High Noon

brood of kids, but she paid attention. To me, too. So I saw it wasn’t just the way it is. It was easier to believe that, or want to. But it was not the way it is.
    “That’d be the pizza.” He pushed off the rail. “I’ll be a minute. If it’s Teto, he likes to talk.”
    “All right.”
    She sipped her wine, looked out at the gardens now that the first stars were popping out. He’d thought the house, the gardens, the beauty here would make his mother, at last, pay attention. Phoebe already saw that, and that it hadn’t worked.
    Why did he stay? she wondered. Wasn’t it painful?
    He came back with a pizza box, a pair of plates riding the top, napkins tucked between.
    “I’ll set it up. Will you finish telling me?”
    “I guess we can fast-forward to hitting the jackpot.”
    He lit candles as she set the plates and napkins on a wicker table. “Local boy makes way good, just because he bought a six-pack and a lottery ticket. Had a hell of a celebration. I think I was solid drunk for two days. First sober thing I did was go over to Ma Bee’s. I bought this funny little brass bottle, like a genie bottle. I told her to rub it, to make three wishes. I was going to grant all three.”
    “Aren’t you the cutest thing?” Phoebe said softly, then sat at the table.
    “I thought I was pretty damn clever. She said that was all right, she’d make three wishes. The first was that I wouldn’t piss this money away being an idiot and forgetting I had some brains. The second was that I take this opportunity, this gift, and make something of myself. I guess I looked like a balloon that had its air pricked out, because she laughed and laughed, and she gave me a slap on the arm. She told me if I needed to give her something, if I needed to do that to be happy, she’d like a pair of red shoes with heels and open toes. Size nine. Wouldn’t she be some sight going to church Sundays in those red shoes?”
    “You must love her beyond measure.”
    “I do. And mostly I tried to keep my word, too, all the wishes. The red shoes were easy. Not being an idiot’s more problematic. People come out of the woodwork. That’s the way it is, and passing out money, it can make you feel important. Until—like getting fists punched into your face—you start to realize it’s just fucking stupid.”
    “And you’re not. You’re not the least bit stupid.”
    “I had my moments.” He slid pizza onto her plate, then onto his. “I bought this land for my mother, had the house built. I used to hear her say, if she could just get out of the goddamn city. I could do that for her, and wouldn’t that make me important to her? I gave her money in the meantime, of course. Got her out of that apartment and into a pretty little house while this one was being built. My old man turned up, as bad pennies do. I wasn’t quite as gullible there. I gave him twenty-five thousand, all he was smart enough to ask for. But I had Phin draw up an agreement. He couldn’t come at me for more. He wouldn’t get it, and if he tried I could sue him for harassment, and other legal mumbo. It probably wouldn’t hold up, but my father wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier, so he took the twenty-five and went away again.”
    “It must have hurt you.”
    “Should have,” Duncan said after a moment. “It really didn’t.” He ate pizza, drank wine. “I brought my mother out here when the house was nearly finished, when it was easy to see what it was going to be. I told her it was for her. I’d furnish it any way she liked. She’d never have to work again.
    “She walked around the empty rooms. She asked me why the hell I thought she’d ever live out here, in a house big as a barn. I said she just didn’t see how it would be yet. I was going to get her a housekeeper, a cook, whatever she wanted. She turned around, looked at me. ‘You want to give me what I want? Buy me a house in Vegas, and give me a stake of fifty thousand. That’s what I want.’
    “I didn’t do it, not then. I kept thinking she’d change her mind, once she saw the house finished. I brought her out here again when it was—badgered her into it. The gardens were in, and I’d furnished a few of the rooms, so she’d get a real sense of it.”
    Gently, Phoebe touched his hand. “But it wasn’t what she wanted.”
    “No, it wasn’t. She wanted the house in Vegas and fifty K. I bargained. Live here for six months, and if you don’t change your mind, I’ll buy you a