The Dwelling: A Novel (22 page)

“Nice to meet you, Glenn,” he said. “Gavin and I play golf at the same club.”

“Oh,” she said, nodding.

Gavin watched the two of them like a father. “Calvin teaches high-school history,” he said, bursting with it. Glenn nodded politely, horrified.

As if noticing, Calvin Doon added quickly, “Gavin mentioned you were British. You have just a trace of an accent. How long have you been here?”

“Most of my life, it seems. Actually, thirty years,” she managed.

“Surely the first thirty,” he flattered. “I just came back from there. I try to go as often as possible. I spent a month in London. Where are you from, originally?”

She fought an urge to snort and stomp away with a disgusted
oh, please.
She could imagine Gavin’s glee. High-school history, the British connection and the fact that he was single
(was he also a widower? Would that be too much?).
It must have sent poor Gavin into gales of hysterical serendipity. Fading! She imagined him rushing home, perhaps forgetting even to remove his singular golfing glove, and anxiously explaining Mr. Doon to Helen, who was bursting to have him to the barbecue. Couples abhor the vacuum presented by the empty right side of a single.

Mr. Doon talked and Glenn pretended to listen. She looked at the big picture.

This is it, Glenn. This is what it comes down to.

(Oh, Gavin, how could you?)

Mr. Doon was around his mid-fifties, with a roundish face and not-unpleasant features, but bland. His hairline had likely receded back as far as it was going to, and there was still hair on the top of his head, which had turned gray and which he kept short. His skin had a pink tone that didn’t belong to summer, the sort that would burn. He was thick through the middle without being fat and, all in all, there was nothing remarkable about him. He seemed to have a passion for London and all things British, but it seemed a dull sort of passion, the kind that people who collect documents of the Civil War and stamp collectors have.

The empty right side of her, that had so offended the Edwards that they sought to fill it only eight months after her husband’s passing, began to feel wholly empty at the moment. More than just simply empty: a hole so vast it spoke, loud howls into space that couldn’t be heard.

“Excuse me, Mr. Doon,” she said, interrupting his story as delicately as possible, “I really must go.”

The streets were dark and quiet when Glenn drove away from Gavin and Helen’s and into the urban sprawl that they would face in the next few years. Front porch lights gleamed in the dark, but the front streets were devoid of life. No dogs roamed, no walkers walked; in the backyards there would be clusters of people, laughter would tinkle and barbecues would give off waves of heat. Fairy-lights were strung on some trees visible from the street, cut off at the trunk by high, solid fences of cedar and pine.

She wound the car over to Alexander Avenue, once a gravel road serving as a connector between the city and the country, but now a conduit from which people drove in and out of the suburban homes. It was paved and tall; brightly lit signage indicated exits and highway numbers and directions for the neophyte upwardly mobile. Glenn exited onto Washington for no deliberate reason, but just because she wasn’t quite ready to go home.

The feeling that had chased her away from the party dulled and became something heavy inside her, neither sadness nor anger, neither fish nor fowl. She felt heavy and cold, as though her skin had been exposed too long and the air had cooled so slowly it was only just noticeable. Like the frog in slowly boiling water. Raw and heavy, aware.

Downtown was better. The lights were bright and garish, pulsating, some of them, like breathing. People walked from place to place in twos or threes, or groups, indistinguishable in the glare of false light, silhouetted against broad storefronts, their lights on, open for business, or lit anxiously against the temptations of others.

From Washington she drove to Pillar, a roundabout route. More apartment blocks appeared, lighted windows dotting the sides. She passed an elderly lady sitting sentinel outside one in a lawn chair, hands clasped in her lap, under the lighted awning of the block, staring out into the street, waiting. Pillar fed onto Gibbons. At the stop sign she paused. There were no cars behind her, no others at the four-way stop. The sound and color of downtown had faded, although traffic could still be heard distantly through the open windows of the car. Streetlamps were all that were on the street then.

She parked without thinking about it and got out of the car in front of 362. She could hear muffled laughter from another barbecue party, and from somewhere farther away, music played softly. Something old and torchy, a contrast to the heavy-handed noise at the Edwardses’.

Light from the streetlamp reflected off the large front window, giving it an expressionless look, something that could be either acquiescing or watchful, but guarded. No light shone from any of the windows, of course. Not even a front porch light burned and yet, somehow, it seemed living.

The air was very warm, and yet something about walking up the walk to the pretty red front door—of analogous color in the night, but knowingly red—reminded Glenn peacefully of autumn.
You’ll be sold by then. Someone will own you.
Cool evening walks, fragrant and crisp, everywhere the smell of apples and the pungent scent of fruit going over, the hunkering-down look of the light by five o’clock, the house protectively wrapping itself around you, closing you in, closing you off, in anticipation of the hostility of winter.

You’ll be sold.

With her key, she went inside. Light from the street flooded in behind her, the orange halogen light of the city, like the poor-quality sepia of an old photo. Glenn quickly flipped on the light for the hall.

She walked gently (reverently) through the house and flipped on all the lights.

Upstairs she stood in the bathroom, her parade complete.

She looked down into the glossy, light-reflected face of the tub for a long time. She ran her finger along the soft, smooth, cool surface on the edge. It was perfect, unblemished and gleaming white. The overhead light shone subdued in the bathroom, soft, artlessly. It was so cool upstairs, she realized, in spite of the heat outside. The house would be well insulated, or perfectly placed to catch the air.

Glenn left the bathroom somewhat reluctantly, glancing down at the feet of the tub with amusement. At the door, she looked down the length of the hall, taking in each sconce, each imperfection in the wall, each soft corner. She wandered down and looked into the yellow room, which didn’t seem quite so glaring in the night, and then into the joyfully decorated blue room, so eager-looking, so eager for a child’s things.

It needs a growing family. Small children, the noise and glee of toys. The right people simply hadn’t been found for it yet; the Masons hadn’t been right. She was sure of it suddenly, feeling in tune with the market value of the place. It needed a family.

Light was flooding into the master bedroom from the hall. The arched doorway and the bright light gave it a look of a small cottage she remembered from home. All it needed was a four-poster bed and some filmy curtains and it could be a place transported. The hardwood floor upstairs was not as smooth or shining as the one downstairs, but endless feet had given it a character that could only come from being part of a home. The Previous Owner had likely noted that; the little wears and scratches on the floor in the bedrooms and in the hall gave the upper floor an intimacy. What more could you ask for than intimacy while you slept? The Previous Owner had seen that and decided against refinishing the upstairs. It hadn’t been about money at all.

She took the stairs slowly, her hand lightly on the banister, feeling its smoothness, wrapping her fingers around the delicate curve, very aware of how it warmed under the heat her hand left, and how that warmth trailed behind.

Either the moon or the streetlight left a patch on the floor in the living room, as if to show off its luster. It would be cool there. At the bottom of the stairs she slipped off her shoes and stood flat-footed on the moonlit patch, the color of the light so vague, pouring over her bare feet and onto the floor. It was so smooth and cool, a tonic for the soles of her feet, trapped in high heels for most of the evening. She wiggled them around until they had absorbed all the coolness from the floor and it was hard to tell where they ended and the floor began. She walked through the house once more barefoot.

The door to the Murphy bedroom was open. She left it open. As though inviting it back to join the rest of the house, in spite of, or in forgiveness for, its recent, most tragic event. A sad little room for a while, but that would fade. And no one would have to know what went on in there.

It is my secret.

The living room had a molded ceiling. Not the original tin, but it looked just like the old pressed-tin ceilings from the era. It was painted to match the walls in a slightly lighter color, which gave height and dignity to the room.

It was a most beautiful house. It deserved to be lived in.

A thought very nearly occurred to her:
Do I want to buy it?

She walked slowly through the moon-flushed living room, her bare feet soundless in the empty room. She slipped her shoes back on. She stood in the middle of the great hall and breathed in the blameless silence, more of a waiting silence, and some of the heaviness of the past hour drained out.

Most of the houses on the street shone their own light from front rooms and porches onto the darkened street outside. Through some windows she could see the bluish glow of television sets. The Belisle house looked darker (waiting) by contrast. The windows were so dark they looked black now, even in the reflected light, as though the contrast of having been inside and coming out, taking her beating heart out through the door, had taken something out of the house. There was not even a porch light to give it a semblance of life.

All sorts of things ran through her mind. Vandals, squatters, breakins. She decided she would speak to (the grieving widow) someone about having the porch lights put on a timer. People driving by at night could see the house and the Shelter Realty sign in front. Something else tugged, almost guiltily, at her as she got into her car and drove off. She glanced at the place once more in the rearview mirror as she pulled away and saw it again. A quick impression.

In the dark July night it looked haunted. And that would never do.

Whatever had happened the night of the Edwardses’ party persisted for weeks. She was blue without being depressed, feeling a general sort of malaise that took her no lower than a few nights blind-eyed in front of the television, entertained enough by the flickering of the pictures to hold her there until the early hours of the morning. Days moved by with both surprising speed, in retrospect, and with snail like sloth. If she didn’t feel exactly bad, then she felt as Gavin had described, as though she were fading. Maybe just a little. At night she performed her ritual of testing,
Howard is dead. He is dead and he is not coming back,
feeling around inside herself for metaphorical broken bones, and found only bruises. They, however, felt fairly permanent.

She sold the house on Dunston. Calls were fewer suddenly, as though business had gone from boom to bust in a matter of days. Glenn spent more time at home than she had all summer.

Her across-the-way neighbors went away during August and asked Glenn to take in their mail and to water their profusion of plants, and she said she would. The week limped quietly into the long weekend and it was on that Saturday that Glenn realized her pager hadn’t gone off for several days. Her phone hadn’t rung, and the road was sleepy and void, as though dozing in the heat. She busied herself in the garden, did a crossword puzzle and kept the radio on for company. The silence got to her, too: she tried to coax herself into dinner at a restaurant on Saturday, but couldn’t summon the energy to clean herself up enough to go. Around four o’clock that afternoon she opened a bottle of red wine that had sat unopened on the cupboard since June, and had a glass on her deck before strolling across the road, the preternaturally muted road, to water the plants.

In the middle of tipping the bright yellow watering can over a healthy, green and white spider plant, she had the strangest feeling that she wasn’t there. It was not a feeling entirely unknown to her.

There were times that summer when Glenn would find herself entirely lost. She would suddenly pause in whatever she was doing, oblivious to the moment before or the moment that would come next. She would be walking along a street somewhere and find that she didn’t have a clue where she was or how long she had been in arriving there. This happened once or twice while she was driving. She would find herself stopped at a red light as though waking from a dream and she would not know where she was. The streets of her city were as familiar as the halls of her own home, and yet she wouldn’t be able to place them. Then her foot would press on the accelerator at the end of the light, or she would come to a full and complete stop at the stop sign and everything would be clear.
I am on Oak Park. I am on Washington, I am on Larabee Avenue. I am on Belisle.
And everything would be fine again.

But it terrified her. She thought she was losing touch.

She locked the door to the neighbors’ house and walked back across the lonely lane without bothering to look for cars.

Days slipped by nearly unnoticed. The neighbors returned from their trip and the woman walked over with a tin of banana muffins for her trouble. Glenn walked out into the yard to meet her and they spoke lightly of her trip and Glenn’s week. She ate two of them without tasting and then, with the deliberation and precision of someone with only one task, wrapped the rest up and put them in the freezer for some time in the future.

The house surrounded her. She thought she might go into town and rent a movie, something funny with lots of characters. Something like
Around the World in Eighty Days.
Something populated.

The muffins did not sit well.

Her stomach churned them over, turning them hard inside her. Her need for antacids had curtailed since spring and the imagined ulcer that inspired them seemed to be back. She put up with it just for a moment and went into the bathroom.

It was terribly tidy and starting to look fussy, down to the too-carefully managed towel rack where a large, fluffy towel was artfully covered with another in a contrasting color. Her bathroom equipment was beige, something they’d always talked about changing, but never had. She could do it now. Anything she wanted. Purple. Orange. A garish yellow.

She pulled open the mirrored medicine chest and found a bottle of Tums. Without closing the door, she popped open the lid and shook out two tablets. She stuck them into her mouth and chewed, wincing at the sweet, chalky taste. She replaced the lid on the bottle and put them back on the shelf where she’d found them. She swallowed the bits and pieces, waiting patiently for the moment when the hot, bitter feeling in her stomach would pass. She swung the mirrored door shut.

The image in the mirror behind her was not the beige tub, but a familiar, brilliant white tub of enormous proportions and just before she dismissed it,
trick of the light,
she caught sight through the bottom of the mirror of two large, clawed feet. Light winked off the gleaming white enamel.

Wink.

She spun around.

Her own neglectful taste stared back, uninterested, square and muted. Glenn leaned back on the sink. Her heart pounded, for she
had
seen something else. She turned her head and looked back into the mirror. Her face, pale, stared back, framed chaotically by the dull beige tub and tiles of her own bathroom.

Just to be sure, she turned and looked once more, almost wishing she would see it again.

Fall and winter passed.

She sold two houses before spring, something she had never managed before. She was hard-pressed to find a time in the past when she’d sold a house in February at all, and within a month (she did not hesitate to point out to Elsie several times that February was the
shortest
month of the year) she’d sold two.

Both sales renewed her interest in her work, just in time for spring. Interest in realty at all had been waning and she had begun thinking it was time to find something else to do. There was, of course, nothing else and her renewed interest came like a breath held too long, a gulp of air followed by a sigh of relief. In a frenzy, she updated her three remaining listings—the Belisle house included—and poked her way through every listing in the area to find a buyer who might be looking to move up (or down) and called those agents to recommend her listings. It was good for her. She began again to eat and breathe work, going into the office every day, talking on the phone. Setting goals.

Spring arrived unusually early, and it was felt everywhere in the city. The streets were busy again. People shed coats too early and jackets came back, and late in the evening every bus stop had people shivering in their light wear, smiling against the cold, ready for the sun.

There was a message on her desk when she came in on Tuesday, in the childish handwriting of their new receptionist.

“She spelled ‘Mason’ wrong,” Glenn commented to Elsie. “She spelled it with an E. Is this another work-experience student from the high school?”

Elsie grunted and laughed. “I think she’s Boss Paul’s niece. Tread carefully. Who’s Mason? Boyfriend I don’t know about?” Glenn shot a look sideways at her. Elsie was paying no real attention to her; she was typing an ad on the computer.

“Mason is Rebecca Mason, current vendor of three sixty-two Belisle.”

Elsie nodded with mock respect. “Aah, the Grieving Widow. And her lawyer?”

Glenn nodded absently. “She wants to rent it. I’m supposed to check in regularly. I must admit I have been derelict in my duty.”

“Let her rent it. It’s the proverbial white elephant. Must have a ghost or something, maybe even her husband. Maybe she should spend a night in the house. If she’s alive in the morning, she can rent it.”

Glenn smiled. “Well, we’ll see,” she said. “I just happen to have a showing there this morning. I’m on my way over to wait it out. I think I’ll return Mrs. Mason’s call a little later. Wish me luck,” she said, tossing the message into the wastepaper basket between their two desks.

On her way out of the door, Elsie called, “Luck.”

Glenn was early for her showing. The woman had called her out of the blue, having driven past the house on Sunday. She was house-shopping. She said it as though it were an activity of great fun, like a volleyball game, or a spending spree at the spa.
I was house-shopping!
Most of what she said on the phone sounded that way, falsely enthusiastic, like an outpatient in joy-therapy.
I’m house-shopping and
happy
about it!
Glenn did not hold a great deal of hope in the showing.

In the back of her car this time, she’d brought a broom and dustpan and some rags from home. The last time she’d checked the house, it had begun to look a little shabby. The floor and windowsills had a winter’s worth of dust, and while she hadn’t seen any, she was concerned about mouse droppings. An empty house invited that sort of thing.

She carried her bag of rags and the broom in with her, juggling everything at the door, fumbling with the key. The snow was gone from the yard, and while there was yet to be any green on the hedge or trees, the day was sunny and that improved things a bit. The hedge had kept much of the worst of the winter’s car exhaust from off the lower half of the house, unlike the neighbors’, which was gray from the ground up about a yard, just under the window. It looked awful.

Once inside she leaned the broom against the door and looked up at the ceiling, as she always did when she came in. In the front hall it was marvelously high, all the way up to the second-floor landing. Positively cathedral-like.

The floor in front of the door bore the dirty snow imprints of previous visitors, but it was not bad. The dirt had dried to a powder and most of it would easily sweep away.

She was expecting a young, silly woman to come and look. But, really, it was the start of the season that had made her want to spruce things up. It was April. The days were getting longer and people were looking at houses once more. She felt good about it.

“I feel good about it,” she said, swiping the broom across the floor in front of the door. Dirt and dust flew up into the air, catching in the sunlight and hovering, falling softly to new places on the floor. She swept over footprints as best she could. They were small, a heeled shoe, and disappeared halfway down as the dirt came off on her way through the house. Most of the prints were in the dust that had settled on the floor. If there was time, she would swipe a rag over them. She looked at her watch. The woman would be there in just under an hour.

“There you are,” she said cheerfully. “A fresh start.”

The dining room and the living room produced the largest piles of dirt and when she was done with the lower floor, she swept everything into the dustpan and poured it into the empty bag she had brought. She decided she would have time to run around with the cloth. She looked again at her watch. Very quickly. She glanced around her. There were several months’ dust settled on the windowsills. The small ledge above the fireplace (too small to be properly called a mantel) was gray where it was supposed to be white.

Bending down, she swept up the small pile of dirt in front of the fireplace. Turning her face away from it to keep it out of her nose, she saw something in the corner of the stove inset.

It was in shadow, so she got down on her knees and leaned in. Just as she did, it rolled out, but not far. It stopped just in reach. It was a small ball. A child’s rubber ball. She picked it up.

The white stripe through the middle had faded away where it hadn’t chipped, but she could still tell it was there, separating the red top from a blue bottom. She smiled. It was as familiar to her as her own childhood. She squeezed it. It was rubber throughout, not hollow, like the ones you find now. She put it carefully on the mantel so that it wouldn’t roll off. It sat patiently. She supposed a child had left it while his mother was looking at the house.

She poured the last of the piles into the bag and was just tucking everything away in the kitchen when there was a knock on the door. She was early. No time for the sills.
Shame.

Before answering the door she looked around the room. The room looked back.

“Shipshape,” she whispered. The walls stood straight.

“Barbara Parkins?” Glenn asked. She had opened the door to a dumpy, middle-aged woman, with hair that needed cutting, in pants and a short coat.

“That’s right. Are you Mrs. Darnley?” Gone was the false enthusiasm. The woman spoke in a tired voice. Her eyes were red-rimmed and underscored with dark half-moons. Glenn reached out her hand, after her initial surprise, and smiled.

“Please, call me Glenn,” she said, and stood aside for the woman to enter. She did tentatively. She looked up, much the way Glenn did when she always walked in.

“Oh, my goodness!” she said. “How on earth do you wash that ceiling?”

Glenn laughed, startled. No one had ever said anything like that in all her other showings. “I haven’t a clue,” she said. The two women looked at each other. Barbara Parkins tried an unconvincing smile.

Been there,
she thought flippantly.

“The floors have been sanded and refinished in the last two years,” Glenn said slowly, beginning her pitch. “There have been renovations throughout. I’ll point them out as we come to them.” She had to nudge the woman forward slightly. She seemed reluctant to take the lead. “The living room, as you can see, has a lot of natural light. Lovely thing, a south-facing window. Very good for plants,” she said. The woman looked around, the corners of her mouth downturned. She seemed unfocused.

“Do you garden?” Glenn asked.

“I’m sorry, what’s that?”

“I was just saying, this room is lovely for plants.”

Barbara Parkins smiled and nodded, adding an agreeable “yes,” to it, at the end of the nod, as though for a time she’d forgotten the word. “What are they asking?”

“Well, the owners are motivated, I will say. The asking is $90,500.”

Barbara Parkins nodded. “How many bedrooms?” she asked in the dining room.