Baby, It's Dead Outside

by E M Kaplan

  “No, I haven’t been down there,” Josie said. “It’s still empty, but it’s a totally separate apartment from this one and I don’t have a key.”

  “Oh, that’s good, because it’s dark and creepy down there just like our basement. Probably haunted, too. We’re finishing ours in the summer. Leslie wants to turn it into a home gym—he gets cranky if he misses a workout—but I just want my laundry station all prettied up. I want a folding table and a place for my dry clean steamer. Where’d you move from?” he wanted to know. “I work out of my house, but I must have missed the moving truck or I would’ve come over sooner. I didn’t even see when Barb and Mitchell moved out.” He looked around. “Is this your furniture? It looks like Sandra’s ratty-ass old things. Did she lease this place furnished this time? She tryin’ to jack up the rent?”

  Josie dug through the cabinets looking for coffee, cocoa, or anything at all. She kept imagining someone baking cookies in this kitchen, but maybe that aroma had just wafted over from a neighbor. She found an unwrapped box of Lipton tea bags that smelled like dust when she took a tentative sniff. She put it back on the shelf.

  “Actually, I’m just here for a couple weeks visiting my aunt. I’m just temporary,” she said, giving up on fixing something to drink. She glanced out the window at the growing darkness. If she wanted more than crackers and beef jerky for dinner, she needed to get to the grocery store. According to Sandra, if she got caught out at night, she’d be swallowed up by cornfields.

  “Wait,” he said, and put his hand on the edge of the platter as if he were going to take it back. “What do you mean by ‘temporary?’ Did Sandra go back to a month-to-month lease on this place? Because I am not baking cookies for every new renter and his mother. These are homemade snickerdoodles, Precious.”

  “I hate to break it to you, but she couldn’t get a long-term tenant. The house is one of those BnB deals now.” Josie eyed the plate. “You’re not going to take those back, are you?”

  Aloysius sighed with annoyance and retracted his hand. “I’m not going to renege. You can still have my snickerdoodles, but count yourself lucky. I don’t do this for just anyone.” His words were friendly enough, but he got up to leave as if he didn’t want to invest any more time in getting to know her. Fine with her. She wasn't that great at people-ing, to be honest, but she did have manners enough to thank him for stopping by.

  In return, he had the good grace to try to smile, but he was out the door quicker than she could think Tall fences make better neighbors. And by the way, what the heck was up with people and their abrupt exits in this town?

  “I thought he was weird. Did you think he was weird?” she asked Bert, but the dog gave only a single thump of his tail. He was still sprawled by the chair Aloysius had vacated, but his big brown eyes were fixed on the cookie plate. “That’s some seriously lazy begging, mister,” she told him.

  Speaking of which, she needed to buy dog food while she was out. Her phone said it was almost 4:30 and judging from the fading sunlight, she had about an hour before dark, tops. She opened her phone’s map app and got directions to the town’s only chain grocery store. Normally she’d love to seek out a little mom-and-pop general store, but she was hungry, a storm was coming, and Children of the Corn were lurking out there somewhere, so Josie grabbed her keys, shoved her feet in her boots and her arms into her coat, and went out to her car.

  

  Gliding along the small-town streets in her rented Caddy SUV like a queen in faded blue jeans, Josie made it to the store and back just as the last light of day faded. She tossed her keys onto the table and plunked a twenty-pound bag of Bert’s special dog kibble onto the kitchen floor. He gave it a sniff and wagged.

  “You’re welcome,” she said with a pat on his broad, bony pate.

  To her surprise, the grocery store had been a large, shiny, brightly lit outpost in this almost rural prairie land. Apparently it had been recently updated. Josie had overheard other shoppers grumbling about not being able to find anything anymore. She’d encountered a plethora of trendy foods for specialized diets, as well as Bert’s “healthy weight” dog food. Luckily, he didn’t seem to notice he’d been put on a calorie restriction by his vet. Bert barely stopped to chew his meal. That was one characteristic they had in common—they were both “highly food motivated,” as the sign above his cage had read when she’d adopted him from the animal shelter.

  When he was done eating, she clipped his leash to his collar. “What do you think? You want to go out?” Walking him in Boston was no big deal anymore. At home, he usually went out, did his business, and wanted to go right back home to their heated apartment. He wasn’t a fan of cold and ice, but he loved routine like all dogs—and people, too, for that matter—so she hoped he wasn’t going to linger along their new street too much.

  She checked her phone again before they left the house, thinking they could return before Greta called. Local time was an hour different from the East coast, but Greta was a night owl, and since Josie had hit the road, her erstwhile employer had been phoning her every night. Josie didn’t know if it was just to get a status report on her mission or because ice-cold Greta was actually melting a bit and missed her.

  What a weird thought that is.

  On the front stoop of the house, she paused to lock the door and was pleased to see an updated deadbolt, even though the door itself was probably about eighty years old. The dark purple paint was layered on so thickly, it felt almost gooey and looked black in the dark. So maybe this was a small town and people might not bolt their doors, but she’d grown up in Arizona where if you didn’t lock up your stuff, it could end up south of the border before you realized it had been stolen.

  In the gathering dark the leafless trees clawed a midnight blue sky with the silhouettes of gnarled branches. Spooky, to say the least. Luckily, Lincoln Street was dotted with street lamps so she didn’t feel nearly as creeped out as she might have. She walked with Bert down the sidewalk while he sniffed every tree and clump of grass. Reading his pee-mail. She chuckled, and then was embarrassed she’d laughed at her own dad joke.

  Although the sky was clear and the air had been still for the first two blocks of their amble, the wind suddenly kicked up like Old Man Winter yelling at her to keep off his frozen lawn. Frigid air blasted Josie’s face and all the exposed parts of her skin. “Holy crap, I need some warmer gloves,” she said. “And a scarf…and maybe a shot of brandy. Could you carry a barrel on your collar like a St. Bernard?” she asked Bert.

  Even though she could see the lights of the town square only two blocks away, she turned them around—despite Bert’s doleful look of protest because he was apparently immune to the cold—and headed back home. She was curious about her new neighborhood with its Victorian charm, but she wasn’t insane, and before long, they were back in front of her rental house.

  As she tried to get some sensation into her fingers so she could locate the keys in her jacket pocket, a sudden ruckus—the slam of a door and angry shouting—drew her attention. An argument had exploded across the street at the yellow house occupied by Sandra’s nephew Harris. She couldn’t see the source of the shouting, but the arguers were definitely a man and a woman.

  The front porch of the yellow house had been enclosed by screens and made into a sunroom, and the only reason Josie heard this evening’s drama was that the inner door banged open. Through the gaping passageway, a string of furious curses and shrieks cut through the previously peaceful neighborhood. A man, bundled up against the cold in a puffy jacket and checkered pattern cap with ear flaps—presumably Harris—stormed out. He stomped down the concrete steps toward a gray car parked in the narrow and cracked cement driveway at the side of the house. Then the door to the house shut with a bang, cutting off the sound of her fury. The momentary silence of the evening was shattered again as his car engine turned over with a roar.

  Josie, frozen in place on her front step with her hand on the door knob, exchanged a wary look with her dog.
She twisted around to watch as her angry neighbor slammed his car into reverse and did a three-point turn into the street. As he shifted into gear, he turned his head and locked gazes with her in way that made her wish she had a dead-bolted door between them. Then he drove away with a squeal of his tires.

  Cripes. If looks could kill.

  “Why is he mad at me? I didn’t do anything,” she muttered, unlocking her door at last. Bert pushed his way inside. “And that was the dumbest hat I’ve ever seen.”

  Chapter 5

  “Hey, I made it to Illinois,” Josie told Drew’s voicemail as she unzipped her suitcase.

  She slid open the top drawer of the antique bureau in her room and gave it a sniff, checking for mold as if she were going to unpack like a civilized traveler. Even though the drawer passed the smell test in a burst of powdery lavender, she eased it shut again. Who was she kidding? She was going to live out of her suitcase as she always did, like a hobo.

  I’m probably not going to be here that long. I’ll be back on the road heading home to Drew and my own cozy bed in no time with any luck.

  “I’m settling in. My landlady is super chatty. The neighbors are weird. It’s not that cold.” She said that last bit out of stubbornness, because that’s how she rolled. “Miss you. Also, I’m uninjured.” She gave a thumbs up to Bert, who thumped his tail once on the hardwood floor of the bedroom. Always supportive, that doggo.

  She figured Drew would want to know her medical status. As her doctor—former primary care doctor—and future husband, she knew he had a keen interest in her health level. She could also admit she had a bit of a track record for getting banged up…or stabbed…on these errands for Greta, so Josie also added that tongue-in-cheek update like a facetious health level bar from a video game.

  Almost immediately after Josie hung up, her phone rang. She’d been expecting Greta’s call, but the woman’s perfect timing unnerved her, as usual, which made Josie wonder if she was monitoring her. Maybe by GPS or something. She copied the woman’s standard lack of greeting and answered the call by saying, “I’m here. No problems on the road. The car drove like a dream. And Sandra the landlady met me with the house keys, so no issues getting into the house either.”

  “Very good,” Greta said.

  Josie continued with her status update, feeling very much like a third grader delivering a book report. “I’ll check out Pleasant Valley tomorrow.”

  “I’ve procured your visitor badge for the entirety of your trip. Check in at the front desk tomorrow and they will give it to you. After that, you only need show them your badge when you arrive for a visit and you’ll be free to enter the wing in which Lynetta resides.”

  “Hey, you didn’t mention it before, but is she in the memory care wing?” Armed with her tiny bit of new knowledge, Josie scouted for more details.

  “Yes. She’s been there for several years.”

  Yikes. That made Josie’s whole purpose on this adventure seem like a bit of a fool’s errand. Perhaps she should have asked more questions before she’d gone all Yeeeeehaw, road trip! If Lynetta had memory issues, how reliable would any of her statements be?

  Josie’s mother was also in a nursing home for dementia and memory issues. From what Josie had read and learned from her mother’s doctors, she knew her mother wandered back and forth somewhere between stages five and six of the disease. Her mother had trouble taking care of herself and suffered major memory lapses, but she was still all right with using the bathroom, eating, and swallowing. And if she sometimes forgot who Josie was, it was because all of her nurses were Filipino—while Josie was part Thai—and maybe Josie stood off to the side of the room sometimes, afraid to approach her mom. Afraid to find out if she’d been erased entirely from her mind…because one day, that might be true.

  Realization suddenly struck her that Greta Williams was fully aware that Josie’s mother was also in a nursing home for dementia, which meant they both had a person who was close to them in a care facility. Josie didn’t know how she felt about it. This misfortune was a strange thing to have in common with Greta.

  Josie would have to see in the morning if Lynetta was as far progressed as her mother. If so, her claims of her life being threatened were highly suspect, but Josie would try to withhold judgment until she could assess the situation herself. Waiting until she had all the facts before she made a snap decision wasn’t always her strength, but she’d do her best.

  “Do you have any messages you want me to pass along to your sister?” Josie asked.

  An awkward silence ensued while Greta seemed to be struggling for words. Or maybe Josie was imagining it. Perhaps Greta was trying to find something to make her sound more like a human. Josie tried out a few thoughts in her head.

  Ask her if she still has my Raggedy Ann doll. Ask her if she remembers that really tall slide in the park near our house. Ask her if she knows what happened to Billy Laughlin. Ask her if she still fits into our mother’s wedding dress.

  No, none of that musing seemed plausible. Those sentimental ideas were all too mundane, too girly, too normal. Greta couldn’t have been the type of kid who played in treehouses and stomped in mud puddles. The type of girl who smoked cigarettes hanging out of the window of her sister’s Chrysler while the white walls were spinning down the streets of Boston. Did the two of them laugh about boys and—

  “No,” Greta said, cutting off her thoughts.

  

  Sleeping in a strange house was never easy for Josie. Too many strange creaks and dark corners. Even the smell—old wood, lavender, the faint aroma of cookies, and a hundred years of inhabitants walking up its stairs and passing through its halls—was weird and foreign to her. Not unpleasant, just not home, even though she’d tried to her best to make it feel that way by bringing Bert.

  But seriously, how many people have been birthed or have died in this house?

  The second story of the small house had a tiny bathroom and bedroom, but then a larger bedroom was up one more creaky flight of stairs in what had formerly been attic space. Her oddball neighbor had said the upper bedroom was warmer thanks to the rising radiator heat, so Josie had decided to sleep at the top of the house.

  After brushing her teeth on the second floor, she climbed the narrow staircase upward and was shoved right into the replica wallpaper by Bert, who scrambled up the wooden steps past her to the top.

  “Geeze. By all means, after you,” she said, but she wasn’t mad. It was hard to hold a grudge against a wagging tail in her face.

  His inelegant butt was going to turn down the spooky factor of sleeping in an old house by at least seventy-five percent just with his presence alone…which may have been part of the reason for bringing him. That, and hanging around him made her panic attacks few and far between. She’d suffered fewer and fewer of them since returning from her trip to Texas and starting some casual self-defense slash therapy sessions with her karate teacher and counselor, Victor.

  No, I don’t have delusions of being Bruce Lee. My best defense in a fight is still to run the other direction. I’ve always known this.

  She’d already dragged Bert’s dog bed up the steps earlier and now she scooted it across the peach-colored carpet so it was right next to the twin-sized bed in the tiny room. The rectangular shaped room, with its ceiling that sloped down in either direction, was barely big enough for the bed that took up most of the space. A tiny bedside table held a lamp, and a window at the foot of the bed looked out across the street.

  When she turned around, Bert had his front paws up on the mattress, preparing to launch his body upward. She grabbed his collar. “What the heck? You’ve never slept on a human bed before. Now is not the time to start, buddy.”

  He huffed at her but curled up on his own doggy pillow after she pointed at it with a stern look.

  She turned off the light and lay in the dark for a few minutes, listening to Bert lick his paw with the incessant rhythm of a German band at Octoberfest before she shushed him. He groan
ed at her—or at the universe in general—and then was silent. She flopped on her belly under the lavender-scented quilt, punching her own pillow that she’d brought with her in the car. Forty minutes later, she sighed as she listened to Bert’s muffled snoring. She shoved back the covers, sat up and scooted to the end of the mattress.

  Through the four-paned window with its wavy vintage glass, she could see the moon and the black, upward-clawing branches of the massive trees that lined the street below. Farther down, the lights came on in the first floor windows of the yellow house across the street where Sandra’s nephew and his squabbling significant other lived. From this angle, Josie’s line of sight took her gaze down into their front room.

  Two figures had entered the room and seemed to be struggling with each other. Josie squinted and held her breath as they wrestled, jostling from behind one window to the next. When the two shadowy figures blended into one, she cringed and turned away from her window, shielding her gaze, realizing she was witnessing a private, intimate moment, and definitely not a fight.

  Oh, brother. Accidental voyeurism. She’d been caught in a similar position once before next to a swimming pool at an Arizona resort, trapped in place until the randy couple had finished their tryst. Spying on horny lovers was an awkward situation she didn’t want or need to repeat.

  I already crossed that off my bucket list of unwanted activities. No repeats necessary.

  “All right. Let’s try this again,” she muttered and climbed back into bed. She pulled the blanket over her entire head and shut her eyes.

  Chapter 6

  While the next morning was cheerful and sunny, Josie herself was not. She’d spent a couple more hours tossing and turning in the stuffy room upstairs before finally succumbing to a restless sleep. The bags under her eyes were so big, she could fly to Tahiti for a month and not need additional luggage.