Page 24 of The Quiet Tenant
A man in his house, putting food on the table. Feeding his child.A father.
He nudges you, likeWhat are you waiting for?You sit at the same spot he assigned you at breakfast.
Cecilia comes down the stairs. She suppresses a yawn. You remember being her age, how exhausting it was, having everything to learn, all those books to read, all those math formulas to memorize. The world at your fingertips, and the all-consuming task of figuring out—in between classes, at recess—what kind of person you wanted to be and the best path to get there.
She stops by the living area and points a remote at the television. A jingle fills the room, brass instruments, a singsongy refrain, then a booming voice. “This iiiiisJeopardy!” Contestants flash up on the screen, names and locations, Holly from Silver Springs and Jasper from Park City and Benjamin from Buffalo. A man in a suit and tie walks onto the set.
“And here is the host ofJeopardy!,Alex Trebek.”
Your arms go numb. Your legs and feet tingle. The house, you can manage. Even Cecilia, you can handle, the energy of one extra person in the room, her youth, the mysteries of her life. But TV, people answering questions for money, Alex greeting Holly and Jasper and Benjamin like old friends—it’s too much. Too much outside. Too much evidence that the world has kept going without you.
Inside the house, a father walks over to his daughter, wraps an arm around her shoulder.Like your dad used to do,your brain whispers,when he nudged you close to him and reminded you that you were his buddy.
“Dinner’s ready.”
Cecilia looks up at him with pleading eyes.
“Just the first round? Please?”
A father sighs. He glances at you. Maybe he decides a distraction wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Keep the girl focused on the TV, not on the new woman at the table.
“Lower the volume and we’ll leave it on in the background.”
Cecilia raises her eyebrows. For a second, she looks like him, the same air of suspicion, always on the lookout for a trick, a deception. Not wanting to press her luck, she aims the remote at the TV until Alex’s voice fades into a faint buzz. She fiddles with the buttons some more. Closed captions appear at the bottom of the screen. Smart girl.
With his fingers wrapped in a kitchen towel, a father sets a ceramicdish down at the center of the table, next to a cut-up loaf of garlic bread. Cecilia leans over to take a whiff.
“What’s this?”
He tells her it’s veggie lasagna and to sit down. She serves him, then herself, then looks at you, spoon raised like a question mark. You bring your plate to her and help yourself to a piece of garlic bread. Cecilia studies you for a few moments, until her father points to the television. The category is “Matters of the Heart.” Eight hundred dollars are at stake. Closed captions flash up as Alex reads from a card. “This is what happens when a life-threatening amount of fluid accumulates around the heart.”
A father answers out loud, “What’s tamponade.” He doesn’t say it like a question, just a statement of fact.
Benjamin from Buffalo gives the same answer. Eight hundred dollars are added to his total.
“That’s not fair,” the kid says. “You studied that stuff.”
You know that the man with the key to the shed—with the key to your bedroom—isn’t a doctor. There is a story here that eludes you. Ambitions unfulfilled, changes of plans. Before you can think of a smart way to probe, Benjamin from Buffalo picks the category “Nicknames” for two hundred. Alex delivers the clue: “He was also known as the ‘quiet Beatle.’ ”
Something stirs within you. Knowledge from the past. Songs you used to sing. CDs plucked from your father’s shelf in his home office. The first chords of “It’s All Too Much,” the whine of a distorted electric guitar.
A father and his daughter exchange clueless looks. Then, your voice. “Who was George Harrison?”
Benjamin from Buffalo guesses John Lennon and strikes out. Jasper from Park City goes for Ringo. Holly from Silver Springs declines to try until the clock runs out. Alex makes a sorry face. “Not John, not Ringo,” he says in closed captions. “The correct answer is…Who was George Harrison?”
Cecilia gives you a little smile, likeWell done.Her dad waits until her eyes are on the screen again to gaze at you. You raise your shoulders slightly.What? You said to keep it normal.He turns back to theTV, where Benjamin has picked the category “Nicknames” again, this time for four hundred.
“This iconic Briton, born in Brixton, London, was known among other things as the ‘Thin White Duke.’ His real name is this.”
Holly from Silver Springs clicks her buzzer and purses her lips. More memories find you: A lightning bolt across your face one Halloween night. A fluttering in your chest as you fell in love with a skinny silhouette, thin lips, hypnotic eyes. You swallow a mouthful of lasagna quickly enough to answer: “Who’s David Jones?”
On the screen, Holly hesitates until she’s out of time. She smiles apologetically at Alex, who waits for the other two to try their chance, then explains: “The answer is David Jones…Who was also known as David Bowie.”
Cecilia turns to you again.
“How did you know that?”
You can’t think of a reason not to tell her the truth.
