Better Homes and Hauntings

by Molly Harper

  Jake smiled at her, somehow brightening the room even more. “Until recently, I was into women who were really driven, career-oriented. But now I’ve come to realize that I want something different. I want you.”

  Cindy’s brow furrowed while she contemplated what the hell he meant by that. “So I’m not driven?”

  He grinned at her. “No, you’re happy with where you are. That’s not a bad thing!”

  She skidded to a halt, mindful of not leaving shoe marks on the gleaming floor. “Well, since I’ve settled into my place right here, why don’t you go back to your friend Regina? She’s made it pretty clear that she’s ready to take you or Deacon on as fixer-uppers.”

  Jake frowned, not quite understanding why this conversation seemed to be rolling downhill so quickly. “I don’t want Regina. She’s just like every other girl I’ve ever dated. All polish and prospects. No fun. You’re together. You know what you want, but you don’t let it get in the way of having a good time. You don’t let worrying about success or money drag you down. You don’t have your whole life planned out.”

  Cindy was missing the part in this monologue of her virtues that was an actual compliment. Because so far, he was making her out to be some sort of freewheeling, bubble-headed hippie type.

  “Ambition. That’s what it is,” he said, grinning at her. “You don’t let ambition run your life.”

  Cindy’s eyebrows shot up so fast and so high she was surprised she didn’t strain a muscle in her forehead. “So you’re saying I don’t having any ambition?”

  “You’re happy the way you are,” he said, shrugging.

  Cindy’s eyes narrowed, flame-blue with fury. Gritting her teeth, she snatched up her cleaning tote and did her best to avoid flouncing as she stormed across the dance floor. She lacked ambition? Was that really what he thought of her? Did he even realize how insulting that was, to claim that she was somehow virtuous because he thought she wanted less from life? She didn’t know what was worse, the smug elitist classism of it all or the fact that he’d misjudged her so badly. Of all the stupid, shallow, jackass things to say, that was what came out of his mouth?

  She knew what her father would do in this situation. He would shove his foot up Jake’s butt until the smarmy jerk tasted shoe leather. But this was—for all intents and purposes—her office, and she couldn’t go around turning her coworkers into human penny loafers. And it singed her working-class, nonambitious sensibilities to the quick that he was going to get away with thinking that of her.

  So really, it shouldn’t have surprised her when her fingers wrapped around an empty can of floor polish and threw it across the room, beaning Jake’s head with a solid thunk.

  “Ow!” he yelped, clutching at his head. “What was that for?”

  She almost let it go. She almost walked out of the room, letting the thrown household cleaners do the talking for her. But she’d held back for too long. She’d let him toddle along in blissful ignorance while she carried the burden of their past connection. And she was tired of doing all the heavy lifting. So she raced back across the dance floor on nimble feet, burying her finger in his chest and poking for all she was worth.

  “For one thing, if you don’t think I have any ambition, you’ve completely misunderstood every single conversation we’ve had, ever,” she growled. “And that includes the ones you can’t remember!”

  Still rubbing at the side of his head, he spluttered, “OK, clearly, we got off on the wrong foot at some point along the way. Because I don’t know about you, but most of my conversations don’t end with someone getting a can of floor polish lobbed at his head. Why don’t you like me?” Jake exclaimed. “I shouldn’t have made that comment about your ambitions. That hurt your feelings, and I apologize. But this started way before that conversation. You’ve had your hate on for me ever since we stepped onto that boat. You like Anthony. You like Deacon. I expect you and Dotty and Nina to make one another friendship bracelets at any minute. I don’t get it. Most people like me. But you treat me like I’m trying to sell you a time-share.”

  “You really don’t remember, do you?” Cindy scoffed. “I mean, at first, I was willing to cut you some slack. But after a while, I thought maybe you remembered me but were too embarrassed to admit it after we’d been here for weeks. But you honestly do not remember me at all, do you?”

  “If I say no, are you going to bean me with another can of floor polish?”

  “Eight years ago. You took me to see a symphony concert at the park. There was a windstorm a few days before. I was wearing these really cute wedge sandals, and I was having trouble stepping around these big fallen limbs—”

  Jake’s mouth fell open, and he blurted out. “I picked you up and carried you over to the amphitheater. A little old lady told you to hold on to me because there weren’t a lot of gentlemen left in the world.”

  Somehow, hearing the words come out of his mouth made a wave of pain rush through her chest. “Yeah.”

  “And then she pinched my butt,” Jake said. “Really hard.”

  “I didn’t know that part,” she admitted, swiping at the tears gathering in her eyes. Why was she crying now? She hadn’t cried over him in years. Maybe it was embarrassment, knowing that he was aware of their connection now and she would have to deal with his reaction. Or maybe living through the “abandonment” all over again was just playing with her already frayed nerves. Either way, it was a balm over whatever wounds were left on her heart when Jake offered her a handkerchief from his pocket. Manners, she thought; no matter what, the man had pretty manners.

  The man was also shaking his head vehemently. “I thought your name was Cassie.”

  “Oh, you—What is wrong with you?” she exclaimed, turning on her heel and walking out of the room.

  “Wait,” he said, nimbly catching up to her in a few steps. He caught her arm and gently tugged at the elastic in her hair, pulling it out of its carefully woven French braid. He fluffed it out, arranging the golden waves around her shoulders. His eyes went wide. “Oh, my God, it is you.”

  She buried her face in her hands. “You didn’t remember me because my hair was up? I’m going to murder you.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Because I didn’t want to be the one who reminded you. I wanted you to remember me on your own.”

  “But I never went out with that girl again.”

  “Would you please stop calling me ‘that girl’? I am a person. A person who is standing right here and can hear you!” she exclaimed.

  “I never went out with you again. What happened?” he asked. “Why didn’t you return my calls?”

  “You tell me. You never called me again.”

  “There’s no way I wouldn’t call you again!” He gasped, his eyes bugging out. “Wait, wait, that was, what, June 2005, right? Oh, no. Oh, no no no no.”

  “That had better be Jake-speak for ‘That’s the month I was abducted by aliens and unspeakably probed.’ ”

  He ran his hands through his hair, leaving it in Einstein-level disarray. “I’m an idiot. June of 2005. I was here for the summer with my parents. I’d just broken off with Madeline Taylor—again. It was the fourth or fifth time we’d broken things off, and that girl was just pure relationship evil. She kept pulling me back in, and no matter how many times I said no or told her I wasn’t interested, she managed to convince me that even if I wasn’t sure about her intentions, I should at least date her while I figured it out.”

  “None of this explains why you failed to call me.”

  “Right after our second date—I remember now, it was the second date, and I was just about to call you to set up the third—Madeline heard that I’d gone out on a few dates. She called me, trying to ‘fix things’ between us. And when that didn’t work, she showed up at my parents’ house, and the next thing I knew, we were dating again.”

  “So she destroyed your phone and your basic sense of courtesy?” Cindy asked.

  “Actually, she di
d destroy my phone that year,” Jake said. “But only a few months later, after we’d gone back to school.”

  “She sounds like a charmer.”

  “Well, what happened to you?” he demanded. “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I had some personal problems,” she said. “I got distracted.”

  She could practically see the panic spread across his face as he scanned his memory banks to determine whether her personal business could have included bearing his love child.

  “My father got sick,” she said indignantly. “I had to defer college and take care of him.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear about that. Is he better?”

  She shook her head. “He’s been gone for about four years.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call you again. I’m sorry I didn’t get to take you out again. And I’m sorry I didn’t remember you. I was young and stupid, not that it’s any excuse. Forgive me?”

  “I think there will be more groveling involved,” she told him.

  “You want more groveling?” he asked.

  “I think a little extra groveling is called for.”

  He dropped to his knees, clasping her hands between his. “Please! Lady Cynthia! Forgive me for my grievous error!”

  “Get up.” She sighed, her cheeks turning red. “I did bean you in the head with floor polish. I’d say that probably makes us even.”

  “I really am sorry that I didn’t call you again,” he said. “And for forgetting you. That was a stupid, thoughtless thing to do. You’ll be glad to know that I have matured into a wiser, less douchey person.”

  She tilted his head toward her, inspecting the respectable lump forming on his crown. “I’m sorry for hitting you in the head with a blunt object.”

  He grimaced. “I had it coming. And I’m sorry that I hurt your feelings with that ‘ambition’ comment. I really meant it to be a compliment. I like that you care about more than just your job. I just put it badly.”

  “You’re forgiven. Mostly,” she said. “And I overreacted. Can we start over?”

  “Does starting over involve getting some ice for my head?”

  “I’ll wrap it in a towel and everything,” she said, offering him her arm and leading him out of the ballroom. “So when was the last time you heard from Madeline?”

  “Uh, she sent me an EyeContact request a few months ago,” Jake said. “I declined it, but she sent it a few more times. And then she hired a private investigator to find my address and parked outside of my apartment building for a few nights running. I had to move in with Deacon for a while and change all the contact information on my accounts to a PO box. Other than that, nothing.”

  “Have you noticed that you tend to bring the crazy out in a girl?”

  Love Letters from No One

  The island is a beautiful, though lonely, place. Josephine is so happy here, running as fast as her chubby little legs will carry her across what will become our lawn.

  My feelings about living in a place so remote are in a constant flux, much more so with every visit we make to the island for “progress reports.” While it will be so alien to live without the clip-clop of horse hooves just outside the window or the murmur of conversation from the street, I must admit that Whitney Island is a peaceful place. None of the tedium of city life will find us here. No unexpected visits from neighbors. No calling cards. No worrying about being seen in the right shops, the right clubs.

  And the house will further these advantages. The gardens will be second to none. There will be room for the children to play without worrying for their safety from carriages, strangers. I feel that I will be able to breathe properly, for the first time in years. It will be a compromise, diary, one that I hope I am able to make.

  On that note, Gerald insists on the Crane’s Nest having enough room to throw the elaborate parties that are becoming so fashionable. I don’t know if I will ever have the desire to become a fixture on this circuit. I certainly don’t want to compete with a Mrs. Astor or a Mrs. Vanderbilt. But if it will bring my husband some pleasure and help his business, I will do it gladly. I simply don’t know if we need a ballroom that seats four hundred to accomplish it.

  “Boooring!” Cindy called, yanking a box from under a tarp in the main attic. The finished, expansive space spread out over most of the main wing’s square footage and was larger than the first floor of Nina’s apartment building. “Get to something good!”

  Nina thought about noting Cindy’s good mood, a general upswing in her morale since she and Jake started going on “dates” around the island—long walks along the shore, dinner on the back porch at the main house, long talks on the dock. But Cindy refused to talk about it, because she didn’t want to jinx it. And it didn’t seem nice to provoke her. Especially since she hadn’t told Dotty or Cindy about the kiss with Deacon in the greenhouse, and Nina knew that somehow, teasing Cindy would result in her own personal beans being spilled.

  So instead, Nina flipped through the diary until she found a passage of Catherine’s thoughts that seemed to hold more dramatic promise.

  For the first time in my marriage, I have been dishonest with Gerald. He asked me how I knew Jack, and I lied. I told him he was simply a friend of the family. I don’t know why I lied. Maybe I didn’t want to admit that I had any romantic entanglements before him. Maybe I didn’t want him to have any reason to doubt me. Or maybe I had some misguided need to protect Jack, to make sure he had this job and the opportunity to make a name for himself. Now I can’t go back. If I admitted that I lied, Gerald would be furious, and worse, he would be hurt. He would wonder why I felt it necessary to lie, and I would not be able to answer.

  It is strange seeing Jack so often. It seems that he visits our New York home at least once a day to discuss plans for the house, ideas for simplifying or expanding. As Gerald is often away on business—more and more lately, it seems—it has fallen to me to meet with Jack and approve the changes to the various stages of the house plans. I will be honest. At first, those plans seemed like a nonsensical web of blue-smudged paper. And at night, I have wept with the frustration of being expected to understand it all.

  But as Jack very patiently explained the schematics to me and the construction process as a whole, it all started to make sense. I could see the house in my head, from the ground up. I could walk through its hallways and imagine its views from the windows and the widow’s walk. It gave me an unexpected sense of power to be given control over the Crane’s Nest. Gerald might be the owner of the house and Jack the architect, but I will be its creator.

  Jack is just as he ever was, as charming as he could possibly be. In the hours we have spent together, he has told me he’s missed me, and he is glad that we will be spending so much time together. I will confess that it is pleasant to keep company with someone who knew me before my ascension to my “post” as Mrs. Whitney. He knew the awkward Catherine of coltish limbs and flyaway hair, and he still looks at me as if I am a sweet he is eagerly anticipating. He has been a comfort to me as I enter this new phase as mistress of a monolith.

  Nina turned the diary over in her hands, the dim light of the afternoon sun shining through the rain-dappled attic window. “It’s kind of sweet that Jack carried a torch for her all that time, since they were kids.”

  “It’s kind of hot,” Cindy said, conscientiously folding the sheet that had just covered a rather lovely cherry table with carved lions for legs. “Repressed sexual tension, corsets, and . . . blueprints.”

  Dotty’s lips pursed into a knowing grin. “Really, blueprints are suddenly attractive to you? And that has nothing to do with you nursing a certain recently concussed architect back to health?”

  Without even looking at Dotty, Cindy pointed at her. “Quiet, you.”

  Nina giggled, opening another of Catherine’s diaries. Technically, Saturday was their day off. They could leave the island for the day to run errands or just get away from the house. But instead, the ladies had trekked up to the attic on this m
iserable, drizzly day to search through the treasures there. Reading through Catherine’s diaries had left them with a gnawing curiosity about Mrs. Whitney. And Dotty was determined to find information that might be locked away in the attic’s nooks and crannies. So far, they’d managed to find a lot of broken furniture, a hobby horse that had belonged to little Josephine Whitney, and several crates of chipped china with gold-plated rims surrounding a golden W. And Dotty had found an oversized hatbox containing an enormous, faded blue picture hat, which was now jauntily angled atop her head.

  “Anyway,” Cindy continued, “it definitely sounds like Jack and Catherine’s decision to run off together wasn’t a hasty one. They danced around each other from the beginning.”

  Dotty frowned, snagging a small digital recorder from the pocket of her hoodie and putting it on the floor next to her.

  “What’s that about?” Nina asked.

  “I figured that it might be a good idea to record ourselves as we’re talking about Catherine and Jack. I’m hoping the recorder will pick up messages that the naked ear couldn’t pick up.”

  “Why would we want that?” Nina asked. “Doesn’t it seem sort of reckless to try to communicate with whatever is going on in the house? I mean, why not just whip out a Ouija board and try to text with it?”

  “Text with the ghost.” Cindy snickered. When Nina and Dotty turned their attention to her, she shrugged. “It’s funny, because it’s sort of the same thing, but not really . . . Right, sorry, carry on.”

  For a moment, Nina was sorry that she’d mentioned the Ouija-board issue. She and Cindy had refused to participate in any sort of active provoking of the dead, including Ouija boards, attempted channeling, automatic writing, or just speaking rudely to empty rooms. Dotty was not happy, but she wasn’t quite brave enough to try any sort of communication by herself. Besides, Nina and Cindy were more than willing to help her with her research, and that was a dirty, occasionally risky job (splinters, errant sharp objects, occasional possession by spirits). Dotty had created a timeline on their whiteboard, keying in important dates and events in Catherine and Gerald’s relationship, then a separate timeline for Catherine and Jack’s supposed relationship. So far, she’d found plenty of dates but no real clues about Catherine’s death. And she certainly wasn’t any closer to a supernatural explanation for her family’s generational misfortune.