The House on Persimmon Road (15 page)

The station wagon was occupied. She watched it jerk forward, brake, reverse. Pauline was at the wheel. She caught a glimpse of purple on the passenger side—Agnes, then.

She regarded the unlikely duo with a sort of maternal affection and not a little envy. The useless old biddies! They took their solid, physical reality for granted, having no idea whatsoever of that privileged state.

The auto gathered minimal speed and moved down Persimmon Road toward the dead end.

Lottie heaved a giant sigh.

It was so awful to have been prematurely forced adrift, trapped in an inexplicable gray landscape of empty space where there was no movement or sound.

She visualized living downstairs, herself an integral part of the household, caught up in ordinary tasks. Why, she could have a kitchen garden again! Run some chickens…

Oh, how she longed to get back into a world filled with noise and light and color, with clocks and calendars.

The longing reminded her that she had not been down among the family for several hours. A thread of panic seized her. Maybe it had been days, or even
weeks.

She stiffened. Her chair! How could she have forgotten something so monumental? Lor! That mule-faced Milo could’ve burned it by now!

Lottie paused at the screen door and spotted her chair on the back porch. It was piled high with used linen. She deplored its being put to such an ignoble use and debated whether to return it to its proper place at once or scout the empty house. The chair was safe enough for the moment. Poking and prying won out. With the others out of the way she could do it at her leisure without caution.

For shame!
She exclaimed upon noting the kitchen sink stacked with dirty dishes. Pip’s room was a disaster: socks and small clothes lay where he had stepped out of them. Toys and books were piled haphazardly in corners. The pair of oriental carved statues Justine refused to have in the great room sat as sentinels on either side of the headboard of the unmade bed. A baseball cap perched on one; the other was draped with a discarded towel. Lottie itched to set the room to rights. Clucking unhappily she moved on to the other bedrooms.

Agnes and Pauline, she noted, had at least made their beds. But dust lay thick on every surface. And such fine furniture, too.

In Pauline’s room she discovered a trove of frothy material heaped upon a ladder-backed chair. Closer inspection revealed undergarments of the finest material and textures. Awed, Lottie fingered them. A pair of stockings caught her eye. She held them up to afternoon sunlight pouring into the room. So fine and delicate were the stockings, she could see right through them. Lor! They felt like pure silk. Why, in her whole life she had never owned a pair of stockings so fine, so sheer. They were as delicate as a newly woven spider web.

To think Pauline cared so little that she just tossed them aside. Lottie sniffed. Probably she cared so little she wouldn’t even miss them. Or the navy-blue slip with the ever so tiny straps. Lottie folded the lot carefully and decided the sensible thing to do was to pack them tidily in her trunk where they would be cared for, revered, until…

Oh, for the day to arrive when she was restored! She felt like praying, but caught herself before the telling words could leave her lips.

It wasn’t truly stealing, she told herself as she tucked the silks atop the gray dress. Her simple dream had to come true one way or another. She was just helping it along. Imagine getting back over to the side of Time only to discover herself as naked as the day she was born. The idea made her shudder with mortification. The only intelligent thing to do was to plan against all possibilities. If stealing was the only way, why even perfectly honest folk had no choice. Anyway, of all the clothes she had left, only her corset appeared to have withstood time. Moths and dry rot had taken its toll of all else except whalebone.

Downstairs, the house was still empty and silent. Lottie heaved another great sigh. She was so lonesome for companionship, she’d even be willing to sit through one of Pauline’s and Agnes’s catty repartees.

She consoled herself for a while by rooting through kitchen cabinets, reading labels on cans and boxes of food. Tiring of that, she went to sit on the front porch steps, watching for the station wagon to return.

“We really appreciate you coming out,” Justine said to Jim Kessler. She felt more than a little awkward about standing in the bathroom with him. However, being the kind of person who needed a hands-on approach to learn, she had no choice if she wanted to know the nuts and bolts of exchanging fuses. Kessler seemed not at all disturbed. She watched over his shoulder as he unscrewed and checked the fuses.

“Hated I couldn’t be here to welcome you and give you the keys. Granddaughter’s birthday y’see. Took Tucker up on his offer to see you got ’em.” He looked back at her over his shoulder. “Didn’t know you was going to be a houseful of beauties, though, else I’d of passed that cake right up.”

Lottie, perched on the edge of the tub, rolled her eyes. The sly-tongued old goat always did fancy women. Had any man ever spoke thataway to her, Elmer would of poked him with a pitchfork where it’d do the most good.

“Thank you,” Justine murmured.

As unobtrusively as the space permitted Justine put a bit more distance between herself and the estate agent. She thought he looked like a character right off the page of an Erskine Caldwell novel. He was bald, bony-chested, and gaunt to the point of emaciation. His suit was an elderly, blue seersucker, the cuffs of which were far short of his ankles, revealing black cotton socks held up by old-fashioned garters. The band on his floppy straw hat matched his blue polka-dotted bow tie. One of his shoes had been cut out to accommodate a bunion at the side of his big toe.

“Here you go,” he said, leaning into the light to display the blown fuse. “See that there tiny spit of metal? It’s broke. Means the fuse is shot.” He pulled several others from his pocket. “See these? Metal’s in one piece. That’s how you tell which is good and which ain’t. Best you keep a supply handy.”

Lottie squeezed between them. She needed the lesson on modem inventions as badly as Justine. Things were far simpler in her day. Candles and oil lamps had been sufficient.

Kessler turned back to the box and screwed in a new fuse. The hair on the back of his neck stood straight out. “Hey! Hey!” he choked. “Hey!”

He yanked his hand, leaped back into Lottie, and stood stunned for a moment. “The damned thing shocked the heck outta me.” He stared at his fingers then, misreading Justine’s expression of dismay, said, “Do pardon my language.”

“Are you hurt?”

“Naw. Fingers are prickling a bit. Felt the current down to my toes for a second there. Must be a loose wire somewhere.”

“Can you fix it?”

“I reckon so. If I don’t kill myself.”

“We could call an electrician.”

“No, we can’t. Costs an arm ‘n’ a leg to git folks this far out. I’ll just check my toolbox in the car. Reckon I have a rubber-handled screwdriver that’ll do the trick.”

Lottie was sitting on the floor, between the old iron toilet and the tub, where the jolt of current had knocked her. She had felt the buzz of it the instant Kessler had bumped into her. It had just flowed over her like water. She had felt sudden warmth, as if she actually had flesh. She could hardly countenance it, but for an instant she had felt
earthly
again.

She held out her hands before her face. Why… she could almost see the shape of them. Lor! Her legs were forming! Oh, no! This wasn’t how she’d planned. She couldn’t just appear out of nowhere, and stark naked, to boot! That would ruin everything!

Heart thudding, ears ringing, she made herself as small as she could. Her brain held but a single thought: escape to the attic and get on her bones before the whole of her dream went amiss and no undoing it.

Kessler left the bathroom, Justine on his heels.

Lottie raced out behind them, noted the kitchen was unoccupied—thank the Lord for small favors—dashed into the pantry and ran headlong into Agnes.

Pardon me,
she said, then stopped. Oh, dear.

Agnes swiveled her head. A can of beans slipped from her hand. “Who’s there,” she whispered. “I know you’re there.”

Of all the times to get through to somebody!
Lottie wailed. She huddled in the deep, shadowy recess of the pantry, not daring to open the hidden door. And by gar, she wasn’t going to do anything as unseemly as passing through it, either. Suppose she was suddenly restored altogether and got stuck within its thick timbers? Lor! That would be courtin’ calamity.

Peering into the dark end of the pantry, Agnes took a few steps toward the hidden door. She stopped, shivered, then retreated, walking backward.

“Agnes?”

“Agggh!”

Pauline stared at her stricken expression. “Good heavens. What’s wrong with you? You’re pale as a sheet.”

“I—” Agnes bit her tongue. If she said what she had seen, or thought she had seen, Pauline would accuse her of being mad as a hatter. Then Pauline would get her way. Justine would put her in a nut house. “I dropped a can on my foot,” she said breathlessly. “Hurts like the devil.”

“Oh, you poor dear. Come sit down.”

“I think I’ll go lie down,” Agnes said.

“You’re not too badly hurt are you? I don’t want us to miss a driving lesson.”

Agnes snapped her head around. “Don’t worry. If the car can take your abuse, I most assuredly can!”

“That was uncalled for. I shudder to think what my poor Justine has had to suffer with you all these years.”

“I’ve been more help to her than you have! She knows it, too.”

“What do I know?” asked Justine, entering the kitchen.

“Nothing,” said Agnes.

“Exactly,” said Pauline.

Lottie did not wait to hear the end of the argument. She slipped behind the door, hurried up the stairs, and fitted herself on her bones.
Made it,
she gasped, and closed her eyes with relief.

Her eyes flew open. Lor! She didn’t want to miss a bit of it. She could barely contain her excitement. Imagine! Any minute now…

But even as she watched, anticipating the wonder of restoration, her hands and legs faded into nothing again.

She stared bleakly at her bones, panic penciled into her expression. So close, she had come so close. Oh, if only it was safe to pray. She’d plead, she’d get down on her knees and stay there until she keeled over. She reached for the family Bible and opened it on the bed. She’d read a bit for solace. That always used to help when she was distraught.

She lingered over her favorite scriptures, but she couldn’t rid herself of the idea that perhaps she had lost herself for good and always, and that the self she had known would not be coming back. Ever.

That can’t be,
she cried.
It has to happen. Has to!

She just had to think it out.

—  •  —

“You’ve settled in better’n most, I’d say,” Kessler said as he took in the arranged elegance surrounding him. “The old house has taken on a glow. Terrible waste these past years, having it empty, except for the odd summer or huntin’ season now and again. Impossible to get folks out in the country anymore. Old houses like this ain’t much more than white elephants, less’n they’re in some historical district t’other.”

“So far it suits us fine.”

“Maybe you’ll be wanting to buy it, then? As I said, the owner would make it a bargain.”

Justine smiled faintly. “We do have the length of the lease to decide…”

“Quite right,” he said and spread his thin smile to include Pauline as she arrived with tea.

“I always heard a watched pot never boils,” she said. “I think it’s true. I do hope the electricity stays on now.”

“I ’spect you’ll blow a fuse now and again. No help for it, all the gadgets you got. Just got to keep a supply in, buy ’em at the grocery store.” He crossed his legs, hiked his pants at the knee. “Tea. Ain’t this nice,” he purred, eyeing Pauline. “Bet you can cook up a storm, too.”

Pauline spied the hole in Kessler’s shoe and frowned. “I’m afraid tea and lamb chops are my only culinary accomplishments,” she answered and cut a look at Justine which said, “Get me out of this.” She poured, served, then sat stiff as a board, refusing to be drawn into conversation.

After Kessler took his reluctant leave without an invitation to dine, she pounced on Justine.

“You terrible child. You saw what he was doing. You just sat there and let him run on. Why, I thought I wouldn’t be able to bear it, the way that horrid tie kept bobbing on his Adam’s apple. I do believe he was actually flirting with me.”

“You wanted independence, Mother. You want out in the real world, you’re going to have to learn to handle all sorts of people. I found him rather old-fashioned and nice, myself. He looked hungry. Maybe we should’ve invited him to supper.”

“We most assuredly don’t see eye to eye on men. Speaking of which, how are you and Tucker getting on? Agnes said he was here this morning.’ ’

“He stopped by for a minute.”

“And?”

“We’re nothing more than neighbors, Mother. The man stopped in to say hello. Don’t make a federal case out of it.”

“The children adore him.”

Justine stiffened. “They’re vulnerable right now. They’d like anybody who pays them the least bit of attention.”

“I was only making an observation. You don’t have to be so argumentative. Or protest so passionately.”

Justine opened her mouth to say something, stopped, and looked away, unable to trust herself. The feelings inside might come out shrieking, words that once said, could not be retracted.

“If you want to invite a man to dine, consider calling on Tucker one evening,” Pauline continued. “He’s been such a help, and I much prefer his company to Mr. Kessler’s.”

“Perhaps later on,” Justine said, regaining herself. “I want to try to get some work done now. I’ve lost too much time as it is. Pip’s still fishing, but can you keep an eye on Judy Ann?”

“Of course.”

After dinner Justine continued to work toward reconstructing her lost program. She blotted out the sound of the television, sharp words between Agnes and Pauline, and the children’s protests at bedtime, and managed good-nights without losing her train of thought.