Twelve Rooms with a View. Theresa Rebeck

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СКАЧАТЬ think it would be really great for you to explain this situation to my big brother. Come on.”

      What a jerk, I thought, and boy does he know how to order people around. I followed him back to television land, to see what fresh hell this great-looking asshole was about to cook up for me.

      His older brother was sitting on that sad little couch, in front of the television set, sort of slumped over, looking at the empty bowl of noodles and the half-empty glass of vodka and grapefruit juice. He glanced up when I entered, and I got a better look at him this time; he had the same pair of tired, smart brown eyes as his little brother, but they didn’t scare me as much for some reason. It might have been the rest of his face; his mouth was thinner, and kind of kept in one line, like it was so used to being disappointed all the time it didn’t even bother, anymore, to find another shape. His hair was thinning, too; I could see the beginnings of a bald spot dead center on the top of his head, and he had one of those hairlines that has crept so far up the dude just looks startled all the time. So somehow Doug Drinan managed to look shrewd, old, startled and disappointed. It happens to some people, I guess.

      “There’s hardly any furniture left,” he observed, kind of to no one. “I wonder what he did with it all. You think he sold it? He must’ve sold it, but why?” It sounded like what it was: a very good question. Pete was on his own track, though. He turned to me and tipped his head, like I was some kind of circus animal he could order around with these little gestures.

      “Tell my brother your name,” he said, all arrogant and smug.

      “Why don’t you do it for me, you seem to think it’s so funny,” I countered. He really was the kind of guy, instead of doing the simplest thing he asked, you’d really rather just irritate the shit out of him.

      He grinned. “Oh, no, I don’t think it’s funny at all. Tina Finn. Her name is Tina Finn, and she has just shared with me a few truly remarkable facts,” he said. Then before Pete could get around to narrating these fascinating facts, he glanced into the next room, the bedroom, which was as I had left it: an unmade bed, piles of clothes on the floor, underwear and books and empty boxes everywhere. The place looked absolutely ransacked because in fact I had ransacked it. “What the fuck?” He looked back at me, all angry again. “What the fuck. You went through his stuff. You went through my father’s shit?”

      I blushed like a teenager. “I didn’t, I was just—um…”

      “You were just what?” he asked, tossing underwear at me. “You were just casually going through my father’s underwear drawer?”

      “I’m sorry, I was looking—my mom had this old bottle of perfume and I was—”

      “You were looking for a bottle of perfume in my father’s underwear drawer and what you found was—his wallet.” He unearthed it, looked through it swiftly. “And, oh look, there’s nothing in there now, is there?” He closed the wallet and tossed it to the other guy, who was still sitting on the couch.

      “I didn’t take anything from your dad’s wallet,” I said.

      “That’s a lie,” he noted, correctly.

      “It’s not a lie,” I said, continuing to lie. “Yeah, I found it in there, but I mean there was nothing in it.” It was, as I said, already clear that this guy was one hell of a bully but I was pretty sure he wouldn’t get around to actually frisking me so there was no way to prove that I had the cash, which by the way I was not about to give up. “I was looking—”

      “You were looking and looking and you also found—the vodka!” he exclaimed, picking up the bottle off the coffee table, where I left it.

      “Knock it off, Pete.” The other Drinan stood, shaking his head, like he was used to this nonsense from crazy Pete but not in the mood. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said to me. “You must still be in shock.”

      “Oh,” I said, surprised. Doug Drinan expressing sorrow for my loss was frankly the most consideration I had gotten out of anyone, all day. “Thanks. I mean, thanks.” I said.

      “It was sudden, yes? I mean, she wasn’t sick,” he said.

      “No, they, they said it was a heart attack. I don’t know.”

      “That makes it hard.”

      “Don’t make friends with her; she’s not staying,” Pete advised his sad big brother. He had pulled the cork out of the vodka bottle and started pouring it into a dusty glass which he seemed to have located in one of those cabinets.

      “You’re going to regret that in the morning,” said Doug.

      “I’m going to regret everything in the morning. I regret everything now,” Pete informed him. “But since you’re so interested in making friends with our little intruder, maybe you should hear what she has to say about the apartment, and why she’s here.” He took a hit off that straight vodka. For a second I was hardly listening, I was sort of suddenly desperate for a drink myself and wondering if there was any way to make one without losing anymore ground. Doug looked at me with a puzzled weariness, like he was sincerely curious what I might say in response to Pete’s nasty prodding, but also like he didn’t believe, really, that anything horrible was going to come out of my mouth. Seriously, he was just such a tired and sad person. It was like he’d already been through so much bad luck that he didn’t think anything, really, could get any worse.

      “I…”

      “According to Tina Finn, who claims she is not a thief, evidence on hand notwithstanding, Dad left the apartment to her mother, you remember the oh so lovely Olivia—”

      “Jesus, Pete.” Doug looked away, disgusted and embarrassed. “Knock it off, would you?” He stood and grabbed the bottle of vodka, heading for the kitchenette and the little freezer full of ice cubes. The drinking was apparently going to continue with both these fellows.

      “I’m just getting to the good part. Dad left the apartment to Olivia—”

      Doug turned at this, confused and concerned, and about to interrupt, but Pete had more up his sleeve.

      “And Olivia left it to her daughters.”

      This stopped Doug in his tracks. He turned and looked back at me, sceptical but wary. The whole idea was clearly so ridiculous that he couldn’t take it in.

      “She didn’t actually leave it to us,” I said, embarrassed as hell. “I mean, she did leave it to us. She didn’t make a will and there’s this, you know, she died intestate. And that means—”

      “I know what ’intestate’ means,” said Doug, going for the ice. “This would explain what you’re doing here.”

      “Yeah,” I said.

      “Is your mother even in the ground yet?” he asked, a sort of edgy tone underlining the question. No more friendly expressions, so sorry for your loss, now I had to tough it out with both of them. To hell with it. If they were both drinking, then so was I.

      “The funeral was yesterday morning,” I said, grabbing my half-empty glass of vodka and grapefruit juice and following him into the kitchen, defiant. “So we went from the cemetery to the lawyer’s and then we came here.”

      “Very efficient.” Doug nodded. He dumped some ice in СКАЧАТЬ