by Julianne Lee
Neil emitted a growl of enthusiasm, and pulled out his car keys to set about doing just that while Shelby and Susan went downstairs to the kitchen. The stove was electric, and Shelby wished it were gas. Actually, on some deep, imaginative level, she wished it were wood-burning though she knew real life made cooking with wood nearly impossible. As she set to work with a wet rag to clean a spot on the filthy, chipped tile counter, she imagined a big, black wood-burning stove in the spot where now sat an avocado-green electric stove. The thing looked as if it hadn’t been turned on in decades, so there was hope. Maybe this monstrosity wouldn’t work, and she’d have an excuse to buy a gas one to replace it. Even if she wasn’t brave enough to try wood, gas would be better than this. Once the counter was clean, she set out the cans of sardines, cheese, half a loaf of bread, and a bottle of orange-pineapple juice.
When Neil returned with his beer, they took the food out to the porch to sit on the steps in the fresh air outside. Neil persisted in eyeing the collapsed end.
Susan said, “You’re so lucky to have gotten this place.”
Shelby nodded, but her shoulders sagged a little as she thought of how she’d received the money for it. “I could have waited a few more years, though.”
A small hum of agreement, and Susan added, “Your parents weren’t young people though.”
“Nope. They were old enough to be my grandparents. And when Dad died, Mom just couldn’t hold it together after that. They’d been together too long, I guess.”
Susan heaved a wistful sigh. “Could you imagine loving someone that much? To not be able to live without them?”
That caught Neil’s attention, and he turned to give her a meaningful stare.
Susan chuckled and laid a hand on her husband’s knee. “Sorry, hon, but the deal is ’till death.’ After that, you’re on your own.”
He grunted, and with a wry smile returned to his construction reverie, staring at the collapsed end of the porch.
Shelby poked a piece of cheese back inside the bread and said, “There sure isn’t anyone I know I’d die for.” But at the same time there was a dim longing to know what it might be like to have loved the way her parents had.
After lunch, with Neil’s brawn handy for the heavy bedroom pieces, the work went quickly. Her bed was a heavy, bulky oak four-poster, and each piece of it was a struggle to haul upstairs. They manhandled the box spring up the stairs and onto the assembled bed frame, an awkward job for the three of them, and Shelby was deeply grateful for the help of her friends. She gave a shove to the mattress as Neil pulled, and Susan guided it as it thudded onto the frame. Then Shelby fluffed the sweaty hair at the back of her head, and slapped black dust from her hands and jeans. It was going to be weeks before this place would be anything but a dust storm.
By the end of the day, all the bedroom furniture was upstairs, the living room on the west side of the downstairs had been cleaned, and the heavy living room pieces had been placed. Huge rolls of dirty orange shag carpet and rotten padding lay out by the street, leaving the floors bare. Her house now smelled of an odd mixture of detergent and dust and its large spaces echoed still, having swallowed her scant apartment furnishings without any effort. Her sofa was backed up to the living room windows, across from the television that, at thirteen inches, was too far away to see well any more. Even the huge bed upstairs was dwarfed by the enormous room. Only the modern additions seemed normal size. Much like her old apartment, the bathroom was barely large enough to turn around in and the kitchen was a narrow strip of space tacked onto the outside of the building.
As the sun began to turn orange in the west, Susan and Neil departed for home after Susan extracted a promise from Shelby to accompany her to church the next morning. “It’ll be a good introduction to the community for you. Welcome to Hendersonville.”
Shelby liked the idea and promised to meet Susan there. She waved goodbye to her friends, then went inside to change into her running togs. If she could find them. Though she was fairly tuckered out by the strenuous lifting and carrying all day, Shelby still had to make her habitual run before supper. If she put off doing it once, she might stop doing it entirely and that would be a bad thing. She was tall, and not a thin woman, and tended to overweight if she didn’t exercise constantly and watch what she ate. Running every day had become a habit in recent years, and regardless of what other exercise she might get during the day she never felt quite right if she couldn’t get out and jog around the neighborhood just before dark.
Tonight she scoped out a route through the apartment complex on the other side of the tracks, for it was a nice, level area with streets that wound this way and that before dumping her back out onto the road by her house. Halfway through, though, she had to stop to gawk, panting and leaning on her knees. Arrayed on a tiny patch of lawn in front of one of the dozens of identical bay windows in the complex was a family of skunks. Ceramic lawn ornaments, the largest one about half life-size. The others were the babies, apparently, and they were enjoying a dip in a toy pool. Mama skunk stood guard, one baby stood on the diving board, and two others awaited their turn. The scene tickled Shelby into a fit of giggles as she heaved herself erect and lurched into a run again. Already she was liking this town.
After supper she spent the evening cleaning the kitchen, scrubbing black crud from between mismatched ceramic counter tiles, and wearing even more porcelain from the sink already scratched and scrubbed to bare metal. Then she unpacked utensils, dishes and small appliances. There wasn’t nearly enough counter space for all the machines. Toaster, microwave, bread machine, blender, crock pot, coffee maker...she’d have to select the most important ones then store the rest in cabinets until she would need them. There was no television cable, for it wasn’t yet connected, but she had a boom-box plugged in and listened to music as she worked. In the darkness, the house around her settled in for the night. A word slipped into her mind and stuck. Home. She smiled. She could spend the rest of her life here and be happy.
It was quite late when exhaustion caught up with her and she finally turned off the music to retire. The silence invaded in force, as if the music had been sucked into another dimension and the void filled with a medium thicker than air. Shelby turned off the downstairs lights, then by the stray light of an upstairs sconce that dribbled rays into the stairwell, she made her way up the dusty steps.
This was now her home, and she sighed at the warmth that thought brought. She went to the bedroom door and reached for the light button, but she froze, dumbfounded by what she saw inside the room.
A lit candle sat on the mantel at the far side of the room. She hadn't left one in there—all her emergency candles were tucked away in a kitchen drawer now—and this didn't even look like one of hers. It was yellowish and stood in a short pewter holder with a curved handle. She'd never seen it before, but it was there now. Its flame threw a small circle of light around the cold fireplace.
A movement startled her. Near the candle, in the dimness, stood a tall, dark-haired man, scratching himself.
Chapter 2
Shelby screamed and tensed to bolt, but stopped when the man made no sign of having heard her. Apparently ignorant of her presence, he was pulling his shirttail from his pants and muttering as if to himself. Her heart flopped around in her chest like a dying fish, but it slowed as she realized he wasn’t threatening. He didn’t even seem to have heard her scream. Could one of the movers have been left behind? But she didn’t recognize him. No, this guy appeared too healthy and not nearly trashy enough to be one of those guys.
She took a deep breath and ventured, "Hey."
No reaction from him. She couldn’t tell what that might mean.
"Hey.” No response. “Mister." He was turned mostly away from he. Could he be deaf? Indecision thwarted her as she shifted her weight back and forth in simultaneous and conflicting urges to flee and approach. Was he a nutcase wandered in off the road? A deaf nutcase?
His clothes were strange, though, even for a ho
meless man. They were...different. His white shirt was without collar of any kind—not even that of a knit T-shirt—and the shapeless pants charcoal gray with suspenders dangling from the waistband. He unbuttoned the shirt, and as he took it off Shelby discerned amid the muttering, "Damnable chiggers." A cigar butt was clamped between his teeth. From the other side of the room Shelby could smell a trace of tobacco smoke as he dropped his shirt behind him onto the floor and peeled back the high waist of his trousers to scratch at some red bumps on his skin beneath. He half-turned toward her to reach around for the ones in back. "Ah." His eyelids drooped and his lip curled with the pain-pleasure of scratching chigoe mites.
His hair was collar length and a mite shaggy, and there were some large scars on his slender body: a diagonal white slash across his right forearm, a knotted burn scar in the crook of his left elbow, and an ugly red-purple gash across his left shoulder blade.
"Hey!"
He paid no mind, and just kept scratching the red marks at his waist, mumbling around his cigar about the indignity of acquiring parasites when forced to sleep on the ground.
"Hey! You!" Shelby took a step into the bedroom and switched on the electric light.
The tall man disappeared with a wisp of mist that spiraled up then dispersed in the shadows overhead. The candle went as well.
For one long, dangling moment, all she felt was surprise. As if a stage magician had pulled a neat trick and she should applaud now. But then she realized a full-grown man had completely disappeared before her eyes in a puff of smoke, and it was no trick.
Another scream, and she dove from the room toward the stairs. At the top of the steps, she grabbed the banister and kept herself from fleeing even as her feet continued down. For a moment she hung from the top newel post, then found a step and stood on it, hugging the post as her only support to keep her from tumbling to the foyer below. She looked back at the room, agog at the truth of what she’d seen.
Oh, God. Was she hallucinating? Was it a ghost? Which was worse? Her feet still wanted to flee, but she gripped the post with the stubborn desire to keep her house hers.
She was faced with a decision. Did she want to run away? This house was her dream. A hard fist of panic clutched her heart and its quick beating felt weak. Breaths came shallow and fast. She struggled to keep her hold and not run away down the stairs as she eyed the door to the room from which she’d fled. Was she a coward? Would she let a man who didn’t exist—couldn’t exist—keep her from her dream? There was but one possible answer to that, though her heart fluttered helplessly and her head swam with fear.
The only possible answer was no. Leaving wasn’t an option. She wanted this house too much.
But now she had to let go of the post she clutched to her chest. Okay, letting go now. One hand released hold, and when nothing swooped in to shout “boo!” she loosened hold with the other. Knees barely able to hold her up, she returned to the bedroom and switched on the light. The clean glass of the fixture glowed white now, no dead bugs. Every corner of the room was illuminated, revealing the absence of any strange men dead or otherwise. Cautiously she stepped into the room.
“Mister?”
No answer.
She called out again, louder this time and with growing confidence. Well, less fear, anyway. “Hello? Are you there?”
Still no answer.
It was plain she wasn’t going to call him back from wherever it was he’d gone. That was both a good thing and a bad thing. She didn’t care for the prospect of being surprised at his whim and so didn’t care for being unable to influence his comings and goings. On the other hand, it didn’t seem likely she would summon him by accident.
Good.
“Mister, I’m going to take a bath now. Just so you’ll know.” She looked around, backing out of the room, but saw nothing as she went into the bathroom. Weirdly, this room seemed more like her own territory, more modern than the rest of the house. There was a moment of hesitation as she started to undress, for a queer feeling of being watched crept up her back. But she shook her head and told herself she was being silly. That man hadn’t heard her at all, and hadn’t been the least aware of her; there was no chance he could see her now.
Besides, if he was a ghost, he was dead. A shudder rattled her spine.
There were no ghostly wanderings that night, and no appearances the following day as she readied for church. She would be glad to see Susan today, for Shelby wasn’t going to be able to keep from talking about this, and Susan was the safest one to hear it. Anyone else might think she was nuts, but Susan had an imagination and might understand. Shelby gathered up her keys and hurried out the door.
The drive to Susan’s church was short, as was any drive within Hendersonville. Shelby’s new home was a nice little town with a single Main Street cutting between clusters of residential districts and a smattering of historical sites which had brought her here to live. Surviving buildings like her house, going back to the late eighteenth century, were often surrounded by offices or houses, like little pockets of the past one stumbled on unawares. Behind one building on Main Street, in which was housed a traditional men’s barber shop that was nearly an historical site in itself, lay a graveyard folks had forgotten for so long the stones were falling down. Luckily it had been discovered and restored in recent years. Notable in Susan’s neighborhood was a small plantation house nearly as old as Shelby’s, and on the next block a chain link fence surrounded the final resting places of the family who had built it. So strange to have such a graveyard in the midst of modern tract homes, but they were everywhere in these parts. Slaves, settler families and Indians buried in among the ranch homes with swing sets, car ports and above-ground pools.
Shelby’s destination, the huge Methodist Church, dominated its corner on Main Street. It stood on a rise, towering over the grocery store, junior high school, a discount department store, and a family restaurant. Its great, white steeple could be seen for miles, and its red brick trimmed in white gave the impression of stability. Permanence. Shelby liked that.
She met Susan in the parking lot, and they joined the congregation inside the enormous white sanctuary. Tall stained glass windows cast a bluish light that was relaxing. Restful. Shelby found herself calming from last night’s experience.
They found seats in a rear pew, and while waiting for the service to begin Susan occupied herself greeting others sitting nearby and introducing Shelby to passing friends. Except for her parents’ funerals, she hadn’t been in a church since she was little. It seemed strange to see so many people around who apparently went every week. She’d thought church had become passé decades ago, and had never suspected it of Susan.
A woman sitting in the pew in front of her turned around, and held out her hand. Shelby took it, anticipating an introduction, but instead heard, “This is my family’s pew.” She was a small, elderly lady, and smiled as she said it, indicating the bench on which she sat, so Shelby could only blink and smile in return. There was no telling what had been meant by that.
“Really?” Eager to get along with her new neighbors, her first thought was to wonder whether this church really did sell pews to people, and was somewhat alarmed at the possibility she and Susan might have inadvertently encroached on someone else’s assigned seat.
Susan turned to listen as the smiling old lady continued, “Yes, it is. My family has lived in this town, and been going to this church, for a hundred and thirty years. Give or take a couple years, anyway.” With a nod of affirmation for her own statement, she turned to face the front again. That, apparently, was all she’d wanted Shelby to know about her. The woman hadn’t even given a name. Shelby stared at the back of her gray, short-cropped head. She hadn’t even been invited to congratulate the old lady on her family’s continuity, not that Shelby’s own family was any less well established in Middle Tennessee.
Aghast, and at a loss for how to respond, Shelby muttered under her breath, “Carpetbaggers.”
Susan snorted laughte
r through her nose, and for the next several minutes her shoulders shook in silent hilarity.
After the service, Shelby talked Susan into accompanying her across the street for lunch. She needed to talk privately. Sunday, however, was a bad day to have chosen for lunch out, and the restaurant was packed. Shelby groaned when she saw the crowd just inside the door, waiting for tables. People milled about in their Sunday best, jockeying for position in the entryway, kids yelled to each other and played with the balloons tied to the cash register with colored ribbons until a couple of them slipped loose and floated to the ceiling and the kids’ parents made them stop. But the seating went efficiently, and soon Susan and Shelby were tucked away at a table in the non-smoking section.
“Holy moly, you didn’t tell me Hendersonville was like this on Sundays.”
Susan shrugged. “It’s like this on Saturdays, too, what with everything within twenty miles that resembles a boat going out on the lake every sunny weekend. And Fridays, when everyone takes off work at noon. Don’t ever try to get fast food at noon on Fridays, unless the weather really sucks.”
“Good grief.”
Susan chuckled. “Maybe you should have moved to Brentwood.”
Shelby snorted. “Right. Brentwood. Like I could afford it.”
“Your inheritance was enough for a healthy down payment on that one with the wrought iron fence.”
“Yeah, and then I could live the rest of my life in a big, empty house because I couldn’t buy any furniture. I like owning my house outright. Besides, I think if Hendersonville is good enough for you, then I can handle it, too.”
“I had no choice. I was born here.” Susan’s smile was tiny. Enigmatic.
A drooping, harried waitress came to take their orders. Once she was finished and out of earshot, Shelby continued the conversation. “Well, I’m here and I’m staying.”