Big fuss, huhwas all she got.
She stopped tugging at the new hair and put cold hands on her cheeks. She had lost weight over the duration of her mourning and could feel it especially then, with her elbows loose at her sides, closer to the inside of her than they had been in ten years. She was regaining her girlish figure just as she was feeling twice as old as her fifty years.
It was the yellow walls, she decided. The room looked somehow garish, as though the Waverleys had gone one shade too bright near the end, perhaps in an effort to stave off the cheerlessness of their encroachingsituation. A feeble attempt at cheer. Trying too hard. Thesquitch squitch echoed too plainly.
“I’ll have none of this,” she said to herself and to the room at large. The room listened politely, as though apologizing for its jarring color by being extra nice and quiet.
On the way out she closed the door quietly, respectfully, maybe with a little too much relief.
At the end of the sidewalk she looked back at the house. The sun had not deigned to peek out from the endless clouds in the sky. It would go on like this, she suspected, with few breaks, for a while yet. Like the home of her youth.
She felt very tired. It had been a big day. Her first house after four months. It was a good house, aneasy house, and would be sold within a week to a nice young family. It was that sort of house, mid-priced, well renovated, good-looking, nice neighborhood—not the best, but not dangerous, it was at least fifteen years from dangerous—and by then she would have another couple of listings and a few nice young families who hadn’t acted fast enough to buy them and life would go on.
She didn’t need a pamphlet to tell her what would happen. She would go first hours and then a whole day without thinking of Howard. Then a week would pass. Then she would box up his things and send them off somewhere. In a few months she would run across his slippers or a completed crossword puzzle and she would cry and cry and cry. And then she wouldn’t think of him again for another week.
That was the way these things happened.
When she got into the car and started it, she wondered if she would miss the loneliness of these days. Regret losing the grieving, if only because it was now her closest connection to Howard.
Two
The twentieth day of the Belisle house listing was the day that Glenn went hours without thinking about Howard. She had actually gone hours without thinking about him previously, but hadn’t noticed in the active days. The house, of course, had dozens of calls, as she predicted.
No buyers.
It was practically a phenomenon around the office. They were beginning to refer to it as “that house,” without anyone needing an explanation as to which one exactly they meant. Since the ad had run, Glenn had shown the house at least once a day, but more often twice. On the weekends she showed three times sometimes, taking calls on her cell while she worked the cold, hard earth in the front of the yard, or sat in sweater and overalls on the little bench with a cup of tea. She went every time, and though she bitched along with the others at the office about weekend interruptions, she didn’t mind at all, really. They took her away from her own empty home.
Elsie said, on the twentieth day, “What’s on for that house today, Glenny?”
“Two showings, one’s a repeat. Could be the end,” she quipped.
“So strange,” Elsie said. She said the same thing every time they spoke of the Belisle place. She had had a run-by a week before with the husband and wife of friends of hers. She had built it up in their eyes, in Glenn’s opinion. The young couple had two school-aged children, and the wife worked at home in some sort of computer business. It was perfect for them. There’d been a lot of that.
They didn’t buy it, didn’t even offer on it, even though it was perfect, in their price range and had room for an office. The reason given, by the wife who had the computer business, was, “It has the wrong vibe.”
“The wrongwhat?”
“That’s what she said, ‘the wrong vibe.’” Gavin Edwards and his toupee shook their heads, albeit at different speeds. “You’ll need a vibologist for that, I think, Glenny.” He laughed at the photocopier. “You know, get a vibe expert in there, clean out the vibe and then offer it back to them, vibe free.” He laughed at his own joke.
Elsie said, “Oh, no, they’ve bought on Lansdowne.”
“Elsie, your secret Santa is going to bring you a joke book.”
“Oh, oh, I see,” she said, and chuckled redly.
“Well, I’m showing again in an hour. Family. Just the wife and husband coming, I think. Yesterday I showed it to a woman and her mother. They seemed interested. The husband is out of town until the fifteenth. They said they wouldn’t look at it again until he was back.”
“Oh, it’ll be gone by then,” Gavin Edwards said, nodding, Fido bouncing in agreement.
“Oh, yes, absolutely,” Elsie agreed.
Glenn raised an eyebrow, but silently agreed. It was the buying season.
The Trents brought along their teenaged daughter.
“This is Amber,” the mother said, after introductions had been made. Glenn smiled brightly at the girl, who half smiled back and then dipped her eyes to the floor, where they stayed, Glenn thought. She didn’t know how the girl saw to walk.
They were motivated buyers. Mr. Trent—call me Don—was about to leave town on business for an extended period of time and wanted the house question settled, and them settled in the house, before he left.
“We’ve got just over a month to find, buy and move,” he said firmly. His wife smiled and nodded at everything he said. He worked in plastics for an international company and was away a lot. Mrs. Trent stayed home, but inquired about business in the area.
“I’m going to need something to do,” she said to Glenn, as they walked through the house. “Don is gone all the time and Amber has grown up. Don doesn’t want me to work, but there is a limit to how dirty a house can get.” She laughed, but Glenn sensed a backbone somewhere in there about to be tested. Don squired his daughter about, his arm around her shoulders.
They were about to go out to the backyard and take a look at its size (Don would like a deck and a garage, one day). Amber asked if she could just look around on her own.
“Sure thing, little girl, you go right ahead,” Don said, and left the house to prowl the yard.
“Don’t touch the walls, honey. They’ve been painted,” her mother said. The daughter rolled her eyes, something only Glenn caught, and then the two women went outside.
Donliked the yard. Don tended to say what he thought.
“That’s anice yard,” he said. “You don’t find a backyard that size anymore.”
“It’s a nice yard,” Mrs. Trent echoed.
“Good size. Room for a deck. Can see a problem with a garage, though. All those trees back there.” The two women nodded. Glenn added that the trees were young and some could be moved.
“Toughjob,” he said.“Tough job.”
The three of them went back into the house in time to hear the girl scream.
It was a terrible scream and paralyzed them all for a split second, and then there was a crash of something heavy to the floor upstairs and Don was running for the stairs.
The women exchanged quick looks, and then the mother, with Glenn behind her, ran too.
They found Don with Amber, at the end of the hall, in front of the pull-down stairs that led to the attic. She was curled up in his arms, still screaming incoherently and sobbing.
“There’s a man! A man up there—he—”
Don looked up at Glenn accusatorily. “What the hell is going on?” he said.
All three of them looked up at the ceiling. The hatch to the attic was wide open. A light shone, illuminating a plain, gray ceiling. It was all they could see.
“There couldn’t be anyone up there,” Glenn said.
“There was! There was! It was a man!”Amber cried. She was genuinely upset. She dragged her hands down her face, rubbing her cheeks.
Tears poured out of her eyes and she looked much younger than her fourteen years. Like a baby.“He—he—he showed me his—” and she began to sob harder still. Don’s face went red with rage.
Mrs. Trent went white. She dropped to the floor and began to croon,“Oh my poor baby poor baby—”
Glenn stood by helplessly, alternating between the open hatch and the trio on the floor. “I don’t know what to say, there’s been no one—”
Don, red-faced and apoplectic with rage, called up the hatch, “I’m coming up there, you bastard! Touch my little girl—” and he took the hatch ladder in two steps, disappearing into the attic.
Glenn urged the two on the floor to move away from the ladder. Mrs. Trent helped her daughter up. The girl looked up toward the hatch and began her shrieking again.
“He showed me his thing!”
Mrs. Trent covered the girl’s head with her arms, forcing her almost to walk in a crouch. The three of them stood outside the blue room, looking up into the hole. The girl’s sobs slowed and she sniffled. Glenn offered her tissues from her purse.
They listened to Don’s footsteps, at first stomping, then not. Then just walking. They could follow him around the attic by the sound of his feet.
“Why did you go up there?” Glenn asked.
“It was open!” she said defensively.
“It wasn’t. I’ve never seen it open.”
The girl turned to her mother, her face indignant. “Itwas open! It was, honest!”
Mrs. Trent gave Glenn a look that could not be interpreted. But she suspected it was embarrassment. “It’s okay, honey. It’s okay.”
Glenn went to the ladder. “I’m going to go up,” she said. The girl was calming down. There was no one up there. She climbed the ladder carefully. It was steep. At the top she stuck her head through the hatch and saw a man. It was, of course, Mr. Trent. He stood in the middle of the huge, empty room, clutching what at first looked like a spear. It was a hook for the ladder and hatch. There was not so much as a piece of drywall to hide behind. A bare bulb that hung from the dropped ceiling, swayed. He must have banged it as he went past. It cast shadows.
“I think maybe the light played a trick,” Glenn said. She stood on the ladder, not going up. It was chilly up there. Don looked at it absently. Slowly he nodded. He stuck his hands into his pockets. “She got quite a scare. Someone could have run out between the time she screamed and we got upstairs,” he said feebly.
“We would have heard him, seen him. She would have said. I don’t mean to question her, but I really believe it was the light playing tricks.”
He nodded and dropped the pole. It clattered loud in the empty room, and Glenn jumped a little at the sound of it. He came to the hatch. Glenn backed down. Mrs. Trent and Amber looked expectantly at the two of them as Mr. Trent descended.
He shrugged. “No one up there, honey,” he said kindly. “I think you saw the lightbulb swinging—”
“I didNOT! There was a man, Daddy! Honest to god there was.” She looked at everyone in turn, wanting support. When she found only sympathetic glances, she buried her face in her mother’s sweater and resumed her sobs.
“What the hell was that hatch doing open, anyway?” Don said, unwilling to leave his daughter undefended.
“I swear it was closed the last time I was here. I suppose another agent could have—” It was too late, of course, for the Trents. The four of them walked down the stairs. Don took over comforting Amber. At the door, Glenn apologized profusely and asked them if they would like to see something else.
Mrs. Trent wrinkled her nose. “I think, give us a couple of days before you call. I suppose Amber wouldn’t let us buy this place over her dead body, now,” she said.
“I’m terribly, terribly sorry. Nothing like this has ever happened.”
“She’s a little high-strung,” Mrs. Trent said.
“I think they all are at that age, aren’t they?” Glenn said, not really knowing one way or the other.
Father and daughter got into the backseat of the car together.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Darnley, thank you for your time,” the woman said. She took two steps down and said oddly, “She’s Daddy’s girl, you know,” as though by way of explanation.
Glenn repeated her own apologies and watched them drive away. Don looked back at the house through the back window. Glenn raised a hand; he didn’t return the gesture.
After they’d left, Glenn went back up. The hatch had been closed, she was sure of it. She tried to think of the last time she had been upstairs, and it had been the evening before. She’d shown it to the Gillespies. If it had been open, she would have seen it.
She climbed the ladder and got up inside the attic to turn out the light.
The girl had been seeing things. The bulb was still now. To prove her point, she gave it a little push. Light flashed and blurred on the wood walls, throwing shadows around the room. Daylight tried to peer through the little window. A cold spot of air swirled around her. She shuddered.
She reached out to still the bulb, and to her right, something moved.
She swung around to where she’d seen the movement. “Who’s there?” she called. The room was bare. Empty.
“Who’s there!” she said again, firmly.
She reached down, not looking, and picked up the pole. She realized she was shaking.
Glenn scrambled down the ladder, feeling foolish as she did it, and at the bottom pushed it up and pulled the hatch closed with the hook on the end of the pole.
She’d left the light on.
She stared up at the hatch, listening. Imagining.
Mwa—ha ha ha…
Horror movie laughs from Hammer horror films of her youth.
Screw it.The light could stay on.
There were two cards left by other multiple-listing agents on the counter in the kitchen. She knew them both vaguely and that they had been there that morning. One of them would have left the attic hatch open, the light on.
She scooped up the cards and called them from the little kitchen on her cell phone.
Maggie Richards answered at first ring. She’d shown the house around nine, to two people (they’re not married, she almost whispered) before they went off to work. She had never been in the attic.
“Is it nice?” was what she said.
Mike Persher had dropped by with a woman that morning, just after ten.
“You left the attic light on, and the hatch open. I had anincident because of it,” she said sternly.
He was defensive immediately. “I never went near the attic,” he said. He asked if it was worth showing.
Glenn heaved a sigh. He was lying. Had to be.
“Well, what happened?”
Glenn explained in brief, saying only that the girl hadthought she’d seen a man up there. “It was the light, I suspect. You’ll have to be sure that you turn them out if you’re going to show the property,” she said, poshly as possible.
“That’s so weird,” he said.
“Well, her mother said she was high-strung.” Glenn heard his confusedhmmm on the other end. It might have been amusement. She was losing patience.
He said, “My client saw a woman.”
Glenn looked over her shoulder. She couldn’t help it.
Three
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“Of course, he’s lying,” Elsie said later. “And he said the thing about the woman to rock your boat. Don’t you remember the story about him and Patty Bunkle?” Glenn did. Mike Persher had stolen a client right out from under hernose and then sold it for more money than the original asking.
Glenn hadn’t had time to dwell on either incident. The constant showing and non-sale of the Belisle house had brought her a number of listings as well as a number
of clients looking for “the same but different.” It was a buyer’s market right now and she had two more couples looking at houses almost across town from each other. She didn’t have time to do more than grab an apple from the company fridge for lunch before heading out again.
“Your hair is somodern,” Elsie told her, and she couldn’t tell whether she meant that in the right way or not. She tugged at it all the time. When she had switched from glasses to contacts in her thirties, she had spent half her time pushing glasses that weren’t there higher up on her nose; now she spent half her time brushing hair that wasn’t there off her cheeks. Secretly, she was starting to like it. It was easy to keep and flattered her now-thinner face.
She was a half-inch from a sale with the second couple by five o’clock that evening. They were going to sleep on it.
* * *
It was after eight when she finally walked in through her own front door. Weighing most prominently on her mind at that point was her overburdened schedule for the next day. She had another Belisle showing (although she was near sick over that place and so familiar with the spiel that she could have cell phoned it in:Look at the lovely high ceilings in this hall! The floors have been refinished throughout the main level and look! A working fireplace) and she had a good strong feeling about the Vespers and the house on Laughlin.
A new woman, looking for a place for herself and her young daughter, was interested in a place on Sherber and there was the offer for the Durbin place in; they would hear about that either tonight—oh god not tonight I’m dead on my feet—and she was showing an older couple a condo in Westwood Park. A gated place.
She put the kettle on to boil for tea and, while waiting for the water, she took cucumber and mayonnaise out of the refrigerator to make a little sandwich for her tea. She added some bean sprouts that looked a day from going bad.
High heels were dropped beside the big chair in the sitting room and slippers went on. The kettle sang and she poured the water into the teapot, then carried a tray of goodies into the sitting room. She had her tea and a sandwich in the chair and the day suddenly then stopped around her with a nudge, a feeling of something forgotten, a task undone. It plagued her like the slight burning in her tummy. It took only a moment before she understood.Oh no.
The Dwelling Page 3