But staring at the B-O-Y-L-E etched into the high granite, Clay felt no such desire. He only thought of the flesh-and-blood man who’d died in the Generator and felt a little of what Boyle must have felt before the rope tightened, felt it rise high in his throat and squeeze on his larynx.
But whenever Clay’s thoughts turned dark, it was always The Disharmonic he sought out. Now let’s all release our hate, dear friends; how this life started is not how it ends. Without that album’s uncanny optimism, who knew where he’d be? Clay wondered how many of Boyle’s fans felt the same. Because the music that had failed to save its songwriter had nevertheless saved countless listeners.
In that hopeful spirit, Clay checked his phone one more time, then patted Boyle’s grave and went on his way.
There were no footsteps that night, and Clay managed to slip into a deep slumber where not even dreams could touch him. It was only when someone cried out that his head jerked and lifted uncertainly.
The moan came again. Not from a man’s throat, but a woman’s. Deidre. So it was her pacing the house.
Was she in pain? Did she go through the hell of dying every night? Clay cracked his door and saw that the double doors to the master suite was now shut. If I could help her, show her I’m a friend… maybe we could coexist.
The bare floor in the hall creaked under him, the way it had when ghost-feet walked it the night before. Clay was in touching distance of the doors when he heard creaking of another kind. If it had been anyone’s room but his father’s, he might have guessed faster. But if his parents had had a sex life, they’d thankfully kept it hidden. So when Peter grunted and said something out loud, something vulgar and helpless like “Fuckmenow, sweet-fuck-muffin!”, and a woman—who was definitely not Deidre—cried out in passionate reply, all Clay could do was backpedal in shock. And try to sneak away.
But in that creaky hall, it was impossible for any soul to go unnoticed.
So it seemed there were all manner of spirits haunting the Boyle House these days. The latest lured Clay downstairs with an irresistible aroma of frying peppers and garlic. It was the flower woman, of course. Estelle. The one who’d been carpet-bombing Peter’s voicemail. Guess the old man finally picked up, Clay thought. More than the phone.
She was working the stove, wearing little more than Peter’s oversized Villanova sweatshirt. She heard Clay and turned to offer a shameless wink. “Told you I’d be seeing you again!”
Since his father was nowhere to be found, Clay felt compelled to make small talk. Their conversation was interesting, if nothing else. Estelle—“Essie,” as she preferred—took one look at Clay’s Rocket Throne shirt and confessed to being a fan, despite the “awful, awful things” that had happened on this property, and a connoisseur of music in general. Her preference seemed to skew toward 80s hair-rock. “Crue. Halen. Snake. And Skid Row. Oh my God, Sebastian Bach is totally going to be my husband, he just doesn’t know it yet.”
Scrubbed of makeup, with her tangled brown hair strangled in a scrunchie, she projected a sense of candor, of take-me-or-leave-me. And when Peter, her polar opposite, finally did appear, wearing his off-day dress shirt and khaki combination, along with a okay-you-got-me, I’m-a-primordial-horndog-just-like-you grimace, Clay thought, My mother isn’t a year in the grave and you’re screwing another woman—because she wants her job back?
Peter felt his son’s rancor and left a breakfast-bar stool empty between them. A minute later, Essie delivered four perfect-looking omelets and climbed onto the buffer stool, ignoring—or failing to notice—the chilly quiet between the males on either side of her.
With a captive audience, Essie steered the conversation, marching to a beat all her own. Clay tuned her out awhile, trying to enjoy the peppery spice of a rare home-cooked meal, and when he glanced back at her she seemed to be going on about amusement parks. Universal. Magic Mountain. Knott’s Berry Farm. “…man, we haaaaave to ride the Twisted Colossus,” she was saying, and Clay realized that “we” didn’t mean him and her, but her and his father—whose idea of a hot time was to read The Wall Street Journal front to back on Sunday mornings.
“We will,” Peter insisted. “We’ll go today. Right now.”
It was an amazing thing to witness. As little as Peter knew of his son, Clay knew even less about his father. The man hadn’t been putting in late nights at the studio at all. He’d been putting them in… in…—Oh, go ’head and say it!—…in Essie the Flower Lady.
Clay stuffed omelette in his mouth to choke down his laugh. The odd couple disappeared upstairs to dress, his father reappearing minutes later in board shorts and a Tommy Bahama shirt that looked about as right on him as a leather jacket on the Pope; Essie dressed in her dress from the night before, a short, lavender-colored number that matched her apple-green heels. On their way out, Peter finally managed to glance in Clay’s direction. “Get some yard work in today,” he said, without a trace of irony.
Should I trim the flowers or is that her job again? Clay wanted to ask. But his phone rang and he let it go, thinking instead of Savy, of his band fate.
An automated sales voice spoke up instead, wondering how ready he was for an earthquake, fire, or flood? Insurance could
