Cursed (5 page)

“I’ve got it Izzy, get some rest.” Sarah hung up and let out a sigh. There was a lot of work to do and it seemed like Izzy hadn’t done much to push the project forward. She looked around her desk and the piles of manila folders, spreadsheets, and yellow post-its on her computer screen and thought back to a few weeks before when it was clean and empty.

Wrapping her sweater tighter around her she leaned under her desk to turn on the space heater. The warmth spread over her feet and legs and she started working. Pulling apart the work that was already done, she started re-working the project the way she would have done it.

A few hours later, Kerry showed up and announced, “Lunch time! Want to head out today?”

“Sure, I didn’t pack a lunch.”

“Well come on, I’m meeting Maggie downstairs in ten.”

As the three girls entered the deli, Kerry asked Sarah what she wanted and suggested she grab a table. Sarah shrugged off her coat looking around the busy tables and spotted a small one near the front window. Weaving her way through, she reached it just before another woman did.

“Oh, were you heading to this table?” Sarah asked as she turned towards the woman.

The woman flashed a big smile. “Hey, aren’t you the woman I warned about the pumpkin bagel?”

Sarah laughed and extended her hand, “Sarah Carter. And thanks for the tip!”

The other woman put her salad down on the table and shook the outstretched hand, “Zoe Aradia.”

Sarah looked down at the snow white hand, “Wow, you're frozen! Here sit. If you are alone you are welcome to join us. We’re just getting a quick bite.”

“Thank you. I’d like that, Sarah.” Zoe took off her long black coat and Sarah enviously eyed Zoe’s stylish charcoal gray sweater dress paired with black leather boots. She felt a little underdressed in her jeans and sweater but Zoe didn’t seem to notice, instead diving right in to asking questions. Maggie and Kerry arrived with the sandwiches and put the inquisition on hold.

“Kerry, Maggie . . . this is Zoe. This is the second time I have bumped into her in the last two weeks! We were going to fight for the table but decided to share instead.”

Zoe cackled, causing Kerry to bristle a little bit at the sound, her smile momentarily faltering on her lips.

“Not entirely true . . . I don’t typically like to share
anything
. . . but Sarah graciously asked me to join you for lunch.”

“Well that’s nice,” Kerry offered but didn’t seem too thrilled with the idea. One look at Zoe with her raven black hair, sparkling blue eyes and deep red lips told Kerry she would not be able to lament with the rest of the table about man problems which was going to be the main topic of lunch.

“So, Sarah was just telling me where she works and what she does. Do you both work at Muddy River too?”

“I do, but not Maggie.” Kerry said and looked towards her friend Maggie who was eating her sandwich rather quickly and looking nervous. Sarah could not figure out what was going. Perhaps she overstepped her boundaries as the new girl by inviting a total stranger to the table?

“So Zoe, where do you work?” Sarah asked after a few moments of uncomfortable silence.

“Oh . . . not far.” Zoe replied cagily. “So, what do you girls do on the weekend? Do you go out much to the clubs?” Zoe looked directly at Maggie and Kerry. Kerry brightened a bit about a subject she was interested in and rambled on about the clubs they hit, which ones were good and the music scene in general. Sarah listened
– although, with only a few weeks on the job she had already heard this countless times and could probably recite their clubbing list.

Zoe turned to Sarah, “And what about you, Sarah? Do you go out much on the weekends?”

“No, I just moved here from Connecticut. I’ve been getting settled in, so I haven’t really been out much.”

“Well you should get out –
Boston is a great city . . . you would be surprised with the number of fun places and cultural events we have here. Not quite as much as what you might be used to in New York . . .”

“How did you know I lived in
New York?”

“Oh . . . I could just hear it in your voice. You must have picked up a little of the
New York accent.”

Sarah laughed, “That’s funny, New Yorkers could always tell I wasn’t from
New York when I lived there by my accent. Maybe some of the accent did wear off on me.”

“Well let’s get you out in
Boston. This weekend! I’ll scout out a place for dinner and then someplace fun afterwards! You shouldn’t just sit in on a Saturday night.”

“Sounds like fun! Thanks Zoe.”

Kerry shot her friend Maggie a sideways look.

“Just give me your number and I will call you Friday.”

Sarah wrote down her cell number on the back of one of her newly arrived business cards. “Here you go, do you have a card?”

“Gee, no I don’t. I’m getting a new cell
, too. I will call you at the end of the week and by then I am sure I will have it all sorted out.” Taking the card she slid it into her pocketbook and promptly stood to leave.

The women cleaned up their table and gathered their coats as Zoe walked out the door. Maggie, who had not uttered a word throughout lunch, seemed to let out her breath. “Where on earth did you find her?”

“She seemed very nice,” Sarah replied

“She was creepy with a capital C.” Kerry cut in. “She was asking you a lot of questions, Sarah. Didn’t you think that was odd?”

“And how could she tell you lived in New York – you don’t sound like a New Yorker.”

“Good guess?" Sarah paused,
and then smiled, with a shake of her head, "No, she just seems like an open and curious person.”

“Not open enough to say anything about herself.” Maggie pointed out, wrapping her scarf around her neck.

“I didn’t get a good vibe from her.” Kerry added.

“She seemed nice enough to me.” Sarah said shaking off the feeling that maybe Zoe was a little too curious.

They were out on the street a few minutes later and said their goodbyes to Maggie. Sarah tucked her scarf into her coat and the two quickly made their way up Boylston against the wind back to Muddy River.

Zoe, being true to her word, called on Friday. She had found a great restaurant for Saturday night in the South End, close to Sarah. They dined there and then walked over to a little jazz bar where they had a few drinks. Sarah quickly surmised Zoe was not only a magnet for men but thrived on the attention. Sarah with her preppy style and long, straight dirty blond hair didn’t have the same effect but she enjoyed the night.

Sarah’s phone rang late Sunday morning as she was making a cup of coffee, still in her pajamas and slippers. The sound startled her, as it echoed through the quiet apartment. Sarah reached over the counter to grab the phone.

“Hey girlfriend, how’s Beantown?” Lisa’s voice merrily chirped on the phone.

“Hi Lisa, so far it’s great!” Sarah curled up on the couch with her coffee to chat with her friend. Lisa had been a neighbor, classmate and best friend growing up in the small town of Berlin. She was always quick with a dimpled smile and kept her hair short in a pixie cut which made her cheek bones and large brown eyes very pronounced. The two were inseparable until college and then Sarah’s choice of New York for a career, but she was the one she confided in and relied upon when that world fell apart.

“I love it here. I miss home of course, but this was a great move for me.”

“And the new job?”

“It’s been busy and I was filling in for someone last week but I got the project done. I think I will start getting my own assignments soon.
It’s a lot less hierarchal than Goodhart & Baker was, and much smaller too, which gives me a chance to get ahead.”

“Have you met anyone yet? Any interesting men in the office?”

“Nope, no men. The receptionist at work has been nice and has included me with some of her friends for lunch. And, I did meet a nice girl who I had dinner with last night so at least I am making friends in the city.”

“Oh, that’s good. I was going to offer to come up next weekend. I’m dying to see your new place. By your email, it sounds absolutely perfect.”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea! I’d love a visitor.”

After hanging up, she took a nap and then finally started her typical Sunday afternoon chores. Late in the afternoon, down in the basement as Sarah started her last load of wash into the dryer, the coin slot became stuck.

“Now what?” She half-whispered, talking to herself in the empty basement. She pushed and pulled at the coin slide but nothing happened. After a few minutes she decided she needed help.

Sarah climbed the stairs to the first floor doorway into the main lobby and turned right to the hallway off the main foyer. Mason Brown's apartment was at the end of the hall at the back of the building. She knocked on his door and listened for movement inside. As she was about to knock again she heard Mason’s strong, deep voice from the other side.

“Can I help you, Miss Carter?”

“I was just doing laundry and the coin slide isn’t sliding on the dryer. It’s stuck half in and half out. Can you help me?”

“I will be down in a minute. You can go back up to your apartment and I will give you a call once I am done.”

“Ok, thank you.”

Sarah started up the stairs from the lobby to her apartment but remembered the load of dry clothes that were still sitting in the basket in the basement. She turned back around and cut through the lobby to access the basement door, making her way through the back hallway and down the stairs to the laundry room. The basket had all her coloreds that she had folded as she removed from the now broken dryer just minutes ago.

She picked up the wicker basket and turned towards the stairs. As she did, something caught her eye. The wall behind the stairs running the length of the basement didn’t seem to belong. She hadn’t given the wall much thought on her one other trip to the laundry room
. The wall had been covered with all the shovels, rakes, and coiled hoses hanging from hooks and other outside lawn equipment leaning against it. Inspecting the wall a little closer, she noticed it ended very close to one of the window frames, and the basement must be much narrower than the floor above. Plus, the other walls were plastered or open wood, and this wall was brick.

Not only did the wall seem to not belong there, but as she walked deeper into the darkness towards the front of the building, she realized there was no door to get to that other side.

As Sarah followed the wall, deeper into the dark end of the basement, she could see some light ahead from the windows at the far end of the basement. After her eyes adjusted she noticed sheets covering what looked like piles of furniture. There were also some boxes stacked randomly with the furniture and a tall, ornate coat stand that she could easily envision standing in the grand foyer upstairs. Near the windows at the front of the building, hanging from the ceiling off what appeared to be the carrying beam of the building, was a large, flat stone. Looped through a hole cut in the center of the stone was a chain that was suspending the stone. Several large brass bells also were scattered about, hanging from hooks and one sitting in the cobwebby front basement window. "Curious objects to be hanging down here," she whispered aloud to herself in the otherwise silent underground room.

Turning back to her original hunt for a door, she thought there had to be another side to the basement. It appeared that this side she was in was only under half the house. The windows were tall and the ceilings high enough, so maybe the other side was used as part of the landlords or 1B’s apartment? But would Mason, or the other single fellow in 1B, need that much space?

Hearing movement overhead, she quickly returned to the other end of the basement, kicking up small stones and pebbles that littered the otherwise well-kept basement. As she started up the first stair tread she saw Mason, holding the railing as he painfully made his way down the wooden stairs. The other hand was holding an old fashioned wooden tool box; open topped like the kind she remembered her grandpa George as having. Both hands were twisted with arthritis or some ailment and from where she was only a few feet away and at eye level, she could see they were covered with reddish-purple marks and bumps that looked sore. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her.

“I thought I told you to go upstairs and wait for my call?” His tone was brusque and Sarah immediately felt like she a child caught doing something wrong.

“I, um . . . yes, you did but I had left this basket down here when I came to get you. I’m heading up now.”

Hesitating, it didn’t look like she would easily make it by him on the stairs so she quickly backed off the first step and stepped back so he could pass. Absentmindedly, she pulled at her earlobe, a trait she had as a child if she ever got spoken to or nervous. Mason descended the
stairs; face averted under the brim of his plain black military cap, and set his tool box down on the cement floor.

Keeping his back to Sarah, he said with a softer tone, “Sorry, that was very rude of me, miss.” He reached over and pushed the slide with the quarters in with force and pulled the slide back out. The machine started its rolling, tumbling noise.