Unreliable Read online

  I’m going to call her. The cell phone is in my trembling hand and I know she stays up late. But what would I tell her? The unvarnished truth. That I’m in serious trouble. That I’m on the verge of ruin. That I’m headed to Richmond to attend the wedding of my mother to a deadbeat who’s my age. Bev would’ve appreciated the absurdity of the insipid spectacle that will unfold this weekend, as Bev and my mother didn’t see eye to eye on most matters. This tawdry affair would’ve pushed Bev past the brink. Needless to say, my mother isn’t unhappy in the least that Bev and I are kaput, and she insists that one day I’ll find the person who’s right for me.

  If I were to call Bev now, when homicide detectives searched through my cell phone records, they’d find that I’d attempted to reach her, which could mean 1) I didn’t know she was dead or 2) I was trying to cover my tracks by pretending I didn’t know she was dead. These matters aren’t easy to write about.

  Just know this: It is now 12:36 a.m. I have yet to reach Maryland, morbid thoughts ransack my brain, and I’ve forgotten my shoes. I don’t call Bev.

  I drive and drive, until, at 2:07 a.m. when I approach the Maryland–Virginia border, I receive a text:

  I miss u already! Hurry home! U mean everything to me.

  It’s not from Bev. Make of that what you will.

  2

  At 4:02 a.m. the first exit signs for Richmond appear, and soon I’ll be driving through a subdivision called Traylor Estates nestled on the southern bank of the historic James River. This development sprang up in the latter stages of the 1960s so frightened middle-class white families could escape the turmoil of inner-city Richmond undergoing the fitful spasms of racial desegregation. Like most of Richmond’s suburbs, the architectural styles of the houses in Traylor Estates harken back to the Colonial era, a comforting epoch when slavery and tobacco fueled the economy. These suburbanites, perhaps without realizing it, welcome the illusion of going back in time to an antebellum gentility suggested by brick walls and manicured lawns.

  Will the police be waiting for me?

  I can imagine our house surrounded by squad cars, possibly a SWAT team. The neighbors would be standing in robes and slippers, gawking at the spectacle of my undoing. Few saw it coming. As a child I didn’t torture small animals. No one abused me. There’s really no excuse…and there are no cops, either. Just a light on downstairs, a sweet glow in the darkness, indicating that my mother is expecting me. Hopefully she hasn’t waited up. I already know that I’m to sleep on a pullout sofa in the basement, since Mead’s adult children occupy the two other bedrooms upstairs. I don’t mind at all because that basement has long been my refuge, and I need its succor now more than ever. Maybe the paneled walls will whisper to me and offer nurturing words of encouragement. I could definitely use some.

  In the long driveway I count three parked cars. I recognize the white Acura as belonging to my mother, but there’s also a sleek 1960s sports car—a Corvette, I’d later learn—along with a battered Isuzu pickup. The first issue I must confront is where to park. I don’t want to block anyone in, and clearly there isn’t room for my Honda unless I park in the front yard, a redneck move my mother wouldn’t approve of. By default I’m left with parking on the street, which no one in Traylor Estates ever does except during a Super Bowl party. Isn’t this weekend like a big football game? I position my car so that as little of it as possible protrudes onto Traylor Drive, and the two wheels on the passenger side are in a ditch, causing the car to list vertiginously at an angle. When I open my door to get out, it slams back into my leg. I can’t say that the visit is off to a smooth start. Little do I know what other obstacles await me, but soon enough I’ll find out.

  I crave a hot shower and some time to decompress from the long drive, which was murder, let me tell you. What my mother has planned for tomorrow as far as a wedding rehearsal, I’m still unsure of, but I’d like to be somewhat rested. I trudge across the dry and brittle grass of the front yard, and I notice that the weeping willow my mother loved so much is gone. That tree in many ways captured the distilled essence of her personality—gentle, a hint of the tragic, exceedingly vulnerable. No wonder she shared such affinity with it. There were times when I was growing up that I’d find her standing at a window and staring out, and she’d say she was just watching the tree, but now I wonder if she wasn’t looking for something within her that was gone. My father had left her, and she was alone. She’d vowed to move to France (of all places), but I had no desire to leave Richmond—that’s right, I couldn’t imagine a life for myself anywhere else. If only I’d agreed! The funny part is, not three years later I was ready to live on the Moon rather than stay here, as my hatred of Richmond had reached code-red levels. But the window of opportunity had closed. Moving to France was never discussed again.

  Friable blades of grass literally crumble beneath my feet as I walk. The summer rains haven’t come yet, and the drought is so severe that there’s talk of canceling the Fourth of July fireworks due to worries about setting off a conflagration. Richmond has burned before, back in 1865, when the Yankees torched it…will history repeat itself, in a city stuck in the past tense?

  Duffel bag and retro valise in hand, I veer over to the driveway after remembering that I’m to enter the house through the basement. A side door is unlocked, the same side door thieves smashed in to rob us in the 1980s, which led to the installation of dead-bolt locks. Take that, forces of anarchy!

  At this ungodly hour I’m not expecting to encounter anyone. But immediately a figure emerges from the indigo darkness. This movement causes a floodlight to illuminate the gravel drive, and the intruder is positioned so that his elongated shadow reaches my feet. We wordlessly stare at each other, two aliens mesmerized by the otherness of our shared existence.

  Have I just laid eyes on my future killer? I was kind of hoping for more of a dramatic flair, a slayer with robust manliness and Cro-Magnon features. This guy is short and stocky, more akin to a grocery store clerk than a homicidal maniac. Not to suggest a nondescript nobody is incapable of being a killer. For all I know he’s already butchered my entire family and next he’ll whip out a .44 and blow my brains out. Fear grips me by the throat, and I’m about to drop my luggage to charge him.

  Okay, that’s an overstatement. I’d turn and run first. But I am scared. Until he speaks.

  “Hey,” he grunts in welcome, his voice calm and even shy. Then he begins to walk toward me, his sensible shoes kicking up gravel as he goes.

  “See you tomorrow,” someone else calls out. My eyes dart to the side door and in the threshold light stands another young man, taller and leaner, attired in cargo shorts and Hollister T-shirt, with his hair neatly combed and his baby face smooth as polished silver.

  The stocky guy hops into the pickup truck, and seconds later the engine sputters a few times as it turns over. Then the Isuzu backs up to where I’m standing, and I have to step out of the way to avoid becoming a holiday traffic fatality. The taller guy comes toward me with his hand outstretched in greeting.

  “Hey there! You must be Edwin! He’s back!”

  There was a smidge of a Nicholson impression in his voice, but nothing too annoying. We shake hands. His grip is firm and manly, and his smile is bright.

  “Yes, I’m Edwin.”

  “I’ve heard a ton about you from your mom. Pretty sure I know your whole life story.”

  “Wow, you must be bored to death,” I say.

  “Not at all!”

  His outward appearance hints at nothing untoward, and he comes across as downright pleasant. I notice, though, that he has the habit of sucking in his cheeks, and, considering his face is shaped a bit like a shovel, his bland features contort into a fishlike pucker for a fleeting moment before returning to normal.

  “I’m guessing you’re Mead’s son?” I ask.

  “That would be correct! I’m Graves.”

  Graves: the name doesn’t match his personality, which is as far from funereal as you could get. Looks can be
deceiving, though. Many a time at Notting College I’ve been bamboozled by well-heeled con artists expert in pretending to be what they’re not. The nice clothes, the sincere eyes, the excellent manners: no way they could be buying research papers from the Internet! So I’m reserving judgment.

  We step into the basement together, with him leading the way. I don’t ask about the guy who just departed in the pickup truck or why he was here at this ungodly hour. It’s not my place to butt in, and besides, an unsettling scene greets me in the basement. There are boxes everywhere, of every size and description. Cardboard, wooden crates, plastic tubs, metal canisters, and imposing trunks stamped with ominous Cyrillic lettering. I can faintly make out the old workbench my father had left behind, a relic of my boyhood with its rusty vise, dog holes, and built-in tool tray.

  “What’s all this?” I inquire as genially as possible, not wanting to jump to a false conclusion. These boxes could be filled with aid to Haiti. Or Google stock.

  “You’re looking at the family jewels.”

  “I am?”

  His laugh grates like medium-grade sandpaper and when he smiles, I see that his teeth have become bronzed, as if he wants them to be tanned, whereas his skin looks about as pale as a flock of laughing gulls. He obviously doesn’t spend a great deal of time outside or flossing.

  “These boxes are all that’s left of my father’s business,” Graves explains cheerfully, patting one of the Russian trunks.

  “Which is?”

  “Vietnam War memorabilia.”

  Not the answer I expected, and so I try to clarify. “Like guns?”

  “Guns? Not just guns. You name it and if it’s related to Nam, you can probably find it in here somewhere. Ammo, uniforms, maps. Anything. Everything.”

  All it would take is one spark from a lighter and my house would get blown to smithereens. But think of it! The trove of potential murder weapons right at our fingertips—literally enough weaponry to lay waste to an entire subdivision. If I don’t have reason enough to harbor suspicions about my future stepfather, now I have an entire basement’s worth. Still, I don’t want to be overly alarmed, because there are hobbyists who collect such martial hardware. Perhaps the business is lucrative. Or maybe the man is a lunatic. There’s no reason both statements can’t be true. I guess we’ll have to wait to see.

  “Was he in the military?” I ask innocently. Graves snorts in derision, lips puckering as beads of sweat roll down his angular face.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “He used to own a store, right?”

  “Ah, the store, yes. It was called Westmoreland’s Closet, but most of his customers found him on the website.”

  A few details my mother has told me during our phone calls come back to me. The store went belly-up, and about eighteen months ago he met my mother, who is the office manager at a midsize law firm. Apparently Mead George had to retain counsel for a legal matter and hired the firm my mother works for. I can imagine polite conversations by the watercooler, a shared interest in—see, that’s what I can’t figure out, the attractive force that spawned their love. My mother enjoys making her own jewelry and serves on the board of a community theater, the Southside Playhouse, which each season puts on a gaudy musical and a Neil Simon comedy. She has a brood of “gal pals” with whom she dines out on a regular basis, a stable job, no major health problems, and no need of the aggravations that attend matrimony. Without doubt she doesn’t need two young adults in her house, not to mention a basement full of artillery.

  Most vexing of all, however, is the financial arrangement involved. Upon the death of a spinster aunt who lived in Fort Myers, my mother recently has come into a considerable sum of money, in excess of a half a million dollars. I haven’t had the courage to ask her if she’s planning on getting Mead to sign a prenup, and manners prevent me from ever asking. Something tells me no. My mother is a hopeless romantic who’d never allow a prenup to sully the dreamlike purity of Love, and unless I’m to take desperate measures, Mead stands to claim my birthright. A motive? People have killed for far less. But I’d never kill anyone over money. Love? That’s a different question.

  “I’m pretty tired from the drive,” I say, barely suppressing a yawn. My head throbs as a migraine beckons, and I can’t help but recall how Bev accused me of being a hypochondriac, insisting that I actually enjoyed feeling bad, strong words from a spouse who allegedly loves you. But my suffering now is legit. It’s amazing I can even stand.

  “Man, you shouldn’t have to crash in the basement,” Graves says, impersonating a highly efficient concierge. “You take your old bed and I’ll stay down here.”

  “No, it’s fine. I love this basement. I used to hang out down here and just chill out, listening to music and dreaming of fame and fortune.”

  “I told your mom that I don’t care where I sleep. I can sleep on the hard ground, no problem. I’ve done it before. I like to test my endurance.”

  “No need for that this weekend. I’m very happy in the basement.”

  “Well, if you insist,” he chirps as we troop into the little den I called the Cavern. It’s not large, about ten by ten, windowless, a drop ceiling of off-white tile, and the walnut wood paneling that adds even more cool darkness. Thankfully there aren’t any boxes crammed in here. Just the same pullout sofa, two end tables, and the old family TV, cathode ray, still wired to a Sony VCR.

  I drop my bags and fall into the bed my mother has made for me. The thin blanket has been turned back, revealing the sheets from my childhood, and the coarse fabric feels familiar against my skin. It was in this basement that all my dreams were born. I planned on taking Manhattan by storm one way or another. Playwright, singer-songwriter, actor. Perhaps all three. I just needed to get out of Richmond, and then nothing could stop me.

  “Are you hungry?” Graves asks, hovering by the stairs. He doesn’t seem eager to leave, as if he has something he wants to tell me but can’t find the words.

  “No, I stopped along the way.” Did I ever! Had myself a great time, too. Ate my fill, went back for sloppy seconds. Gotcha again! When will you ever learn that you can’t believe one word I say? That waitress is alive and well—maybe not well per se, but mostly alive. At least she was the last time I saw her.

  Graves takes a step up and then pauses, gazing down on me.

  “The rehearsal dinner is tomorrow,” he announces, more like he’s talking to himself or issuing a press release. Still, this is useful information because the details for the weekend remain sketchy in my mind.

  “Do you know what the plan is?”

  “They made reservations at the Tobacco Company.”

  “Well, well, how chic.” This restaurant is located in Shockoe Slip, a gentrified portion of downtown along the river, and has long been revered as a symbol of the city’s rebirth. A tobacco warehouse where slaves once toiled has become an upscale eatery where rich white people feast. The New South, in a nutshell.

  “I’ve never eaten there.”

  “You’re in for a real treat. The food isn’t bad. Decent atmosphere. Lots of history, which depending on your viewpoint is either edifying or stultifying. Maybe a little of both.”

  “You don’t like Richmond, do you?”

  I chuckle to hide my trepidation, unsure of how much I can trust this earnest young person who again appears to be of similar temperament to my students. I’m pretty sure Graves attends college but I forget which one. My mother complains more about the girl, whose name I can’t recall. I’ll become an expert on both soon enough. “Richmond is a complex place,” I reply warily. “I’d say I have a love-hate relationship, as I do with many things.”

  “My sister hates it here. I mean, despises it.”

  “Oh, right. What’s her name again?”

  “Gibson.”

  “I guess I’ll meet her tomorrow. We can compare notes. Not that I despise Richmond.”

  Like many young people I work with, he’s not listening as I talk. When I finish, he pou
nces. “Can you do me a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “You know that guy who was here earlier?”

  “The one who almost ran me over?”

  “Yeah, him. Can you just keep that between us?”

  This request catches me by surprise. In so many words, Graves is asking me to lie, and normally I would do no such thing unless it meant protecting my own behind. In this case, I can’t refuse him, under the banner of getting the weekend off to a good start. Not that I like it. “I mean, I will because you’re asking me to. What’s the deal? Why do you have to keep it under wraps?”

  “Technically he’s not allowed to be here.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s stupid. My dad doesn’t like him. They argue about everything and Avery won’t back down, ever, which pisses off my dad because he always has to be right.”

  Ah, family drama! Nothing beats it for pure slaughter value. What cauldron has my poor mother been boiling in? By any ethical standard, I should tell the kid to get lost. If only I had! So here’s my first major blunder. We’ll blame it on fatigue and vexation.