The Loft

by Bette Lee Crosby

  Ophelia knows that for however long she is here, she will not see the stars. For her, that is reason enough to be out of here as quickly as possible.

  When Jeanne, the day nurse, comes with the water pitcher and welcome packet, Ophelia says, “I’m ready to get started with my therapy.”

  Jeanne chuckles. “You’re not scheduled for therapy until Monday.”

  Ophelia slumps back into the pillows. “Monday?” Her disappointment is obvious.

  A voice from the other side of the curtain calls out, “Count your blessings, honey.”

  At first Ophelia is not sure if the woman is talking to her or someone else. “Excuse me?”

  “I said count your blessings!” Lillian calls again, her voice a bit louder this time. “Those therapists are nice fellas, but they work your tail off!”

  “Are you talking to me?” Ophelia asks.

  “Of course I’m talking to you,” Lillian replies. “There’s nobody else here.”

  Before Ophelia has a chance to answer, the telephone on the other side of the curtain rings.

  Lillian lifts the receiver and yells, “Hello.”

  She is still on the telephone when Annie arrives.

  “Sorry I took so long,” Annie says. “I had to park in the back lot.” She leans in, kisses Ophelia’s cheek and whispers, “Have you met your roommate yet?”

  Ophelia shakes her head and gives a mischievous grin. She lowers her voice to a thin whisper and says, “I’m not sure I want to.”

  “Gotcha.” Annie nods. She moves to the divider curtain and speaks in a voice that can be heard over Lillian’s laughter. “Perhaps your roommate would like some privacy.”

  She reaches out and starts to give the curtain a tug.

  “No need to close that!” Lillian hollers. “This ain’t private.”

  Annie pokes her head around to the other side. “You sure?”

  Lillian nods and keeps on talking. “If I was Bertha…”

  Her voice fills the room. It is the kind of sound that bounces back and echoes in your ears. The call lasts until two visitors arrive; then she says, “Sorry, Martha, I’ve gotta go. Sadie and Sam are here.”

  The caller obviously has more to say because Lillian replies, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll tell them. No, I’m not gonna forget…”

  Only after Sadie approaches the bed and pulls Lillian into her ample bosom does the phone call finally end.

  “That Martha,” Lillian says with a groan. “She can go on forever.”

  Annie again pokes her head around the partially drawn curtain and asks, “Would you like me to close this so you can have some privacy with your visitors?”

  Lillian gives a raucous peal of laughter and shakes her head. “Honey, I ain’t needed privacy since Walter died in nineteen ninety-nine. Sadie and Sam are just friends from Baylor.”

  The couple acknowledges their introduction with a polite nod.

  Lillian eyes Annie and asks, “What’d you say your name was, honey?”

  “Annie…um, Doyle.”

  Lillian waves her hand toward the divider. “Push that back a bit further, will you, sweetie?”

  Once the curtain is back as far as it will go, Lillian leans forward and smiles at Ophelia. “We’re roomies, so I guess we ought to get to know one another. I’m Lillian Markowitz, but you can call me Lil. And you?”

  “Ophelia Browne.”

  The woman is loud and brassy, not at all the type Ophelia would choose for a friend, and yet she cannot help liking her. For a split second she even thinks of saying, “You can call me Opie,” but that moment slides by and she doesn’t.

  Once the introductions are done, the awkwardness of a new friendship eases and the void is filled with conversation. Ophelia joins in little by little. At first it is only a word here and there, but before long she is chuckling at Sam’s jokes and egging him on to tell another.

  Ophelia is in the middle of telling how she’d revived a geranium that was good as dead when the orderly comes with a wheelchair.

  “Time for therapy, Miz Lillian,” he says.

  Keeping her eyes fixed on Ophelia, Lillian waves him off. “Hold up a minute, sweetie, I wanna hear the end of this.”

  When Ophelia concludes with directions on how to shake the dirt loose from a geranium’s roots and transplant it, Lillian starts to climb from the bed. “I gotta remember that.”

  The orderly steadies Lillian as she climbs into the chair. Once she is settled she reaches back and taps his arm. “Okay, sweetie, I’m good to go.”

  “Miz Lillian, why you keep calling me sweetie?” he says with a laugh. “I done told you my name is Tyrone.”

  Lillian looks up at him and winks. “You think I don’t know that? I call you sweetie ’cause I like you. If I didn’t like you, well, then…” She lets go of a laugh that lingers even after she has left the room.

  It surprises Annie when Sam and Sadie stay after Lillian is gone. It is nearing four when they stand and get ready to leave. Sadie comes to the side of the bed and pulls Ophelia into her bosom just as she did Lillian.

  “Sam’s got a dentist appointment, so we won’t be here tomorrow,” she says. “But we’ll be back the day after.”

  Sadie loops her arm through Sam’s, and they leave together.

  As Ophelia listens to the click-clack of their footsteps disappearing down the hall, she looks up at Annie and says, “This isn’t going to be nearly as bad as I thought.”

  She leans back into the pillow and yawns. Moments later her eyes close, and within minutes she is fast asleep.

  Annie tiptoes out of the room then stops and glances back. Ophelia is snoring lightly, but the corner of her mouth is curled into a smile.

  The Magic of Friendship

  Oliver is showing Max through the remainder of the house when the front door clicks open and Annie calls out.

  “We’re in the kitchen,” he answers.

  Annie is home earlier than expected, and she has already seen the unfamiliar car in the driveway. At first she’d assumed it was an apothecary customer, but Oliver’s answer didn’t make sense. We’re in the kitchen? Why would an apothecary customer be in the kitchen?

  As she enters the room Annie sees him holding onto the arm of a girl who looks vaguely familiar. The girl steps down from the stool she is standing on and turns. When Annie sees her face, she recognizes the girl immediately.

  “Max?” she says.

  Max nods then crosses the room and sticks out her hand. “Hi, how are you?”

  Annie takes the hand that is offered. “I think I’m good,” she answers cautiously. Confusion wrinkles her brow as she asks, “What are you doing here?”

  Without waiting for Max to answer, Oliver speaks up. “This was going to be a surprise, but since you caught us…” He explains his plan for adding a room to the house.

  At this point, Max jumps in.

  “Recreating the loft is a stroke of genius,” she says enthusiastically. “If we position the room on the left side of the house, I can add an extra window that overlooks the garden, and with no tree overhang Ophelia will have a clear view of the night sky.”

  Still looking puzzled, Annie asks, “What do you mean recreating the loft?”

  Oliver again answers. “I thought if we make the new addition exactly like the loft, Ophelia wouldn’t feel such a sense of loss. It would be like the room she had but without the stairs.” He gives a sheepish grin. “Not to mention the fact that it would give us a lot more privacy.”

  Annie’s smile is almost too big for her face. She kisses Oliver and then turns to Max. “Didn’t I tell you I was marrying the sweetest man in the world?”

  “You sure did,” Max laughs. “You sure did.”

  Moments later they are deep in conversation about Max’s thoughts for the extension.

  “I can see why you want to preserve the integrity of the house,” she says. “It’s absolutely beautiful.” She hesitates a moment then adds, “It seems to have a hidden history.”
r />   “Have you seen the apothecary?” Annie asks.

  “No, but I’d love to.”

  Max follows Annie through the hallway and into the tiny front room. The moment they step inside the apothecary she gives a deep sigh and remains there breathing in the scents of lavender and spice. After a few moments she moves to the table and touches her hand to the basket of potpourri. She turns and smiles. “This isn’t the same as the one in the hallway, is it?”

  Annie shakes her head. “This is lavender grown in the garden.”

  Before she can explain Ophelia’s special potpourri, Max says, “The one in the hallway changes scent, doesn’t it?”

  “Oh, my gosh,” Annie says. “I can’t believe you noticed.”

  “When I first came in I thought it was strange that a potpourri would smell like drawing paper; then as we went past it just now I caught a whiff of burgundy wine.”

  Annie explains that Ophelia’s special mix takes on the smell of whatever a person is thinking of.

  “When you got here you were probably focused on drawings for the job,” she says, “but now I’m guessing it’s time for a glass of wine.” She laughs and asks if Max would like to join them for dinner.

  “I’d love to,” Max answers. “But can we just stay here a few minutes longer?”

  When Annie nods, Max walks around the room touching her fingers to the bottles, jars and baskets. “There are so many different auras in this room.”

  Annie thinks back on the endless stream of customers who have come and gone through the shop. “Can you feel all the people who have been here?”

  “Not individually,” Max says, “but certain groups.”

  “Wow.” Annie shakes her head in amazement, then says she has no such power. “If it wasn’t for Ophelia, I would have never thought to look for memories.”

  She hesitates, touches her chin then smiles. It is as if Annie is calling up her own memories. They are right there, just beneath the surface of her skin.

  Max senses them. “I know how you feel about Ophelia, and I promise to make this new room as wonderful as the loft.”

  Annie laughs. “Edward built that room for Ophelia, and I doubt—”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Max says and then shares the plans that have been running through her head since she viewed the room.

  “I’m thinking we can pull the bookcases and platform bed out of the loft and reuse them in the new room. Those things have the essence of the years they spent together, and they’re chock full of memories—”

  Annie’s eyes open wide. “Essence, like smell?”

  “I don’t know if I’d say smell,” Max replies. “It’s more like a feeling. You stand next to that platform, and you can almost see them in the bed together.”

  Again Annie shakes her head in amazement. “You have a real talent, like Ophelia does. Who taught you?”

  Max shrugs. “No one. I studied design in Paris during my second year. During that year I’d go to one of the old buildings and sit in the lobby for hours trying to get the inspiration of the place. Then one day I started hearing far away conversations.” She laughs. “At first I thought it was because I had really good hearing, but when I focused on the words I realized I was hearing things that had been said fifty years earlier.”

  Annie stands mesmerized.

  “Oliver claims you can do pretty much the same thing,” Max says.

  “Nowhere near it,” Annie says. “I was lucky enough to discover Oliver’s daddy’s memories, but not much more.”

  She doesn’t mention the locket. The memory inside the locket is filled with heartache and pain. The mention of it is too fearful. It is better to believe it never existed.

  “But what about here in the apothecary—”

  Annie cuts in. “I only know how to mix the things Ophelia taught me. Mostly cures for different problems and ailments. It’s not really magic. People think it is, but it’s not.”

  “Well, if people believe it, isn’t that a sort of magic in itself?”

  Annie shakes her head. “When a broken heart is healed or someone falls in love, it’s not because of anything I give them. It happens because the person has the courage to believe in what they’re hoping for. The truth is they heal themselves, but they probably wouldn’t be brave enough to try without what they think is a magic potion.”

  Max nods as if she understands, but the truth is she knows differently. She feels the magic of this place. “I’m just getting started in this business. You think you could mix up something to help me find new clients?”

  Annie smiles at the thought. She knows that despite Max’s extraordinary abilities to sense things, she wants to believe in the magic of the apothecary just as all the others do.

  “Sure,” Annie says and pulls the mulling cup from the shelf.

  Annie

  When Ophelia first told me about her ability to find memories, I thought it was the strangest thing ever. But now I’m starting to believe any number of people might have it. They just never discover it because they don’t know to look for it.

  Max has found hers, that’s for sure. She stayed for dinner last night and while we were talking about something else entirely, I could feel her thinking about how she was going to design the new room.

  I can’t help but like Max, and I’m sure she feels the same about me. When she left, she gave me her business card and on the back she wrote her cell phone number. She said to give her a call and we’d have lunch. I’m going to do it, because I like the idea of having her for a friend.

  I’d love to introduce her to Ophelia, but I’m going to wait until she has the drawings ready. I can’t even begin to imagine the look on Ophelia’s face when she finds out Oliver is doing this for her.

  Oliver is truly the most thoughtful and kindest man in the world. He’s a lot like his daddy, which is a good thing. Ethan seems so sweet you’d think sugar wouldn’t melt in his mouth, but I’ve heard stories of what he was like as a kid and there’s a whole lot of devilment underneath all that niceness.

  Oliver is that way too. When he holds my hand I can feel the sweetness of his love shimmying up my arm, but when he kisses me the way he did the other night on the lawn the excitement just about curls my toes. Times like that I want to jump out of my clothes and say, Take me, I’m all yours.

  Being here in this house, I often imagine Ophelia and Edward doing the same things Oliver and I do. That night when we were outside and danced on the lawn, I could almost picture them dancing just like we did. The funny thing is in my mind Edward looked exactly like Oliver.

  That can’t possibly be…can it?

  In the Weeks that Follow

  As it turns out, Ophelia is right. Being at the Kipling Rehabilitation Center is far better than she’d anticipated. Before a week has passed, she and Lillian have become fast friends.

  Lillian tells stories of how for over a year she’d danced on the stage of Radio City Music Hall in the line of Rockettes.

  “I was third from the end,” she says. “Barbara Ann Malloy was smack in the center.”

  Her thoughts roll back through time, and a touch of envy surfaces. “I always wanted to be in the center,” she says, “but I wasn’t tall enough.”

  Ophelia hangs on every word, and when Lillian tells how she marched in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade Ophelia sighs in admiration.

  “Such an exciting life,” she says.

  Lillian cackles. “It sounds more exciting than it was. The truth is we damn near froze our butts off that day. When they asked for volunteers the next year, I didn’t even raise my hand.”

  When Ophelia tells of her life, there is a glistening in her eyes. It is almost impossible to know if it is the spark of remembrance or the start of tears.

  “The most exciting thing that ever happened to me was marrying Edward,” she says. She tells of how they would lie in the grass on summer evenings and look at the stars.

  “Can you believe he knew almost every one of them by name?”<
br />
  “I’d believe it of Edward, but not Walter,” Lillian replies. “Walter mostly liked bowling. Bowling’s not nearly as romantic as watching stars.”

  Ophelia continues and tells how Edward finished the loft and added a skylight.

  “When winter came, we’d cuddle under our comforter and lie there and look up at the stars the same as we did in summer.” She hesitates a moment then shares what she has shared with very few others. “Even now I get great solace from looking into the night sky. Silly as it may seem, I can see my Edward up there. He’s looking down and watching over me.”

  That same day Lillian insists they change beds.

  “I don’t care a bean about looking at the night sky,” she says, “and it’s downright annoying when the morning sun pokes me in the eye.”

  As the weeks slide by Ophelia’s days are filled with activity from morning to night. Lillian’s friends become her friends, and when she is not being hauled off to therapy they play pinochle.

  By the third week Ophelia has made such progress that she is allowed to get out of bed and walk around on her own. On a quiet afternoon when there are no visitors, she and Lillian thump their walkers down the hallway and sit in the sunroom laughing at the The Ellen Degeneres Show.

  “This television thing is quite amusing,” Ophelia says. She confesses that she’s never had a television and never had the desire to own one.

  “Until now,” she adds.

  “No television?” Lillian says. “What’d you do for entertainment?”

  “In the early years Edward and I spent our evenings together. We’d go for walks and picnics, feed the ducks on the pond, count stars…” She gives a shy giggle. “…and make love.”

  Lillian laughs. “That was over sixty years ago. What about now?”

  “Well,” Ophelia says hesitantly. “I have the bed and breakfast guests to take care of, and the apothecary, and the garden always needs something done—”