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Sunday, September 22nd
The entry door was tall and narrow, deeply carved, painted shiny black, and squeezed between The Good Stuff and Cindy’s Nail Salon. The hardware was real brass and original to the late 19th-century building, including the number 222. Charlotte’s hands shook a little as she fumbled with the still-unfamiliar lock and deadbolt; the door squeaked softly as it opened into the tiny foyer. She reached for the pull chain to turn on the light.
The foyer was little more than a hallway which ran from the front door to the back of the stairwell, where there was another paneled door, half in shadows. Larry said it connected to the store office but was kept locked. Charlotte noted that there would be enough space under the stairs for storing Ellis’ boxes, and maybe even a bike.
The fresh air streaming in from the front door cleared out some of the stale air in the foyer, and in her head, as well. It was just after six o’clock in the morning, in addition to being a Sunday, and she was able to park immediately outside of the apartment door. She wanted to be able to clean the place and rip out the old carpet without getting in anyone’s way—or without anyone getting in her way, either. The dumpsters were at the back of the building, clear around the corner and halfway down the block through an alley. Charlotte planned to load up bags of trash into the Jeep, then drive the Jeep around to the dumpsters, rather than dragging them bag by bag on foot.
As she reached the top of the stairs (and once again the light coming in from the wall of windows gave her spirits a lift), she saw that Larry was as good as his word, and had provided a step ladder, paint, spackle, brushes, rollers, an extension pole, dropcloths, and various cleaning supplies. She brought a few cleaners and scrubbers of her own, plus rubber gloves, her own broom and dustpan, and a small bag of tools. Charlotte hadn’t always had a cleaning lady and a handyman service, and as she looked from the supplies to the mess surrounding them, she realized that those lucky days were likely over for good. There was a cheap full-length mirror attached to the outside of the bathroom door, and as she approached it, she saw herself as she was now: bandana tied like a kerchief around the top of her head, a washed-out oversized chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and beat-up jeans and sneakers. The spitting image of a woman paying the piper, she thought. She pulled on the rubber gloves and went to work, first scrubbing the bathroom from the ceiling down to the floor, making it feel clean enough to use. She did the same with the efficiency kitchen and the little refrigerator, then put in the peanut butter sandwich and bottle of orange juice that she’d brought from home. So far, so good.
The walls were a mess, of course, as she knew from seeing them the first time, but she patiently removed all the posters, tape, and thumbtacks, and patched dents and holes with spackle. Next came the carpet, which she ripped into strips with a retractable knife and rolled up into manageable bundles. It was dusty, sneezing work, and she hoped there wasn’t cocaine or something mixed in with the dirt and fibers. Just in case, she moved the bandana from her hair to around her nose and mouth, and opened the windows. It was chilly, but at least it was fresh. Larry was right about how heavy the sofa was, but she managed to push it out of the way; there were probably metal slides on the bottom of the bun feet. The big library table was, thankfully, on casters.
Rip, roll, bag, dump, sweep, pull, patch, sand, wash, scrub, paint. It took hours, and she was thankful that the whole place was just a little over four hundred square feet: one long hard day would be enough to fix it up.
Charlotte finally took a break just before noon, and sat on the sofa with her juice and sandwich. The sofa was extremely comfortable, but she supposed that anything softer than a bed of nails would feel comfortable at the moment. Her aching arms were covered with tiny white dots after rolling paint on the ceiling and the first coat on the walls. No doubt her face looked the same, but she wasn’t going to check. The white paint was a bright, slightly warm white, which she liked but she didn’t think there was going to be enough of it to do the entire apartment. Larry had also provided a half-filled five-gallon bucket of an interesting soft warm color midway between beige and grey. It would have to do.
The second coat of paint was next, and then she could clean up the floor, which was spattered here and there with several generations of paint, a century of varnish, and decades of stains and dents. Gives it character, she thought. She had a room-size rug to cover it up, a knockoff of a kilim that wouldn’t bring much money at the sale. It would be worth more to her here. The big table and the tufted, studded, roll-arm sofa were more gentleman’s club than she would have preferred, but they were solid pieces, and she appreciated the quality. If needed, she could even sleep on the sofa until she could afford a bed.
She could hear activity in the shop below, as it was nearly time for it to open. Elm Grove was a town where more shops and restaurants were open on Sunday afternoons than on Mondays. She could smell the different cuisines from either side of the block: pizza, Chinese, grilled steak, barbecue, tacos. It made her mouth water, but none of it was affordable at the moment. She couldn’t help but note the irony of having money to eat out when living at Lake Parkerton, but it was so far from everything that it wasn’t convenient. Here it was convenient, but she had no money, at least for a while.
Would it ever feel like home? Charlotte wondered. After all, what constitutes home? Is it one’s stuff, or who’s there? The house in Lake Parkerton hardly felt like home anymore without Ellis. Yet it couldn’t be about who else lives there, because people who live alone still have a sense of someplace being home; it was more than just a place to hang one’s hat and sleep. But living in, say, a hotel room, where everything was already set up and in place, nothing personal, that wouldn’t be home, would it? Some people seemed to live that way, but Charlotte couldn’t imagine it. A home is made to some extent by what we choose to put in it, the way we make our mark on it, the way we compose it.
The west wall was where she had planned to hang Hannah’s big still life, the one thing that would help make the new place feel like home. There lay the conundrum: the beloved painting currently hung in a house that had been home, but no longer felt like home, but she had planned to hang it in this place that was not yet home in order to make it feel more like home. But now that option was out.
Time would make it home, she supposed. Time, and the actual living in the space. Spaces could tell you what they wanted, she always believed, much like Hannah used to say that the canvas always told her what it wanted. So what did this space have to say? She opened her mind to it, only to get the sense that she was being watched.
She turned quickly to look over her shoulder at the stairwell, but there was nothing there, except perhaps a hint of movement that could just as well have been the shadow of a bird flying past the windows. Fatigue was surely having its way with her, making her see things that weren’t there, and dust and cleanser fumes probably didn’t help. Snap out of it! She took a deep breath and got up off the sofa, stretching her back and legs. The sooner the apartment was cleaned up, the sooner she could move in, and know for certain which things she absolutely needed from home, what would fit and what wouldn’t. And she would feel safer here where Bosley Warren wasn’t likely to find her, either.
This line of thinking gave her enough renewed energy to finish painting the walls, and it went quickly, as second coats often do. As the clean soft grey covered the last streaky bits of the first coat over the black and purple walls, Charlotte couldn’t help but feel as if she was erasing the old in her life, as well. Back and forth, up and down, purer and purer, until at last the job was finished, and the dropcloths could be gathered up and the brushes washed.
By this time the sun was far enough in the west to play up the streaks and grime in the tall north windows. Charlotte knew she should stop working and clean them another day, but she couldn’t—simply couldn’t let it be. She scraped and cleaned the glass panes from top to bottom, one after the other, like an assembly line, like a machine, then cleaned the Venetian blinds slat by patient slat. This place had to be ready for tomorrow! She desperately wanted this for herself, a clean, bright space ready to move into, ready for creating her new life, whatever it would be. This was the set for the next act in her life, she was not going to give up, she was going to pull herself up and carry on, onward, upward, and never give up, unsinkable—
And then, just before it got dark, it was done: clean and fresh from ceiling to floor, inside the closet and cabinets, every surface from the toilet and tub to the kitchen sink and stove. The big table was scrubbed and polished, the sofa gleamed from cleaning and an application of leather creme. Tomorrow night she would be sleeping here, eating here, perhaps even writing here. She cleaned her face and arms as best she could with dish soap and paper towels, then locked up the place and walked down to The Coffee Grove to use the Internet before driving home.
Jimmy wasn’t there; she remembered that he said something about a cousin from out of town. The shop was quiet with only a few students, and even the music on the speakers was low. It would be closing soon, so Charlotte settled in with a cup of tea and wrote to Ellis and checked for messages. Nothing much. Social media: someone she followed had recently gone more in the direction of positive thinking and daily affirmations. Today’s bit was about needing to believe in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
The barista was making closing-up noises, and Charlotte packed up her computer and left, feeling conspicuous in her grubby, paint-stained clothes, even next to the students. The sky was dark now, the waxing moon in and out of clouds, the air chilly and a bit damp. She had just enough energy left to drive back to Lake Parkerton and zap the last convenience dinner in the freezer. As she unlocked the Jeep, she looked up at the windows of the apartment, and once again had the sense of being watched, of a suggestion of movement. Great. The place was haunted, just what she needed. She shook her head at her own silliness.
The Jeep cranked, but wouldn’t start up. She tried again. No go. Again. Still no go.
Several hundred dollars on a repair job not even a week ago, and it was in worse shape than ever?
She tried one more time, to no avail, and pounded and pounded the steering wheel, cursing the Jeep, the repair shop, the economy, her luck, everything, and broke down in tears. It was too much.
She shivered. Her stomach growled. It was going to be too cold to sleep in the Jeep, too cold to sleep in the apartment. Helene was still in Chicago, and Diane was out of town. Lola was working day and night, and even if she wasn’t, Charlotte was bothered by the fact that Lola had foisted Bosley Warren on her. Simon had a faculty gathering, Jimmy a house guest.
Then she thought of Olivia’s house. She had the key. Nobody was there, and she could at least sleep on the sofa. Barnes warned her about working there alone, but nobody would know she was even there, right?
Charlotte wiped the tears off her face, then crossed the street and started walking to Olivia’s. She would check to make sure Donovan—or Mitchell—wasn’t around, then get inside and find a blanket. If she could just get some sleep, maybe somebody could give her a ride back to Lake Parkerton tomorrow, or at least figure out what to do about the damned Jeep. She walked with her head down and her arms crossed, trying to stay warm, but feeling defeated, as well. Tomorrow was supposed to be moving day, and if the Jeep was out of commission again, she didn’t know how it could come about, or even when it could come about at all, at least until after the sale, which wouldn’t be until the following week.
She was so lost in her own gloom that she actually walked right into Simon and scared herself half to death.
“Hey, Charlotte, it’s me,” he said, and reached out to hold her flailing arms. “What happened?”
Her nerves were shot, but she managed to collect herself and tell him what happened with the Jeep, and her intent to stay at Olivia’s house for the night.
She looked up at him. “But what are you doing here? I thought you had a faculty thing or something.”
He pointed to the camera slung from his shoulder. “Night shots. Stayed at the party as long as I could stand it, then decided to do something better with my time. There’s always something interesting in the light and shadows.” He pulled the camera up and aimed it at her. “Like you, for inst—”
“No!” she hissed, putting her hands up to hide her face, and she started stomping off. What an ass, she thought.
“Hey, I’m sorry, I was just teasing. I wouldn’t actually take a picture of a girl when she’s down.” He caught up and kept walking with her.
“I just wanna get inside and get some sleep. I’ve been working since six this morning, and I’m so pissed off about my truck not running again, and I really can’t spare the money to fix it, and without it I can’t move, and I’ve just had it, you know?”
“Charlotte, I had no idea. Many apologies.”
He truly looked contrite, and she nodded in acceptance. By this time they were approaching Olivia’s house, and Simon suddenly stopped her. He spoke quietly. “Somebody’s in there.”
She, too, could see a soft light in one of the windows, and the shadows cast by movement. Donovan’s car was parked out front, and another one was in the driveway.
“He’s not supposed to be there,” she whispered.
“Let’s get closer, behind the hedge,” said Simon, and they moved quietly in the shadows to a hidden vantage point.
He worked the lens of his camera. “Wish I had my longest lens, but this is better than nothing.”
“Can you see anything?” Charlotte shivered. It was damp close to the ground like this.
“It’s Donovan, and I think two other guys, one big and the other shorter, maybe that Mitchell fellow.”
“The big guy—could it be Bosley Warren?”
“Possibly.” He noticed her shivering. “I wish I’d bothered with a jacket, too, you’re getting chilled.” He put his arm around her shoulder, and they sat there for a while, watching the house.
Charlotte took in his warmth, the texture of his sweater, the scent of the soap or shampoo he used, the scent of the damp earth, the clear air with leaves just beginning to turn, the dark sky lit by a waxing moon, the crickets and other night insects, the occasional car going by, and gradually, very gradually, relaxed. The movements behind the curtained windows at Olivia’s house were just a blur.
“Charlotte?” whispered Simon, giving her a little shake, but not removing his arm from around her shoulders.
“Hm?” She smiled up at him.
“You poor girl. You’re so tired you’re falling asleep. C’mon.” He helped her up, slung her bag over his shoulder, and they began walking toward the condos at the end of the block. “You’re not going to be able to stay at Olivia’s with all that going on. I’ve got a sofa.”
Charlotte’s legs and feet were aching, but she carried on, or rather she was half-carried along by Simon. She started to protest, feeling self-conscious and grubby, but he was having none of it.
“If I didn’t offer you a place to crash, just imagine what Helene would do to me.” He unlocked the door.
Even tired as she was, the idea made her chuckle. “I suppose you’ve got a point.” She followed him up the stairs.
Charlotte wasn’t sure what to expect in Simon’s condo. Would it be a man cave, all TV and sound systems, with beer cans and smelly socks laying amid pizza boxes? Or would it be an artist’s abode, with cameras, prints, lights, shelves of lenses and cases?
It was neither. It was nice, actually, she thought, if a bit conservative, then remembered it was a furnished unit provided by the university for visiting faculty, with standard furniture groupings, neutral colors and fabrics, carpeting, drapes, etc. The only difference was the artwork, which was not the usual safe framed prints selected by committee, but an assortment of paintings, photos, carvings, and digital prints, some of which were familiar.
Simon noticed her studying a Tibetan mask. “Yes, it’s Helene’s. She let me borrow a few things she wasn’t using. I put the university’s visual muzak in a closet.” He gestured across the living room. “Welcome to my abode.”
“It’s nice. But I’m afraid to sit down. Look at me.” She pulled at her grubby shirttail.
“How about a nice hot shower? I’ve got a track suit you can borrow, it’ll be a little big, but still—.” He disappeared into the bedroom.
“I’d be so grateful.” She really was, and felt tears welling up. Fatigue was giving her the emotions of a teenager. She tried to tell herself to snap out of it, of course, but instead she accepted the stack of towels, track suit, and a pair of thick socks that he held out to her and pressed them to her face. “I’m glad you found me. I don’t know what I would have done if I’d gone to Olivia’s and then found out I couldn’t even go in there.”
“I’m glad you weren’t already there by yourself when they showed up. Go. Shower.” He nudged her in the direction of the bathroom. “Shampoo and all that is in there.”
The whole thing felt a little surreal, stripping out of her clothes in an unfamiliar bathroom, being rescued by Simon, being back in Elm Grove after a decade of living in Lake Parkerton, doing more physical work in the past week than she had since she was in her 30’s. The hot water helped to ground her. Simon’s shampoo, with its hint of cedar, helped to clear some of the smell of paint that tended to linger in one’s sinuses.
By the time she scrubbed clean and came back out, Simon had made sandwiches for them both and was heating up a cup of tomato soup in the microwave for her.
She sat on a stool at the breakfast bar, and waited for him to finish prepping, but he gestured encouragement.
“Go ahead and eat. You must be starving. Soup’s almost hot. Hope you like tomato.”
“I do,” she nodded, and took a big bite out of the sandwich. Stacks of salami, ham, and cheese on a hoagie roll, chewy and heavenly. She didn’t worry about looking like a pig. The man was seeing her at her worst, and any likelihood of appearing attractive was long since gone. “So good,” she mumbled with her teeth closed, in the middle of chewing.
Simon grinned. He didn’t grin very often, thought Charlotte, but when he did she could see something of what he must have looked like as a kid.
He put the mug of soup and a spoon in front of her. “Pepper?” he asked, holding a grinder over the mug.
She nodded. “Lots.” Took another big bite of sandwich. As the minutes ticked by, she started to feel more human. They ate companionably. He dripped mustard on his sleeve, she helped him daub it off. He asked about the problem with the Jeep, and she described it the best she could. She wondered about Donovan at Olivia’s house, and who else was there with him, but was too tired to pursue it.
By the time she’d finished the sandwich and soup, she was getting sleepy again. She felt her hair. A mess, but it was dry.
“If you have a blanket, I think I’d like to crash on the sofa now.”
When she woke up, however, she was in Simon’s bed, and the clock said it was mid-morning.