by Noel Hynd
There was one African American family, Ronald Johnson and his wife, who called herself Mandy. Ron Johnson was a Princeton graduate and no one’s fool. He was barely a day over thirty and was already a vice president in charge of some marketing department with one of the film studios. He was a gracious, well-spoken man, with the build of an Ivy League athlete. His wife was equally charming. She’d gone to Bryn Mawr and majored in Twentieth century French literature.
“If I ever have a question about Sartre,” Rebecca said, “now I know whom to call.”
Mandy Johnson laughed. Terry Hopkins struck up a conversation with Claire, and Rebecca took the opportunity to straighten the hors d’oeuvres table and put out some fresh ice for the booze and soft drinks. She scanned the room, checking on everyone, trying not to catch anyone’s eye in particular. Not right then.
Then she heard another noise from upstairs.
She looked up. Directly over her head. Same thing. It sounded like a chair scraping. Or sudden set of distressed footfalls. “What…?” she found herself thinking. She realized she was again looking up at the same spot in the ceiling, the spot just under the floor to the turret room. “What gives?” she thought. “Who is up there?”
Bill, showing off the house? She wondered. She hoped. Was he up there making his usual boasts and promises about what he was going to do with the upper floors?
She was sure it was Bill. Then, a moment later, her eye wandered across the room and caught her husband sitting on the sofa engaged in a tight conversation with Marty Gross’s wife. Nadia’s skirt had somehow worked its way three quarters of the way up her thighs as she was sitting on the sofa, and if Rebecca weren’t so even minded, she might have been annoyed.
“Hell!” she thought. She was annoyed. She smoldered at Nadia, who was flirting shamelessly with her husband. Rebecca decided to ignore it. But she also made a mental note not to extend full friendship to wives in the neighborhood who made a point of flashing legs and anything else of interest to other women’s husbands. What was Nadia trying to prove, anyway? That she could still seduce a man? Then again, Rebecca reasoned, she could probably ignore it if Nadia’s own husband could. Then she wondered just where flirtation ended with Nadia and where back porch seduction began.
Then idly, but with horror, Rebecca wondered how much of that was going on in the neighborhood. Was spouse swapping “in” or “out” on this block?
She suppressed a smile. So far, she hadn’t seen anyone who would even tempt her.
Then Rebecca had a second distraction. She noticed that Karen was across the room, too, holding court with Katie Ross. That made Rebecca curious. She went to the den and saw Patrick sitting at the television with one of his new friends.
“Hello?” she thought. So no family member was upstairs? Rebecca walked slowly back to the spot where she had heard the noise. She stood still and cocked her head.
And then she heard the mystery sound a third time.
“Okay!” she muttered to herself. “Time to investigate.”
“Becca?” A woman’s voice asked. The voice was near to her. Rebecca turned. It was Melissa standing only two feet away. Something funny in her eyes, a sense of the perverse, maybe, that Rebecca had not noticed before.
“Hi,” Rebecca answered. She kept moving.
“What’s going on?” Melissa asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You look like something’s bothering you. Maybe just a little, but I can see it’s on your mind.”
“One of my more aggressive guests seems to be upstairs,” Rebecca said with annoyance. Melissa glanced around.
“How do you know? Who’s missing?”
“Melissa, I don’t even know everyone who’s here, much less who’s disappeared. All I know is I heard something three times and no one has come downstairs.”
“That’s LA for you.” Melissa smirked and raised a mischievous eyebrow. “Your guests have found a spare bedroom. Must be something in the air.”
“Then they’re doing it on the floor, because that room is not furnished yet.”
“As I said, ‘that’s LA for you.’”
“I am not amused,” Rebecca said. “Call me a ‘bluenose’ if you want, but I think guests can control their libidos in my home, all right?”
“Sure.”
“Follow me while I lead the strays back to the corral.”
“Sure thing.” Melissa giggled conspiratorially and followed.
“Ask me whatever you were going to ask me,” Rebecca said. “Just come with me.”
They went through the living room, where Rebecca noted that the hors d’oeuvres were running low. Time to replenish the plates when she came back downstairs, she told herself. Maybe she could enlist Melissa’s help.
“Thursday would be good for me, by the way,” Melissa said.
“Good for what?”
“To continue your tour. Remember? Hot spots and cemeteries.”
“Oh. That’s right. Come on along.”
They climbed the stairs together. The hall was dark as they arrived at the top of the steps. The light was off. Rebecca was sure that she had turned it on. So who was walking around in the dark?
“No one’s up here,” Melissa said. “It’s dark, honey.” Rebecca stood in place at the top of the steps.
“I heard something.”
“Like what?”
“A chair scraping. Or footsteps.”
“Whoever it was must have come downstairs.”
“We would have passed them.” Melissa answered.
“So who walks around in the dark? Which California wacko?”
Rebecca made her first move. She turned the light on. A warm glow bathed the landing and central hall.
“Where were the footsteps?” Melissa asked.
Rebecca nodded toward the turret room, the kids’ future playroom.
Ronny’s room.
“Let’s have a look,” Rebecca said.
The two women walked together, Rebecca more apprehensive than her friend. The door to the room was open. It loomed large in front of her and a funny light glowed within it. She saw a movement, but within another moment knew it was her own shadow.
She reached the room and stepped in. That sour odor accosted her. Then she quickly flicked on the light. The overhead bulb illuminated the room.
Harsh. A bare bulb. Rebecca’s eyes covered the whole chamber in a flash. No one there. Nothing. Or so it appeared.
Melissa read the look of concern on her friend’s face. Then Rebecca saw the closet door move, and the worried look turned to fear. The door had moved. Just a little, as if someone or something had nudged it — just a whisper.
“Uh, oh,” Rebecca said.
“What?”
“The closet door.” Rebecca’s voice was barely above a whisper. She raised an unsteady hand and pointed. “It just moved.”
Melissa looked at it. “No way,” she said. “Come on.”
“Melissa, I saw it.”
“What are you telling me? Someone’s hiding in the closet?” Rebecca made a gesture.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Don’t you know, it’s a California tradition.”
“What is?”
“You get invited as a couple to a new neighbor’s house. Then you sneak upstairs and go to a closet and copulate. It’s known as ‘California closet sex,’ and after you’ve lived here for a few months, you and Bill can come over to my place and do it.”
Rebecca stared at her. Melissa continued.
“The polite thing to do, honey, is ignore them until both of them or at least the woman, assuming there’s only one woman, has her orgasm.”
“What are you talking about?” Rebecca said.
“What I’m saying to you, Becca, is that I’m joking, okay? And this is a lot of bull,” Melissa said. “There’s no one in that closet.”
“I’m going to go get Bill.”
“And have him laughing at you all night, right?” Melissa sai
d. “Yeah, sure. Make a nutcase of yourself. You’re going to go get no one.”
“Melissa!”
“Watch me,” Melissa said. “I’ll open your door for you.”
“Melissa, don’t do it! I’m scared!”
“No nerve, no glory,” Melissa said.
“Melissa, no!”
Melissa crossed the room. Slowly. As if she were creeping up on the door. As if she were going to throw it open and expose fornicating lovers.
Or something much worse.
Rebecca continued to suffer horrible feelings. Nasty vibrations. Something terrible was beyond that threshold! She knew it. “Melissa, please!” she said.
Melissa made a Girl Scout type of gesture. She stood outside the closet door. Her hand went slowly to the knob. Then her hand was firmly upon it. Rebecca felt her heart pounding. Her hands rose toward her face as if she couldn’t bear to look.
Then Melissa yanked.
The door flew open. For a nano-second, Rebecca thought she saw a flickering image, black and white, bright then dark, like an old film reel gone berserk. Then that transformed into something dark. But then that was gone, too, and all she had left was a shadow. Melissa’s shadow: the sole occupant of the closet.
“You got one great imagination, East Coast girl,” said Melissa. “¡Nada!”
Rebecca exuded a massive sigh of relief. She calmed herself.
“I know I heard something,” she said softly.
“Yeah,” her friend answered.
Melissa remained in the closet. With a foot, she poked at the walls and corners within it. “No secret passages, Becca,” Melissa said. “No false floor and — she reached a long gangly aim upward toward the ceiling of the closet — no escape hatch out the top like an elevator.”
Melissa stepped out of the closet. She glanced to the window, which was partially open. A little breeze stirred.
“There’s your culprit right there,” Melissa said. “Mom Nature. Don’t you know not to mess with Mom Nature? She’ll kick your butt if you do.”
“I know I heard something,” Rebecca said.
“A scraping and a bang. Something like that?”
“Yes. Three times.”
Melissa pushed the closet door shut. It scraped the floor as it moved. It banged when it closed. Then the door latch gave way and the door opened again.
“Presumably, with the help of the breeze, it could have repeated that motion into the next millennium,” Melissa said. She looked at her friend. “Still not happy?”
Rebecca thought about it.
“Not entirely,” she said.
“Why? You think you have a ghost?”
Rebecca cringed and shuddered. That was exactly what she thought, her deepest darkest fear and suddenly Melissa, quasi-kook that she was, had thrown it right out there in front of her.
“I don’t know what I have, Melissa,” Rebecca said, gathering herself quickly, “but I hear noises, smell strange stenches and get bad feelings here sometimes. So I’ll admit it. I’m scared. I am completely thoroughly and horribly scared. All right?”
Melissa’s mood changed like a tide. She became best friend and sister all at once. “Okay, honey, look,” she said. “There’s nothing here. Come on. Let’s not screw up the party. But we’ll do a room to room search,” Melissa said, “until you’re satisfied.’ How’s that?”
“It’s a deal.”
They walked together from room to room. Melissa held Rebecca’s hand, not in a creepy way but supportively. Each chamber was dark and quiet. Karen’s room, Patrick’s room. The master bedroom. No one. Nothing. Tranquility. Peace on earth.
“Let’s go downstairs,” Melissa finally said. “Can we do that?”
Rebecca nodded.
They crossed the hallway. Rebecca had an urge to tell Melissa about the incident in Connecticut, the horrible abduction in Fairfield. Rebecca felt she could trust her new friend. And she felt that it would allow Melissa to understand her better.
Instead, however, she kept quiet.
They walked down the steps together, Rebecca going first. The party was still going well. Bill had replenished the food table, and Karen had joined Patrick in the den. The kids were playing video games and entertaining their new friends.
Melissa went over to Claire and sat down next to her. Jim Doleman had been chatting Claire up, but somehow felt awkward as soon as Melissa arrived. A moment later, he excused himself.
Rebecca found her husband. Bill put an arm around her, and she felt like the perfect hostess. No incidents, no awkward moments; she had survived the investigation of the turret room, had walked the entire upstairs with a buddy and now felt as if she had made two dozen new friends.
Hey, she told herself, settling finally, not bad.
“What’s going on?” Bill asked.
“Nothing’s going on.”
“I watched you go upstairs. You looked like there was a problem.”
“I thought I heard someone.”
“Someone where?”
“Upstairs.”
He looked concerned and glanced toward the steps. Things like this could always set him off. The old paranoia of an amateur college druggie, always waiting for the narks to come in. “And?” he asked. A certain jitteriness pervaded his tone. “Was there anyone?”
“No. Of course not,” she said.
“Why didn’t you let me look?”
“I didn’t want to bother you.”
“Next time,” he said, “bother me, okay? I don’t like the idea of someone wandering around upstairs.”
He looked back toward the steps. And she could see that he was actually annoyed. She sighed again. If she had interrupted him with Nadia, he would have accused her of causing a jealous scene. In some situations with Bill, she couldn’t win.
“Honey, there wasn’t anyone there,” she explained. “It was just a door scraping in the turret room.”
“Next time, let me find out,” he said.
“Bill, what’s wrong with you today?”
“Must have been our buddy ‘Ronny Sinbilt,’” he said after a moment’s pause.
“Something about that isn’t funny,” Rebecca said.
He thought back to her abduction, and how jittery she’d been since. She was just starting to calm down.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean that.” He hugged her. “I’m sorry. I really am, okay?”
“Okay,” she said. They kissed.
“Who’s ‘Ronny Whatever’?” Melissa asked later.
“Some imaginary playmate that our kids see. Or think they see.”
“Where? Here?” Melissa asked, curious as a brace of cats. For the first time, Rebecca was annoyed.
“There’s no one up there,” Rebecca said. “No one when you just looked, and no one when Karen and Patrick think they see someone. Okay?” Melissa thought about it.
“Okay. Maybe you do have a ghost,” she said. “Maybe even a pair of ghosts. That happens sometimes when…”
“Melissa! This is my home! I have to live here! I don’t think this is funny,” Rebecca snapped. Melissa was calm and answered evenly.
“I didn’t mean it to be funny. L.A. is one of the most fertile ghost haunts in the United States. Why, didn’t you know?”
“I don’t believe in such things!” Rebecca said tersely. “And I would appreciate your not putting such thoughts back in the air. In fact, I have to tell you this. Some of this death and cemetery stuff that you’ve been going on and on about is giving me the creeps! All right? I’ve pretty much had my fill of it!”
“I’m sorry. It’s not meant to scare you,” Melissa explained. “It should reassure you. Death can be a very cozy situation. Death…”
“Melissa!” she said even more boldly. “I like you. You’re my best friend here. But sometimes you have to respect the fact that you and I might be on different wavelengths. Okay? I really don’t feel comfortable with all this death and dying and graveyard stuff. So let’s drop it. Please?” M
elissa knew that a raw nerve had been touched. She was anxious to get away from it. She backed off.
“Oh. Sorry,” she said with a shrug. “I really am.
“I know I live adjacent to a graveyard, and I’m okay with that,” Rebecca said, calming. “But we don’t have to bring the graveyard into my home. Do we?”
Melissa looked almost crestfallen. But then she perked.
“No, we don’t. Of course, honey. Not if you’re uncomfortable with it. Again, I’m really sorry. Okay? Forgive me? I don’t want to be an enemy.” Rebecca sighed again.
“Okay.” She relaxed.
“My apology is accepted?” Melissa asked.
“Of course it is.”
“You want to be reassured? I’ll reassure you,” Melissa said. “Let’s backtrack. We just looked around upstairs. That upstairs is ‘M.T. Period.’ Nothing there. Niente. Nada. No spirits. No ghosts. Zippo.”
“Thanks. That’s much better. Right.” She looked at her friend.
“I’m sorry I snapped. I’ve been edgy.”
“Hey, honey,” Melissa said, “it’s not a problem.”
Aside from that final incident, the party was a success. Essie Lewisohn even turned up, handing out her business card to anyone who would take one, even if they already had six at home. Essie also buttonholed Bill and Rebecca individually, asking if her long lost red reading glasses had ever turned up. They hadn’t. Essie sighed. The red ones had been her favorite pair, she said.
The party broke up about 10:00 P.M. Karen and Patrick went straight to bed. Bill helped Rebecca with the cleanup. Then he surprised his wife.
“I’m horny as a bull moose,” he said near 11:00 P.M. They were still downstairs, listening to music in the living room. She set down the magazine she was reading and looked accusingly at him.
“Probably from looking at Claire all night,” she said with more than a dash of irritation.
“I’m looking at you right now, Rebecca,” he said.
“Did Claire turn you on?” she asked.
“No. But you did. When you went upstairs, I fantasized that you were meeting another man and were going to make love with him. And Melissa was your lookout.”