A House for Keeping

by Matteson Wynn

  “No, I’ve got mine,” I said, pulling it out of my back pocket.

  “Why don’t you step out into the hall for some privacy,” Dr. Paige said. When I did, she closed the door, shutting everyone into her office and leaving me alone in the hallway. They started talking the minute the door closed. I just stared at the door for a minute.

  Wowee, another odd event. They’d been happening so frequently since I got to this town that it was starting to seem normal. This was the strangest weekend I’d ever had, and it was only Saturday morning.

  What on Earth could they possibly want to talk to me about so badly? I looked around the empty hallway. Well, I could make a break for it if I wanted to, which made me feel a little better. I sighed. Thing was, I was curious to know what they wanted. But I did have other obligations.

  I walked a little bit down the hallway and called the house.

  “Hello?”

  “Meg? It’s Finn.”

  She laughed. “Is the door stuck, and you need me to let you out?”

  “What?”

  “I assume if you’re calling me from your room, it’s because you’re stuck and need rescuing.”

  “I’m not in my room.”

  There was a pause, and then she said, “What?”

  She sounded so shocked that I wondered if she’d gotten up this morning, and first thing, told the house to lock me in.

  “I’m not in my room. Look, I went for a walk, I had a little accident, and long story short, I had to get some stitches.”

  “Stitches! Jesus, Finn.” For a moment, the alarm in her voice gave me a nice warm feeling—I felt comforted that she seemed so worried about me. Maybe I was just being needlessly suspicious. Then she said, “Well, how long will it take you to get back here? We’re meeting with the councilwoman in half an hour.”

  The warm feeling evaporated and was replaced by a knot in my stomach. I realized she wasn’t worried about me at all. She was worried about her stupid meeting. The complete lack of concern for me made my decision suddenly very clear. I needed food, caffeine, and a ton of aspirin before I could deal with any more Meg.

  “I’m fine, thanks for asking, and the doctor thinks I should get something to eat before I do anything else, so I’m going to miss the breakfast meeting thing.”

  Another pause. “Your car is still here. Do you need me to send Doug to come and get you? How did you get to a doctor’s anyway? Where, exactly, are you?”

  “Look, I’ll explain everything when I get back. I have a ride. I just wanted to let you know I’m going to be late. I’ll see you in a bit. Bye.” And I hung up. It was rude, I knew it was rude, but I didn’t care. Dr. Paige was right. I needed to eat. More, I needed to inhale a pot of coffee to get me thinking clearly.

  I walked back up the hall and opened the door. They all stopped talking and turned to stare at me.

  “Let’s go find some food,” I said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lou and Pete led the way, Zo walked with me, and Dr. Paige and Cute Guy took up the rear. We walked out through the lobby of the office, out the front door, and into a bustling, bright morning. I slid Zo’s sunglasses back on, and I sighed in relief.

  She glanced over at me. “It’s only a couple of short blocks. Think you can make it?”

  I nodded. I figured walking a little might keep my knee from stiffening up any more than it already was. Lou and Pete headed off in the direction of the town common, and we all followed along.

  No one talked. The way they were all rubbernecking, you’d think they were as new to the town as I was. While we walked, I took in my surroundings. The street was lined with a mix of local small businesses and a few small chain stores. As we neared the town common, I could make out a post office, an ice cream shop, and a library among the shops bordering it.

  We reached the corner opposite the common, and Lou and Pete went into a building. As soon as they opened the door, a whiff of coffee and fried potatoes swirled outside. The chatter of happy customers reached me. I swallowed hard and stepped inside.

  It was a diner. A good one, judging from the nimble and alert staff and the happy faces of the customers.

  Okay, I hadn’t prepared myself for a diner, but I could do this. I plastered a smile on my face.

  Then I looked to my left. Customers were chowing down at a big counter with a kitchen behind it. The man and woman who worked behind the counter telegraphed “owners” in the way they moved and interacted with the customers. As I watched, he turned and smiled at her, put his arm around her waist, and said something that had them both laughing. The customers at the counter joined in.

  That burst of happy smashed into me, and it was like it detonated the ball of misery I’d been tamping down. My smile crumpled. Everything I’d been carefully tuning out started yelling for attention all at the same time. My body was complaining that my head pounded, my knee throbbed, and I ached all over. My mind was spinning, trying to grapple with the reunion, the house, the storm, and whatever Zo’s people wanted. And my heart was breaking a little more as the happy little scene across the room rammed home the fact that I had no one to talk to about any of it.

  The gut punch that I felt slammed me so hard that I stepped back a little.

  Dr. Paige looked alarmed and grabbed my arm. “Are you okay?”

  I didn’t trust myself to speak so I just nodded.

  Zo turned and frowned as she looked at me, even though she couldn’t see my eyes behind the sunglasses. Then her eyes widened slightly, and she said quietly, “Oh crap. I didn’t think.”

  In front of us, Lou waved to the man behind the counter, who waved back. A waitress came up, Lou murmured to her, and she led us toward the back.

  Walking through the diner, I felt like I was drowning.

  Zo had a death grip on my arm. “Just breathe,” she murmured, while we followed Lou.

  As we approached a table in the back corner, Zo said, “We’re going to the lady’s room,” and she marched me past the table, down a short hallway to the bathroom. The bathroom gods were being kind to me because miraculously there was no line.

  I went in, shut the door on Zo, and burst into tears. I started sobbing, and I couldn’t stop. There was a knock, and then Zo came in and shut the door behind her.

  She walked right over and put her arms around me. I was so surprised that I went rigid. And then I started crying even harder. I cried so hard I was hiccuping, and my head started pounding in earnest. She held onto me and let me cry.

  When I quieted down a little, she said, “I know about your parents. I’m so sorry, Finn. I was so focused on…everything else…I just didn’t think about it being a diner, run by a happy couple no less. I’m sorry.”

  It took me another minute to get myself under control. Finally, I sniffled and stepped back, wiping at my eyes. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. This is ridiculous. It’s not like it happened yesterday.”

  Zo said, “Well, you’ve had quite a morning. And grief is like this. You think you’ve got it under control, and then it sneaks up and sucker punches you.”

  “Well, the timing certainly sucks.” I straightened my shoulders and went over to the sink. My tear-stained face stared back at me in the mirror. I looked pathetic. Splashing cold water on it did nothing to disguise the fact that I’d been crying. “Oh come on. I can’t go out there like this.” I nearly started crying again.

  Zo stepped up beside me, grabbed some paper towels, soaked them in water and turned me to face her. “I can’t do anything about your parents, but this, I can help with. Close your eyes.”

  I did what she said, and she dabbed at my face. The towels felt deliciously cool and tingly.

  “How do you know about my parents?”

  “I made some calls while you were in with Paige.”

  “Oh.”

  “If I were you, I’d have lost my shit long before now. It’s a wonder you’ve held it together this long. Paige said you didn’t even cry when she stitched you.�
� Her voice sounded gruff, but her touch was very gentle and soothing.

  She stopped dabbing and surveyed me face. “There.”

  I turned to face the mirror and was shocked to see that I looked totally normal. “How’d you do that?”

  She winked. “Trade secret. You ready for this next part? Because trust me, you need to pay attention.”

  And didn’t that sound enticing. I sighed. My head was killing me, but my crying jag had emptied my emotional well, and I felt really calm. Exhausted, but calm. “Depends. How’s the coffee here?”

  We left the bathroom and joined the others at the table. Nobody seemed to notice that I’d been crying, and I puffed out a small sigh of relief.

  I sat on one side of the table, flanked by Zo and Dr. Paige. The boys sat on the other side. It was like being at a seventh-grade dance, boys on one side, girls on the other, complete with awkward silences.

  Pete broke the ice by saying, “Breakfast is on us, so please order anything you want.”

  As I scanned the menu, I squashed the pang I felt forming, and let my professional side take over. It helped me maintain my post-cry calm detachment as I assessed the choices. Good range. All the classics with a few local twists thrown in. A couple of house specialties. Reasonable prices. I nodded. Well done.

  In my opinion, the true test of a diner comes down to a few simple things: coffee, eggs, and hash browns. Good diner coffee is worth its weight in gold. And it’s surprisingly difficult to find a place that makes good eggs and hash browns.

  The waitress appeared with coffee. She introduced herself as Rose, and she served me first. While she served the others and started taking orders, I doctored my coffee, picked up the mug, closed my eyes, and inhaled. No burnt smell, so the coffee was reasonably fresh. I took my first sip and smiled. Real, honest-to-goodness diner coffee. The good stuff.

  When I opened my eyes, Rose was grinning at me. “Good, right?”

  “Very good. I’m going to need some more, really soon,” I said, taking a huge sip.

  She laughed. “No problem. I’ll be back to top you off in a minute. Can I get you something to eat?”

  I ordered the eggs, bacon, and hash browns, and then finished off my coffee as she took Zo’s order and left. True to her word, Rose came right back with the pot of coffee, refilled my mug, and retreated again.

  As I fixed my coffee, I took a deep breath. Time to get this over with, whatever “this” was. I looked around the table. “Alright, someone spill.”

  They looked at each other, doing a silent version of “Not it!”

  My cranky pants came along and stomped all over my nice sense of detachment. I propped my forehead on my hand and growled at them. “Oh for Pete’s sake, no pun intended Pete, unless, that is, it’ll get you to man up. Guys, my head is killing me, and this day has already lasted a week. So could we please just get on with it?”

  Dr. Paige fiddled in her purse and then slipped me some pills. “Take these. Normally I’d say eat something first, but they serve the food fast here, so go ahead and take them now.”

  “Thanks.” I swallowed the pills and said, “Why don’t we start with something easy. You,” I pointed to Cute Guy. “You got a name?”

  He smiled and waved at me from across the table. “Yeah, hey, hi. I’m Eagan.”

  “And what possessed you to come on out and gang up on a stranger, first thing on a Saturday morning, Eagan?” I took another sip of my coffee. Food had better appear soon before the filter between my brain and my mouth totally disappeared.

  Pete cleared his throat. “Lou?”

  Lou nodded, pulled out a cell phone, and set it on the table. It got really quiet around us. I put my coffee down when I realized I couldn’t hear any of the diner noises. I looked around behind me, and everything looked normal, I just couldn’t hear anything. I sat up straight and looked at Lou and Pete. “What just happened?” I asked.

  Pete cleared his throat. “We’re just making sure we have some privacy. You ever seen Get Smart?”

  “What?”

  “It’s a TV show.”

  “I know it’s a TV show. What’s it got to do with anything?”

  “Well they had this cone of silence thing,” said Pete. “It’s like that. We’re in a cone of silence.”

  Lou said, “Well, it’s more of a bubble, really. And this one actually works.”

  I stared at Lou’s cell phone. It looked like a normal phone. I’d heard of a cell-phone jammer, but I’d never heard of cell phone as a sound jammer, not that I was up on the latest spy-type gadgets. Well, it wasn’t really that much weirder than anything else that’d happened today. “Awesome. Is James Bond going to show up soon? Because I’m really not dressed appropriately to be a Bond girl.”

  Dr. Paige chuckled.

  “How much do you know about the Fosters, Finn?” asked Pete.

  I sucked down the rest of my coffee, slumped back in my chair, and crossed my arms. “Again, for the gazillionth time, I’m from a DISTANT branch of the family. Not even a branch. It’s like a bump on a leaf on a twig on a branch,” on a frog, on a log, in a hole in the bottom of the sea! sang my brain, but I didn’t say that last part out loud, so the coffee must’ve been kicking in.

  “And that means what?” asked Dr. Paige.

  I looked at her and threw up my hands. “It means I don’t know anything! Why do people keep asking me that? Meg asked me the same thing. Look, this is my first foray into the Fosterverse, and to be perfectly honest, it’s probably my last, the way it’s going.”

  Rose approached our table. As she got closer, the diner sounds reappeared. She walked right up, refilled my cup, topped off everyone else who needed it, and left. The background noise went away again.

  “People can just walk in and out of the—what is it, the bubble of bliss?” I asked.

  Eagan snickered, and Lou actually smiled and said, “It’s just a sound thing.”

  “Whatever that means,” I mumbled. I waved a hand for them to continue.

  “So, just to be perfectly clear, are you saying you don’t know anything about the Fosters?” asked Pete.

  “Yes! What’s there to know? What’s the big deal?” A thought occurred to me. Were the Fosters some kind of mafia family? It’d make sense, given the way people acted about them. Oh jeez. What had I gotten myself into?

  “Told you,” said Dr. Paige.

  Pete said, “Okay. Do you want to jump right in, or wait till you get some food in you?”

  “Just say what you’ve got to say.”

  Pete took a deep breath. “Here’s the short version. The house you’re staying in is…special.”

  Understatement of the year, I thought. I leaned back in my chair, sipped my coffee, and avoided making eye contact. “What do you mean by ‘special’?”

  Pete said, “I don’t want to get into a long history lesson—”

  “Again, that’s almost exactly what Meg said.”

  Zo grimaced. “I’ll just bet she did.”

  Pete said, “Originally, the Fosters were supposed to share the responsibility for taking care of the house with four other families. But they took the house for themselves.”

  “So this is some kind of Hatfield/McCoy family feud thing?” I asked.

  Lou tipped his head back and forth, saying, “Sort of. Ever since the first Foster took control of the house, all the other families have been trying to get access to it.”

  “You didn’t answer the question. What do you mean by ‘special’?” I asked.

  Eagan said, “This is taking too long. Look. The house, it’s not just a house. It’s alive. It’s kind of a, well, it’s a guardian of sorts, I guess you’d say.”

  I stirred my coffee and watched the cream swirling in it, like it was the most fascinating thing I’d ever seen.

  “You don’t look surprised,” said Lou.

  Eagan sat up straighter. “Wait. Why isn’t she surprised? Why aren’t you surprised?” He leaned forward in his chair. “Did somethi
ng happen with the house?”

  Rose picked that moment to arrive with all our food. She placed my plate in front of me, and the smell of food chased all other thoughts from my mind for a few minutes. I tasted a little of everything and smiled. Light and fluffy eggs, nice crispy bacon, and hash browns with the right amount of crunch. Yum.

  As soon as Rose left, Eagan shifted in his seat and said, “Something happened with the house—I knew it!” He looked at Lou and Pete. “I told you. They wouldn’t have attacked her otherwise.”

  I paused shoveling eggs onto my fork and stared at Eagan. “Attacked me?”

  “That wasn’t a random storm,” said Lou. “That was one of the other families. We’re guessing they’re trying to take out Meg’s primary competition—you.”

  I shook my head vigorously, then had to wait a moment for the stabbing pain to pass, which just made me crankier. “You’re not making any sense. ‘That wasn’t a storm’—what does that even mean? Oh! Wait! Let me guess. You’ve got a super high-tech spy jammer thingy, so that must mean there’s a supervillain in the mix. And…wait for it…he’s got the world domination weather machine!” I did my best villain voice. “And now, I will smite them with my killer death hail, mwah ha ha!”

  I gave them a level look, changed back to my normal voice and said, “Really? Cuz that doesn’t sound crazy at all,” then went back to eating my food.

  Eagan was snickering, but Lou and Pete looked flabbergasted.

  “Also,” I said, around a mouthful of eggs, “what competition? I’m not competing with Meg for anything.”

  They all looked stunned, except for Zo, who said, “She really doesn’t know.”

  “Know what?” I realized I was nearly shouting when they flinched back. But honestly, I was so frustrated I would’ve banged my head on the table if it didn’t already hurt so much.

  Instead of answering me, Dr. Paige asked, “Can they do that? Isn’t that against the rules?”

  “It’s looking like Meg’s not worrying about the rules,” said Lou.

  “I don’t get it. If you’re really this clueless, Finn, why did you show up here, now, at the Fosters?” Eagan asked.