her machine ratted and tatted, her eyes were fixed in concentration. Russell noted the proximity of their place to the old widow’s farm.
“Actually, that’s one of the reasons we bought this place,” she told him. “It’s really a beautiful piece of land, and the city owns it. The real-estate agent said they were going to annex it to the rest of the park, but I guess the deal hasn’t been worked out yet, ‘cause nothing’s happened so far. Remember going out there and being scary and stuff?”
She grabbed a pair of pants from the stack in front of her and held them up. They had an enormous waist. About three Carmelas could have fit inside them.
“Now that’s scary.”
She folded the pants and said, “Hey, go get the phone book. It’s in the kitchen on top of the fridge. I’ll show you something funny I noticed the other day.”
“All right,” he said as he stood. “But explain your street numbers to me.”
“Talk to Manny about that. You know him. It drives him crazy.”
He returned with the book and stood leafing through it.
“So you see what they’ve done,” she said, directing his attention to the format of the listings. “They strung together the name and the street, and it’s just odd the way it reads. Look up Manny.”
He read: “Fuegas Manuel Mr. Melon.” It made him smile.
“Now check out W, the last Weaver,” she suggested.
“Weaver Wanda Mrs. Walnut.”
She snorted. “Don’t you think they were made for each other?”
He put the book down. “Oh, Carmela, you even make the phone book fun.”
“It’s all in how you look at things,” she let him know.
His mood now fully brightened, he poked through her work on the shelves and pulled out some linens to admire.
“These are lovely.”
She stopped working and addressed him with a serene expression. “Thank you.”
“Hey, you know things that make you laugh, like time zone and Mr. Melon?” he asked, folding her things and putting them back on the shelves. She looked at him gamely, and he continued. “I walked by the roller rink coming down here. Is that old guy still there on the Wurlitzer?”
She confirmed the continuation of the organist at the establishment, and he resumed his discourse.
“Just about anything that guy says will make me laugh. It’s that drone he has, I guess, when he calls out the skating routines, or whatever they’re called—you know? When you have to skate a certain way?”
“Couples skate. Promenade two by two.” She imitated his hypnotic drawl perfectly.
“Yeah, that’s it. There was one, I forget what you were supposed to do, but I cracked up when he said it: ‘Let The Grand March begin!’ It all just seemed so absurd somehow—that cheesy organ playing, people skating around, everybody doing their thing. I don’t know why it was so funny, but it was. I totally lost it.”
“Guess you had to be there,” she said distractedly, putting the final stitch in her last article. She got up and unplugged the iron. The phone rang.
“It’s my mom,” she predicted as she walked into the kitchen to answer it. He followed and helped himself to a glass of water.
“Yes, Mom,” she was saying while making goofy faces at him. “Yes, I just finished. As soon as I get off the phone with you, Mom.”
She hung up and returned to her sewing room. He stayed in the kitchen, drinking his water and checking out her sketches on the cabinets. She packed her work in a milk crate, then took it through a door off the kitchen and strapped it to a rack on her bike. She returned, quickly went down the hall and came back with a helmet on her head.
“Help yourself to anything,” she offered. “Manny might be home for lunch. I’ll be home this afternoon. I’ve got errands to run for my mom, then I’m going over there to start cooking for this big family thing tonight, all the kids and cousins and everybody. You can come, too, if you want.”
He nodded and placed his empty glass in the sink, then followed her out the door. They stood on the porch.
“If you leave, just pull the door closed behind you and it’ll lock, but you have to slam it pretty hard. There’s a foldout kind of couch-bed thing in the room right next to my sewing room. Get some rest. You must be tired.”
She smiled at him as she coasted off. Near the end of the driveway she turned and waved.