Page 19 of We All Live Here
You’ve got to come! Spence is here and he’s brought the stuff!
Sorry, types Celie, and sends a bunch of shrugging-face emojis.
Besides, she’s not sure she wants to smoke weed in the park today. She’s not sure she wants to see the girls. She gets stomach-ache when she approaches them now, the silent glances, the compliments that don’t sound like compliments, the sense that a dozen conversations are going on behind her back. There is no chat on their WhatsApp group anymore, and Celie has the horrible feeling that a new one has been set up without her. This is her daily dilemma: to go and sit with them, and feel the whole time like she’s the butt of a joke that nobody will explain, or sit without them and know she will be anyway. Celie shoves her phone back into her pocket.
•••
When she comesdown again Bill is cooking with his back to everyone. He normally cooks on the old kitchen island, with its scarred wooden butcher-block top so he can chat to them, but today he has moved to the small space beside the draining board and is head down with his back to everyone, chopping determinedly, not even listening to his usual classical music. Mum is sitting in Bill’s upright armchair. (Why do all old people want to be sitting up like statues in the evenings? Celie and Mum mostly lie on the two couches, either feet up on the battered old leather pouf, or spread along the length of them, a bowl of microwave popcorn between them.) Jensen appears to have snuck off. But Gene is taking up the sofa, his injured leg on the pouf, and keeping up a one-sided conversation about the house, how quaint it is, how much character, how she must love it here.
“It needs a lot of work,” Mum says, when she clearly cannot get away with saying nothing any longer.
Gene looks up as Celie walks toward them. “Hey, sweetheart! Glad you can join us. Your mum has invited me to stay for dinner. Jensen thought it was best if I kept the leg elevated for a little longer, you know?”
Celie’s gaze flickers toward Mum, who wears an expression that suggests Gene has invited himself.
“What’s for supper?” Celie says to Bill.
“Pea and asparagus risotto,” he says, and she lets out a brief sigh of relief. No fish or lentils. The evening suddenly looks a little brighter. “With a chicory and fennel salad.”
Celie slumps.
“So how come you’re cooking, Bill?” says Gene.
Bill doesn’t turn around.Chop chop chop.“I cook every night,” he says curtly.Chop chop chop.
“You come here every night?”
“No, I live here.”
Celie glances at her mother. Nobody has actually said those words up till now, but her mother’s face doesn’t flicker.
“I’m just…helping with the girls. Lila has a lot on her plate right now.”
Gene’s genial expression seems to slip a little at this. “Well,” he says. And then again. “Well. Cozy!”
“Have you two known each other for a long time?” Celie looks from one old man to the other.
“Long enough,” says Bill, shortly.
“I’ll say,” says Gene, and the room falls silent again.
Truant is lying on the floor by Mum, his eyes trained on Gene, as if he is waiting for the slightest excuse to spring at him again. Celie goes and sits cross-legged beside the dog and strokes him near his collar, just incase he does. She does not want this man to cause their dog to be put down, no matter what he said earlier. Gene shifts in his chair and Truant lets out a quiet warning growl.
“Did you say you were an actor?” Celie says.
Gene’s smile returns immediately. He bestows it on her like a shaft of sunshine. “I am! You ever seenStar Squadron Zero?”
Celie shakes her head, and sees a flicker of disappointment on his face.
“I spent years as Captain Troy Strang, leader of the Unified Star Forces. You should watch it on YouTube or whatever you kids watch, these days. It was a big thing, you know? ‘Captain Strang, reporting for intergalactic duty’—that was my catchphrase. People still say it to me wherever I go.” He raises his hand in brisk salute and Truant lets out a faint protesting whine.
“Star Squadron Zero?”
“It’s why I had to stay in LA, Celia. I was lucky enough to hit a seam of gold. That doesn’t happen very often in an actor’s life. Doesn’t happen at all to most. I played that damn captain for eight years. Got nominated for an Emmy once. We had Nielsen ratings that were off the charts.”
Violet has come into the living room and sat down next to Gene. He puts his arm around her. “You want to see it, Violet?”
Violet nods. She clearly likes him.
