“Teddy Prescott, your first task is to ensure sunlight never again touches my skin. You two don’t know what you have: SKIN.” Renata makes both Teddy and me jump in our seats. We look down at ourselves. She intones like a creep, “Nice young skin.”
Teddy asks, “Am I going to end up in the bottom of a well, applying lotion to myself?”
“What you do in your spare time is none of my business,” Renata advises him. “Oh, let’s take a look.” She means the tattoos across his knuckles. “GIVE and TAKE. Are you left- or right-handed?”
“Left.”
“So you admit you take more than you give.” Renata is locking into a mode I have seen many times before: a serpentine argument based on the applicant’s self-perception. We barely have sixty seconds on the clock.
“Depends on who I’m with.”
“Elaborate,” Renata instructs crisply.
“If I’m down in the well, alone with the lotion, then yes. If I’m not alone, then I definitely mix it up.” Those multicolor eyes flick back to me now, maybe checking how I’m handling this risqué line of reply. He sees I’m amused, and now those eyes are sparkling.
“One point to Teddy,” Aggie umpires.
“What a blank canvas we’ve got here.” Renata reaches over and takes my wrist, unbuttoning my cuff and pushing up my sleeve. “We could take her to get a tattoo. I’ll pay. What should she get? I know, a big Virgin Mary.” She’s shockingly strong and I inhale as her nails begin to press.
“Ow,” I protest.
For the first time, Teddy looks truly uncomfortable. “That’s the first interview question? What tattoo would I, a licensed tattoo artist, give Ruthie? Whatever she asked for. Let her go, please.” His voice has dipped down into that particular register men use when they want their way, now. We three women suddenly remember what he is.
Renata releases my arm, which is now marked with crescent nail indentations. She makes long eye contact with Aggie, who remains impassive. They conduct a wordless communication. Then Renata says to me, “We’re going to have to invent a new category, aren’t we, Ruthie?” This is her apology.
“What are some of your common categories?” Teddy asks, like he is not dealing with a strange person. “Maybe I can tell you which one I fit into.”
Renata begins ticking off on her fingers. “Country Bumpkin. Little Boy Lost. Too Dumb to Live. Fake Grandson—they’re the ones hoping to inherit.”
Aggie adds, “Environmental Man—no deodorant.”
“I wear deodorant.”
“Another point to Teddy. I think sometimes I still get a whiff of Matthew,” Aggie says. “And it’s been years.”
I try to join in. “Tortured Artist?” If these are his designs, he’s talented.
“I’m feeling mildly tortured right about now,” Teddy agrees.
Renata looks out the window like she’s remembering someone special. “My favorites have been Insomniac Potheads. Ones who can get me a good supply, and we si
t up all night talking about which celebrity is going to die next.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.” I must be getting mellow. It’s the late-afternoon sun shining through onto my back.
“When you’re this old, weed and takeout is all you have left to live for. And love, of course,” Renata says, patting her sister’s hand. “Ah, je suis très romantique . . . Quick. Give me a compliment.” That’s a test lobbed at Teddy.
Teddy replies, “Your house is nice.” The view from this room is lovely: Manicured lawns roll up to an English box hedge. Beyond that, there is a birdbath and a stooped wisteria.
Renata scoffs. “Boring attempt, minus a point. If I wasn’t a million years old, I’d be back in my old loft in Tribeca.” Not this song again. Her eyes narrow dangerously. “I meant a compliment for me.”
Teddy steps up to the plate. He squints his eyes against the sunlight. He lifts his bat. “You are,” Teddy says with emphasis and absolute sincerity, “the best-dressed person I have ever met.”
The crowd leaps to their feet. We shade our eyes. He knocks it clean out of the park. That compliment is denting the windshield of a bus two suburbs over.
“Oh,” Renata says, looking down at herself. “You mean this outfit?” A smile is on her mouth and she strokes a hand down her rail-thin thigh as if it were a treasured pet. “This old pair of Dior cruise collection 2016 palazzo pants? This vintage Balenciaga blouse? He’s pretty good, that’s ten points,” she says offhand to Aggie, who is starting to doze in the warm room.
He doesn’t gloat. “What’s the job involve?”