This Is Where I Leave You

scent and feel the crush of his jaws on the back of my neck, and I’m sandwiched between Phillip’s old girlfriend and a vicious rottweiler and I’ve 122got one and a half legs and this is not any way to die. And just as I feel the searing pain of the dog’s teeth sinking into the skin of my neck, my shout fills the basement and I wake up shivering violently in my own sweat.
    It’s like Stephen King is writing m y dreams in to Penthouse Forum.

Chapter 18
    8:25 a.m.
    The lights go out again while I’m in the shower. When I step out into the basement, Alice is at the electrical panel again in her bathrobe.
    “We must stop meeting like this,” she says.
    “This house sucks,” I say.
    Alice smiles. “Which one is it, again?”
    “I think it was number fourteen.”
    “I can’t see the numbers.”
    I go over to her, holding my towel in place with one hand.
    “You smell like a little boy.”
    “They’ve only got baby shampoo down here.”
    “I love that smell.” She leans back against me, breathing deeply. “The smell of a clean baby.”
    “Yes. Well...” Her own hair is freshly shampooed and has that clean, blow-dried smell, like baked honey, and that, combined with the sheer fabric of her bathrobe and my highly sensitized libido, makes for an awkward family moment. “I’ll have to find a new manly fragrance when I start dating again.”
    “Oh, right,” she says, turning around to face me. “We haven’t really talked about that. How are you doing, Judd?”
    “I’m fine.” I need to curtail this conversation for reasons both emotional and anatomical. “Here it is.” I lean past her to flip a breaker. The lights don’t go back on, but from upstairs, we can hear Paul yelling “Who’s dicking around with the damn lights?!”
    Alice chuckles and turns around to flip it back. “Paul signs the payroll while he’s on the toilet.”
    “Two turds with one stone.”
    She laughs and flips another switch. The lights come back on. “Let there be light.”
    “Amen.”
    “Anyway, Judd,” she says, turning back to me. “I know you’re going through a lot right now, and your family ...well, they’re not exactly famous for their emotional wherewithal. So, if you ever want to talk, just remember, we were friends long before we were family.”
    “Thanks, Alice. I’ll keep that in mind.”
    She seems about to say something else, but after a moment she just nods and leans forward to kiss my cheek. I lean forward, not so much to accept the kiss, but to avoid any incidental lower-body contact. Things are hard enough already.
    So to speak.

    9:37 a.m.
    Breakfast is served. On platters, of course. The pastries and bagels continue to arrive every day, courtesy of my parents’ friends and set out by Linda, who quietly lets herself in every morning to see to things. Horry’s here too this morning, sipping thoughtfully at his coffee, sneaking glances at Wendy over the rim of his mug. His T-shirt says, you’re ugly, but you intrigue me. Beneath the T-shirt, his compact muscles bulge in exactly the way mine never did. Tracy is buttering a bagel for Phillip, and Phillip is creaming her coffee, and they’re smiling at each other in a way that makes it hard to look at them. I guess there was no lasting fallout from the Chelsea/Janelle/Kelly visit. Wendy is giving the baby a bottle while Barry chews a muffin and reads the Wall Street Journal. Ryan and Cole are watching cartoons on the small television in the kitchen. Mom is in the kitchen with Linda, organizing the endless array of catered platters. You could fill an airlift to Africa with all the food generated by one dead Jew. Alice is spreading fat-free cream cheese on a rice cake, and Paul is sitting next to her, chewing a glazed donut. He’s at the head of the table, but just to the side of Dad’s chair, which sits symbolically empty.
    No one says anything. No one dares.
    “Listen,” Paul says. “We need to talk about the Place.”
    “The Place” was how Dad referred to the business. He never called it the store, or the shop, or the company. “I’m heading out to the Place,”
    he would say. “We hired a new girl at the Place.” I guess Paul picked it up somewhere along the way. Alice looks up from her rice cake, and you can hear her ticking, the woman behind the man. Whatever he’s going to say, she knows all about it.
    “What about it?” Phillip says.
    “Barney will come by at some point to discuss Dad’s will. But this is the part I