The Stager: A Novel Read online

  a. Property Damage

  b. Sunlight

  c. Sparkle Kittens!

  (b. Sunlight) (A colleague once told me that the correct answer is always “b,” and this has proved to be one of the more useful bits of advice I have been given in life.)

  “Fine,” she says at last. But she doesn’t look happy. “I’ve got to run, and unfortunately I have a dinner tonight, but I’ll call you late afternoon to check in. Okay? Can you keep your phone turned on, and keep it with you, so I can find you?”

  Jorek rubs his fingers together to indicate money.

  Bella takes out her wallet and counts five twenty-pound notes into Jorek’s palm.

  “Two hundred. Time and materials.”

  “I’m afraid that’s all I have.”

  “Don’t worry, darling,” I say. “We’ll walk with you to a cash machine.”

  Bella winces, checks her phone again, and looks at me like she might cry.

  It’s a bit of a long way back to Hampstead Village, where there is an ATM. We have to maneuver a hilly, winding cobbled road. I’d been light on my feet (a whirling dervish in Tretorns, a sportscaster once quipped), but since my knee troubles began I haven’t been in great shape, and I’m winded from our half-mile walk.

  Generally, I prefer driving to walking, and am rather attached to my SUV. The bigger the better is how I like my houses, my fast-food meals, and my vehicles, but I can see that will likely prove problematic in this congested little village, with its quaint historic homes, its fey cafés, and these looping narrow roads. Also, I have no friends here, apart from Jorek; not that I have any friends in Maryland, but at least no one there ever requires me to walk. Add to this the damp, dank chill, and the utter lack of light.

  Thank God we can do something to repair the latter.

  ELSA

  After dinner, while I am doing my math homework, I keep thinking about Dominique. I once heard my dad say that he thought Dominique was a sick rabbit. Not sick like he had a sore throat or the flu, but sick in the head. My mom said maybe Dominique should take some of my dad’s Praxisis, and my dad said maybe he wouldn’t need medication if he didn’t have a pretentious French name. They both laughed.

  “Nabila, do you think Dominique is okay out there all alone? He’s only ever lived indoors.”

  She turns off the water in the sink, where she is scrubbing the pot she used to make us whole-wheat pasta, and turns to face me. “I’m sure he’s fine, darling.”

  “Do you have rabbits in your country?” Sometimes when I speak to Nabila, I feel dumb. Everything she says sounds smart, especially with her accent. She’s also very beautiful, tall and thin like a supermodel. She always wears scarfs in her hair and thick silver hoop earrings that I love. My mom says I’m too young to get my ears pierced.

  “Of course we have rabbits. They can be a little scrawny, but my mother’s a great cook and she can make the best…”

  “The best what?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Never mind why?”

  “I forgot what I was going to say.”

  “Can we go look for him?”

  “I promised your mum you’d do your homework. I’m sure Dominique is fine. And remember how hard we looked for him already? If we couldn’t find him during the daytime…” I know Nabila is right, but of course she probably doesn’t like Dominique, either. He’s just a poor rabbit without his rabbit mother or his rabbit father, and he lives with a bunch of people who don’t especially care that he’s gone.

  On the other hand, maybe it’s a good thing that Dominique ran away, that he was able to recalibrate when he knew that he was in a bad situation that he couldn’t fix. I know about recalibration from my dad. Just before leaving for London, he told me that back when he was a professional tennis player, before he hurt his knees and got fat, the reason he was so successful was that he’d been a master at recalibration. When I asked him to explain what that meant, he said he always had a big-picture plan, even when it had to do with small details. As he reached his arm back into the sweet spot to smash the ball in one of his famous killer serves, for example, he had a specific intent; he knew precisely where he was sending the ball, and he could also anticipate the response, like he could almost get inside the other guy’s head. He said that this skill wasn’t really all that special, that any professional athlete could think this part through, but what made him a superstar was his ability to recalibrate in a nanosecond if the way the wind was blowing or the way the crowd was cheering made him think that the better idea was to smash it far right instead of to the back left corner. He used the idea of recalibration to talk about all sorts of annoying things, like me doing my homework or running laps at field-hockey practice or dealing with Diana, who is supposed to be my best friend but is mean to me sometimes, so I didn’t expect him to start crying when I asked why he hadn’t been able to recalibrate when he wrecked his knees and couldn’t play tennis anymore. He said it was because he was stuck. And then he said something that made no sense: he said that no matter what, he’d always be my dad.

  Of course he’d always be my dad. Plus, he wasn’t stuck. He was walking around the room while he talked. I didn’t understand. He explained that he wasn’t physically stuck, he was stuck in another way he couldn’t really explain to me, since I was too young.

  But I did understand two things: My dad was very unhappy. Also, I was never going to get stuck.

  * * *

  NABILA FINISHES THE dishes and then she says she is going downstairs to put the laundry in the dryer, unless I need any help with my homework, which I do not.

  Then I pick up my phone and send a text to my mom. “Call me please. Important. Socks!”

  I wait awhile, but she doesn’t reply, so I send her another message. This one just says “SOCKS!!!”

  I try to call my dad—he doesn’t do texts—but there is no answer. I leave him a voice message that says, “Dominique still hasn’t come home.” I wait a long time, but he doesn’t call back, either, which isn’t surprising, because he doesn’t really know how to use his cell phone. Once, he asked me to help him check his voice mail and he had eleven messages. One of them was from a friend who was visiting from Sweden and wanted to see him, but when my dad called back he learned the message had been on his phone for three months, and by then the friend had already gone back home. My dad is really lame about computer stuff, too. He’s on Facebook, but he never put a picture up, so there’s just the outline of a man’s head, and he only has about five friends. One of them is me.

  Nabila doesn’t come back upstairs, and I sit in the kitchen alone for a long time, waiting for someone to reply to my texts, or for her to return. I wonder if she is doing the ironing, or if she’s gone into her room, which is in the basement and is the one that is called a half-room in the advertisement about our house, where it says “4.5 bedrooms,” which the Realtor says is because her room doesn’t have any windows or closets or a bathroom, so maybe it’s a bedroom for Nabila, but technically it’s not.

  After a while, I put my books in my backpack and go up to my room. The American Girl food is still spread on the floor, and the girls are still sitting there with their Key lime pie and soup and the ends of the kebob skewers hanging off their plates. I feel a little sorry for them; they probably thought they were finally finished with this luau and could lie down in their beds, or at least change out of their bathing suits.

  I start to pick up the toys, and then I realize no one has fed Molly’s dog in at least a year, so I dig through the pile, looking for his food, but I can’t find it, so I make Molly say, “Hello, Bennett! Would you like some soup?”

  Bennett says, “Arf.”

  Molly says, “Yummy, yummy soup!”

  I start to laugh, and then, I have no idea why, I start to cry. I curl up on my bed, feeling very sorry for the dolls and for my rabbit, but mostly for me, because I don’t want to move to London and no one has even asked my opinion about this. I don’t like the new school my
mom described, where the girls have to wear really ugly plaid uniforms with blue blazers, and I don’t like the pictures I saw of the other school, either, even though you can wear anything you like. And I don’t like how there is no swimming pool in our new backyard. My mom said, “Elsa, I don’t know the last time you even went for a swim, but if you want to swim, we can join a pool!” But who wants to swim in a pool with a zillion other people who will see you in a bathing suit? I don’t like how I look in a bathing suit, especially after I heard Nabila’s friend Annie say, when she didn’t know I was listening, “My, my, that girl is becoming a little chunky.”

  I don’t want to cry anymore, but there are so many things I keep thinking about that make me sad, like how my mom is away because she’s just beginning her Important New Job, and my dad is helping to get the new house ready, and no one is answering my texts.

  After a while, I stop crying and open my eyes, and the first thing I see is the Stager’s bag on the floor. I’m not a snoop, but I go over to the bag, and since it’s already open and stuff is spilling out anyway, I look inside. Her wallet is in there, and a little notebook and some pens, four lipsticks that are all basically the same color, tortoiseshell sunglasses, cinnamon Orbit gum, extra-strength Tylenol, peppermint Tic Tacs—stuff like my mom has, except everything in my mom’s bag is always very organized. She would never put her glasses in there just floating around with the pens, because they might get scratched or even stained with ink, and then everything you would see out of the lenses would have splotches on it. Glasses need to go in the case! And the lipsticks belong in one of the separate zipper pouches! I decide to organize the Stager’s things for her, so I turn the bag upside down and dump everything out, which is not the best idea, since there is so much junk, like crumbs, old dirty pennies, squashed M&M’s, and two more French fries.

  I’m not sure what to do with the bits of crumpled paper or the tampon that’s already ripped open, so I just set them aside and start to organize her wallet, which is in very bad shape. There’s so much stuff in there it barely closes. I look at her driver’s license, and it says that her name is Eve Brenner, she lives at 22 Hollyhock Lane in Rockville, she has black hair and brown eyes, she’s five feet and one inch tall, she weighs 103 pounds, and her birthday is June 24, 1968. And also that she is an organ donor.

  I want to call the Stager to tell her that we both have names that begin with the letter E and end in a vowel and we both have summer birthdays. I wonder if maybe she has a picture of Moses in there, so I look in all of the little compartments. There aren’t any pictures of a dog, but I do see a lot of pictures of a boy, maybe the nephew she mentioned. She has those small school photos of him in there, and on the back they’re labeled, so you can tell that there’s one for every year since prekindergarten. He looks best in the one where he’s about fourteen. His braces have just come off, and he has a big toothy smile, and his hair is long and shaggy. And there’s a picture of someone who looks like Eve from a long time ago with another woman who looks almost like my mom, but I can’t see her face because she’s standing sideways, and also because she’s wearing big sunglasses and has a scarf wrapped around her head like an old-fashioned movie star. They’re both wearing pretty summer dresses.

  I keep staring, but it doesn’t make sense, because the woman who looks like Eve is pregnant, and this Eve didn’t mention having a child. This is almost as confusing as the story about the lady who might have had a nail gun. But the bigger problem is that these photos are getting all crumpled up in her wallet, and I remember that for my mom’s birthday my dad got her a photo album to put in her purse and she never used it, ever. It’s in her dresser, in the right-hand drawer, still in the box from Saks. It’s beautiful black leather, and even though it has my mom’s initials in the corner, they’re really small and you wouldn’t necessarily notice them, so I run upstairs to borrow it. My mom won’t mind. Or maybe what I mean is that she’ll never notice.

  While I’m organizing the photographs, the bag starts vibrating. I feel around and find a cell phone inside another compartment with a zipper. I pull it out and look. There’s a text message from Vince that says, “call me—question about the loft.” I wonder who Vince is. And also, what is a loft?

  I think about sending the Stager a message to tell her Vince has a question about the loft and also to ask what a loft is and also to tell her about our name and birthday coincidences and that I have just put her pictures in an album, but then I worry she’ll think I’m snooping through her stuff, which I’m not—I’m just helping her get organized. Then I laugh at how dumb that is, because obviously I can’t send her a text since I have her phone right here! Also, and this is kind of embarrassing, I feel jealous about Vince and the loft, because I want to be the Stager’s friend and … well, I want her not to have other friends.

  I look at my phone again. There are still no replies to my texts. I understand that things are kind of crazy and happening very quickly, and that I should be very happy for my mom, and I am! Everywhere I go, people say, “Wow, Elsa, congratulations to your mom. I just read about her new job!” Or, “I just saw her on TV! You must be so proud!” And I am proud. Obviously. It’s really cool to have an important mom. My mom is a role model. That’s what they said when she came to Career Day at school. When I grow up, I definitely want to have a job, and be a role model, too. But I want to have a job where I can return text messages when someone says to you “SOCKS!!!” I take the Stager’s phone and I send a text message to myself that says “SOCKS!!!” And then, when I receive it, I write back to her, “YUMMY YUMMY EGG!” It makes me feel better, but only for a minute.

  Then I get a better idea and I look at the Stager’s phone again and see in the contact list a number that says Home. So I hit that button. I’m going to tell her that she has a message from Vince about the loft and that I really want to paint some chairs.

  Nabila comes in and says, “Darling, are you going to pick up this mess?” and I say, “I didn’t make that mess, the Stager did. Plus, I’m busy on the phone.” Nabila stands there with her hands on her hips again, looking at me like this is the wrong answer. “Anyway, you are supposed to help me. Isn’t that why my mom hired you to be my friend?”

  I can hear a voice saying “Hello?” I try to ignore it, but then the voice says “Hello?” again, and it’s very loud, because I’ve accidentally hit the speakerphone button.

  “That’s not your phone,” Nabila says.

  “No. Duh. It’s the Stager’s phone.”

  The voice in the background is still saying “Hello, hello?” So I turn off the phone and put it back in the bag.

  “What are you playing at here, Elsa, darling?” Nabila says in a fake sweet voice. “I talked to your mom, and she said she thought it was creepy that the Stager was playing with you and your dolls, and she said that she was going to call Amanda and ask about this Stager person and that I should keep a close eye on you.”

  “You talked to my mom?”

  “I did.”

  I couldn’t believe my mom had time to talk to Nabila but not to reply to my “socks” message.

  “What were you doing with that lady’s phone?”

  “Telling her she left it here.”

  “Obviously, she knows her phone is here. She’ll get it tomorrow. And if she needs it before then, she knows the way. Now, young lady, you need to pick up this mess and get yourself into the shower and finish your homework and get ready for bed!”

  Nabila has never spoken to me like this before. She takes the phone and the lady’s bag and tells me to pick up the mess right now.

  “Don’t you tell me what to do,” I say. “I didn’t make this mess, and I don’t see why I have to pick it up!”

  “Now, miss, don’t you be talking to me like that. Your mum said…”

  “My mom isn’t here, is she? And you’re not the boss of me, so don’t tell me what to do.”

  Nabila takes a deep breath.

  “I’m going to go down
stairs to finish up some chores, and when I come back up, I expect you to have cleaned up this mess. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

  She leaves the room, and I sit on my bed, thinking about what to do. My parents are gone, Nabila is being mean to me, the Stager is no longer here, and it seems like, if this was a television show or a book, this would be the time when the kid packs a bag and runs away. I consider it, but it doesn’t sound like much fun: Where would I sleep? What would I eat? And also, how much would I miss at school? Still, I have an obligation to my rabbit. Even if no one likes him, he does not deserve to be out there all alone.

  I’m tying my shoes and thinking about how I can get out the door without Nabila’s noticing when I hear my phone beep. There’s a text message from my mom. It says, “Sorry sweetheart, it’s really late here. I’ll call you tomorrow!” I thought it was earlier in London, but then I realize maybe I’m confusing the time in London with when we went to Mexico over Christmas, where it was earlier. Or was it earlier in Rome, where we went last summer? Or maybe it was earlier on the long weekend we went to California for Presidents’ Day. I wonder why they can’t just make the whole world the same time, even though I know the answer, of course, which has to do with the sun. Then I hear another beep from my phone, and it’s a second message from my mom. It says “SOCKS!!! SOCKS!!! SOCKS!!!”

  I notice there are three SOCKS, with three exclamation points each. This seems possibly meaningful, and I want to tell the Stager about it and the Rule of Three, but it will have to wait. I bring Bennett into bed with me, and try to think happy thoughts about Dominique. I hope he’s found someplace warm to stay.

  LARS

  Our Bethesda home is sixty-two hundred square feet. It is so big that there are times when I have trouble locating my family. This is why, when we first moved in, I looked on the Internet and found a company that could install an intercom system. The wiring process became a little fraught, and with hindsight perhaps I should have asked for references. An unexpected glitch required drilling through the just-painted living-room wall, and when that failed to locate the trouble spot, they cut a jagged hole through the drywall. A few minor related installation issues caused a circuit breaker to pop, resulting in a small fire in the garage. These things happen—there are growing pains in home improvement, after all—but in this case it’s true that the intercom system never worked very well, or maybe we just never figured out how to use it.