The Haunted Heart: Winter (8 page)

But on the fourth day he rose again. In a
manner of speaking.

I was going through a stack of old books,
checking and comparing editions on the Advanced Book Exchange, when
a brisk and forceful rap on my front door nearly caused me to knock
my chair over.

Kirk.

That surge of…well, it was relief. Relief
because it was obviously Kirk knocking and not a supernatural
manifestation. It was not pleasure, let alone anticipation. It was
just relief.

I opened the door and caught him running his
hands nervously through his hair. In fact, his hair was standing up
in tufts as though I’d caught him pulling it out by the roots. His
face jerked my way as the door swung open and he said with obvious
relief, “You’re here!”

“Hi. Yes. Where did you think I was?”

“I…” He looked so self-conscious and
agitated that even I, not the most observant of others’ feelings,
couldn’t help noticing.

“Is something wrong?”

“No. That is, I wasn’t sure you were…up
here. I didn’t hear you.”

“Huh?
Oh
. You’ll be happy to know
I’ve been sleeping the last few nights.”

“You have? You
have
. That’s good.”
Definitely
a weird expression on Kirk’s normally dour face.
He continued to hover in my doorway looking sort of pained and sort
of worried and very uncomfortable.

“Would you like to come in?” I asked
politely, finally.

He startled me with an instant, “Sure.”

I stepped back and he walked in, looking
around as though he’d never seen these rooms before. Or maybe he
was looking for something else.

“Is everything okay?” I asked again. “Would
you like something to drink? I have water and Cup-a-Soup.”

“Thanks. No. I’m…” Kirk seemed to steel
himself to some unpleasant task. “Your mother called me.”

My mouth fell open. “That was dirty pool,” I
said at last.

“She’s concerned.”

“But I just talked to her the day before
yesterday,” I protested.

“I know. She mentioned it. Anyway, when I
didn’t hear you up here, I thought maybe I ought to —”

“Check for the body?”

He was clearly not amused. I felt a stab of
sympathy for poor Kirk. Plainly this was as excruciating for him as
it was for me.

“I can imagine. Listen, don’t take any of
that too seriously,” I said, hoping to make it easier on both of
us. “My parents are a little overprotective.”

He said awkwardly, but doggedly plowing
ahead, “You had some kind of a breakdown?”

“That’s kind of a dramatic way to put
it.”

“How would you put it?”

I shrugged. “The guy I planned on spending
my life with died suddenly and, yes, I guess I had a sort of
breakdown, if you want to look at it that way. I tried to kill
myself. So that’s all in the past, but obviously it was hard on my
parents and they’re still struggling with it a little.”

I was trying to keep it light, but maybe I
seemed a little too buoyant given that Kirk was gasping at the end
of that speech. “You tried to kill yourself?”

“Weeeelllll, yeah, but it was really more of
a cry for help.” I’d figured he already knew that, but apparently
not, and though I was trying to reassure him, he didn’t look
reassured. “I’m fine now.” I put up a hand. “And before you say
anything, just remember you saw the ghost too. I didn’t make that
up. I’m not crazy.”

“I didn’t say —”

“I hope that’s true. To my mother, I mean. I
hope you didn’t say anything about what was happening here last
week. You’re just going to freak her out for no good reason.”

“I did not say a word.”

“Okay.”

“Not least because I would sound as loony as
you.”

“I will take that as the compliment you
clearly don’t intend it to be.”

Kirk suddenly laughed, surprising himself, I
think.

“Anyway, I’m glad we had this little talk,”
I said. “But I probably should get back to work.”

“Me too.” Kirk hesitated. “But I was going
to ask if you’d like to go grab something to eat tonight.”

I stared at him, feeling the heat of
embarrassment wash through my body. “Oh my God. Did she — she asked
you to be my new best friend, didn’t she?”

“No,” Kirk said. “Thanks to you, she already
thinks I am your new best friend. I was going to ask you out
anyway. I mean, ask you to grab dinner. As your new best
friend.”

I couldn’t help smirking at the care he was
taking to not be misunderstood. “In that case, I accept,” I
said.

N
ot a date.

I reassured myself of this several times as
the time drew near to start getting ready for dinner. No pressure.
No expectations. A shower, a shave, and a swipe of deodorant. That
was the extent of my preparations, and I’d have done that much for
anyone.

I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to have
to try to make conversation — or, even worse, watch Kirk try to
make conversation. I was sure it was something he would be very bad
at. I didn’t want to go to the trouble of pretending to eat. I
didn’t want to go to the trouble of pretending that I gave a damn.
About anything.

I nearly cancelled. Twice. Okay, three
times. But Kirk was now in contact with my parents, which meant a
cancellation was liable to be reported, which would start the
telegraph wires humming again. Might even precipitate a surprise
visit from the parental units. No, I couldn’t take a chance on
that, so…dinner.

An hour or two at most.

Or maybe Kirk, having earned his good
citizenship medal for the week, would forget all about it and I
would be left in peace.

I dug out the cleanest of my sweaters, this
one a bulky oatmeal cable knit. The nice thing about heavy sweaters
was you could wear them a long time without having to wash them,
but still. There was a limit. There were a lot of limits, actually.
Since grooming was one of those things people watched for, I made
sure to clean beneath my fingernails and behind my ears.

When five o’clock rolled around, I checked
for my wallet, found my keys, grabbed my parka and walked
downstairs to meet Kirk. He was locking his own door, and offered a
polite, distracted smile.

I said, “You know when you showed up at my
door this afternoon, at first I was thinking maybe you’d seen
something.”

“Seen something like what?” Kirk led the way
across the scratched floorboards and faded carpet of the front
hall. We paused to pull on our boots.

“Like
her
. You know, the lady in the
mirror.”

“Me? Why would she show up in my
mirror?”

“Hey, I don’t want to take that personally,
but why not?”

“I don’t think I’m her type.”

I let that pass. “I can’t help wondering
what’s happening with her right now, though. Do you think whoever
stole the mirror, sold it? Broke it up for firewood? Has it hanging
in their bedroom?”

Kirk gave a sour smile and quoted:

“Mirror, mirror on the truck

Where she went, who gives a fuck?”

I laughed as we stepped outside. It was
dark, with a few early stars scattered across the indigo sky. The
snow glimmered eerily around us. Kirk locked the door, and our
footsteps, sounding hollow on the wooden planks of the porch,
thudded down the salted stairs and were then swallowed by the
snow.

“I found the original bill of sale. My uncle
purchased it for two hundred bucks back in the fifties. From some
estate in Louisiana.”

Kirk grunted noncommittally.

After that I was out of polite chitchat. I
glanced at Kirk’s profile. He looked grave and thoughtful. A man on
a mission. A mission of mercy, I guess, and clearly not something
he was used to. I smiled inwardly at the thought of my parents
tapping someone as anti-social as Kirk to keep an eye on me.

“Something funny?” he asked suddenly.

“No.”

“You’ve got that foxy smile again. Like
someone just handed you the key to the hen house.”

“Foxy Loxy, that’s me.”

Kirk laughed. We reached his truck, parked
in the former conservatory on the far side of the house. He
unlocked the passenger side door and opened it. I climbed in,
feeling self-conscious. It was the having the door opened for me
bit. Alan and I had never bothered. Wouldn’t have thought of it,
and not just because we had automatic door locks.

Kirk walked around and unlocked his own
door. He started the engine, letting it idle for a while, the
defroster blasting out hot air over our legs.

Once upon a time I’d had lots of friends.
But my friends were also Alan’s friends, and somehow I couldn’t
bear to be around them anymore now that Alan was gone. It wasn’t
anyone’s fault. They had tried, some of them had tried very hard to
stay in touch. But I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t talk about
Alan with them — yet I couldn’t think of anything else we had in
common now.

Kirk had never known Alan, which made it
easier. And he hadn’t known me before, so he couldn’t compare the
old me with the surviving wreckage. I found that relaxing. No
pressure to be “sweet, sensitive, funny” Flynn. Kirk had never
known me to be anything but weird. A smartass weirdo. It was
nice.

“How long have you lived here?” I asked as
Kirk put the truck in motion and we started out across the white
lot. Had he told me this before? Probably.

“Not quite two years.”

“Did you know my uncle well?”

“No. He kept to himself.”

“Which suited you fine.”

“Yep.”

I smiled faintly.

Kirk glanced at me and said, “Once in a
while Winston would invite me up for a glass of brandy or loan me a
book. And once in a while he’d ask me to help him cart something
down to the basement or up from the basement. He was an eccentric,
but he was a nice old guy. I liked him.”

“Did you ever visit the museum?”

“No. He’d closed it up before I ever moved
to Chester. The building is still there in Deep River between
Bridge and Spring Streets. It’s empty, boarded up, but it’s still
standing.”

“It seems like a weird place for a
museum.”

“It was a weird museum, I guess.”

“True.”

We neither of us spoke again until we were
seated inside the restaurant. Restaurant L&E was an “authentic”
French restaurant on Main Street. The upstairs offered rooftop
garden seating in summer, and a rustic Provencal farmhouse dining
room in winter.

Kirk and I ate downstairs in the bistro,
which was more casual and comfortable and not-a-date suitable. I
ordered a bowl of French onion soup and a glass of red wine. The
waitress apologetically carded me, to Kirk’s amusement. Kirk
ordered the Steak Frites, peppered hanger steak, fried potatoes,
roasted shallots, watercress salad with blue cheese and wild
mushrooms, and a bottle of pinot noir.

“Man does not live by juice alone,” I
commented as the waitress moved away.

“He could if he had to.” Kirk shook out his
napkin and placed it over his lap. For some reason that struck me
as funny, but there was no reason Kirk shouldn’t have good table
manners. He knew his way around a wine list, for sure.

He asked, “So how long have you been in the
antiques business?”

“Officially? Three years. I used to help out
summers at Old Mill Antiques when I was a kid. I guess I kind of
had a knack for the business. Anyway, I liked it a lot, so Mr.
Gardener took me on as his apprentice when I got out of college.” I
really didn’t want to think about that time now. Sometimes I felt
stupid for not having known that that kind of happiness couldn’t
last, was only temporary at best.

For the first time I wondered how Mr.
Gardener was doing. He was getting up there in years and he had
relied on me more and more. I hoped he was doing okay. I hoped he’d
found someone reliable to take my place.

The waitress arrived with our wine. I sipped
my glass while Kirk went through the routine of sniffing the cork
and tasting. He nodded, totally serious about the whole procedure,
and the waitress poured him a glass.

As the waitress withdrew, I said, “Anyway,
it’s boring talking about myself. What about you? You’re a
writer?”

“Playwright.”

“Have you had anything published?”

“Produced, you mean? Yeah. One of my plays
was produced Off-Broadway. It ran for a whole three nights.”

“That’s amazing.” Kirk’s lip curled, and I
said, “I’m serious. I bet almost no one ever has a play
produced.”

He made a huffy kind of sound, not quite a
laugh, not quite a snort. “That’s one way of looking at it.”

“What way do you look at it? Your play only
ran three nights?”

“That’s what it amounts to.”

“I think it’s amazing. I’ve never known a
playwright.” I smiled at him. “How come you don’t live in New York?
Wouldn’t that be a better place for a playwright?”

“Connecticut is practically the home of
summer theater. There are plenty of working playwrights here.
There’s the Eugene O’Neil Theater, Long Warf, Yale Rep. Hell, Good
Speed Opera House is right up the road.”

“I didn’t know that.”

He shrugged. “If I could live anywhere, I’d
live in Los Angeles. There’s a growing revival of interest in the
theater, plus you’ve got some of the finest actors and directors in
the country permanently located there. Production costs are a
fraction of what they are in most theater cities.”

“Yeah, but the theater is just a novelty
there, right? It’s all about Hollywood and the movies.”

“There are some top notch playwrights
earning a living on the West Coast. Plus, there’s the beach. I mean
the Pacific Ocean.”

“Oh, well there you go. What you really want
is to be a surfer. You just don’t want to admit it.” I was teasing,
but I realized I didn’t like the idea of Kirk leaving for
California. Well, good tenants were hard to find. I hoped that
California was a dream and not a plan. “So what was your play
about?”