floor-to-ceiling blond curtains, was a bright, true red that stood out like lipstick on a woman so rigorously elegant that she refused all other makeup. There wasn’t a framed photo or a book anywhere. So when I say the place was nice, I mean hotel nice, not homey nice. And way too quiet. Outside as well as in. What kind of city doesn’t grumble to itself at night? Even Omaha was noisier than this.
Then I heard someone bumping around out in the hall and voices murmuring and, softly, the piano. I got out of bed and crept to the door to listen. I heard Frank’s drone, mostly, interrupted now and then by Mimi. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but by the cadence I was pretty sure she was trying to herd Frank back to bed.
I felt sleepy and my feet were cold, so I got back in bed myself. I erased Frank’s exquisitely handsome but, pressed “send” and lay back and closed my eyes. What else was there to say? His fingernails are dirty? He stumbled into our century through a wormhole in the space-time continuum? I’m worried he’ll julienne me in my sleep?
That last bit occurred to me thanks to what Mimi said as she bid me good night. “If you get hungry, help yourself to anything in the kitchen. Plates are in the cabinet by the sink, silverware in the drawer underneath. Big sharp knives in the drawer next to that in case you need to cut something up. Just don’t open an outside door or any windows at night. I set the alarm before I go to bed and I won’t turn it off until morning.”
I’d been looking forward to opening a window to let in the night breeze. Even the air smelled rich here, with top notes of jasmine and ocean and orange blossom, without bottom notes of garbage and cat urine. “Is this a dangerous neighborhood?” I asked.
“It’s Frank,” she said. “He sleepwalks. Well, not ‘sleepwalks’ so much as ‘roams the house when he should be sleeping.’”
Holy Bluebeard’s castle. How could I sleep with the kid wandering the halls swinging his bat or maybe a big sharp knife he’d borrowed from the kitchen drawer? Yes, okay, I confess, too many late-night horror movies when I was old enough for the TV to babysit me while my mother typed legal documents because the night shift paid better than days. When I finally told her why I was having trouble sleeping, she said, “Alice, you’re too smart for that. Learn how to take care of yourself and silly things like zombies and escaped psychopaths won’t scare you quite so much.” I hoped that meant karate lessons, but what I got instead was my own toolbox and electric drill. My mother showed me how to rewire lamps and tighten loose doorknobs and to examine broken things closely to understand how they could be fixed. She trained me to collect random screws and extra buttons in baby food jars so I’d always have extra on hand in a pinch. After that, she taught me how to balance her checkbook and keep track of her tax receipts. Then she tuned our ancient television to the cooking channel, pulled the dial off, and pocketed it, handed me her splattered copy of The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking and left for work. From then on I was the family cook, handyman, and accountant. When I was done with my chores I got in bed and went straight to sleep. I was too tired to do anything else.
So that first wakeful night in California, I unpacked my suitcase. Brushed my teeth and flossed. Made a list of meals I might cook for Mimi and Frank in the next week and ingredients I would need to do it. Filed my nails. Read some more of Mimi’s book. Drew a funny little sketch of Frank on the first page of my unicorn notebook, under the heading I’d scrawled earlier: “Who is Frank?” I had no clue who Frank was yet, but in my drawing he looked like a grade-school Charlie Chaplin who’d misplaced his hat, shoes, and cane.
After what seemed like an eternity the murmuring stopped and I heard a door click shut. I locked my door then and tucked the notebook under my pillow with my cell phone.
EVERY BED I’D ever slept in before that night had been a couch, a cot, or a twin bed, so I woke up around 3:00