Potboiler

“Well,” Pfefferkorn said, swallowing, “whatever it is, it’s delicious.” He picked up a second sandwich. “I couldn’t eat like this every day. I’d weigh four hundred pounds.”

“You learn moderation,” Carlotta said.

Pfefferkorn smiled. So far he had seen very little of Bill’s home life that could be described as moderate. “How the hell do you keep it clean? You must have a cast of thousands.”

“Honestly, it’s not that bad. Aside from Esperanza, there’s just the butler, and I’m thinking of letting him go, now that Bill’s gone.”

“Come on. One person for this whole place?”

“She’s very efficient. Bear in mind that I rarely step foot into most of the rooms. You haven’t even seen the guest wing.”

“Forget it. My knees hurt.” He reached for a third sandwich. “I feel like a swine.”

“Please.”

“They’re small,” he said. “And I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

“You don’t have to make excuses,” she said, nibbling the corner of a scone. “These are good, aren’t they.” She fed the rest to the dog. “Don’t let me take any more.”

She stood, stretched, and walked to the window. Her backlit form was lithe, and with sudden, agonizing clarity, Pfefferkorn remembered how much he had loved her. The seams of youth, those lines where disparate traits meet and fuse, had been gently effaced by time, and now he looked at her and saw womanhood in its most complete form. He saw what he had sought in his early lovers, in his ex-wife. All had come up short. How could they not? He was comparing them to her. He watched her for a moment, then set down his food and went to join her.

The window overlooked a stone terrace, which in turn overlooked the grounds, which were in keeping with the rest of the house: at once intricate and overwhelming. Other wings jutted obliquely, massive clay walls and burnt-orange roofs.

“All this,” she said.

“It’s a beautiful home,” he said.

“It’s grotesque.”

“Maybe a tad.”

She smiled.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to speak,” he said.

“It’s all right.”

“I feel bad.”

“Don’t. I’m just glad you’re here. It’s been so long, Arthur. I feel as though I have to get to know you all over again. Tell me about your life.”

“It’s the same. I’m the same.”

“How’s your daughter?”

“Engaged.”

“Arthur. That’s wonderful. Who’s the lucky fellow?”

“His name is Paul,” Pfefferkorn said. “He’s an accountant.”

“And? What’s he like?”

“What do you think he’s like? He’s like an accountant.”

“Well, I think it’s wonderful.”

“It will be come April fifteenth.”

“You are happy for her, aren’t you?”

“Sure I am,” he said. “I hope it works out.”

Carlotta looked alarmed. “Do you have reason to suspect it won’t?”

“Not really.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“There isn’t any.” He paused. “I think I always pictured her with—I know how it’ll sound, but—someone more like me.”

“And he’s the opposite of you.”

“More or less.” He tapped his lips. “It feels like a rejection of everything I stand for.”

“And what do you stand for.”

“Poverty, I suppose. Failure.”

“Tch.”

“I’m jealous,” he said.

“Think of it this way. She thinks you’re so fantastic a man that she could never hope to find someone as fantastic unless she chose someone utterly unlike you.”

“That’s an interesting interpretation.”

“I try,” Carlotta said. “When’s the wedding?”

“They don’t know.”

“That’s the way it’s done these days, isn’t it. Get engaged and wait until having children becomes medically impossible. It was different in our day. People couldn’t wait to get married.”

“They couldn’t wait to screw.”

“Please. You make it sound like we grew up in the fifteenth century.”

“Didn’t we?”

“Oh, Arthur, you really are such a grump.” She pointed below to a narrow path, barely visible, that led into an area of unchecked greenery. “That’s the way to Bill’s office.”

He nodded.

“Would you like to see it?” she asked.

“If you’d like to show it to me.”

“I would,” she said. “And I think he would have wanted you to see it, too.”

14.

They moved through the underbrush, ducking ferns and low-hanging vines, the dog bounding ahead in pursuit of a dragonfly. The light turned murky. Pfefferkorn felt as though he was heading into the heart of darkness. Rounding a mossy outcropping, they came to a glade flecked with dandelions and Queen Anne’s lace. Botkin sat by the door to a boxy wooden building, his tail swishing.

“Voilà,” Carlotta said.

Pfefferkorn regarded the building. “Looks like a barn,” he said.

“It was.”

“There you go.”

“The previous owner was something of a gentleman farmer. He bred champion goats.”

Pfefferkorn snorted.

“Don’t laugh,” she said. “The good ones go for upwards of fifty thousand dollars.”

“For a goat?”

“You don’t live around here if you’re poor. You know the part on a ballpoint pen cap that sticks out? So you can clip it onto something? He invented that.”

“My future son-in-law will be impressed.”

“Bill loved it out here,” Carlotta said. “He called it his refuge. From what, I wanted to know. He never did say.”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean it literally,” Pfefferkorn said. “You know how he could be.”