Twice Shy

by Sarah Hogle

  At this, Wesley’s soul returns to its human vessel. “Come again?”

  “You’ll have to decide for yourselves how you want to divide the assets,” Ruth replies. “Violet didn’t dictate.” She retrieves the papers from her oversized handbag and shows us. At the bottom of each page, in tiny eight-point-font footnotes, my aunt has gone to purposeful lengths to make this inheritance as thorny and inconvenient as possible.

  “I will say,” Ruth says to her stunned audience, “that you don’t have any existing debts, but from now on you’re responsible for insuring the property and for paying taxes on it.”

  My jaw drops. I’ve never owned my own home before, so this didn’t even occur to me. “How much is that going to cost?”

  “It all depends. If you sell the property—”

  “No,” Wesley and I say at the same time. Then we narrow our eyes at each other.

  “—you’re going to run into some high costs in taxes. That’s how it works with inherited homes. It’s cheaper for beneficiaries to keep them than to sell.” She loses me when she starts talking about capital gains tax, but I enter the chat again when I hear, “Making Falling Stars your primary residence is the best decision, tax-wise. But I wouldn’t dream of telling you what to do. Now, Violet, on the other hand . . .” She unfolds a sheet of lilac stationery and walks over to the wall. As she tears off a few pieces of Scotch tape and fusses with the paper, Wesley pivots and blasts me with his powers of intimidation until all that remains of me is my ghost.

  “I’ll buy you out.” Brusque. Factual.

  “What? No way.”

  “Ruth told me I was the only inheritor, so I’ve already made plans. There’s so much I want to do with this place, improvements I’ve always wanted to make, but Violet wouldn’t listen to my suggestions. Let me take it off your hands. I’ll fix up the estate, get it appraised after renovations are finished, and you can have half of whatever the house is worth.” He’s thinking quickly but isn’t adept at persuasion. Instead of soft, careful coaxing, his words fire out of a machine gun. “We’ll draw up a contract for a payment plan.”

  Is he out of his mind?

  “I’m not giving up ownership,” I sputter. “This is my aunt’s property, so I think it should stay in the family.”

  His head falls back a fraction, unintentionally distracting me with the column of his throat, Adam’s apple pronounced. “Your definition of family is a little strange. I’ve lived here for four and a half years, but I have never seen you before. What kind of niece visits her aunt only after she’s died, and only then because she’s getting presents?”

  My face heats. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Do with this what you will,” Ruth announces tiredly in the background. In my peripheral vision I notice she’s taped the lilac stationery to the wall. “You aren’t legally obligated to honor it. But speaking as Violet’s friend and not as the executor of her estate, I believe it would be wrong not to.”

  I’m about to ask her for clarification when Wesley takes a step closer to me and the words in my throat evaporate. He’s at least six three or six four, but that dark, burning demeanor adds an extra ten feet. The longer our gazes hold, the lower the ceilings drop, walls shrinking to box us in. “The manor’s in horrible condition,” he says with quiet but fierce intensity. “A fire hazard. You can’t even turn the heat on until it’s undergone an inspection by the fire department. You don’t want this mountain of problems, I promise you. Give me a few months. After the appraisal—”

  “I can’t wait a few months,” I snap. “I don’t have anything else. I already told my roommate I was moving out. All my stuff’s outside in my car. I literally . . . this is all I have! I thought it was all mine.”

  “Then how do you suggest we proceed?”

  “I don’t know.” I rub my eyes, a migraine beginning to bloom behind them. “I don’t know! I’m tired. It’s been a long day.” I glance at Ruth, hoping maybe she’ll have the crystal-clear solution, but I don’t see her anywhere. Her purse isn’t on the couch, either.

  She’s given us the slip.

  With her gone, now I’m alone in this cabin I sort of own but am clearly not welcome in, which sits on property I have to share with a darkly burning man who looks like that. The manor’s unlivable, and yet it appears I’m going to have to live in it.

  My run of good luck has already run its course.

  Chapter 4

  OPTIONS ARE THIN ON the ground. Is there a motel around here? Actually, the answer to that doesn’t matter: I can’t afford to waste my savings on a months-long hotel stay, which is the duration of time I’m looking at while I somehow get the estate up to code. I might have to sleep in my car, but it wouldn’t be the first time.

  I’ve walked right out of the cabin and am back in my car. This is . . . I resist even thinking the sentiment, because my mom’s voice filters into my conscience. Life’s not fair. Get used to it.

  I attempt to harden myself. It’s too cold for wallowing.

  Really cold, now that I’m sitting still and my nerves are fading. My phone’s home screen tells me it’s thirty-nine degrees, and I can’t keep the heat blasting or my car battery will die.

  I let my forehead slap the steering wheel. All right, Maybell. You can wallow just a little. At this point I thought I’d be lounging on Violet’s living room couch, fire blazing, evening news on a low drone to take the edge off the silence, utilizing her supersized pantry of baking ingredients to whip up something sweet.

  I don’t remember making the decision to get out of the car. I go poof and reappear on the steps of the manor, twisting the handle. The key Ruth gave me earlier today is unnecessary, because while the knob is locked, the door hangs loose on its frame and gives way at the lightest touch.

  My phone’s flashlight function illuminates the foyer, grand curving staircase blocked with overstuffed trash bags, some of them ripped open. I expect to be greeted by a familiar wicker bench with a blue floral cushion. The eighties lampshades in Southwest pinks and sands—out of fashion even then, but to my ten-year-old self, the incontrovertible ideal. It was like living on the set of an early-nineties sitcom, but whatever size scale you’re thinking—think bigger. And with more secret doors.

  There’s so much stuff packed in here that the sound of my footsteps absorbs instantly, no trace of an echo. Aunt Violet has ordered every As Seen on TV! product to hit one a.m. programming, whole walls of it, towers and battlements of it, weighing down so heavily that it curves the floorboards. My dumbfounded eyes wander over purchases that look like they’ve never been taken out of their boxes: waffle makers, miniature Christmas village sets, snow cone machines. A waist-high stack of children’s coloring books. Enough Hasbro inventory to play a different board game every day of the year. Wigs, tackle boxes, sequined cowgirl hats, aprons. Hundreds of books and DVDs. My jaw’s come unhinged, and my eyes burn for all the staring, and the dust, and something else that’s never going to leave me alone now.

  Your fault, it whispers.

  Two narrow paths fork off, left and right, ignoring the staircase altogether since it’s impossible to access. The paths are just barely wide enough to allow an elderly woman to squeeze through. I angle my phone upward to see how high it all goes, dust glimmering in the streaks of light hanging so thickly that I could almost trick myself into believing it’s snowing in here.

  Thirty-nine degrees has dropped to subzero. Cold seeps all the way through my skin, into my temporal lobes, moving torpid old memories down the pipeline for forced replay. I can’t believe the same Violet Hannobar who wouldn’t let anyone walk through the house with their shoes on became the Violet who lived in this mess.

  I make the questionable decision to keep going, because surely it can’t be like this everywhere. The kitchen was her favorite room in the house: upscale and shiny, decked out with all the best appliances and
double ovens (“for double the desserts”). I maneuver over and under packaged cookware like I’m in a game of life-sized Jenga, batting away cobwebs, foot delicately crunching the small bones of something dead.

  A dark shape flies at me from out of nowhere and I scream, ducking, dislodging the wall. An Easy-Bake Oven falls onto a birthday-paper-wrapped package that spins and lights up. A voice screams, “Bop it!” in the demon-possessed snarl that could only be produced by dying batteries, and I scream right back.

  When the path widens at last, I’m in the living room.

  Which means I’ve bypassed the kitchen completely. The shining apple of Aunt Violet’s eye, with fancy double ovens for double the desserts, has fallen victim to the hoard monster.

  I find my shell-shocked reflection in the blank, grubby television set, and if I close my eyes, everything is as it was. I hear the soft whir of Uncle Victor’s oxygen machine in the next room. Violet and I are on the burgundy sofa—I’m insisting that I’m mature enough to watch Unsolved Mysteries, but Violet doesn’t like it. I tell her I’ve seen worse at my cousin’s house—he used to watch R-rated horror films while I slept (or tried to) in the armchair. Violet purses her lips. Looks like I’ll be giving Brandon a phone call, then.

  I feel like a glamorous movie star in my tinted lip balm and glittery nail polish, smelling of Love’s Baby Soft perfume. Violet wears Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds and curlers in her hair, flaming red with pale roots. Her earrings were gifted to her by Marlon Brando when she was younger, but don’t tell Uncle Victor that. Six fingers are adorned in heavy jewels that, she tells me, out the side of her mouth like she doesn’t want anybody to overhear, her siblings would gladly kill her to get their hands on.

  I hiss out a long, unsteady breath. The little girl on the burgundy sofa has grown up, but being a grown-up isn’t at all the way she thought it’d be. She’s so lost now that it’s scary. The only one who’s ever looked out for her is gone.

  The Violet in my mind’s eye winks conspiratorially at my childhood self, then dissolves. No one’s been looking out for her, either. At my feet, there’s a grimy blanket and a cup with a moldy toothbrush in it. A hot plate’s switched off but still plugged in, ceramic bowl on top, instant noodles glued to the rim. A dead rat’s tail peeks out from under a pillow.

  My aunt’s house is eleven thousand square feet in total: elegant and sparkling, with a wine cellar, a butler’s pantry, and a surplus of unnecessary, beautiful extras. She has special rooms bigger than some people’s houses that were, in my time here, used only one day a year, doors kept closed for three hundred sixty-four days. Yet at the end of her life she was confined to a nest that roughly spans four by three feet.

  “I convinced her to move into the cabin not long after I was hired.”

  At the sound of another voice I emit a scream so powerful that it could probably carry a paper airplane on its wave. I jump and turn at once, ankle twisting, toppling right onto the dead rat, which turns out to be a live possum. Which rends another terrible shriek out of me.

  Wesley doesn’t offer a helping hand, watching with a closed expression.

  My knees knock together as I scramble to my feet, heart thumping something dreadful. It’s like I’ve swallowed a bomb. “Jesus Christ! Where did you come from?”

  He points wordlessly behind him.

  “Well, yeah, no shit. But how did you sneak in so quietly?” He’s huge. I should have heard him hacking through this jungle long before I saw him. Maybe he used a secret entrance. I try to summon a mental blueprint for this house, but all my Falling Stars knowledge has been turned upside down and shaken for loose change. With it looking the way it does now, I can’t even remember which direction my old bedroom is in. Somewhere upstairs. That’s all I know.

  He scrutinizes me as though I’m the one who’s acting suspect. “What are you doing? It’s not safe in here.”

  “Looking for somewhere to sleep.” I bend to unplug the hot plate, paranoid it’ll turn on even though the electricity’s shut off. This place would go up like a Fourth of July sparkler.

  “Somewhere to sleep,” he repeats flatly.

  “Yes. I moved out of my apartment because I was under the impression I had a new home with a nice warm bed waiting for me. Living it up like royalty.” I prop my hands on my hips, surveying our less-than-impressive environs. “I did not have ‘colossal hoard’ on my bingo card.”

  “There aren’t any nice beds here.”

  “I got that, thanks. I’m improvising. Saw a whole pallet of Nintendo 64s back there; maybe I’ll build myself a bed out of them.”

  Wesley doesn’t smile at my joke. He’s frowning at me again. I think he has a low opinion of my mental competence. “You can’t stay in here, it’s dangerous.”

  He’s absolutely right. “I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”

  Wesley hesitates. The worry line in his forehead cracks into a full-blown trench, and he’s silent for so long that I begin to think he’s a robot who’s spontaneously shut off, but then he opens his mouth. Slowly, he forces out the words: “You can come stay in the cabin.” It’s the most reluctantly issued invitation in history. “I suppose.” Another eternity passes. “For now.”

  There is simply no way.

  “Why not?”

  It transpires that I’ve said that out loud.

  Obviously, I am not going to tell Wesley that he’s my most recent ex and doesn’t know it, so I say, “There’s not enough room. The cabin only has one bedroom, from what I saw, which you’re already occupying. If I’m crashing on your couch I’ll just be in your way.” And I will not be a burden on anyone. “It’s fine. I’ll burrow into another room here that has fewer possums.” I try for a casual lean but accidentally kick over the toothbrush cup. Cockroaches scatter. “Never mind, I’ll sleep in my car. How good are you at jumping dead batteries, by the way?”

  The disapproving frown deepens, bracketing his mouth. He wields silence like a weapon, letting it hang over us for several moments, before responding, “The cabin is a two-bedroom. My bedroom’s upstairs. You can take Violet’s old room downstairs.”

  This perks me up. “Really? Are you sure?” Ordinarily I’d want to thoroughly vet a guy before agreeing to stay at his place for any length of time, but it’s gotten so chilly that I can see my breath, silver puffs disturbing the dust clouds. Besides, Aunt Violet liked him well enough to bequeath him half of Falling Stars. If he’s good in her books, he’s okay in mine. I’ll have to find a way to scrub my brain of all associations with Jack McBride and the fact that he’s a stone-cold stunner, of course, but that’s small potatoes. It’s been five seconds since I started seriously considering his offer, and in those five seconds I’ve spotted approximately three bats and four glowing eyes in the corner of the ceiling.

  He turns his back. “I’ll change out her blankets and pillows.”

  I’m reminded of Ruth saying Violet died in her sleep, full-body shuddering with goose bumps to think that I’ll be lying in her bed. “Could you flip the mattress, too?” I call at his retreating back.

  Wesley doesn’t reply. He eases sideways into the passageway and disappears.

  “Don’t bother to wait up or anything,” I grumble, picking my way along after. “Not like you’ll care if I die.” Just means he’ll get 100 percent of the estate rather than fifty. Maybe I should be more suspicious.

  I make slow progress. Play-Doh mega sets and bead bracelet kits wobble in my wake, glaring ominously down at my unprotected skull. I would hate to die by Etch A Sketch.

  By the time I’ve made it out of the house, Wesley’s long gone. When I open the cabin’s front door, there’s a split-second flash of movement as a pull-down ladder folds up into the ceiling. Footsteps thud above, followed by stark quiet.

  Violet’s room holds few belongings, likely because she kept her hoard at the manor and didn’t want to cros
s-contaminate. Or didn’t want to make Wesley’s life challenging by carrying the addiction over into his space.

  It’s spare but homey. A comfy queen bed, a dark cherry bureau, a lamp, a bookcase. There’s an air of unfinished business about the room, however. It has the flavor of someone going to sleep in it one night, unaware they’d be gone the next day. My imagination is running away with me again.

  I haul my luggage out of my car, too tired to properly unpack. I’m hungry and in desperate need of a shower, but first, curiosity niggles. I float over to the lilac stationery Ruth taped to the wall, and what I find there raises both eyebrows.

  violet’s dying wishes

  IGNORE AT YOUR OWN PERIL

  (I’LL HAUNT YOU DOWN, BESTOW 1,000-YEAR CURSES UPON YOUR BLOODLINES, ETC.)

  Wish 1. Take extraordinary (extraordinary!) care to comb through every single item in the house before you decide to donate/dispose/keep.

  Wish 2. Victor thought there was buried treasure out here but I never did find any. For the intrepid explorer, Finders Keepers rules apply.

  Wish 3. Maybell, dear, I’d be thrilled if you painted a mural in the ballroom.

  Wish 4. Movie night with a friend is sacred law, don’t forget. Wesley, I’d love for you to make my favorite cinnamon-sugar donuts for the occasion.

  * * *

  • • • • • • •

  I WALTZ INTO MY coffee shop in the clouds and he’s already there, wiping down the counter with a damp rag. Everything goes soft and out-of-focus fuzzy, black and white like an old film. A dark vignette fades out all the people in the room but one, who seems to glow at the edges. He looks up at me, flashing a radiant smile he never shares with anyone else.