Broken Homes & Gardens Page 5

  “Not too many,” he said.

  All those letters, back and forth for two years, but in person, she had a hard time reading him. “I just realized we’ve spent less than twenty-four hours of our whole lives together. And that’s including today, standing up for Ted and Laura, arranging zinnias and things.”

  “True,” Malcolm said. “But I’m here now.”

  5

  outside it was snowing

  Joanna spent the month of December reading five-page student essays that “demonstrated an ability to quote, summarize, and paraphrase.” Stagger deadlines and assign more exciting essays next time. Lesson learned.

  She and Nate had agreed to spend Christmas apart, purely for logistical reasons. He hadn’t been back home in two years, and one of his best friends was getting married on Christmas Eve. She insisted he drive up to Seattle without her. The end of the semester would require all of her time and energy, anyway. Then she would have to plan for spring term. She had syllabi to create, textbooks to adopt, assignments to write.

  Malcolm called her on Christmas Eve. “What’s the plan for tomorrow?”

  Joanna was sitting on the couch under a quilt, drinking hot chocolate. The day had disappeared under a haze of televised Christmas movies and trashy magazines she would be embarrassed to read in front of Nate. The night before, she’d finished her stacks of essays and submitted her final grades, and she intended to celebrate by doing nothing that required any mental exertion at all. “I haven’t planned a thing.”

  “But we’re still on for tomorrow, right?”

  “Of course.” She took a spoon and began eating the chocolaty sludge at the bottom of her mug. She hadn’t seen Malcolm since Thanksgiving. It seemed like months ago. “Is Christine coming?” Christine—tall and thin, wearing a ruffled vintage blouse—had accompanied Malcolm to Thanksgiving dinner at Ted and Laura’s. Joanna pictured the three of them—Malcolm, Christine, and Joanna—eating Christmas dinner together in a fancy restaurant, then exchanging gifts by a roaring fire.

  “Christine? No.”

  “Did she go home for Christmas?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Oh.” She smiled to herself. He said he’d come over in the morning so they could open presents under the tree. She surveyed the room. Nate had been hoping she would lend a “woman’s touch” to the place when she moved in, and she had let him down. The furniture—garage sale finds, most of it—belonged to him. A dusty ficus sat in the corner by the bookshelves. She could clean it up and hang a few ornaments on it. “Perfect,” she said.

  The next morning, Malcolm turned down the corners of his mouth at the sight of the houseplant, decorated with some dangly earrings from her high school days. “What is this? We should at least have some lights or something.”

  She had made an effort to tidy up the living room, sweeping her piles of books and papers into the bedroom and shutting the door. The dishwasher was loaded with her dirty cups and plates, the rug vacuumed, the kitchen counter relatively clear. If she’d known Malcolm expected evergreen garlands and dancing nutcrackers, she might have rummaged around for some decorations. Unhappy with the dearth of festivity, Malcolm made them spend an hour of Christmas morning taking advantage of the holiday discounts at the store.

  They were going to make cinnamon rolls, he announced when they returned. Growing up, he and his mom had always made cinnamon rolls Christmas morning before his dad got out of bed. They’d let them rise while they were opening presents “under an enormous tree with thousands of ornaments” and then put them in the oven “so the whole house smelled like cinnamon.”

  “Wow,” was all she could think to say in response to that.

  She couldn’t even remember a Christmas with both of her parents together. She and Laura spent Christmas morning with her mom, and went to Denny’s for dinner with their dad. The only redeeming feature of the split-household Christmas was that they got to open presents twice in one day.

  Once Malcolm had strung a new strand of twinkling lights across the living room, plugged in a little artificial Christmas tree, and set the dough on top of the refrigerator to rise, he was in high spirits. They settled themselves on the floor in front of the little tree to exchange gifts.

  Malcolm presented her an unwrapped wooden box. It was about the size of a thick book and sanded smooth.

  “It’s just a box,” he said. “Inside is the present.” She opened the lid, took out a tiny square of paper, and unfolded it, revealing a sketch of a little hut with a built-in bench. “I’ll build you one this summer in your backyard,” he explained. “If you still want one.”

  “Want one? I’d kill for one.”

  “Right. Ever since the time you made out with me in that one I built over at Ted’s, right?”

  Joanna felt her cheeks grow hot. “What are you talking about? We didn’t—”

  “Oh right. That was later. You lured me upstairs and then you jumped on me.”

  “If that’s the way you want to remember it, be my guest.”

  “Thank you. I will. Okay. My turn.” Malcolm reached for the large package she had wrapped the night before. Nate kept what seemed like an entire closet full of wrapping paper and ribbons, and she had spent forty-five minutes making the present appropriately festive. Now she wondered if the glinting foil paper and jaunty crimson bow would create false expectations for the box’s contents.

  She lunged for it. “Wait. Don’t open it.”

  “It doesn’t count if it’s not on Christmas.” He stared her down. “Give it to me.”

  Joanna relented and handed him the package. She watched as he untied the bow and then ripped off the paper. For a minute, he just peered into the box, lifting items out and setting them back in.

  “Why, thank you, Joanna,” Malcolm said. “This stuff will certainly come in handy. I mean, everyone likes coffee. And dental floss.”

  “It’s not just coffee and dental floss, of course. I mean, give me some credit.”

  “Right. And popcorn—”

  “Do you think I’d just gather an assortment of sale items from the grocery store shelves?”

  “Well …”

  She laughed. “Okay—look. Real coffee—you missed it while you were gone. You said you could only find instant. Natural peanut butter, spices—the food was so bland. You wrote me about it, that you’d give anything for a jar of red pepper flakes—”

  “Dental floss?”

  “You told me it was available only in the big towns.”

  “Right.”

  “I guess it would have made more sense to send this to you in Kazakhstan.”

  “Nah,” he said. “Hey—come here.”

  She leaned in to hug him, then kissed him on his prickly cheek. It was like kissing a porcupine. “Merry Christmas,” she said.

  It was dark outside, freezing cold. “Looks like we might have a white Christmas after all.” Malcolm’s teeth chattered through his words.

  “I don’t know how you survived two winters in Kazakhstan. It’s probably seventy or eighty degrees warmer here than it is there.”

  He crossed his arms across his body and tucked his hands under his armpits. Neither of them was dressed for such cold weather. It had been drizzly when she woke up that morning, but now they were surrounded by fog. She didn’t even own a real coat; she was wearing two sweaters and a wool jacket with a hood. He had his hooded sweatshirt on over a sweater and a long-sleeved shirt. A few hard flakes of snow whirled around them. It didn’t seem as if they were falling from the sky as much as following them down the street.

  The movie theater greeted them with a blast of hot air. They sat down with a bucket of popcorn between them. When her hand brushed against his, she flinched. Even after almost fifteen minutes of previews, his hands were ice cold. “Malcolm!” she whispered. She took his hand and pressed it between both of hers, trying to get the blood flowing through his bony fingers. He stared straight ahead, absorbed in the opening credits. After a few minutes he l
ifted the armrest between them and shifted toward her, placing his other hand between hers. They sat like that, all four hands together in a heap, for the entire ninety-two-minute movie.

  In the lobby, Joanna took a quick peek at her phone to see if Nate had tried to reach her during the movie. “You can call him if you want,” Malcolm said.

  “He was just returning my call from earlier. See?” She showed Malcolm the text message Nate had left her.

  “‘Merry Xmas’? That’s what you get? He didn’t even type out ‘Christmas.’”

  She shrugged. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow. It’s a holiday.”

  Outside it was snowing, which would have made Joanna delirious with happiness if she had been wearing a real coat and hat. They shuffled back to her place, then stood shivering at the doorstep. “Do you want to come in?”

  He put his arms around her and squeezed. “Are you offering to warm me up?”

  She gave him a gentle shove. “You’d better go.”

  That night she kept waking up, teeth chattering, even with every blanket in the house piled on top of her. At seven o’clock in the morning, her breath came out in visible puffs. So this was what orphans endured in Victorian novels. Her body couldn’t move under the weight of so many covers. After a half hour of shivering, she wrapped two or three blankets around herself and made her way to the thermostat.

  Malcolm’s voice sounded groggy when he picked up the phone.

  “My heater is broken! It’s forty-six degrees in here!” she informed him.

  He told her a story about standing at a bus stop in Kazakhstan when the bottom of his boots had frozen to the street. Then he grumbled and said he’d come to her rescue.

  Malcolm tapped on the thermostat, stomped down to the basement, and returned a few minutes later. “You’re out of oil.”

  “What?”

  “The oil tank. It’s empty.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “You’ve got to call an oil company and have them fill it back up.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s the day after Christmas. And tomorrow’s Saturday.”

  “So?”

  “So good luck.” He smiled at her. “You can stay with me if you want.”

  It was still snowing—the entire street was hushed and white. They barely made it to Malcolm’s place. “We’re going to be snowed in all weekend,” he said when they arrived at his doorstep.

  His apartment—a large, rectangular room with a kitchen tucked off in one corner—sat on the corner of the first floor of a three-story building, set up off the street so passersby couldn’t peek in. She threw herself on the couch and looked out the bank of windows at the snowfall. Snow lined every branch of every tree. When the wind picked up, a flurry of flakes would dart across the sidewalk and collect in a heap along the edges of the building.

  “Tea?” Malcolm asked.

  Joanna nodded. When Malcolm went back into the kitchen, she dialed Nate’s number for the fifth time that day.

  He picked up on the first ring. “Joanna! What is this all about?”

  “You got my messages?”

  “The furnace broke or—”

  “We’re out of oil. I can’t get anyone to come fill up the tank. We’re practically snowed in here.”

  They talked for a bit about the weather, the price of oil. “You at Laura’s?”

  She paused. “Laura and Ted are in California, remember?”

  “Oh yeah. You’re not home, are you? It’s got to be freezing in there—”

  “Well, I called Malcolm when I couldn’t get the heat to turn on. So … well, I guess I’ll stay over at his place for a few days.”

  She didn’t hear anything on the other line for a few moments. For a blissful second she thought they’d been cut off. “Good, good,” he said at last, in a cheerful tone. “Thank Malcolm for me, okay? We can take care of the oil tank when I get back.”

  Malcolm walked in, set the cups of tea on the coffee table in front of the couch where she was sitting, listening to Nate, who had started talking about his Christmas. She smiled her thanks to Malcolm as he sat down next to her.

  “So my parents ended up inviting her to stay for New Year’s,” Nate was saying.

  “Wait. What?”

  “Melissa. She’s staying with us for a bit, just so she can get back on her feet again.”

  “What? How did this happen?”

  “It’s complicated. It had nothing to do with me. … My parents invited her.” She’d been there for two nights already—two nights!—and planned to move back to Seattle for good after she sorted a few things out.

  “Like what kind of things?” Joanna was having a hard time figuring out why his ex-girlfriend would need to stay with Nate’s parents, of all people. What about Melissa’s own parents? Didn’t she have any friends at all? Relatives?

  Unfortunately, Melissa’s own parents had already made plans for Christmas they couldn’t get out of, Nate explained. Melissa had downplayed how unhappy she was, told them she was going to spend Christmas with some friends from high school. So her parents went ahead and left town without her. That’s how Nate’s parents came to find Melissa at the supermarket, crying in the dairy aisle. She had gone in there and forgotten how to shop for herself! It had been so long since she had been in control of what she bought at the store. Charles had done all that for her.

  Malcolm’s eyes widened in alarm as Joanna’s voice got louder. “This doesn’t make sense!” He made a motion to stand up, but she grabbed his arm. He sat back down, and she positioned the phone between them so Malcolm could listen in. Nate was sighing, saying she was being unreasonable. “Say thanks to Malcolm for me,” he said for the second time before hanging up the phone.

  “Can you believe this?” she asked Malcolm. “His ex-fiancée? Meanwhile, he doesn’t seem to care that I’m spending the night with you.”

  “You want to give him something to worry about?” He set his tea down and snaked an arm around her shoulder.

  “Come on, Malcolm.” She gave a nervous, half-hearted laugh, but then settled into the crook of his arm. “Be serious.”

  “I can sleep on the couch,” she said that night. “I brought my sleeping bag.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You can sleep on the bed.”

  “I don’t want to kick you out of your bed. The couch is fine, really.”

  “You wouldn’t be kicking me out. It’s big enough for the two of us.”

  She laughed. “Right. Nate would love that.”

  He held up his hands in innocence. “Hey. I can control myself. Now, if you, on the other hand, don’t feel you could resist—”

  “You’re forgetting that I have a hot guy—complete with a tan and well-defined ab muscles—coming back for me. You’re the one who’s all alone.”

  “Well, if you like that Ken-doll look—”

  “I do.” When she’d first met Nate, her initial thought was that he was too handsome, almost faultless. He was tall, tan, and his chestnut brown hair waved perfectly over his head. But when he smiled he didn’t look quite as perfect anymore. It’s not that his teeth were crooked or that his smile was gummy—it’s that his mouth was too big for his face. His teeth, too, were oversized, gleaming white. It threw everything off—but in a good way. She didn’t trust physical perfection.

  Malcolm stripped down to his boxer shorts, pulled back the covers, and hopped into bed. He patted the other side of the bed. “Coming?”

  She had deliberately packed her most unbecoming pajamas, so as to not give off the wrong signals. Wearing drawstring sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt, she wondered if she may have taken the idea a bit too far. “Just stay on your side of the bed,” she warned, lying down next to him.

  “The same goes for you,” he said primly, pulling his covers up to his chin.

  She laughed and turned away from him. “Good night.”

  Her feet were cold, but seeking out another blanket or a pair of socks seemed like too much trou
ble. She lay there, gazing out at the snow, watching it drift through the glow of the streetlight. Hours later her eyes opened. Her entire body had warmed to a perfect toasty temperature. Malcolm had wrapped his body around hers, his hand rested on her hip. She listened to the steady rhythm of his breath: in and out, in and out.

  She should move his hand off her hip. She thought this, agreed with herself that this was what she should do, then closed her eyes again.

  6

  even dentists have problems

  Joanna found a very convenient way to not care about her boyfriend spending Christmas with his ex-fiancée: she just turned off her phone and directed her attention to other things. She and Malcolm hunkered down in his apartment. His street remained unplowed, so no cars could get in or out. They played cards and read books. They tromped outside with broken-down cardboard boxes and sledded down carless streets.

  On the second night, they watched a movie, sitting on his bed, sharing popcorn. Then they snuggled under the covers as the snowdrifts outside climbed their way up the sides of the building.

  “They say this happens only every ten years or so,” Joanna said.

  “What happens?”

  “All this snow. Not even a foot on the ground and everything shuts down for a week.”

  “We got lucky then.”

  Even with the T.V. off she could see Malcolm perfectly, his face illuminated by the streetlights reflecting off the snow. “How long do you think we’d survive in here?”

  “Well. Forever, I guess. All the stores are still open, so …”

  “I mean, if it got worse. More and more snow, all winter long. The stores shut down and we had to stay here.”

  “Hm. What would we eat?”

  “We’d have to hunt. Set traps outside for raccoons and squirrels.”

  “I couldn’t eat a squirrel,” said Malcolm.

  “Okay, fine. So we’ll have to live on pantry items and melted snow.”