Work Text:
In 1982, Mason temporarily inherited an obscenely large house from his latest reap. He and Betty camped out there for three days and drank a third of the wine in the cellar and also maybe had sex on the first night, but he couldn't remember specifics and she insisted that they hadn't gotten to it before she passed out. Then the reap's ex-wife came to the house with their kids and the situation got maudlin very quickly.
Mason and Betty hid in the attic with a few bottles of Cabernet and Merlot and listened to the family clomp up and down the stairs in heels and snow boots. Eventually Betty fell asleep on the dusty chaise near the trap door and left Mason with no stimulation but attempting to widen the hole in his glove. The ex-wife's accent sounded local, but the kids had clearly grown up somewhere Southern. They talked about their late father the way one might discuss a vaguely familiar neighbor who'd passed away. While their mother sobbed in her ex-husband's bedroom (sound traveled clear as crystal up the vent and into the attic), the kids trash-bagged the expired food in the fridge and wondered if the house would do better on the market a few years in the future.
No one came up to the attic. They probably knew it was empty except for furniture. Unfortunately, most of it creaked with added weight, so Mason had to settle for the floor. Downstairs, the ex-wife—widow—suddenly started screaming, and surprised Mason badly enough that he spilled red wine down his shirt. Sullenly he licked his lips and sucked the juice from his wrist. His mum used to do that, scream when she cried. She'd give in to fits of hysterics sometimes when Mason was young. She'd gotten herself under control later, at least by the time he turned ten, but even though she stayed consistently neutral-tempered for the rest of his life, he always considered her a little off her sails. His dad didn't mind the screaming; it was silence he hated. Mason tapped the sole of his shoe with the bottom of his bottle and hummed a little Velvet Underground.
Shortly after sundown, his reap's family started loading up their station wagon with memories and all the nonperishable food left in the pantry. Mason watched the kids climb up onto the hood of the car and pull fistfuls of almonds, raisins and M&Ms out of a giant tub of trail mix while the widow strained to shut the back door on a bulging mass of useless sentimental junk. When she slipped in the snow and wouldn't stand up, it was up to the older kid to coax her mother away from the door and into the passenger's seat. The younger kid—younger by half, it looked like, and probably less than halfway through puberty—rearranged a few boxes in the trunk and easily got the door shut.
They drove off in the dark, wet snow crumpling under the tires. Betty hadn't been great company after Mason grilled her about whether or not they'd had sex, so he let her keep sleeping. He wandered the house, bored, and uncovered his reap's stash of weed in the Greek vase by the staircase. It barely mellowed him out, but weed had never done much for him, even before he died. So he gathered another armful of bottles from the cellar and brought them up to Betty, hoping for another shot at getting laid. No point in wasting all this time together. Too many more decades in the sexless corner and he'd be out of the game for good. He'd be like Rube. Fucking nonfucking Rube.
She startled awake when he set the bottles down on the floor. Halfway through their first bottle, she said, "Oh, hello," and dragged Mason down on top of her. Then, halfway through foreplay, she hiccuped into his mouth and groaned, "No, no, no," and pushed his face away. Mason spent the rest of the night listening to her take advantage of his reap's speaker system and dance from room to room. Occasionally she'd shout, "Stop that brooding and dance with me!" or "Sulking really doesn't suit you, dear!" but he didn't budge off the attic stairs, lips stubbornly grazing the mouth of a bottle.
At dawn, she sat next to him, her wide mouth dark red and glossy with a fresh gulp of wine. He brought his fingertips up to her jaw and traced a line up behind her ear. But she just smiled and tapped him on the nose. "No, no, no," she said amicably. "No, Mason. No."
He sat back and made a bitter face.
"What an ambitious house," Betty said. "Can you imagine living in a place this big?"
Mason shrugged.
"My parents always planned to buy a house like this. They never got the money for it, of course, and I'm sure the reality wouldn't have lived up to the dream, but it might have been nice to grow up with so much free space."
Mason adjusted his jeans morosely.
"I'm going to go dance," Betty said, clapping Mason on the knee. "You're welcome to join in, Mason. But only if you're willing to go at it fearlessly."
He drank instead.
When they wandered back to the diner the next morning, Rube shouted at them in his quiet shouting voice and Mason winced and Betty pursed her lips thoughtfully. But they didn't get the full force of Rube's wrath because they had a new reaper on the nonexistent payroll.
"Where is he?" Mason asked. "She. He?"
"She. Is in the bathroom," Rube answered. "And she is not taking her situation well. So if you, Mason, do not feel prepared to pretend you have common courtesy, it would be in everyone's best interest for you to leave."
Too late. New girl—lady? woman—sat down in the booth next to Mason and started cutting up the eggs on the plate before her. As soon as Rube got her talking, Mason immediately hated her. Mason had always got on well with Betty because she buffered Rube's more misanthropic qualities, but this new woman was Rube. In leg warmers.
And because Rube wanted him to be a decent human person, Mason introduced himself to Roxy like this: "So, do you also make crotch warmers, or just warmers for the legs?"
Someday, he would admit he'd set himself up for the coffee in his lap.
While he shrieked and repeatedly slammed his fists down on the table, Betty gave him a curious smile. Then she shook hands over the table with Roxy and said, "Betty Rohmer. Those footless socks of yours are impeccable."
Roxy didn't smile so much as allow one corner of her mouth to go a little higher than the other, but it made an enormous change nonetheless. "Thank you," she said, and finished their hand-shaking with a firm I-like-you downswing.
The next day, Betty brought Rube a pocketwatch given to her by a very old, very generous reap. "His name was Russel," she said. "Big strong 'R.' He was a watchmaker, and he had dozens of these hanging from the ceiling beams in his bedroom." She tapped the face of the watch, which bore the letter stamped elegantly into the metal.
Rube bought her breakfast. She ate half and gave the rest to Mason, who had no money and no idea how to get to the soft spot in Rube's heart.
He also had no interest in decorum. Once he'd swallowed the last of the oatmeal, he leaned across the table (almost jabbing Roxy in the chest with a free-flying elbow) and said to Betty, "Why wouldn't you let me sleep with you?"
Betty blinked, then laughed. "Oh, Mason," she said, beaming, "you're just the extent of adorable sometimes."
Roxy did elbow him in the chest.
Rube just scowled extra hard.
Mason was just kind of glad Betty didn't tap him on the nose again. It was just enough encouragement for him to continue, "No, but really. Because women don't let me get that far unless there's even a sliver of interest. And you were certainly far enough into the bottle to give you a good excuse later."
Betty nodded. "Give me your hand, sweetie," she said.
He did.
Roxy and Rube stared at their hands on the table.
Betty said, "I wanted to." Lifted one shoulder. "And then I didn't." She patted his hand once bracingly, then sat back with a bright smile. "That's just the way intoxication runs things sometimes."
Mason grinned slightly. "What if you were drunker?"
Rube slammed down post-its on the table pointedly.
Betty just smiled.
Reaching for her assignment, Roxy said, "Don't give the idiot hope." She turned to get out of the booth. "Move, idiot."
He did. And then he ate the crusts of her toast.
After Rube left, Betty said, "Let's go back to that house someday. I'll teach you the Charleston."
Women like Betty were never a sure thing, but if one hung around long enough, one might significantly improve the odds. So he hung around. Kept an eye out for a better chance.
Then Betty left them.
The next night, Mason went back to the house. He broke in, drank in the attic, and passed out. He woke up to the faint smell of Pop Tarts. The family—his old reap's younger daughter and her kids—had left for the day, leaving behind a pantry full of free food. He took a box of sugar cereal to the lake behind the house and tossed out morsels for the ducks. When he started to feel edgy, he left. He never went back.