Twelve Rooms with a View. Theresa Rebeck
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apartment, sort of quietly hilarious. He took a step back into that teeny bedroom. “Maybe you should tell me your name after all, sweetheart.”
“I don’t, I don’t—you tell me your name,” I insisted. I shoved my hands into the back pockets of my jeans and felt the hard edge of those bills I had stashed there. I was glad I had taken the precaution of pocketing that stuff right when I found it; it was starting to look like I might need it sooner rather than later. “I mean this is like my house and you’re like, you’re like…”
“Your house?” said Pete, half laughing. “Your house. That would make you—what was your name again?”
“Tina Finn?” I said. Okay I shouldn’t have caved like that, making my name a question at the last minute, but it just wasn’t so easy, keeping up the act that I was on top of this situation.
“Tina Finn,” he said, smiling now. “Tina Finn. One of the daughters of Olivia Finn. Would I be too far off the mark, assuming that?”
“Yeah, actually, she was my mom, and she just died two days ago, and and and—”
“Yesterday was the funeral.”
“Yes, yesterday was the funeral.”
“Yesterday was the funeral, and you still managed to slime your way into our apartment the same night. How very resourceful of you.” This was a creepy guy, smart and wily and drunk and way too fucking good looking. He was the kind of guy who knew he could get away with complete shit, and say and do completely shitty things because he was both great looking and smart. I wanted to get away from this guy as fast as I could, but I couldn’t give any more ground, none at all. If I did, there was no question I was going to be kicked out of there, and where was I supposed to go?
“Okay, you got my name, how about you give up yours?” I said. “Somebody Drinan, yeah? Pete, that’s your first name? So that makes you Pete Drinan. Bill was your dad?”
“Give the little lady a prize,” he smirked.
“Well, listen, Pete Drinan,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere tonight. Now that you know who I am, maybe you should just piss off.”
“Maybe you should stop thinking you have any rights here.”
“Maybe you should stop thinking I don’t.”
“And what gives you rights again? Your mother conned my father into marrying her, which gave her rights for a while, I guess, but you, I’m guessing not so much.”
“He left her this place. That doesn’t give me no rights,” I said.
“Really,” he said back, like what I said just meant nothing. He took another hit off that beer.
“Yeah, really,” I said. “He left it to her, and she left it to us.”
None of this seemed surprising to old Pete Drinan, but it didn’t seem like he was totally familiar with the story either. He made that little wave with his hand again, like, Let’s go.
“I’m not leaving,” I said. “I don’t have to leave.”
“Well, that’s debatable, but I’m not asking you to leave. Hey Doug!” he yelled, heading down the hallway toward the back of the apartment. “Listen to this!” Then he yelled back to me again, without even turning around. “Come on, Tina Finn, I 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