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fanciful
dollhouse had whole sections of ruby paint chipped from its bulbous
towers and fanciful pearl trim that stood thick like the twisted
icing of a wedding cake. It beckoned in some misguided bid for
attention, like the sinister home in a Brothers Grimm tale. It was
a cheap imitation of the charm and splendor around it.
    The truck’s back doors flung open, and a
spindly white boy backed out, shoulders hunched, the edge of a navy
couch in his grip. Lengthy and paler than a ghost in winter, only
his hollowed cheeks had splotches of red. Blond hair plastered to a
hard skull with a wayward bit blowing free in the wind as his mouth
clamped with the weight of his burden. Edy stood, curious. The
couch was a plain thing draped in simple fabric, no wood carvings
as far as she could see, and certainly not new, imported, designer
or antique. In fact, its lumps were so prominent she could see them
from across the street.

The other end of the sofa emerged, and with
it, a middle aged, beer gut of a man, and the reason for the boy’s
struggles. The man’s end of the couch rode low, nearly to the ramp
they moved down. He fumbled in his pocket for something, and Edy
caught snatches of the boy yelling. The man shot him a look of
exasperation, but picked up the slack anyway. Hair sandy brown,
skin oyster white, his five o’clock shadow, pouting belly, and
Dickey blue pants confirmed Edy’s suspicions. They were hired help.
But for whom?
    The Pradhan’s front door swung open, and
Hassan stepped out. Clad in a fitted, long-sleeved ribbed sweater
and fashionably tattered jeans, he hopped the fence that separated
his house from Edy’s and made his way across her yard.
    “I can’t believe someone’s moving in that
circus tent,” Hassan said.
    He planted a kiss on Edy’s
forehead—habit—then paused—not habit—before giving her a once-over
as if to see how she’d taken it.
    Edy couldn’t help but wonder if those lips
had been on the redhead the night before.
    “Could be a family of architects,” she said,
turning away. Edy heard the raspiness in her voice and hesitated. Get it together. “With plans to fix the place up.”
    She looked from the house across the street
to him. Still, she had his attention. Too much of it. His gaze
searched her face as if committing it to memory.
    “Cake?” he said. She blistered with thoughts
of the night before, of fingers entwined, of ascending to privacy,
of a place Edy couldn’t follow. She had expected to fool the one
person she’d never been able to, to be nonchalant. And now that she
couldn’t, she hadn’t time for a plan B. He was looking right at
her.
    “You okay?” Hassan said.
    “Fine.” Find something else to
do.
    “You don’t look fine,” he said.
    She looked at him. “Well, I am.”
    Hassan exhaled. Contemplated. She could feel him thinking. “Listen, Edy. Last night—”
    “Last night I decided to go home. End of
story.”
    His mouth clamped shut, opened, then shut
again. Finally, he turned to the scene across the street. Minutes
ticked by. “What do they look like?” he said.
    “Not sure. I’ve only seen the help.”
    Hassan grinned as the pair emerged again
from the house. “Hired help? They must not charge much.”
    As if to underscore his point, the
pot-bellied man dropped down on the porch and lit a freakin’
cigarette. Jeez. She couldn’t believe people still smoked.
    Edy’s mother strode from their house, clad
in a stiff and layered Armani suit of runway perfection. It cut and
flared where it needed to.
    “Oh. Hey, plum,” she said to Hassan. She
paused long enough to mess his hair and fuss and say whatever
mothers said to the child they wished was theirs. Whatever warmth
radiated from her evaporated when she turned to Edy.
    “Today’s Saturday,” she said. “That means
study your Latin, brush up on the biology, and then, if
there’s time, make it to ballet.”
    She started off for her Lexus.
    “Shut up,” Edy and Hassan chimed under