Empire Falls

building a club in Fairhaven, which despite being twice the size of Empire Falls boasted only two small, seedy gyms. But then he’d also been considering expanding the Empire Falls facility, doubling the size of the fitness section now that area doctors were beginning to send workmen’s comp patients in for rehab. A smart man, Walt speculated, might add a few more indoor tennis courts, since the one they had was booked more or less constantly. But in all the time they’d been together, the Silver Fox had not yet turned even one of these mights into a would .
    Janine’s reflections were interrupted by the appearance of her daughter, who’d managed to slide unnoticed down the row behind them and sat down next to her grandmother, who promptly gave her a big hug of the sort that she no longer allowed Janine to administer.
    “How’s life, Tickeroo?” Bea asked.
    “Okay.”
    Her daughter looked, Janine had to admit, positively radiant in the early October sun. The poor child still didn’t have much of a chest, and no hips at all, but she was going to end up with a model’s build, no doubt about it. Not that she deserved it. Earlier that year when Janine had suggested she take some modeling classes, Tick had sneered that maybe she would, after her lobotomy. Which had pissed Janine off even before she looked up the word “lobotomy.”
    “Just okay?” Bea said, as if she also had noticed how radiant her granddaughter looked today.
    “Well, my snake painting got picked for the art show.”
    This was news to Janine, as well as the fact that Tick had painted a snake. What was not news was her daughter’s treatment of her in public. There was an empty seat on Janine’s left, the one Walt had vacated, but of course Tick wanted no part of that. For one thing, Walt had touched it, so as far as Tick was concerned it was contaminated. At home she no longer used the upstairs bathroom, for the same reason. She preferred to go all the way down to the basement to shower in the dingy, unfinished bathroom off what had once been the rec room and was now crammed with all the shit Miles didn’t have room for in his apartment. About a thousand yard-sale books, basically, which Walt was forever ragging her about, saying how nice it would be to have the use of the room. They could put a stationary bike down there and maybe even a Stairmaster so they —she , he seemed to mean—could work out while they watched television at night.
    It was bad enough that Tick couldn’t stomach Walt, but lately she didn’t want anything to do with anything Walt had touched, including Janine. Whenever Janine got too close, she’d wrinkle her nose and say, “Yuck. I can smell his aftershave on you.” Which she definitely couldn’t smell, not first thing in the morning, after Janine had taken her shower. No doubt about it, they were headed for a showdown, probably before the wedding, for which Tick had refused to be the maid of honor, even after Janine had asked her nicely.
    What Janine was gradually coming to understand was that her daughter was a formidable, clever opponent. Naturally, she had her father wrapped around her little finger—that was to be expected. But what baffled Janine was Walt. Even though Tick rarely exhibited anything but contempt for him, she somehow managed things so that he took her side in most disputes.
    “I thought that teacher didn’t like your snake,” Bea was saying. More news to Janine.
    “They brought in some professor from Fairhaven to be the judge,” Tick explained. “He and Mrs. Roderigue got in an argument out in the parking lot. She told us the next day that Mr. Meyer was just trying to quote-unquote undermine her authority. Like she has any.”
    “You caused all that trouble by painting a snake?”
    “Art’s controversial, Grandma.”
    “Excuse me,” Janine said, leaning forward so she and her daughter could glare at each other. “At least say hello, okay? I’m not just somebody you sneak past without so much as a how-do- you-do.”
    “I didn’t sneak past,” Tick said. “You weren’t paying attention.”
    “I’m paying attention now, and you still haven’t said hello.”
    “Tell your mother she should put a sweatshirt on,” Bea said. “Tell her she looks cold.”
    “You do look cold, Mom.”
    “Tell her she’s got goose bumps,” Bea suggested.
    Now Janine glared at her mother. “Remind me to invite you to the next football game.”
    “Your mother’s in a pissy mood,”