I leaned back against the tub, amusing myself by wiggling the shower curtain with my wet toes and watching the light dance across the clear plastic. I imagined the curtain to be a ballroom filled with chandeliers and elegantly dressed dancers swirling through elaborate cotillion figures. I fancied I could see a single couple emerge, as if spotlighted: a handsome man in black tie and old-fashioned tails, a white gardenia in his buttonhole. He held a handkerchief to the back of a small woman in black velvet.
Quit daydreaming, Lindsey, you’ve got work to do. I pushed myself up, but my sock slid on the wet tub and I fell, this time hitting my head on the wall. I burst into tears. Now the curtain appeared to be sheets of chiffon, hanging tentlike from a hook embedded in the ceiling. Behind the billowing gauze, I could see a small female figure, bent and clutching something to her breast. A child? As I leaned closer, I was swept by a black and horrible wave of misery. I buried my head in my knees and wept. “Oh, Clay,” I cried into the empty room.
I sat in the tub for a while, sobbing and feeling incredibly sorry for poor lonely Lindsey. Finally I ran out of tears and self-pity, and I climbed out of the tub. I stuffed Clay’s wet shirt in the bottom of the laundry basket and put on some dry clothes. I picked up Annie Dillard’s latest book from my nightstand; I’d relax and regroup with good ol’ Annie. I went into the living room and stretched out on the couch, the book propped open on my chest. My eyes followed the words, my fingers turned the pages, but my mind did not comprehend the story.
I was startled by the doorbell. I had completely forgotten—Babs and I were going to dinner, and she was stopping up to see the apartment sans garbage bags. I put my book on the couch with its binding split—the way my mother always hated, and the way I’ve been placing books since the day I left home—hit the buzzer, and met her at the door, smiling as if I had not a care in the world.
Standing side by side, surveying my living room, we must have looked like the ultimate odd couple: me with my strong features (as my ever tactful mother would say), broad shoulders, and long, dark hair; Babs, all petite and wiry, her wheat-colored hair cropped close to her head. I was in blue jeans, while Babs was dressed in her usual outrageous style: skintight leotard, short leather skirt, fire engine red jacket, and papier-mâché earrings swirling with at least a dozen colors. “Wearable art,” she called them.
“You really have done a fabulous job, kiddo,” she said, nodding her head. “Are all the garbage bags really gone? Are you sure there isn’t one lurking in some corner somewhere?”
“Only the one lining the trash compactor.”
“You’ve done everything—even all the pictures are up!” she said, crossing the living room.
“All except my grandmother’s skater painting that I broke trying to hang.” I lifted the painting from behind the couch and showed her the ripped canvas and cracked frame, then followed her into the dining area.
“New or old?” Babs ran her hand over the table.
“Both,” I told her. “It’s one of those ‘new antiques.’ You know, where they do an exact replica of an old design—supposedly with similar materials and craftsmanship. Great, isn’t it?”
“It really is lovely. Looks like it’ll last forever.”
“That’s supposed to be the point. Future Heirlooms is the name of the store where they make the stuff. The end table over there came from the same place, and my new desk is scheduled for delivery next week.”
Babs raised her eyebrows. “Planning on replacing everything you own?”
I scowled. “I just want everything to look different and to feel different. To be completely different than it was.”
Babs’s eyebrows dropped and she touched my arm. “Makes sense.”
“And I’ve been having the greatest time!” I waved my arms around the room. “I’ve been getting to choose exactly what I want. Clay would never have allowed this table into his house; only contemporary furniture was acceptable—and it had to be oak. Light oak. Look around the room: you can tell by the oak coffee table, oak wall units, and oak arms on the couch who chose that stuff. The rosewood armoire was a hand-me-down from my parents.”
I led her back through the apartment. “Come look at what I’ve done with my bedroom.” When we reached the door, I stopped. “Smell anything strange?”
“Don’t think so.” She grinned. “Do you?”
“I guess not—at least not now. It’s weird; sometimes this room has the strangest odor. Kind of like, like—oh, I don’t know—heavy flowers, or something. A sickeningly sweet violet or lavender smell. But I don’t smell it now. It seems to come and go.”
From where we were standing, we looked directly through the tall windows, out over the edge of the Back Bay, across the Charles River to the Cambridge shore beyond. Babs turned to me. “This whole place used to be underwater.”
I saw a lesson coming and knew my lines. “The Back Bay?”
“That’s why they call it that—it used to be these terribly smelly tidal flats until, in the early eighteen hundreds, they turned it into a couple of reservoirs with dikes and dams and such.” She pointed toward the front of the apartment. “Mill Dam was exactly where we are now: Beacon Street. It wasn’t until right before the Civil War that they started filling it in. There used to be five big hills in Boston: Mt. Vernon, Beacon, Cotton, Fort and … shit.” Babs frowned. “Shit, I can’t remember the last one.”
“I think it’s pretty impressive you remember four.”
“I put in plenty of hours memorizing this stuff; credentials in historical preservation don’t come cheap—Copp’s Hill,” she said triumphantly. “Copp’s Hill was the fifth! Anyway, now there’s only one—Beacon—and they actually took some of that.”
“They cut the hills down?”
“Yup,” she said. “To use them to fill the Back Bay, and a lot of other places in Boston—most people don’t know it, but parts of the South End, Charlestown, even some of Cambridge, are landfill.”
“Resourceful little devils, weren’t they?”
“I suppose they were.” Babs stepped back. “These are the perfect window treatments for this bay. The Verisols give you privacy without forfeiting light—and these draperies are stunning.” Babs’s compliments were not to be taken lightly; now that she was bored with historical preservation and her ardor for real estate had cooled, interior decoration was her new hot interest. “Enough kudos,” she said. “I’m famished. Bangkok Cuisine or the Thai House?”
She followed me into the entryway and out to the landing, elaborating on the relative merits of the two restaurants while I locked the door. Either sounded fine to me.
Edgar must have heard us talking on the stairs, for he poked his head from his ground-floor apartment. “Good evening, ladies.”
“Oh, Edgar, I forgot your book!” Babs gave him a big hug and bent down to pet Mirepoix, who was strutting around his legs. Mirepoix snorted and quivered in ecstasy, covering Babs’s fingers with wet kisses. I wondered if Babs’s hands would now smell as bad as the dog’s breath.
“Didn’t you just love Kerr’s concept of the ’ambiguous realm of the fantastic’?” Edgar gushed, waving his long, thin hands.
“Ah—” Babs lowered her voice dramatically “—the meeting ground of the uncanny and the marvelous!”
“What are you guys talking about?” I asked, then held up my hands. “Never mind, don’t tell me, I don’t think I want to know.”
“You probably don’t.” Babs turned to Edgar. “Lindsey’s a total nonbeliever. If she can’t see it, or if it hasn’t been written up in Scientific American, then it can’t possibly be true.”
I caught the look of superiority and complicity that passed between them. “Just a realist—what you see is what you get.” I made sure my tone clearly indicated my feelings of superiority. “Babs, we’ll be late.”
“I wouldn’t be too quick to make final judgments, my dear,” Edgar said to me. “After you’ve lived in our ol’ 240 for a while, you may experience a change of heart.”<
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“Oh, right, Edgar, right.” I pulled the heavy door toward me. “I forgot this house is haunted. Let’s go, Babs.”
“Renovations bring out a ghost, you know,” Edgar said. “Has Babs told you the history of the house? I learned all about it from a book Nathan gave me. It’s all very fascinating. It was built in 1871 for Edward Bangs, and the architect was the Peabody, Sterns—”
“Babs told me all about it.”
“Bangs sold it almost immediately to the Boston Davenports, and the house remained within their family until the very recent past. This house had been virtually untouched for a hundred years—until Nathan came with his crews, that is …” He paused and turned to Babs. “Do you suppose the ghost is a Davenport or a Bangs?”
I held the door wide. “Let’s go.”
But Babs ignored me. “Has something else happened, Edgar?”
“Perchance a few small episodes of supernatural phenomena,” he said secretively. “A few small episodes that lead me to conclude that a ghost is present who wishes to reclaim her domicile.”
“Her domicile?” I shook my head and stared at the mosaic design on the vestibule ceiling. “And how, pray tell, does one determine the sex of a ghost?”
“It’s quite difficult to answer that question,” Edgar said seriously. “But somehow, I’m certain it’s a woman. And Mirepoix knows it’s a woman.”
I burst out laughing. “Mirepoix told you the ghost is a woman?”
Edgar looked hurt. “Of course not,” he said. “She just reacts to the ghost’s presence as she reacts to a woman rather than to a man.” He turned to Babs. “Why don’t you just bring the book next week when you come for dinner. My tofu lasagna?”
We finally stepped outside to the soothing clamor of the street. “I know you like him,” I said, “but the guy’s looney tunes. Haunted houses? Dogs who know the sex of ghosts? I mean, really. He reminds me of my father’s sister, crazy old Aunt Dolores.”
“And what was it made crazy old Aunt Dolores so crazy?”
“She swore she shared her house with the sea captain who’d built it in the seventeen hundreds—Carlin Roarke was his name. They were friends; she’d talk to Carlin, pretend he was real. Once I was there and she was playing what she insisted was his favorite piano concerto! An eighteenth-century sea captain who likes piano concertos? Looney tunes, I tell you—just like Edgar.”
“Edgar may be a bit much,” Babs said as we walked down Beacon Street. “And he is the perfect foil for a good practical joke, but there’s a lot more there than you give him credit for—he’s a highly respected literary critic, you know.”
“How much credit can I give a guy who serves tofu lasagna and waxes poetic over ginger root tea?”
Babs shrugged, and we turned toward Copley Square.
It was late when I got home from dinner, but Edgar and Mirepoix were lying in wait. “Lindsey, Lindsey, my dear, let me help you with that door!” Edgar cried as he leaped out of his apartment, waving his long, thin hands.
“Oh, that’s okay, Edgar. I’ve got it, thanks.”
“Oh, no, no, please, this is extremely heavy.” He pushed open the door with surprising ease for a man of his slight stature. “As I am sure you are aware, they were very concerned with high quality and durability in the nineteenth century. And of course, both labor and materials were so much less expensive then. Hence—” he gestured dramatically “—this excessively ponderous—albeit beautiful—door.” Why did he always talk like that?
“Thanks, Edgar.”
“Before you go, my dear, there’s something I must talk to you about.”
“Oh?”
“It’s the street people and the cold.”
“It’s hard not to think about them.” I rummaged through my purse but couldn’t find my checkbook. “I’ll give you a check in the morning.” I tried to get up the stairs, but he planted himself in the center of the bottom step. The dog stood guard to his left.
“Oh, no, no.” Edgar waved his bony fingers. “I’m not talking about money, I’m talking about the fact that when the thermometer plummets, the sleeping options of the street people become quite limited.”
“Edgar, I’m really too tired to get into a long discussion on the plight of the homeless right now—we’ll talk some other time. Okay?” I attempted to step around Mirepoix, but the dog and Edgar were clearly in cahoots, and she barred my way. The “loveliest little thing” proceeded to sneeze all over my shoe. I turned away. Dog snot, my favorite.
Edgar grabbed my arm. “But this isn’t a theroretical discussion—this directly affects you, my dear,” he said as I wiggled my arm from his grasp. “For, as winter descends, so do the street people—on vestibules. And the kind of vestibule we have here—with an outside door that’s always unlocked—is the kind they seek. It forms a room accessible to them, but beyond the reach of wind and elements.”
“Oh, yeah.” I was suddenly more interested. “I see what you mean.”
“The answer is to change the placement of the intercom system—to put the buzzers outside the exterior door rather than inside the vestibule.”
“That’s a good idea.” For a moment I thought that maybe old Edgar’s screws were tighter than I had assumed.
“So can I count on your support at the next condo meeting? It might be expensive.”
“I guess so. Sure. But can’t we talk about this some other time? Don’t you ever sleep?”
Edgar looked sheepish. “I suppose we could discuss this later. The truth is, I, ah, I’ve been a little rattled.”
“Ghosts?” I grinned, imagining screws falling to the floor.
“To be perfectly honest—yes.” He absentmindedly stroked Mirepoix with his foot, his pale blue eyes large and serious. “This is the third time that the identical phenomenon occurred … For the third time, at exactly ten p.m., the left sliding door in my living room closed without even the merest touch of a hand!” His colorless eyes looked feverish. “And this last time was most portentous: a moment prior to the door’s movement, Mirepoix halted her prowling and froze, eyes glued to the empty chair next to the door. Then she growled and actually raised her hackles—something she would never do had we been alone in the apartment!”
“Aren’t you jumping to conclusions here?”
“What else could it be?”
“A practical joke.” I crossed my arms. “And you know by whom.”
“If you mean Babs, the thought actually did occur to me—that woman is like a childish demon with her little tricks. But—”
“Does she have a key?”
“Yes, but—”
“There’s your answer, Edgar.” I tried to get around him.
“Maybe she could have done some of the other things,” he whined. “But how could she have done this?”
“Oh, I don’t know—maybe she didn’t—maybe the house has settled in such a way that the door slides downward.”
“Yes, yes,” he said. “Yes, I suppose you could be correct. But always the exact same time …”
“You’re positive it was always ten o’clock?”
“I suppose I’m not entirely positive …”
“There you go. Just relax—you and Babs have been reading too many ghost stories.”
“Yes, yes, I daresay you must be right. Well, well, good night, my dear,” he fluttered. “I won’t keep you any longer.” Obviously embarrassed, he ducked quickly back into his apartment.
Congratulating myself on the logic of my explanations, I climbed the stairs. But my good humor vanished as I reached to unlock my door and it swung slowly inward without benefit of a key. I froze, hand in midair. Burglars?
I stood completely still and listened carefully, but there were no sounds; the apartment seemed empty. I swallowed hard and started to push the door open wider, then stopped. I wondered if maybe I should go down and get Edgar, but quickly rejected the idea. I shoved the door hard and let it bang against the wall. I coughed, rattled the doorknob, and cleared my t
hroat loudly. All was silent.
Still making as much noise as I could, I scoured every inch of the apartment. Starting in the study (and leaving the front door open should any thieves wish to escape), I turned on every light, carefully poked through each closet, looked under the bed, punched the shower curtain, and opened all the kitchen cabinets.
After double-checking the refrigerator and finding no one lurking inside, I sat down on the living room couch. I had obviously just forgotten to lock the door. Just as I had forgotten where I put my keys that morning and my briefcase the day before. Sleep. I just needed more sleep. A couple more chapters of Annie Dillard, a good night’s sleep, and all would be well.
I reached down for my book, but it wasn’t on the couch where I had left it. It wasn’t on the coffee table, nor was it anywhere else in the living room. I finally found it in my bedroom, sitting on my night table, properly closed with an envelope holding my place. The faint scent of lavender hung in the air.
That Babs! Babs must have moved the book because its spread-eagle position on the couch offended her sensibilities. Babs was such an enigma—so flighty and spacey in so many ways, yet so compulsive and orderly in others.
3
The next day I had an irresistible bout of “fall fever.” Despite the paperwork piled on my desk and the pink message slips sticking to my telephone, I left work early. It was one of those balmy days that often come to Boston in late autumn—a day that teases and tantalizes until early nightfall dashes the springtime illusion. New England born and bred, I knew when to grab the last gasps of warmth and light.
I quickly turned my back on the high-rises that were beginning to cast their silhouettes onto Boylston Street and headed to the Commonwealth Avenue mall—a corridor of still green openness lined by rows of graceful mansions. Through the almost bare trees, the details of the brick and brownstone town houses were highlighted by the setting sun. I looked at them through my newly schooled eyes and noticed that although the individual houses varied—their facades bow or flat, the roofs mansard or slightly pitched, the stone carvings ornamental or simple—the sweeping vista of the street was elegantly harmonious.
Shattered Echoes Page 3