Dark August

by Katie Tallo

  “That crack in the ceiling.” Eye roll.

  “That yellow toilet.” Nostril flare.

  “That torn screen.” Big sigh.

  “And that hideous brown lawn.” Shoulder slump.

  “Weed that garden, roll out some fresh sod, put a couple of potted mums on the porch, et voilà! Curb appeal!”

  Haley-Anne hands her an inventory of to-dos as she leaves. Gus promises she’ll get right on it. The bank has given her three months, so the sooner they list the house, the better. Gus posts the to-dos on the fridge under a puppy magnet. She stares at it.

  How hard can it be to create curb appeal and clean up a little?

  Harder than she thinks.

  Gus spends the weekend moving from room to room like a balloon bouncing off the furniture. The melancholy follows her as she hovers in doorways. Gets sucked down halls. And occasionally clings to a wall while Lars sends her text after text.

  Babes, where you at?

  What the fuck, Augs?

  Please come back.

  You’re dead to me.

  I love you, Auggie.

  She runs her fingers along dusty windowsills where paint peels away in lovely cracked patterns that remind her of the backs of Rose’s wrinkled hands. She stares through cobwebs crisscrossing the front window as the world outside moves past, a carousel of mothers and strollers, dog walkers, a postman shouldering a heavy bag, a garbage truck wincing as it stops and starts. All moving past Rose’s house. Unaware that Gus is watching from behind the cobwebs.

  Miss Santos probably looked out this same window as life passed her by. Waiting for an old woman to take her last breath so she could collect on a promise.

  Gus has been at Rose’s house since Thursday evening. It takes her until Monday to move herself into the room where Miss Santos used to sleep. The smallest, starkest bedroom in the house. The one with the single bed in the corner and the TV sitting across from it, knowing its blue flickering will keep her company at night. She closes the door to the periwinkle guest room that used to be hers and leaves it closed.

  Levi has been sleeping on Rose’s bed. Every evening after supper, Gus hears his nails tick-tick-tick up the wooden stairs and down the hall. Then the soft squeak of the box spring as he hoists his old bones up onto the bed.

  Tuesday, Gus stumbles into the kitchen wearing one of Rose’s long flannel nightgowns. She found a stack of them neatly washed and folded on top of a hamper. Made of soft cotton that reminds her of the nighties she used to wear as a kid. Gus sits at the kitchen table with her coffee, just like she has the previous four mornings. The to-do list waiting on the fridge. Levi at her feet.

  Wednesday, she pokes around upstairs. Opening the drawer in the small teak table next to Rose’s bed. Three linen dollies, a melted candle, matches, a Bible, and a small handgun along with a box of bullets tucked underneath a half-dozen Reader’s Digests.

  In the closet, Gus finds a collection of hatboxes, a different colored hat inside each. Pink, plum, daisy yellow, and pistachio. Sunday hats. Each a delicate pastel bouquet resting inside a satin coffin. Some gilded with pearls. Others decorated with feathers or tiny silk roses. She opens the daisy yellow box and tries on the hat. Sitting in front of Rose’s vanity, she pulls a strand of gray hair from the rim. It’s caught in a pearl.

  A remnant of Rose.

  On the vanity sits a hand-carved jewelry box. Its velvet-lined pockets are brimming with bangles and shiny rings and rhinestone necklaces coiled like sleeping snakes. Costume jewelry. Cubic zirconia and simulated diamonds. Lars used to deal in junk jewelry. She knows it well. Gus clips on a pair of dangly earrings and looks in the mirror.

  A child playing dress-up stares out at her.

  She dips back in time.

  8

  Rose

  GUS IS FIVE WHEN SHE’S CAUGHT SNOOPING IN ROSE’S jewelry box. She’s never seen Rose that angry before. Rose was always so kind. She gave her powdered green mints from a candy dish with a glass lid. She let Gus play on the living room carpet with her Russian nesting dolls. But in that moment, she’s a different person. Her pastel lips pull back to reveal yellow teeth like fangs.

  How dare you touch my things.

  She snaps the jewelry box shut. Grazes the back of Augusta’s hand with her fingernail, leaving a scratch that almost bleeds. Gus is so ashamed of what she’s done that on the way home in the car, when she finds a ring on her baby finger that she forgot to take off, she howls and throws it out the window. She falls into a fit of hysterics. Her mother has to pull the car over. Shannon doesn’t know what’s happening and Gus can’t find the words to explain how Rose turned on her so unexpectedly. Shannon rubs her back and tells her she’s overtired. Probably ate too many of Rose’s mints.

  But Gus isn’t tired and she didn’t eat too many mints. She’s horribly sad. She’s discovered that there are lines only grown-ups can see. Lines children are not supposed to cross. But these lines are invisible. And these lines are everywhere. From that day forward, Gus watches for them. Her nerves fray from looking so hard. From trying to spot them.

  She crosses another when she’s eight.

  When she asks her mother about the photo of the ballerina.

  Gus stares in the mirror. She’s twenty now. All grown-up. No one can how dare her anymore. She can drink coffee from Rose’s crystal, eat mac and cheese on the fine china, and wipe down the wet dog with the good towels if she so chooses.

  This is her house. For ninety days at least. So there.

  Gus tosses Rose’s yellow Sunday hat on the carpet and storms down to the kitchen. She looks around. Then she pulls the table closer to the back door so the morning sun will cascade across it when she’s having her coffee. She duct-tapes the broken screen back in place and tosses the crusty dishes into the trash bin under the sink. Then she spends the rest of the afternoon stretched out on her belly on the living room carpet playing with Rose’s collection of Russian nesting dolls. She opens each maiden until she finds the smallest one hiding inside. The small ones have nothing inside them. They’re solid. Not hollow like the others. These are her favorites. Gus opens all ten nesting dolls, then lines up the ten smallest in a row on the front windowsill so they can watch the carousel pass by.

  Thursday, Gus browses through Rose’s LP collection that sits in a wire rack next to a turntable inside a wood cabinet. Lawrence Welk and His Champagne Music. Patsy Cline’s Greatest Hits. Pat Boone, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash. Old lady music. Gus plays Sinatra’s “My Way” cranked up loud. She spins around the living room letting her grannie nightie float like wings around her.

  Friday morning, eight days since arriving at Rose’s house, Gus is pouring her second cup of coffee when Haley-Anne phones to see how the to-do list is coming along.

  “Oh, it’s going great,” Gus lies. Not wanting Haley-Anne to come over and burst her cocoon. If mail didn’t tumble through the slot every afternoon, it would seem impenetrable. Gus could stay inside Rose’s house forever. Ensure is amazingly filling.

  “Give me a week and I’ll give you curb appeal.”

  Levi walks into the kitchen as Gus hangs up. He’s got one of her sneakers in his mouth. She darts at him, tries to grab the runner, nearly passes out from hunger.

  Might be time to get some real food. She ventures out. Heads to the Metro grocery store around the corner. Fills a plastic basket with bananas, bread, a bag of mini Mars bars, a box of Honeycomb cereal, a six-pack of pink cream soda, and a chew toy for Levi. At the checkout counter, the guy stares at his register, then at her.

  “That’ll be twenty-four fifty-one. Cash, credit, or debit.”

  She can’t believe she forgot her purse. Crap. She flushes red. He raises his eyebrows. She checks the back pocket of her jeans. Hits pay dirt. Change from the twenty she used to buy the bagel sandwich. Since she was a kid she’s been shoving odds and ends in her back pocket like a squirrel and now one of these little acorns has come in handy. She tells the checkout guy to take off the cream so
da. He does.

  “That’ll be sixteen sixty-one. Cash, I’m guessing?”

  Back home, Levi ignores the chew toy. Instead, he sits in the front foyer staring up at her sneakers on the top shelf of the hall tree. After an hour of trying to will them to fall off, he lumbers to the kitchen and eases his arthritic hindquarters slowly to the floor. He stretches out on his belly and begins to gnaw the wooden leg of the kitchen table. Gus checks her phone. Twenty-two new texts from Lars.

  Auggie, baby girl. It’s Lars.

  You can’t just fucking ghost me.

  Honey, I miss you. Miss me?

  Answer me, bitch.

  She doesn’t bother reading the rest. Deletes them. Gus has bigger problems. Cash flow. The money she stole from Lars won’t last. She could sell some of Rose’s collectibles, but where? She’s clueless. She’s been living under a rock her whole life. Been taken care of by someone else. She doesn’t know how to pay bills or clean a house or even boil an egg. All she knows how to do is microwave a frozen dinner, shoot a gun, and hot-wire a car. She needs a paycheck. A job. A real job.

  Levi has one. Chewing. Gus watches as the dog chews the leg of the table. It’s what Levi does best. Every stick of furniture, every baseboard, the lower rungs of the banister. All of it is scored with teeth marks. Dog’s spent a decade chewing his way through this house. She watches his white whiskers quiver as he gently grinds his teeth. He’s getting old. Doesn’t eat that much. Hardly ever barks. Doesn’t seem to care if she walks him or not. Mostly sleeps all day. No trouble at all when she really thinks about it.

  Humane Society can wait. Gus gently slides his muzzle away from the chair leg.

  “No, Levi.”

  He rolls casually onto his side, stretching his neck toward the leg, and goes back to gently gnawing on it. She lets him.

  For the next week, they settle into a daily routine. They meet at the top of the stairs and head down to the kitchen together. Gus makes coffee and mashed bananas on toast sprinkled with Honeycomb. Levi eats his kibble then pushes past the duct tape and out through the broken screen, disappearing into the thick honeysuckles at the back of the yard. Some secret spot where he does his business.

  Their routine includes a morning excursion to the dog run at Hampton Park. Levi likes to romp with a Great Dane named Eugene whose owner hasn’t bothered to share his own name. He’s a lanky man with a pointed nose and a pinched mouth. Resembles Eugene. The dogs smell each other then deke and dodge like they’re playing tag. They’re both slow. Levi’s slowed by age and Eugene by his size. He’s all legs. Eugene’s owner talks nonstop. Gus doesn’t mind. Sometimes he’s the only person she talks to all day. And she might be the only person he talks to. They have nothing in common except their dogs. He tells her how Eugene’s been off his food lately. How his poop hasn’t been solid for days. How the vet charges an arm and a leg for Eugene’s low-fat GI food. Sometimes he catches her off guard. Like when he said he wasn’t sure he could go on without Eugene. She doesn’t tell him that most days she feels like a small wooden doll living deep inside layers of bigger wooden dolls. How she’s been nesting for days. How she’s hiding but she’s not sure from what or who.

  Back from their morning walk, Levi stares at Augusta until she gets him a cookie from a jar in the kitchen. She asks him to sit. He looks at her. Tongue out, eyes wide. She asks him again. He scratches one ear with his hind leg. She gives up and tosses him the treat. He tries to snap it out of the air but misses and has to scramble after it. She pours another coffee and sits at the table. Levi settles at her feet and chews contentedly.

  Gus loves the view out the open back door. The warm breeze of the fan. The cool floors on her bare feet. There’s only one thing wrong with her kitchen world. That door next to the pantry. The basement door. As a child, she hated looking down those stairs when it stood open. Deep into the basement with its dark corners and hairy walls.

  Gus decided a few days back to pretend that there was no basement in Rose’s house. That a simple hook-and-eye latch was sufficient to keep any basement monsters down below where they belonged.

  Not all doors are meant to be opened.

  THAT NIGHT, A RAGING THUNDERSTORM ROLLS THROUGH THE neighborhood. Levi scurries into her bedroom. Panting. Body trembling. She pats the bed and he jumps up and snuggles close, burying his nose in her armpit. She strokes his ears. He puffs short, shallow breaths. He’s terrified. She lies back, watching the fierce wind paint tree shadows on the walls. Lightning flashes. It’s breathtaking. She always loved thunderstorms. Loved jumping in her mother’s bed. Pretending she was scared so she could sleep next to her.

  Sometime in the middle of the night, Gus wakes from a restless sleep to a strange sound. Levi isn’t beside her anymore. A sharp squeak like someone’s moving furniture comes from down the hall. She slips silently out of bed. Inches into the hall. The noise is coming from Rose’s room. Her mind dances to the gun in Rose’s bedside table. Levi hasn’t barked once. She grabs a plunger from the bathroom. Envisions the dog, lying dead on the carpet. Lars waiting in the dark to murder her before taking his own life. Gus tiptoes toward the half-open door. Plunger out in front of her, mind reeling, she slowly peers inside Rose’s bedroom. It’s dark. There’s a commotion. She can hear Levi snarling. He’s alive. She feels along the wall for the light switch. Flips on the light.

  There’s no one in Rose’s room but the dog. The crazy dog. He’s perched on the edge of the bed, leaning over, bum in the air, furiously tearing chunks from Rose’s mattress. He’s managed to rip holes down the length of the mattress all the way to the corner. Ignoring Gus, he jumps off the bed and starts pulling great swaths of cotton stuffing out of the mattress. With each yank, the entire bed shifts and squeaks against the floorboards as he disembowels the mattress.

  “Levi. No! Bad dog.”

  Momentarily, he lifts his head and looks over at her with big dumb eyes, clumps of stuffing hanging from his drooling lips. He hacks violently as the stuffing catches in his throat, then he returns to eviscerating the mattress. Gus drops the plunger and grabs Levi by his neck fur. She pulls him away from the bed. He vomits a soggy wad of fluff.

  “Jesus, dog. Really?”

  She shoves him, and he slides across the floorboards. Then he slinks to the corner. Tail between his legs.

  Gus stares at the mess. The mattress is toast. She picks up the wad that Levi hacked up. She gags. Searches for a garbage can. There’s one next to the bedside table. She’s about to toss it in when she spots a face in the wad. The Queen’s face. She gently pulls the soggy wad apart. Inside is a chewed-up twenty-dollar bill.

  She looks at Levi who’s standing in the corner. He wags his tail.

  She looks at the mattress.

  Gus kneels down and reaches her hand into one of the holes. Feels around. Nothing but stuffing. She digs deeper. Up to her elbow. Then she touches something plastic. She yanks, but it’s stuck. She gets both hands inside the hole and is able to grip the plastic. Uses her feet against the bed for leverage. Then, like a baby being born, it slides out of the open wound in the mattress. A large plastic garment bag. The edge is torn where Levi got his teeth into it, the rest vacuum-sealed flat and zippered tight. Gus lays the bag on the floor. Straddles it. Grabs hold of the zipper and opens the bag. She stares at the contents, then looks over at Levi.

  “You waited two and a half weeks to show me this, dog?”

  By the time she’s finished counting the bundles of twenties and hundreds at the kitchen table, the sky has turned a milky blue as night gives way to a cloudy morning. Gus has no doubt that Levi saw Rose sock away that money in her mattress. Sensed they were down to their last bag of kibble and decided to share what he knew. Or maybe everything just looks like a chew toy to the dog. Either way, he’s earned himself a full pardon. And that ten grand stuffed in Rose’s bed means Augusta can postpone her job hunt for now.

  Gus leans back and sips her coffee, pondering what other riches might be secreted away in Rose’s
house.

  She looks over at the door to the basement.

  Another kind of hunt comes to mind.

  A treasure hunt.

  9

  Blue

  GUS IS EXCITED FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE ARRIVING AT Rose’s house. Stored away in that basement might be a few precious items from her life with her mother. Unlatching the basement door, Gus stands on the top step. She can do this. She’s twenty. She peers into the pitch-black void. Damp air fills her nostrils. She feels for the string at the top of the stairs. Pulls it. A dim bulb illuminates steep wooden steps leading to a concrete floor. She grabs hold of the dusty handrail and descends. The stairs groan.

  A spongy white fluff pushes through the cracks in the cement floor. A couple of broken kitchen chairs and a dozen stackable bins are piled next to the firewood along a far wall. A water heater, a fuse box, and an old furnace occupy a corner. A freezer hums off to one side next to a shelf of rusty paint cans and a red tin toolbox.

  Gus crosses to the freezer. Lifts the lid. No dead bodies. Just a lifetime supply of Weight Watchers frozen microwave dinners. Shrimp Marinara. Cranberry Turkey Medallions. Salisbury Steak. Ready-made meals encased in frost. Right up her alley.

  One by one, Gus opens the stackable bins. Each time, she holds her breath. First, there’s the sewing bin. A collection of fabric samples, jars of buttons, felt squares stuck with rows of sewing needles, and an array of spools of thread. Next, there’s the one with the Christmas decorations. Bulbs missing their hooks, tinsel, tangled strings of multicolored lights, and a plastic star with three broken points. Then a bin full of cards. Birthday, sympathy, thank-you, anniversary. Bin after bin. Full of the stuff of Rose’s life. Her hobbies, holidays, memories. But nothing of theirs. Nothing of hers and Shannon’s. No cards, no photo albums, no treasures from their life together. As if that life never existed.

  Gus sits back on her heels after closing the last of the bins. She bites her lip. This is the real reason why she hadn’t come down here yet. She was hoping. And hope is stupid and childish and fucked up. Augusta rises and violently kicks the nearest bin as hard as she can.