Charlotte Figg Takes Over Paradise (4 page)

I spied an unusual rock, pitch-coal and shiny black, sitting near the cement slab like a hand had placed it there with intention. "I wonder, Lucky. You suppose our key could be hiding under that funny rock?" I kicked it over with my toe and uncovered a brass key.

A path made from splintered wood planks led to a small, square porch that looked more like an afterthought than a planned part of the trailer. It was really little more than a low deck with a slanted roof tacked onto the metal siding.

"Come on, Lucky," I called. "We might as well take a look inside." Walking down the wooden path was both odd and charming as we made clip-clop sounds reminiscent of a Western movie. The sounds echoed in the stillness of the park.

I took a breath and turned the key. I let my breath out when I heard the lock click. I turned the knob and nothing. The door stuck. I gave it a push with my hip and shoulder and when it swung open the smell that blew out nearly knocked me to the ground.

"Something must have died in there!" The smell, a mixture of rot, mildew, and ages-old cigarette smoke, gagged me. Lucky scrabbled past me into the trailer to check it out first. He barked and I nearly tumbled feet-over-teacups off the deck when two large, mangy beasts scampered between my legs."Oh, my goodness gracious. Were those raccoons?" Lucky barked and raced off to see what else he could find.

I stepped further inside, not far, maybe twelve or thirteen inches, alert to the possibility of more stampeding wildlife. I felt chilled and thought this must be what it feels like to be a sockeye salmon in a can, cold and totally out of my element. Linoleum the color of the inside of an eggplant partially covered the floor. A thick, bilious shag rug spewed over the rest of it. Someone had paneled the walls with dark, thin paneling and covered the ceiling with white tiles, the kind with a million tiny holes. Some of the tiles had yellow stains and their bulging fat bellies hung over the living room.

I walked into the small kitchen area and noticed one of the cabinet doors had fallen off its hinges. A tear rolled down my cheek and into my mouth.

"Oh, Lucky. What have I done?"

A
rickety card table stood under the kitchen bay window. An ash tray filled with old cigarette butts sat in the middle of the table. I set my purse down, pulled out the chair, brushed off the seat with my hand, and sat. The chair wobbled as though one of the legs was shorter than the others.

Lucky rested his head on my knee and looked at me from underneath his wiry eyebrows.

"It's not right, Lucky. I . . . we can't live here." And for the first time since he died, I wished Herman was there to tell me what to do. I'm not sure how long I sat there until a knock at the door startled me out of my reverie. Lucky barked and went to investigate.

"Yoo-hoo, yoo-hoo. Excuse me, yoo-hoo, excuse me. Charlotte? Charlotte Figg?"

"Hello," I called. "I'm in the kitchen." If you could call it that.

A woman wearing a heavy brown sweater with a wide collar over a long linen skirt and black boots walked toward me. She had a nice smile, twinkly eyes, and gobs of bright red, curly hair partially controlled by a long Peter Max scarf. I thought I saw an artist's paintbrush sticking out of the nest that was her head. Lucky stayed right with her, ready to defend me if necessary.

"I'm your neighbor, Rose Tattoo. Welcome to Paradise."

"Thank you," I said without really meaning it.

She looked around the trailer. "So what do you think?" She patted Lucky's head, and I thought I saw green vines tattooed on her hand. I thought to mention it but didn't in case she had some sort of weird, embarrassing physical affliction.

I averted my eyes. "It's . . . not what I expected."

Rose leaned against the small turquoise stove. "Asa—you haven't met him yet, but he takes care of things around here— thought you might be some kind of international spy looking for a place to hide out incognito. I told him he was nuts. But he insisted. Who else would buy this place except a spy needing a place to hide? That's what he said."

"I can assure you I am not a spy."

"Didn't think so." She gave Lucky a rub behind the ears."He's a nice doggie. Kind of a mix, a mutt. He'll certainly fit in around here. But what in the heck happened to his tail?"

"I don't know. He came that way and we're not staying."

"What? Now, why in the world would you go to all the trouble of buying a trailer and then not stay? You sure you're not a spy or something?" She touched her hair. "Would you look at that? This is my number two brush. I was looking all morning for it and here it is in my head."

I fought back an urge to laugh. "For the last time, I am not a spy. I just . . . just . . . " I had to choke back tears. "I hate it. But I'm glad you found your brush."

"Well, what were you expecting? Didn't you know what you bought?"

I shook my head. "No, I thought I bought this." I pulled the picture of the trailer in the magazine out of my purse.

Rose looked at the image and clicked her tongue several times. "Looks like Fergus pulled a fast one." She tapped it with her brush. "What you got there is a picture of the Frost sisters' trailer."

"Frost sisters?"

"They live on the other side of Paradise." She snorted air out her nose. "Now, that sounds a bit ominous, doesn't it? I just mean they have some land and live in that trailer you got in your hand."

Rose tried to rehang the cabinet door. It fell right back off with a slam. "It's not that bad, Charlotte. You can fix it up. Make it just how you want it, you know. Some new carpet, a new ceiling, take down that awful paneling, some new paint, appliances, furniture. It just needs a little . . . okay, a
lot
of TLC."

I swallowed the lump in my throat. "TLC? TLC? But it has raccoons. Raccoons!"

Rose laughed. "Sometimes they break in through the back windows to get out of the cold. It happens all the time, especially in the vacant trailers. But I'm sure they ran away and probably won't come back now that you're here."

All I could do was sit and stare at this woman who seemed an eccentric combination of leftover flower child and cheerleader.

Rose brushed crumbs, or rat poison for all I knew, from the kitchen counter. "I'll help you, Charlotte. I'll help you fix it up." She pushed the brush behind her ear.

For a moment I imagined the trailer with awnings and hanging baskets of trailing verbena and clean windows with pretty curtains, a sparkly new porch and shingled roof and little lights along the wooden path, pretty pink carpet and my furniture. Then I shook that stupidity from my brain.

"It would take forever to get it fixed and cleaned and painted. What it needs is some well-placed dynamite and a fur trapper."I put my head in my hands. "What would Herman say?"

"Herman?" Rose asked.

"My dead husband. I can hear him now, shouting at me from his grave. 'Caveat emptor, Charlotte. Caveat emptor.' Let the buyer beware."

Rose smiled and revealed crinkly wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. "But he's not here. And he can't say that to you, not anymore."

I looked out the window at the trees, leafless and tall with their branches reaching out to the sky and to me like giant, gnarled fingers.

"I think I need to go speak with Mr. Wrinkel and tell him I want my money back."

Rose cleared her throat. "Fergus is a tough cookie, Charlotte."

"But he sounded so nice on the phone."

"Of course he did. He just sold you a piece of—"

I looked up. "I know. Believe me, I know about salesmen. But I have to try. Come on, Lucky."

I left Rose standing in the kitchen and backed the Galaxy onto the street, unhitched the trailer, and left it where it sat, not giving a fat patooty who it might offend.

I parked behind the red Datsun again and attempted to muster up my courage, rehearsing what I would say. It might have been ten minutes, it could have been only five, but I finally went to the door and knocked. Once, twice, three times and then I saw that same set of sad eyes peer out at me.

"I told you," she said the instant she opened the door."Fergus ain't here. Didn't you find the key?"

"Yes, but the trailer. It's not—"

She pulled open the door a trifle more and leaned into me."Would you please leave?" she whispered. "Fergus will be home in just a few minutes and you can talk to him yourself."Her small voice broke in places, leaving me to wonder what might have been hiding inside the cracks.

A sick feeling roiled in my stomach. It was like her outsides matched my insides. I swallowed hard. "Okay. But will you please let him know I want to speak with him?"

The woman closed the door and I left with absolutely no confidence that she would pass my message on to her husband. I sat in the Galaxy with Lucky and waited. I ran the motor to keep warm, but it had gotten so cold I could still see my breath in the car. A two-toned brown and white pickup truck pulled into the driveway.

"That must be him," I said. "Now, you stay here, Lucky. I better speak with him myself." I watched as a short, muscular man hopped out of the truck. He wore a Phillies baseball cap and a denim jacket. He turned and spotted me. I opened the door and called to him, "Mr. Wrinkel?"

"Yeah." He snagged a bag from the truck bed.

"I'm Charlotte Figg." I walked toward him. But with each step my anxiety heightened. I wished I had let Lucky out of the car. "Excuse me, but I need to speak with you."

"Did you find the key all right? Under one of them rocks up there."

"Yes, I did, but that isn't what I—"

He just kept walking toward his front door.

"Mr. Wrinkel." I raised my voice. "That trailer you sold me isn't the one in the magazine. It's not the same place."

"Never said it was. Just said I had a double-wide for sale. The picture was just a—what would you call it now—" he adjusted his cap, "a representation."

"But, Mr. Wrinkel, that trailer I bought is not livable."

He cleared his throat and spat tobacco-stained goo into a pile of snow. "Well, now, sure it is, Mrs. Figg. It's what us folks in the real estate biz like to call a fixer-upper. Just needs a little work. Now, you go on up there and I'll come by in a few and get your electric turned on and the plumbing going and show you how to work the propane tanks out back."

"Propane?"

"For cooking."

"But I . . . I . . . don't want the trailer." My chest tightened and I thought I might cry again. I imagined Fergus Wrinkel in an embarrassing clown suit with large feet. "I would like my money back, please."

"Oh, well now, Mrs. Figg, I am afraid that's not possible."

I pulled myself up to my full height. "Mr. Wrinkel, my husband was a salesman for the Fuller Brush Company, and when a customer was not one hundred percent satisfied with any product, she got her money back, no questions asked."

He cleared his throat again and took a step closer to the front door. "Well, Mrs. Figg, that's nice and all but you didn't buy some silly hairbrush. You purchased a trailer."

"But I want the one in the magazine."

"The trailer in the magazine would have cost you three times as much. Now, that ain't to say what you got ain't a classic. A real classic. A 1958 Vindar, that's what it said on the deed."

"But . . . but it has raccoons!" I took a breath. "I didn't see any mention of raccoons in the bill of sale, Mr. Wrinkel."

As he continued toward his trailer, I noticed the curtain in the bay window open and those sad, sorrowful eyes peer out at me. This time I felt a chill wriggle down my spine. "Mr. Wrinkel, I . . . I . . . "

"Caveat emptor, Mrs. Figg. Caveat emptor."

The hairs on my arms stood up. But I didn't say anything. I felt so puny next to him, like I was the one in the wrong. I looked at the ground and said, "I trusted you."

He laughed and pulled open the rickety screen door. "Like I said, I'll be down in a few to get you set up."

The woman behind the curtain disappeared like an apparition. I climbed back into the car. "Lucky, I think this is what they call the old bait and switch." I started the car and pulled away up Mango Street. "Herman always said it; I can't do anything right."

Rose Tattoo and a beanpole of a man were waiting outside the trailer when I got back. He towered over her and had short blonde hair. He wore a waist-long denim jacket and jeans with a small, frayed hole in the back pocket that opened an eye to a worn leather wallet. My dog loped over to him like he'd known him his whole life. For a moment I wondered if somehow Lucky managed to travel all the way to my front door from Paradise. He seemed to know the place pretty well and I never did learn where he came from.

Rose introduced me. "This is Asa. The man I told you about. He takes good care of us around here. He can fix just about anything that's broke."

"And some things that aren't broke," he said revealing one dimple in his right cheek.

Asa offered his left hand for me to shake, and that was when I noticed the right sleeve of his jacket was folded and held to his shoulder by a large diaper pin with a baby blue head.

"Nice to meet you, Charlotte," he said.

I smiled into his eyes to avoid contact with his infirmity.

"Did you talk to Fergus?" Rose asked.

"I did and he told me there was nothing I could do."

"He's right," Asa said. "There really isn't anything you can do now except try and sell this old bucket, and that won't be easy."

"But it's not what I bought." It surprised me how easily I talked to Rose and Asa for only knowing them a short while.

"Now, if you want," Asa said, "I can run around back and get the heat started and hook into the electric."

"I'm not staying." I chose to ignore the missing arm. "I think I'll find a hotel for the night."

"Now, why do that?" Rose asked. "Just cost you more money."

"Still, I think I'll be more comfortable until I figure out what I want to do."

"The nearest place is a B&B down in Shoops called the Bee and Bee," Rose said. "And I know for a fact that they don't take dogs. The owner is a touch persnickety about her furniture."

I leaned against the Galaxy and watched Lucky bounce around like a kindergartner at recess. "Look, I'm not saying Paradise is not completely without charm but—"