Chapter 7. The Front Porch
“Abuelita, somebody’s at the door!”
Marlie’s stomach lurches. Blake!
Every knock at the door doesn’t make Marlie’s heart clutch, of course. But Blake’s evil letter has put her nerves on edge. He hasn’t come to Rainwood House in years, but it would be like him to try to catch her off guard with a surprise visit on a Sunday. Once he gets an idea in his head, he is relentless. She remembers how he would say, during organizing meetings with Local 28, “Whether it’s chess, organizing, or anything else, you come out with guns blazing and lay ’em in the dust before they know what hit ’em.”
She might scoff at the cowboy talk, but she knows his power. Nearly thirty years ago she’d first felt it as admiration, when he approached after she performed at a protest music festival at her university in Mexico. A whirlwind few months later, she was living with Blake in Washington, DC, as his coworker and comrade in the Service Workers’ Union …and as his pregnant wife.
She glances down at the embroidered Oaxacan huipil she’s wearing over a blue turtleneck. Her mind transports her upstairs to the bedroom she shared with Blake. He’s studying her with narrowed eyes while she dresses for a big union contract negotiation. He leans forward to insert the plain pearl earrings he’d given her in her earlobes, ignoring the long dangling turquoise ones she holds in her hand.
Shaking off the memory, she strides out to the hall.
Samantha is peering through one of the diamond-pane side-lights flanking the massive front door. “It’s a stranger, Abue.”
Good! Anyone is better than Blake, Marlie thinks–unless it’s some emissary serving her legal papers. She takes a deep breath, steps up to the door, and yanks it open.
On the porch stands a man carrying a lumpy duffel bag. He flinches when she flings open the door, but offers a friendly smile. He’s solidly built, somewhat plump around the middle, with an amiable face, full-lipped mouth, and large, intelligent eyes. His beret and sweater look rather school-boyish, though Marlie guesses he’s at least thirty. A political canvasser? A Jehovah’s witness?
“Um, good afternoon, ma’am.”
Marlie nods warily. Samantha pokes her head around the door frame.
“And good afternoon to you, young lady.”
He has a pleasing voice, with a musical resonance. “I was interested to know…” He pauses. “I was wondering about renting a room.”
“You saw the sign?” Marlie shoots a glance at Samantha, impressed that the notice they pinned up an hour ago at the Happy Hog has produced such fast results.
The man hesitates, then opens his hands in an expansive gesture. “I’m such an enthusiast of historical homes!” he announces. “I fell in love with this house as soon as I saw it. It’s so… historic.” He makes another grand gesture with his open palm.
Marlie’s eyes follow his hand, and they both gaze down the long, bare porch. Railings lean drunkenly. Some balustrades have toppled, like skinny bowling pins. Sinewy arms of wisteria wrap the thick porch columns in a tight embrace, and a mass of vines spills over the eaves like unkempt locks, out of which pieces of broken latticework protrude like Spanish hair combs. Thick paint chips have flaked off the columns onto the naked, warped floorboards.
***
Eyes fixed on the wisteria, Demetrius realizes he has started off on the wrong foot. Before he can think of a better opening, a familiar voice pipes up.
“What’s your name?”
Both adults turn. The girl has stretched up to grip a horizontal metal bar fastened to a vine-twisted column. The bar’s other end attaches to a pole hanging down from a rafter. She curls her body up, hooks her knees on the bar, and drops her torso, swinging back and forth by her knees, fingers brushing the ground. Her sweatshirt sags over her head, baring her tummy.
The woman takes a step forward. “Samantha, be careful! You’ll fall, or else bring the house down!” She turns to Demetrius as if seeking his agreement, so he gives a small nod.
The child hoists herself up, grabs the bar, and flips over backwards. She makes an adroit, bent-kneed landing, thrusting her fists in the air like an Olympic gymnast. Arms still raised, she looks over at Demetrius and repeats, “What’s your name?”
“My name?” For an instant he blanks, then remembers the name that came to him as he readied himself for the transition from interloper to legitimate housing seeker. “Oh, it’s Cole Robert Benson.” He smiles. “You’re quite the acrobat, Samantha.”
The girl gapes at him with that patently fake surprise children display on television commercials. “How’d you know my name?”
“Easy, by hiding in your house and hearing you talk.” Demetrius winks at her. Possibly the first wink of his entire life, but he feels his new persona is a winker. Careful, he warns himself. Nerves and lack of food are making him punchy.
The woman chuckles. “Silly, I just said your name. But to be formal about it,” she turns to Demetrius, “This is my granddaughter, Samantha.”
Granddaughter, Demetrius thinks. He sneaks a good look at the woman. Her hair appears black in the afternoon light and her medium brown skin is unlined except for deep grooves beside her mouth, but he guesses she is close to fifty, though she wears her colorful, hippy-ish clothing with a youthful flair.
He steps toward the child, takes her hand, and bows low over it. “Delighted to meet you, Samantha.”
The girl giggles. She withdraws her hand with a flourish and executes a formal bow. Straightening, she says, “Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Samantha.”
“Samantha who?”
“Samantha to my questions!” she finishes triumphantly.
“Samantha to my…?” Then he gets it. “Oh! ‘Some answers to my questions,’” he enunciates.
“Uh huh.” She sticks her tongue out between her teeth.
Demetrius understands she’s demonstrating a lisp. “Brilliant!” he exclaims. “An original knock-knock joke, and one of the best I’ve heard.” The child’s pleased smile turns down at the corners in an echo of her grandmother’s. She seems about nine or ten, slender and gawky. A mass of dark red hair flops around a pixie face too small for her wide eyes and mouth. She’s tied up several untidy locks in ponytails, one with a string attached to a deflated balloon.
The girl returns his gaze levelly. Demetrius has the feeling she really does want some answers, and will do whatever she needs to get them.
The woman leans against the door frame, appearing pleased at his interaction with the child.
“Are you going to be our lodger, Mr. B.?” The girl spreads her arms and twirls, seemingly unable to speak without also moving.
“Um…” Demetrius begins.
“Remember, we don’t want lodgers, chulita.” The woman has crossed her arms over her chest.
“But you sai.…” Demetrius bites his lip to stop himself.
At the same time, Samantha yells, “But Abue!”
“Not lodgers, collective-mates.” The woman turns to him. “Our goal is to have a collective household, Mr. Benson, like our sign says. A mutually supportive community. Eat together, share chores, be allies to one another.” She pauses, then asks, “Have you had experience with collective living?”
Demetrius thinks rapidly. His original idea was to pass himself off as an insipid, apolitical person, but he now sees this won't impress her. His genuine experience will be more to her liking; he just has to avoid specifics. “At university I was part of a small Black Studies group,” he tells her, not adding that the group consisted of himself, his twin cousins Jane and Michael, and two other students. “We shared an apartment and worked on developing egalitarian relations and challenging our colonized individualistic conditioning.”
“Wow,” she says, “Your experience sounds perfect.”
Demetrius smiles modestly. He’s hit the right note. Then he sees a shadow cross her face. Was it the reference to Black Studies?
***
Marlie is impressed. People like this, with positive collective experiences, are just what she needs.
Then a mental picture intrudes: the man sitting in her kitchen, saying, “That’s not how we did things in our collective,” like a husband complaining, “This soup doesn’t taste like my mother’s.”
“I wish we’d discussed egalitarian relations in our first collective household here at Rainwood House.” Was their household of union organizers really a collective, Marlie wonders. In some ways, yes, she decides, remembering how they had cooked and cleaned together. To some degree, they’d even raised baby Ana Violeta collectively. At least, now that she thought about it, the women had acted collectively. Had Blake? Her memory was murky on that score.
What had remained peculiarly separate from the collective was Marlie’s and Blake’s relationship. Blake became more controlling and critical, showing increasing irritation at eccentricities of hers he had previously found lovable, Olivia and Rita became manifestly uncomfortable, but said nothing. Sometimes she’d felt their silent, awkward presence was much worse than no witness at all.
Marlie squints absently at the visitor on her porch as she wonders what might have happened if the women had said, kindly but firmly, “Blake, we’ve noticed you getting on Marlie’s case a lot lately. We need to discuss gender equality and compassion in our collective.”
Fat chance. Her stomach clenches whenever she remembers how Blake and then the others in the Cleaner Conscience Campaign’s steering committee began pointing fingers at her argumentativeness and inability to follow procedures. Soon it wasn’t Olivia and Rita sitting on the sidelines while Blake and Marlie fought; it was the three of them arrayed against Marlie, faulting her for being difficult to work and live with.
She had tried to defend herself, but got so confused she almost felt she deserved their displeasure. Incredibly, when she discovered Olivia and Blake had become lovers, she almost felt the betrayal was justified. Blake was so competent, and Olivia such a tranquil, steady person, while Marlie, according to nearly everyone whose opinion she valued, was a flake.
Marlie shuts her eyes against the dreadful memory. When she opens them, the visitor standing in front of her is looking slightly concerned. She musters a smile. “I’ve had some experience with collectives, too. Not all of it good, so I want to ensure that this one will be totally democratic and mutually supportive. We’ll resolve problems by consensus, with clear speaking, but respecting one another’s privacy.”
“Respecting privacy is good,” the visitor agrees, adding, after a moment, “The other things are, too.”
Marlie takes a deep breath. “We’re all used to living as we’re raised, hierarchy and individualism and treating each other like commodities, all that. To stop all that we need to change everything, of course, but we can’t practice democracy, equality, all that, on a small scale?”
The man’s smile is radiant. She feels excitement bubble inside her. “People always dream of houses, right?”
The man nods, his smile becoming slightly uncertain.
“The ones I dream of are full of people. Like rabbit warrens or smials.”
“Smiles?”
Samantha, who has been carefully nudging scattered paint chips into a straight line, looks up at the adults. “‘Smi-als,’ she corrects the man. And it’s hobbits that live there, Abue, not rabbits.”
“Right, chulita.” Don’t wander, Marlie orders herself. “My point is,” she says to the stranger, “people are supposed to live in community, like we did in ancient history.” She re-crosses her arms over her chest.
The man nods. “True. Isolating us into nuclear families divides us, making us easy to exploit.” He regards her with a questioning smile, as if seeking reassurance that he is following the conversation.
“Yes!” Marlie exclaims, delighted. For an instant she feels she’s back in Mexico, chatting with her activist friends. “Maybe a small collective can’t change much, but at least we can practice living by our principles.”
Practice by giving me shelter, Demetrius orders her silently.
The woman opens her mouth—to invite him in, Demetrius feels sure. But then her eyes seem to dim. In a cooler tone, she says, “So, Mr. Benson, what do you do?”
Demetrius drops his gaze to his duffel bag and notices a corner of his laptop poking up the thick canvas. “I work on the Internet,” he says. “With... ah… plants.”
Samantha, now standing beside her grandmother, cranes her neck to look behind him. “Where are they?”
“Where are who?”
“The plants.”
“Oh…well, on the Eastern Shore, actually,” he says. “I mean, I used to work with them there. I bred them and…sold them. But here in the city it’s harder because so many others sell plants, too. Home improvement stores, greenhouses, farmers markets, the, uh, Arboretum, and such. So now I…well…I do consulting about them.”
The woman raises her eyebrows. “Consulting? About plants? On the Internet?”
Demetrius gives a nod at each clipped question, feeling like one of those head-bobbing car ornaments. “Yes,” he replies. “I’m a… a plant counselor. I help people think about their gardens. You know, the Feng Shui and energy and…” He stops himself, fearing she’ll sense his scientist’s scorn for that nonsense.
“Interesting,” the woman says, glancing over her shoulder. She’s alarmed that someone might probe the Feng Shui of her house.
Observing this, Demetrius clears his throat. “Actually, I focus on your garden as an expression of your outlook on life. Your politics, your culture.”
“My garden?”
“Anyone’s garden,” Demetrius replies soothingly. “For instance, will you choose native plants, or any old plant that looks nice, even if it might alter the micro-ecosystem or be invasive or some corporate hybrid terminator seed? Are you raising plants to nourish wildlife and yourself, and are they in keeping with your roots and culture?”
The woman smiles, though the turned-down corners of her mouth signal skepticism.
Curious to hear what will come out of his mouth next, Demetrius plunges ahead. “Will you think about how your plantings complement each other in terms of the nutrients they need?” He gestures with his free hand. “And whether they renew the soil and attract pollinators—bees and butterflies,” he adds in an aside to Samantha, who is listening intently, twirling one of her tails of hair around a finger.
“I counsel harmony between you and your garden,” he rushes on, feeling a reckless sort of exhilaration, like careening downhill the one time he’d been skiing with his cousins. “You and your garden are like a family.” He glances at Samantha. “I mean, of course, you wouldn’t eat your family…”
The woman gives a predatory waggle of her eyebrows at Samantha. The girl grasps her grandmother’s arm and pretends to sink her teeth into it.
“At least,” he corrects with a laugh, “not the ones who’ll eat you back.” He feels more words ready to tumble out, but clamps his mouth shut. He still hasn’t made it inside the front door.
“Philosophy and politics of gardens,” Marlie says thoughtfully. For several years after Blake left her for Olivia and the union expelled her, she had lurched from one low-wage job to another, until she finally landed stable employment with a landscape architect. Unexpectedly—until then she’d never touched a garden tool—she’d loved it. Upon retiring to Florida eight years later, her boss put in a good word for Marlie with the University of Maryland Grounds Department, where she has now been for over five years. Gardening is her favorite part of the job, but she hasn’t thought much about its philosophy or politics, except to fume about all the chemicals and fossil fuels they use in the Grounds Department. “Hm,” she begins, “What’s your opinion on…”
“Marlie, dear!”
Demetrius spins toward the shrill voice. Across the street, a diminutive elderly woman stands on the porch of a neat little house. In a black sweatsuit, with a sharp nose and hair an unlikely shade of black, she reminds Demetrius of a crow. “Pardon me for interrupting when you have a visitor.” She leans over her porch railing, her voice carrying easily over the long front yard of Rainwood House.
Fortunately for him, her target is the little girl. “Marlie, Samantha should not be swinging on that bar. Young lady, remember the historical value of Rainwood House!”
No one replies.
“Samantha, I want to make sure you understand me.”
Samantha scrunches up her face. “Yes, Ms. Caroline.”
“That’s good, dear,” the woman answers, in what Demetrius supposes is, for her, a gentler tone. “When you live in a historical landmark like you do, you must take special care of it. And, of course, it’s my responsibility, as President of the Rainwood Historical Society, to make sure of that. Not an easy task.” She sweeps a disapproving eye over the house and disheveled front yard, then turns her acute gaze on Demetrius, who, with effort, refrains from cringing. “So, you’re a friend of Marlie’s, eh? I don’t remember ever seeing you in this neighborhood.”
Marlie says, “Yes, he is a new friend, Caroline. Now, Mr. Benson, will you come in?”
He nods, trying to appear blasé despite the sweat that has broken out on his body. But he has to give the unpleasant woman credit for providing the push that gets him invited inside.