pastel things. “Has he got Alzheimer’s?”
“No,” I said.
“Dementia?”
Carl piped up. “I’m surprised, that’s all.”
I said, “I bet you are, seeing how you don’t have any kids.”
“My mom is his kid,” she corrected, glaring at Carl. He stared at the worn, impaled tennis balls at the bottom of his walker. She said, “Seriously? Are we doing this?”
I glared at him too, wanting to ask the same damn thing. All he had to do was open his mouth to shut her down, but instead he had me wondering which one of them was a liar, which was stupid. Carl didn’t even cheat at solitaire. This was a clever ruse by her: dropping in on old, lonely seniors, claiming to be long-lost blood. It probably netted her some serious cash. On looks alone, she might could’ve had us too, with that Carl Upton complexion and birdlike build. But her disposition was clearly all sorts of wrong.
When she caught me checking out her black eye, her hand came to hover near the deepest hue of the bruise.
I tipped my head. “What’s your story there?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Oh,” I said. “Excuse me. Let me rephrase that. Why have you come through our window on a Saturday morning looking like a failed featherweight?”
She drew a deep, patient breath. The kind that came from people who thought they needed to talk slow and loud to the elderly. I drew the same kind, to indicate I was neither stupid nor hard of hearing.
As I held my lungful of air in an asinine attempt to prove my acuity, she sighed and gathered the rest of her garbage off the floor, pocketing a men’s deodorant, a few charcoal pencils, some scattered coins, and an order pad. Then she walked to a folded piece of paper lying near the base of the window. She sat on her heels to pick it up, and didn’t smash it into her apron like the rest of her junk. She slid it into her back pocket instead, careful not to crumple it.
I exhaled, frustrated, and asked no one in particular, “Is breaking and entering a felony?”
She ignored me and strolled around the room, running her fingers along the dresser, pausing to look at Carl’s old wedding photo, taped to the mirror. She leaned in a little closer, her nose inches from it.
“Please don’t touch that,” Carl said.
I said to him, “And so now, finally, he speaks.”
She turned to Carl, jaw set. “Look. I came because I wanted to see you.”
I said, “Nice try again, but visitors usually come through the front door.”
“No joke,” she said to me, “but I’m pretty sure I’m not on the visitors’ list.”
“There’s no list. Where do you think you are? A federal prison? This is our home. We have a coat check, even.”
“Super, but today I didn’t feel like messing with some welcome-desk bullshit, so I walked around back, looking for another door in, and then I saw that note on your window.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“When I saw his name on the little sign—”
“There’s no sign.”
She smirked. “Stop it.”
“You stop it.” I marched to the window and ripped the blind cord down, ready to point to nothing. The room flooded with light and blinded me, but, sure enough, when colors started bleeding back into my sight line, there, tucked in the corner of the windowpane, was a forgotten sun-bleached index card meant for Jorge. It read Carl is napping. Keep it down! (Por favor.)
Her smile widened. “So I let myself in.”
I snatched the card and balled it in my fist. My voice dropped into a timbre I hadn’t needed to use in years. “Enough. Why are you here, you little piece of—”
“Duffy,” Carl chided, poised to stand, though knowing him, it was only a threat.
She met his eyes, looking downright earnest. The girl was a pro, all right. She said, “I really thought you’d be happy to see me. I planned on spending the week here with