by Emily Anglin
“This is the academy,” he said. “That’s the old music building, right ahead. Allen restored it when he tried to turn the place into a conservatory, before the fire. It was the only building that stayed standing, and one of the most beautiful. It’s going to be your office.” He was pointing toward the one other building, aside from the chapel, that was intact. This one looked relatively unblemished, like it had been restored.
“But I thought my office was going to be at the town hall. I assumed I’d be working from there.”
“Our team is going to be right here. We’re town employees, but we’re almost like independent contractors working with the town, if you look at it from another perspective. I’m officially hired, but I’m also kind of a free agent, because of the way the money flows. Since you work for me, you’re an agent of a free agent. You’re going to love the building.” He turned off the Escalade in front of the music building and we got out. He hadn’t answered my question, so I made a mental note to bring up later the matter of why we were located in the ruins rather than at the town hall.
We walked up a flagstone walkway, and Grant opened the door. Stepping inside, I found myself in a thickly walled room with wooden floors that shone like they’d just been refinished. A piano stood in one corner, and instruments of all kinds hung on stands mounted on the walls: violins, cellos, violas. Everything gleamed red-gold. A drum set stood in another corner.
“Mr. Poole was on the chair of the board of directors for the academy. It was his influence that led to the music building getting added to the academy, and music to the curriculum. When we renovated it to use it for our office, we thought we would decorate in a music theme. We had all of Allen’s instruments anyway, so we put them in here.”
Three massive, mission-style, solid-oak desks were placed against three of the four walls, each turned to face a large, stained-glass window. At one of these desks, a woman sat with her back to us, a long braid running down her back. She turned her head to the side, and I saw a headphone in her ear.
“Oh, hi,” she said, pulling the headphones out and standing up to meet us. “Hi, Grant. And you must be Theresa. I’m Debbie. I’m looking forward to working with you. I understand we’ll also be living in Founder’s House together.”
Debbie was tall, over six feet. She wore a tailored red dress and jacket. I felt underdressed.
“Debbie arrived last week,” Grant said. He hadn’t mentioned that I’d be living and working with someone else, but I wasn’t sure why I should be surprised.
“You’re my downstairs neighbour at Founder’s House,” said Debbie. “I’m on the third floor.”
“Hi. Nice to meet you,” I said. “I saw the door to your room.”
“Debbie’s just back in town after living away for several years,” said Grant. “But Alden is Debbie’s hometown. You can’t take the Alden out of the girl.”
“I went away for school,” said Debbie. “I studied music. It’s a testament to Grant that he was able to be friendly with Mr. Poole. Not many made it past his guard. My mom worked for him for years and never really got to know him.”
“He was always lovely with me,” said Grant.
“Allen was like the patriarch of Alden. His grandfather was one of the academy’s founders. Hence the name Founder’s House,” said Debbie. “His name was Allen but many people called him Alden, because he had so much power in town. He was a cellist too; he taught me to play, the one time he really engaged with me or my mom, even though we were almost like a part of the family, because she cleaned for him and I helped her sometimes. I would have stayed here to study if his music conservatory idea had worked. But he left money in his will for me to go away to school, so I’m lucky. I can’t exactly say I liked him, but we have a lot to thank him for—including our jobs.”
“We are lucky, Debbie,” Grant said with a laugh. “We’re lucky you’re back.”
“Thanks,” Debbie said, turning back toward the desk and placing her headphones in the drawer.
“We’re happy you’re reunited with Alden,” said Grant. “And Allen, too, in a way, eccentric fella that he was. We’ll drink to him, and to us. Now, did I remember to put some champagne in the fridge?”
Deb went to a mini-fridge in a corner and opened the door. “No, but I did,” she said, pulling out a bottle, and handing it to Grant.
“Sparkling wine,” he said. “This will work.” He popped it open and poured wine into plastic cups that Deb took from a package on top of the fridge.
“I think Allen would be happy to know you’ve joined us,” said Grant. “Happy to know our team is going to bring new life to this old town.”
“To Allen,” Deb said. “And to Theresa.”
“To all of us.” Grant said.
We drank. I worried about the strangeness of this whole set-up. I was concerned about our office on the grounds of a burned-down academy, and how little I understood about what I would be doing during my contract. I filed the thought that I could leave tomorrow, and turned back, resetting a face that concealed my worry and fear. For a moment I banished all thoughts and enjoyed the pleasure of quenched thirst; I drank a second glass of sparkling wine and started to feel better. After all, Debbie seemed nice enough—maybe I could get the full story and a better understanding of things from her.
“Well, dinnertime seems to be upon us,” said Grant. “Shall we head back to the house?”
Debbie and I got out of the car at Founder’s House. I assumed we would go in alone, that I would get a chance to ask her some questions over dinner, about how the benefaction from Allen Poole worked exactly, and if she knew Grant’s backstory. But Grant got out of the car with us.
“Curtis was going to have dinner set up for us,” said Grant.
Curtis hadn’t let Grant down. Inside, platters of food had been laid out on the sideboard, covered with draped tea towels. A bottle of red wine sat behind the platters, beside three wide-bowled wineglasses, and a stack of three plates and three sets of cutlery rolled up in fabric napkins.
Grant opened the wine, and Debbie uncovered the food: cold roast beef, cold salmon, a cold vinaigrette potato salad, and a cold green bean salad. We ate and drank, and I felt better. I relaxed and drank my wine. Grant talked about the area’s history, about how the unused train tracks made Alden the best place in the world for a fall walk. You could weave sidelong through town, at odd angles that offered internal views unfettered by the auto-correcting guidance of streets. “There’s potential there,” he said. “I know it. Migratory birds like the throughways of the rail passages, so why can’t we get people to migrate there to enjoy Alden?”
Once we’d finished eating, Debbie said, “It’s lovely to meet you, Theresa. But I’m beat. It’s time for bed for me. Let’s have a coffee in the morning and chat some more.” We said goodnight to Debbie. I noticed she carried her glass of wine with her.
Debbie’s footsteps stopped halfway up the stairs. Her shape blocked the moonlight that fell through the stained-glass window on the landing onto the hall floor below. The broken pieces of light disappeared. She must have been sitting on the window seat on the landing centred against the window.
“Now,” Grant said to me, filling our glasses with an inch and a half of wine, as though measuring out the length of time needed for the conversation to follow. “Tomorrow. Your first day. We have big plans. We want to try to start advertising widely in the cities. Why can’t Alden be an option for people who can’t break into the real-estate market back where you came from, for instance? Young professionals.”
“Advertising what?” I said. It came out more rudely than I’d intended. “Not housing, right? I don’t really have any real-estate experience.”
I heard Debbie get up from the landing and go up the second half of the staircase. A door at the top of the stairs opened and shut.
“I kind of thought this job was about getting so
me new things going with people who already live here,” I continued. “Our phone calls. I thought that’s what we were talking about. I wanted to meet the people who live here and hear from them.”
Grant looked at me, fixing me with eyes so serious that I thought about jumping up and clearing dishes from the table to the kitchen, to create a distraction. But then he laughed.
“Oh, I think I see,” he said. “You thought this was going to be a kind of escape. A fantasy of life in a small town. You as the centre of things in a place where stakes are low for you and high for everyone else.”
I stared at him, my heart racing and my face hot. Was he drunk? I couldn’t tell. The wine was almost gone: a second bottle he’d taken from the cabinet in the sideboard when we’d finished the first one was almost empty. But his speech wasn’t slurred. I was drunk, I knew. The place where we sat felt like a still, lit centre around which the dark surroundings spun.
“I’m going to bed now,” I said. “We can talk about plans tomorrow. Mine have most likely changed.” I was already starting to plan, to sober myself up, thoughts galloping: I could reassess in the morning, could make plans to go back to the city; I could stay with a friend until I could find a place of my own, maybe a place with a roommate, until I sorted out what I could do. My reservations were clear enough: about living in a house with Debbie, about working for Grant, and about the ideas he had about the job I was going to do; about the fact that it seemed normal to Grant that we had gotten drunk together on my first night in town; about the fact that my office was going to be in a burned-down school. About Grant insulting me. About my idea that any place would be easier than any other.
“Okay. Tomorrow will be good,” he said. He got up, stretching. “We’ll have a good talk. I’m looking forward to working with you, Theresa.” I guessed he either hadn’t heard or hadn’t understood what I said, that my plans had changed.
When I got upstairs to my bedroom, I saw that the name card on my bedroom door had been removed, folded, and slid halfway under the door. In my room, I closed the door and unfolded the paper: “Theresa,” it said. “I’m sorry about leaving you tonight. Come upstairs as soon as you read this. We need to talk.—Debbie.”
I found my way to her door, hesitated, and knocked.
“Come up,” Debbie called. I tried the knob; it was unlocked.
I went up the narrow staircase and stepped onto a storey that was a near replica of the second floor, except that it looked lived in, like a real home. End tables with piles of books were pushed up against the wall of the hall; a long carpet ran down the length of the hall floor. Pictures of birds and animals and people were framed and hung on the walls. Instruments sat in stands or in cases propped against tables. A record was on, and the low metallic notes of what I could only guess was a harpsichord or a thumb piano plucked at the silence. The room to the right, the equivalent of the master bedroom on the second floor, was set up like a sitting room. There was a space heater placed inside the fireplace. Lamps were set on crates and desks and tables. Debbie sat on an armchair by the fireplace.
“Hi,” she said. “Sorry about leaving you with Grant. I needed to get away, even if it meant leaving you, which I didn’t want to do. Here, have a seat. And have this. You earned it.” She handed me a glass of wine that was sitting on the floor by her chair. It looked like the one she had taken with her to bed.
“I think I’m okay,” I said. “Thanks.” I sat down in the chair across from her.
“I’m not sure how he managed to set things up this way. I came home from college and here he was, acting like Allen Jr., running the show. But God love him if he could connect with Allen. Mr. Poole was not a kind man. He taught me to love music. I’m grateful to him for that, and for my education. But it’s hard to feel warm toward someone who didn’t like people.”
“Do you think Grant is representing what Mr. Poole wanted done with his money?” I asked.
“What Allen Poole loved were houses, buildings. He loved the academy building, the grand look of an old school. He couldn’t stand to see what had become of it, the jewel of the town. He didn’t want people to hang out in the academy’s chapel, didn’t want kids to play road hockey on the tile floor of the old gym. People were already lighting fires in the buildings. The Big Fire must have struck him as a story that people would believe. I could never prove it, but my mom always said she thought Poole set that fire himself. We’ll never know. But I know Grant is a lot like him. Burning things down is similar to building them up, if either is done on a big enough scale. They’re different forms of starting over. Neither of them, Grant or Allen, see people; they see the business of space.”
I paused, not sure exactly what she was implying, not really wanting to get further involved. The focus for me wasn’t on the history but the present, the meaning of this job Debbie and I were to share and how I could confirm that this had been a mistake.
“Why are you working for Grant?” I asked.
She shrugged. “He called and offered me the job. I was done school, and had no other prospects. My room was still here as I’d left it. This attic. My mom and I lived here briefly after Allen died, until I went away and she moved in with her boyfriend in the country. She was ready to go. She already practically lived here while he was alive; she did all his cleaning, some of his cooking. At least now I have an ally, now that you’re here. It will be fun to live together. We can go for walks. Grant was right about that. Alden is a great place for walking. The train tracks are amazing; they’ve become like an orchard planted in lines, with fruit trees growing in the ditches on either side. You can smell them. That’s why I keep the window open.”
But I knew I wasn’t going to stay, if I could find a way of refusing a free place to live. The faint smell of overly sweet, slightly fermented fruit wafted into the room on the breeze, or maybe it was just Debbie’s words that made me think it did. As much as I needed the job, it wasn’t a good fit. The post shouldn’t have been vacant in the first place. And I couldn’t forget what he said; it had seemed to come not from him, but channelled from somewhere—from Allen the belated misanthrope, or maybe, rather, from Alden’s buildings themselves, talking back. The communication was welcome, despite the vehicle. Most likely, I’d give it a few days and see how it turned out, keeping in mind that the train station was just a half-hour cab ride away. I’d give it a few days because walking away wasn’t going to be as easy this time.
Inside City Hall
Three months into my new job in the city hall’s HR department, I started receiving strange calls from an unknown caller on my office phone.
Five months in, the calls had become so frequent that the fact of them—avoiding them, inadvertently answering them, thinking about them—had become as much a part of the workday as going for more coffee, checking the time, or meeting with my co-workers. Very quickly, I began to know, almost always, when I was going to hear her voice, that voice, when I picked up the phone.
But sometimes I was wrong. Sometimes I would answer the phone with my guard down, as I rushed in from a meeting, or grabbed the receiver, expecting a call from someone else. I would reel off my professional greeting, only to hear her deep voice on the other end, answering mine with her own equally formal greeting: “Hello, and good morning,” or “Hello, and good afternoon.”
She called from different phone numbers almost every time. I kept a list on a sticky note, jotting the digits from the phone’s display screen, while I listened to the caller talk, or while I sat, watching the ringing phone until it fell silent. The only information I could gather on her was that ever-growing list of numbers.
This may have been part of the reason I’d avoided telling anyone else in the office about the calls. I knew I needed to tell my executive officer, Adair, about what was going on, but I’d avoided having that talk with him, oddly, almost to the same extent that I’d tried to avoid conversations with the caller herself. I didn�
�t want to talk to the caller: her calls were confusing and irritating; more importantly, they had begun taking up a fair bit of my time at work. But Adair and his wife had just had their first babies—twins. Managers and co-workers crowded into his office doorway each day, around the desk of the sleepless, always-working Adair, to look at the most recent pictures of the girls on his computer or phone. I didn’t want to be the one to push through, parting and silencing the smiling crowd, to announce that we had a situation in the office. Especially since he’d taken a chance on me, and I’d started so recently. His professionalism and intelligent smile made me feel professional and intelligent, and I wanted to coast on that for a while without making things weird.
I told my brother about the situation, and he surprised me by responding not with sympathy for me, but with the judgment that I had been putting my whole office and myself at risk by not telling anyone: what if this person—this caller—came in, out of control, and someone got hurt? I didn’t want to have to reveal to my office, after the fact, that I’d been assisting a threatening outside force. But it became easier to just avoid the caller’s calls and deal with them when I had to. I was banking on my gut feeling that she was harmless, and just didn’t understand the normal process for seeking a job, which I sympathized with, because these days it seemed like the process had grown so complicated and competitive that only people with direct training or experience really understood it.