The Silent Treatment
A Kat Shergill Mystery
#1
By
Melanie Surani
The Silent Treatment
Melanie Surani
Published by Melanie Surani at Smashwords
Copyright 2012 Melanie Surani
Cover image by www.pachd.com
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Thank you to Nizzar for encouraging me to follow my dreams, for giving me your shoulder when I've had a bad day, and for making me snap out of it when I've indulged myself enough.
To the Lisas (all 3), Linda, and Tony for reading this book (repeatedly) and helping me shape it into something presentable.
And to my mom for liking every one of my Facebook posts. It's like perfect attendance or something!
Chapter 1
Bridget skipped their usual exit on I-40 and headed toward the mall. Kat furrowed her brow and the grouchy inner child within her weary twenty-five-year-old body stirred. "I thought we were going home."
"I wanna check the hours."
"Everything opens at ten."
"I want the closing." She rolled through an empty strip mall parking lot to the Verizon storefront, squinted at the tiny sign on the door, and accelerated away with the information.
"Are you gonna get a new phone or see if they can fix yours?"
Bridget winced. "I'll probably catch a disease if I use this one."
"What happened in the ladies room?" Kat asked, closing her eyes. "I never got the chance to ask you."
"I dropped my cell in the toilet."
Giddy, sleepy laughter erupted from Kat.
"Right as it happened, I screamed, 'Oh shit!' and this chick at the sink just ran out. I could've been having an aneurysm." Bridget nudged the stereo volume down, opting not to combat the stress of work with her usual show-tune singalong. "I think I scared her."
"Why do you talk in the stall anyway?" Kat asked. "I hate being on the other end of that conversation."
"Because our bitch manager doesn't care we're human beings who need to make personal calls." She paused. "How you holding up?"
"The vampire shift sucks like you said it would," Kat said and laughed at her own pun, but quickly sobered. "This isn't what I wanted," she said.
"Nobody wants to work in a pest control call center in the middle of the frigging night."
In lieu of returning to the highway for the rest of their short trip, she snaked through a residential area of nearly identical houses.
Kat closed her eyes again to alleviate the fatigue headache spreading across her face. "I didn't like Philly, but I always thought we'd move to New York. Not back here."
"You promised not to talk about this when you're tired. You'll cry or do something you'll regret. And stop saying we."
Kat squeezed her upper arm. Without visual aid, the last green and yellow bruise might never have existed.
"Besides," Bridget added, "Memphis is a hole. My brother moved back. That chick from the theater class we took together moved back. I need to call her —" She clicked her tongue. "Damn it. I hope those jackasses get my numbers out. I don't have anything backed up." She huffed. "Who uses paper when you've got an awesome phone?"
"Even paper gets ruined in a toilet."
Parked cars choked both sides of the road around a corner, and Kat whistled. "Someone had a good party last night."
"Oh hey, here's an open spot."
Kat straightened as Bridget parallel parked. "I want to sleep."
"It's an estate sale, not a party. After our shitty night, we could use some affordable retail therapy." She shut off the engine. "We might find something for your sad, empty apartment."
Kat moaned and rolled out of the car. Bridget pulled her jacket closed as they crossed to the only two-story house on the street. Fallen leaves crunched underfoot from the two trees in the yard. Long folding tables with metal legs and particle board tops crowded the driveway and open garage. For so many people being in the same place, the customers kept their voices low, reserving energy for the hunt.
"We had a tree like that one." Bridget indicated a large oak in the center of the yard. "When I was a kid, me and my sister were raking leaves, making piles. We got done with this really big one, but when I jumped in, a bee came out." For a moment, she stood on the sidewalk next to a Crye-Leike sign. "The new owners cut the tree down."
Kat squinted, continuously amazed at Bridget's subject changes. Usually, the forays into her childhood made Kat laugh, but in her weariness, she could only say, "Weird story."
"Maybe you should buy this house," Bridget said, and handed Kat a brochure from the plastic caddy on the sign.
A crate of books held the storm door wide open, exposing a poster board sign marked in thick, handwritten letters: More Inside.
"Let's go in. It's chilly out here," Bridget said.
Kat pushed the brochure in her canvas messenger bag and followed Bridget inside, where bargain hunters packed the living room, shopping or checking out with the man at a card table near the door. Stacks of boxes, floral patterned furniture, and framed cross stitch samplers made the place seem old. Each cabinet and drawer had been emptied and their contents crammed onto every available surface.
"My grandparents love these sales," Bridget whispered, matching the hush in the room. "They spend the day before looking through ads in the paper. The earlier you go, the better things you find. By two or three o'clock, all that's left are naked Barbies and muumuus."
Kat dropped her hood. "Curious about the hype?"
Bridget's eyebrows quirked. "Hype? This stuff has history. Put some of it around your place and imagine someone else's past. Forget yours."
Kat nodded and turned away, hiding the angry tears that surfaced. She wasn't sure if she was more embarrassed that Jeremy had ended up such a bad choice or that she was back in her hometown about to fill her apartment with recycled memories. A bookshelf gave her a legitimate excuse to zone out of the conversation. Most of the titles were either cookbooks or biographies of American presidents, like the ones her mom collected. Kat would have bought every one if a peace offering of the dorkiest books in the world would stave off the I-told-you-so's.
"Think anything's upstairs?" Bridget asked.
Kat gestured around the room with the biography of Franklin Pierce. "If stuff was upstairs too, the person who lives here would have to be a shut in." She pushed the book back on the shelf, wiped her eyes, and followed Bridget into the kitchen.
Even the refrigerator sported a price tag. The stacks of flower patterned, rippled edged, gold-rimmed plates on the beige Formica counters would have been a good idea, but they reminded Kat of her Gram's set: she'd always expect ham and mashed potatoes on them instead of the more realistic Hot Pocket.
"What about a big pan?" Bridget asked.
Kat took a long blink as flashes of hot hours in front of the stove and subsequent time over the sink came back. "I don't cook anymore."
"You don't eat?"
She shrugged.
"Dude, it'll make you feel better. Look at me," she gestured toward her thick stomach. "Food is what I do." She picked up a teacup that matched the plates and giggled. "I mean, I don't do food, but I like food as a friend. Shut up." She put the cup down. "What about samosas or curry? That stuff's got to be comfort food for you."
"Not really into the spicy."
"You're half Indian and you don't like spicy food?"
"It's more my dad's thing."
"Aren't you tired of eating those crapfest hotdogs from the vending machine at work?"
"Damn tired."
They passed through the kitchen into the dining room where cardboard boxtops of trinkets and LPs filled the table.
"Seriously," Bridget said, pushing pieces of jewelry around a shallow wicker basket, "what's the point of life if you can't enjoy food?"
For the two weeks she'd been on her own, Kat had only been to the grocery store once to pick up essentials: cereal, frozen vegetables, yogurt. Stuff she could open and eat with little or no preparation. Even on days when she craved the homemade goodies she'd gotten so good at, she remembered her place was no longer in the kitchen and ate a cold pita and hummus in front of the TV instead.
Bridget picked through things around the table while Kat stared, half dazed with sleeplessness, at a large, round silver box. Art Nouveaux scrolls curled the top and sides: valleys blackened with tarnish, peaks brown with age. The few pairs of earrings she owned lay easily-losable on her dresser. If she hung the Mucha poster Jeremy hadn't wanted her to display in her other apartment, the jewelry box in her hands would tie right in with the room. The poster's single word command, Flirt, might even be the motivation she needed to move on.
"Come over and we'll cook something massive and eat the leftovers for a week," Bridget continued.
The box was cool and solid and the weight surprised her. She lifted the lid and fingered the red velvet compartments inside, still full of antique jewelry. Some of it she might not wear in public, but she envisioned herself in the bathroom mirror at home, pretending to be a rich old lady, like she did as a child with her Gram's necklaces.
"I need this," Kat said. The dangling price tag read ten dollars. "I wonder if the pieces are included or if someone put stuff in as a jerky customer."
"It's not a store, okay? And not all customers are vindictive."
"Do you know where we pay?"
"You want to go already?"
Kat nodded and rested her chin on the box as she hugged the cold metal. An apologetic customer jostled her as he tried to get a better look at the milk crate of shelf-worn LPs from the 80s.
"I think a guy was by the door," Bridget said, "I'll be over in a sec."
Sure enough, a guy with a small lock box and calculator sat by the front door at a card table. He rested his chin on his hand, fingers curled over his mouth, staring unfocused through the window. His heavy, sad eyes blinked a few times, otherwise, he didn't move; consequently, neither did Kat. Even without seeing his entire face, with rumpled brown hair, overdue for a cut, wearing a faded, zipped sweatshirt, he looked so soft and comfortable that she wanted to curl into his arms and snuggle his chest. He couldn't have been much older than she was: thirty, thirty-five.
His brown eyes shifted to meet hers. "Sorry, I wasn't paying attention." He leaned forward and straightened the calculator before realizing she had only one item.
Kat grinned and almost dropped the box. She knew him from somewhere. Something about his eyes. "Um," she gripped the edges of the warming silver. "Is, uh… I noticed some pieces inside." She opened the lid a fraction, and the man nodded.
"Those are included." His American voice belied a face which belonged in Germany or Russia; somewhere requiring fur and a cigarette.
"Oh wow. Okay." As she fumbled in her purse, he took her purchase and smiled. She laughed. "Oh, thanks. I had the night shift and haven't slept for like two days." She pulled out a ten dollar bill. Her hands shook and brushed his, smooth and strong, knowing her tremors weren't entirely due to sleep deprivation. Of all the things Kat knew she shouldn't entertain, a man was one of them; she needed time to figure out who she was again and get everything back on track, but all she wanted to do was make him talk.
"So, you're selling your house?"
"It was my grandma's," he said.
"Oh." She wished she'd left at the end of the transaction as pain from impending tears crawled into her throat. "I'm sorry."
He shook his head. "Nursing home."
"Still sad."
The army green metal cash box he put her payment in reminded Kat of what her mom used when her family held a carport sale. While Kat and her sister carried boxes of toys and clothes from the house, her parents took nickels and dimes from people who walked off with pieces of their home. They sat outside together no matter how hot the weather got, no matter how many customer-free periods went by, no matter how much Kat and her sister begged to go inside and watch TV.
Every person in the man's house acted like a stranger.
"You're doing this by yourself? The sale?" she asked.
He nodded with a wan smile and leaned his elbow on the back of the chair.
"Where's the rest of your family?" she asked, and sighed. "I'm sorry, it's none of my business. I'll just go wait for my friend." She picked up the jewelry box and pressed against the table as three people walked behind her through the front door.
"They couldn't be here," he said, flipping the calculator over and over. "Kind of a long story."
Kat stared at him, a smile twitching at her lips, when Bridget shouted in her ear, "Oh my god, look at this lamp!"
Purple stained glass flowers formed the lampshade over a curved bronze base, and Kat barely missed clipping it with her nose. The cord wrapped around Bridget's hand. "Is this not the best lamp in the world? Six bucks! I'm buying it for you." She set the lamp on the table, dug through her bag, pulled out a five and stopped. "Crap monkeys. Can I borrow a dollar?"
"Don't worry about it," the man said, smiling as he put the five in the till.
The angular lips, the wide-set eyes, even the way he formed his words came from someone she'd seen hundreds of times. She squinted and his casual-wear faded into a high-collared suit, as though shopping for antiques made her imagine everything being from 1915. Picturing him in black and white, she almost had a name on her tongue.
To avoid staring more than she already had, Kat quickly handed him a dollar.
"Way to go, you. Get back on that horse," Bridget said halfway through the yard, kicking as many leaves as possible.
"What?"
"You were totally flirting with that guy."
"Because I gave him a buck when he said he didn't want it?" She pulled up her hood. From their angle across the street, she couldn't see the man through the door or window.
Bridget put the lamp in the cluttered backseat. "Because I'm the frigging queen of flirting and I know it when I see it."
"He was cute." She sat in the passenger seat, keeping the box on her lap.
"You can put that in the back."
"That's okay."
Bridget sat behind the wheel and laughed. "Oh my god! That wasn't his, you know. Unless he's a transvestite. Or Norman Bates. Either way, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be interested in you."
"Bridget, can we just go home? I'm about to pass out." She pressed her fingers over her eyelids. Jeremy had started out much the same way: an introduction from a friend, "accidental" hand touching, giddy, stupid conversation, and accusations of flirting from Bridget. "Sorry."
"You're so easy to mess with." Bridget started the car and picked a CD from the visor. All That Jazz from Chicago made the atmosphere far more awake than it really was.
"You know," Kat said, "transvestites aren't necessarily gay."
Bridget glanced sidelong at Kat without a word, a silence which Kat took to be disbelief.
"Have you never watched Eddie Izzard do standup?" Kat continued. "Did he remind you of anyone?"
"Eddie Izzard?"
She sighed. "The guy in there."
"Maybe he's from your dreams." She kissed the air.
"Never mind."
"I've never seen him before in my life. But I don't know. Maybe he's a big fan of … Philadelphia. I'm tired." She turned the music up and sang along, rid of the stress she'd taken from work.
Chapter 2
In Philadelphia, Kat would have woken cold, her covers cocooned around Jeremy while either the air conditioner ran full blast, or the windows whipping freezing winter air into the apartment. She didn't mind the cozy sleep, if he didn't steal her blankets each night. Stretched diagonally in her bed a thousand miles away, still uncovered, the thing she missed the most was having Jeremy cuddled beside her, snoring quietly in her ear.
Despite being alone in the bed, Kat woke with a presence in the room. The alarm clock beside the bed blazed 5:30 p.m. in bright red numbers. Stirring enough to move off a wrinkle in the blanket, she picked up the ringing cordless phone lying on the nightstand.
"Hello."
"Where are you?" The familiar voice on the other end bit each word, and Kat closed her eyes again, surprised the call hadn't come sooner.
"Hi mom. I was just gonna call you." She tried to sound cheerful, as though nothing bad had happened. As though she hadn't just woken up in the afternoon.
"Like hell you were gonna call me. I've been trying to find you for three days. Worried sick."
Kat rubbed her face, swung her legs over the side of the bed. Half a bowl of cereal sat on the nightstand from before she fell asleep. "I didn't mean to worry —"
"Jeremy called me." She paused. "Middle of the night, three days ago. Haven't slept since."
"What did he tell you?"
"That he hasn't seen or heard from you in two weeks. And he waited until three days ago to tell me." She stopped for her characteristic dramatic effect. "You still think he's husband material?"
Instead of arguing again that she and Jeremy weren't married and having mom come back with the same tired argument that living together made them emotionally espoused, she said, "I'm back in Memphis." Kat stirred the cereal and deemed it too soggy to finish.
"Back in —!"
Kat thought she'd hung up. The pause irritated her more than anything her mom could have said. Kat imagined her standing in the kitchen, tight lipped, hand on hip, eyes becoming red in what would soon be a wet slick down her face. The tone was what Kat and her sister called "The Wrath of Mom." As usual, Kat would listen a few minutes, no matter how scathing, and wait for the crying and apologizing to start.
"You couldn't even call me?"
"I wasn't ready to talk to anyone, Mom. I'm sorry."
"What's there to talk about?" Mom continued through her teeth. "I never wanted you to move in with that asshole — excuse me: young man."
"It's okay to say asshole," Kat muttered.
"You could have moved in with your dad and me if you were coming back to Memphis. Where are you?"
Kat sighed. If she gave her address, she could expect a visit. "You know where Bridget lives? In Bartlett near Whitten Road?"
The line was silent, but her mom was familiar with the sprawling complex. Kat used to mention wanting to live there every time they drove past the forest-like landscape around the buildings.
"How'd you get my number?"
"Do you know how many Katrina Shergills are out there? One. You."
"So, White Pages? Google?"
"Let's just say I have friends too."
Kat walked her mushy cereal to the kitchen and took the quart of strawberry yogurt from the fridge.
"Did he do something to you?" Mom continued.
"I'm just not ready to talk about it."
"Will you ever be?"
Kat put the yogurt on the counter, leaned against the sink and lied, "I'm getting late for work."
"Can I see you?" The tears started.
"Soon."
She wrestled her mom off the line and plopped on the sofa. No sooner had she gotten the TV tuned to a rerun of The Simpsons, the phone rang again, this time with Bridget on the caller ID.
"Hey Bridget. Guess who I just talked to?"
"The guy at the estate sale?"
Kat squeezed her eyes closed, trying to make sense of the comment as she shook the sleep from her head. "My mom."
"Oh."
"At least I got two weeks of peace before she found me."
A long pause.
"Bridget?"
"I didn't know you were avoiding her. I was gonna ask if you wanted to go to the phone place with me."
"Did you give her my number?"
"I knew you were avoiding Jeremy, not your mom." She sighed. "I was actually talking to her when I dropped my phone in the toilet, so serves me right, I guess."
Kat laughed. "My mom stays up past nine o'clock?"
Bridget huffed and said, "She called me. Come on, go to the store with me."
"I'm gonna hang here tonight. I'm beat."
Bridget conceded in the interest of saving time before the store closed and Kat hung up as a medication commercial ran its laundry list of side effects. She scraped the few spoons of yogurt from the container and returned to her bedroom to change into fresh clothes.
Kat realized she should have gone with Bridget; since her mom now had her number, she'd never have another peaceful moment until she'd given the last sordid detail to every relative in town — and they were many. To avoid Jeremy, she hadn't answered for anyone except Bridget, and wished her judgement hadn't lapsed on the last call.
On cue, the line rang again and Kat returned to the handset on the couch to glance at the caller ID. 215 number. Jeremy.
"God damn it." Kat reached behind the side table and unplugged the phone base. The interrupted ring left the room in buzzing silence as she slid down the wall to crouch on the floor. For two years her mom wouldn't even call Jeremy by his name, and now she'd given him her number at the worst possible time. As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she realized it couldn't be true; someone else must have supplied the number. Though keeping the phone unplugged wasn't a permanent fix, the disconnect would give her time to come up with a plan.
She drew a deep breath, got up and continued to the bedroom. As an alternative to throwing something, she approached the cheap dresser she'd picked up at GoodWill and lifted the lid of the jewelry box she'd bought that morning. Most of the tarnished pieces would never leave their velvet cubbies, but Kat fished around until she found a small crystal cross on a browned silver chain. It was the type of thing Jeremy never would have given her because almost nothing about it was perfect. If the crystals weren't flawless diamonds, out. If the sheets weren't 1500 thread count, out. If she left a spot on a dish, out.
She clasped the chain around her neck and went to the bathroom to check the mirror. After a little polish, it would look brand new. The necklace combined her religious symbol (something Jeremy didn't share), with heirloom quality (something Jeremy didn't tolerate).
Instead of giving that turd any more thought, Kat squared her shoulders and tried to make the light over the sink catch the crystals. If she pretended the guy at the estate sale had given the piece to her, it would be sort of like fabricating new memories, which Bridget had suggested at the sale.
Since he hadn't recognized her, Kat wondered if she might have seen him on TV. None of her favorite shows were filmed in Memphis, but there was no telling where this guy was from. She hadn't been in town long enough to see many local commercials — but his face wasn't one to sell used cars. It was meant to emote in a way modern movies rarely did.
Kat fingered the chain, frowning at her reflection. "Modern movies," she whispered, and the answer came to her.
In the guise of "getting rid of some old crap," Kat had been able to mail boxes of DVDs, CDs and clothes to Bridget during the two days Bridget was driving from Memphis to Philly. With the move from Philly to Bridget's couch to the unit two doors down Kat now occupied, much of the unpacking remained on her to do list. Kat ripped the tape from a large cardboard box in the corner of the bedroom, uncovering stacks of DVDs, and rummaged until she found the right one.
Frederic Schiller featured prominently on the cover, a less famous silent movie star, but Kat's favorite. He easily equalled Valentino's sex appeal, and died as early in life. Despite not having had any children due to his early exit, Schiller's face matched the man from the sale: same dark hair, same sad eyes, same angular lips. Though the resemblance could have been a result of her not having slept properly in weeks, the more she stared at the photo, the more she convinced herself she'd spoken with Schiller himself that morning.
Kat imagined what she would sell if she put her Gram in a nursing home. Her handmade quilts and shoe boxes full of scrap fabric and sewing supplies. That curio cabinet Kat wanted to put her dolls in when she was a kid. Travel books from the years spent in tours of foreign countries with other old ladies. Dining chairs with the curly pattern Kat used to trace with her finger while she should have been eating. Kat wouldn't have been able to do it alone. When she was a kid and her family finished a garage sale, with the fatigue of the day making them snap at each other, they'd pack whatever hadn't sold and either donate the stuff or shove it back in the attic. Even with four of them helping, they usually didn't finish until late that night.
The clock on her nightstand read 5:57. The customers would definitely be out of the man's house by now. Staring at Schiller's face on the DVD box, she figured the man had likely been up since three in the morning getting ready for the early birds. Worrying about strangers wasn't something she normally did, especially after having slept and eaten breakfast (dinner?), but the idea of going back to the house and offering to help seemed like the best way to spend her evening. Also, it served as a final "fuck you" to Jeremy, who discouraged helpful behavior, especially when it came to Kat interacting with other men.
She put the DVD back in the box, promising herself a mass-unpacking the next day. The necklace went back with the rest of the jewelry, and she applied mascara in the toothpaste speckled mirror. She needed to leave before she caved and plugged the phone back in. That part of her life was over.
Chapter 3
Kat stood in the narrow parking lot with the two story apartment behind her. An open, treed area separating the next row of units. Instead of feeling the pride of ownership as she stared at her latest big purchase, she wondered how long she'd have to drive the rusty station wagon before upgrading to something she wouldn't be caught dead in. Time hadn't made it better.
She almost hadn't bought the thing at all. With Bridget living two doors down, and owning a piece of crap car infinitely better than this one, Kat had hoped she'd catch rides with her everywhere. But as Bridget pointed out, their work schedules didn't always match, and Memphis wasn't a place where a car was a luxury. Kat emptied the seven hundred dollars she'd scraped together when Jeremy started being an ass and threw it away on the '88 Deathtrap.
Kat dug the keys from the bottom of her bag and struggled to identify which of the two opened the door. The door scraped open and clanged closed. Like Bridget's car, the stereo was the vehicle's only redeeming quality. As a consolation after their Covington Pike outing, Bridget took her to Best Buy and picked out the best sound system she could afford.
Kat plugged her iPod into the USB port, clicked forward three times, and landed on a Bollywood song she hadn't heard in a while. Another struggle told her the same key that opened the door didn't work in the ignition. Finally, the car shuddered to life and she cajoled it out of the complex.
The idea to return to the man's house seemed nice when Kat was at home, but as she drove up Macon and turned toward the subdivision, she realized that because Bridget had been driving that morning with Kat almost asleep, finding the house might be impossible. Even if she found him, anything she said might come across as creepy. Guilt at not having told anyone where she was going also gnawed her.
The car rumbled down the quiet neighborhood streets. Every landmark that would have guided her back to the house was gone. For Sale signs were sparse, but one finally pointed her to a two story home — one of the only ones on the block. She idled across the street and reached into her purse for the brochure Bridget gave her that morning, wishing she'd remembered it ten minutes before. The address confirmation on the page made her freeze in the seat, staring at the lighted windows before removing the key.
The sign inviting people inside had disappeared along with the crowd. Parked cars, tables in the driveway, customers—all gone. She zipped her jacket and got out of the car, folded her arms against a gust of autumn wind. A song she recognized but couldn't name drifted through the screen door. Initially, the room was empty of all but a few taped boxes, a CD player, and a table lamp on the floor. For almost a full minute, she studied the room through the screen, knowing she should either knock or walk away, but unable to do either.
Before turning away, the man entered through the doorway in the corner of the room with a large cardboard box in his arms and met her eyes. He stacked it on a growing pile, the weight sagging the tape below, and said, "Sorry, I didn't hear you."
Kat swallowed and dropped her arms to her sides. Words caught somewhere in her throat.
He dodged the few obstacles as he came toward her, smiling through dark circles. "I'm just packing everything up, but you can have a look at what's left if you want." He held the screen door open for her.
"Thanks." She stepped inside, brushing against him in the tight opening. Despite his probable long day, he smelled like shampoo, though his stubble suggested he hadn't shaved that morning.
"This way." He led her back through the door he'd come through to the dining room where Kat had found the jewelry box earlier. The table and chairs had been sold, leaving milk crates of LPs, stacks of plates, and box tops of sundry trinkets on the floor — enough to fill at least five of the boxes in the middle of the room advertising foods and toiletries on their sides.
The man sat in a folding chair away from the bulk of stuff, rested his elbows on his knees, and put off packing until she'd finished. For a moment, Kat awkwardly glanced at the sparse merchandise, flipped through the dusty vinyl records, but stalling compounded her nerves.
"Um, actually," she said, and he glanced at her. Those large eyes, dark lips, regal nose made her lose her words again. Put him in a tuxedo or a ruffled shirt and powdered wig and he would be a speaking, color version of Frederic Schiller.
He waited for her to say something.
"I was here earlier," she continued, and stumbled over a crate, which flopped the records back to one side. She smiled and tucked her long hair behind her ear, avoiding his eyes. "You said you were handling all this by yourself." She paused to read his confused expression. "I thought you might like a hand?"
For a few gigantic seconds, the question hung between them, backed by the 80s tune on the stereo in the next room.
He blinked and shifted in the chair. "I don't know what to say." He stood. "I'm Peter."
"Kat." She shook his hand, which was gentler than she expected.
"I can't imagine how crazy you are to do this, but thanks."
Introductions aside, a lot of work needed to be done, and now there was no graceful exit if Peter turned out to be a bad conversationalist.
"So basically," he said, crossing his arms, then rubbing his neck. For a moment he narrowed his eyes at her as though waiting for a renege before continuing, "No order to anything, just fill one box and start another."
"Simple enough."
"And," he passed his hand over his mouth, as though working out a non-weird way to say something, and held his hands circular, four inches apart. "If you find a tin about this big, flat, a little rusty, let me know. Don't pack it."
Kat nodded as she squat on the floor again. She picked up a book and placed it in the nearest open box. Usually, the first time she went to a person's house, she spent most of the time not disturbing anything out of respect for her host. Southern hospitality usually meant she needed only sit on the sofa and passively accept food and drink.
"I looked for it the entire week." Peter crouched opposite her and put in a stack of the presidential biographies Kat had eyed that morning. William Howard Taft looked slightly to the left on the uppermost cover, his custom-made bathtub his only contribution to her memory. "Sure make things easier if my Grandma remembered where it was." He chuckled.
Kat grinned and hid the president with a few more books.
"It's a film," he continued. "We only watched it once together." He chuckled, his eyes crinkling a little around the edges as he sighed. "Twenty-five years ago? I'm old." The crow's feet disappeared when his face relaxed. No gray flecked his brown hair, and his half-zipped sweatshirt over a black tee made him cute, not frumpy.
"What are you, thirty?" Kat asked.
"Thirty-five."
"That's not old." As Kat approached the big three oh, she tried to acknowledge the positive in the ages of her peers. If she believed thirty-five wasn't a big deal for someone close to her, maybe she wouldn't freak out when her own number changed. Five years had to be enough time to get ready.
"So, where are you from?" he asked, but when he brought out the inevitable question, his gentle voice and genuine expression made annoyance impossible.
She smiled and he mirrored her while she tried to put a fresh spin on the old answer. "My family is multiracial," she said. "My dad lived in India until he was about twenty; met my mom while she was in Mumbai on a mission trip. They had two weddings, one in each country, and settled down here, where I was born and raised."
"Was she successful in converting him?" He pulled a milk crate across the carpet towards them and picked up records five at a time.
After a childhood and adolescence wondering why her dad never went to church, yet fiercely proclaimed his love for Jesus without actually showing it, Kat resigned herself to the reality that he might only be putting on the front for her mother. She shrugged. "He tries to be a Christian, but I think he still loves Hinduism. My mom gives him a hard time."
REM's Life's Rich Pageant headed off the next bunch of albums into the crate. "What about you?" he asked, without making eye contact.
"You can't force someone to believe something. I pray for him."
"So you're a believer?"
She nodded, sorry she'd brought up the subject of her parents. The 80s tune changed to something electronic, giving her an easy change of subject. "I like the music you're playing."
He grinned. "I'm kind of a music nerd. Hence the synth-pop."
"It's cool." She hesitated. "I like New Wave stuff. Tears for Fears," she started, hoping to spout an impressive string of artists, but all she could think of was Rock me Amadeus, and that wasn't a band.
"I found this group in Germany."
"Oh yeah?" she said. "I love to travel. Once a friend and I went to Canada on a crazy whim."
He laughed. "Really?"
She shrugged and taped the box closed. "We lost our passports and were sort of deported back into Canada until we could get replacements."
Peter's eyes widened and he nodded slowly. "I didn't think you needed a passport up there."
"The law changed a few years ago." She smiled. "We went right before —" before she and Jeremy met. She reached for another empty box. "Uh, right after they changed it."
Peter moved a stack of old copies of The Commercial Appeal from the far edge of the room and started wrapping the paper around the breakable things.
Kat curled her fingers around a small glass vase and shook a sheet of newspaper from the stack. "Is there anything I ought to know about you?" The question stumbled out of her mouth as the paper crinkled around the vase. "Things you've done or stuff you like?" She laughed. "I guess we're total strangers, huh?"
He didn't answer for a moment, his face twisting in consideration. "Not that I can think of," he said, as though thinking about the best way to approach a subject. "My favorite color is green." He didn't look at her for a moment, but a grin tugged his lips.
Nothing else he could have said would have been more disappointing. Kat concentrated on filling the box, but as she worked, her eye caught the sleeve of her hoodie: a bright, kelly green.
"I remember when she dragged me out shopping and bought these." Peter sat cross legged in front of the bedroom closet, cupping a pair of high heels in both hands. "I must have been six or seven. Not really my idea of fun, but she was supposed to be buying shoes for me and I wouldn't pick anything unless she did." Rustling the aged, yellow tissue paper inside the shoe box, he smiled at the receipt. "Yeah, seven."
The orange leather pumps weren't too dated, hadn't been abused or worn out. Kat was surprised they hadn't sold.
"I don't guess you want some heels?" Peter held one of them up.
"I kinda do," she said. "Are they an eight?"
"Six." He shrugged and placed the shoebox inside a larger one. "I guess she is kind of small." The rest of the shoes from the closet floor went in three and four at a time. "I feel like I've lost her already." He lowered his head, hiding his face, motionless a moment before standing and taking clothing, hangers and all, and folding them on top of the shoes. "I didn't want to do this," he said in little more than a whisper.
Kat wondered if he'd be more comfortable by himself than confiding in a stranger — if he only let her stay because he didn't know how to ask her to leave.
"People make fun and say they'll put their parents or grandparents in a home to keep from having to deal with them, but that's not what happened," he said, continuing to chuck things out of the closet without looking at them. "I wanted to keep her here, but I was scared all the time that I'd come home…"
"You don't have to explain anything to me," she said.
He smiled sadly. "I guess I haven't really talked to anyone about it. But you're right. You don't want to hear about all this."
She pulled a strip of tape from the gun. "It's good to have someone to talk to. People don't usually talk to me about meaningful things. My friend Bridget either goes off about guys or how some actor butchered a musical. My parents talk about their jobs and the gadgets that are old by the time they buy them." That or bitching about Jeremy, who preferred to get his frustration out physically. "I guess, I mean, I don't mind listening."
Peter smiled. "Alright, well, she's had this house for twenty years or so and I hate to sell the place. I pretty much grew up here as a teen." He kept his head down, focusing more on his work than on Kat. "And typical Grandma, she left my room just the way I had it."
Kat wanted to ask about his family, about why they hadn't shown up today, and why he'd grown up with his grandma. She wondered how many sleepless nights he'd had while making the decision to put his grandma in a home, deciding where to take her, how to pay the bill, if she had any say in the matter.
"Have you sold the house yet?" she asked during a quiet moment when they dragged the boxes together in the living room.
He shook his head. "I've had a few lookers, but the economy. You know." He dusted his hands and faced the kitchen. "I'd love to offer you a drink. I could sure use something myself, but we already packed the only glasses I had." He laughed through the mounting fatigue in his eyes. "I could only offer tap water, anyway."
"Don't worry about it," she said, and realized she should have offered to take him out. Under the circumstances, the suggestion wouldn't have seemed like a come on, but the longer she went without saying anything, the more awkward the question became until abandonment was the only option.
Peter contemplated the room, populated only by a mountain of about fifteen boxes, the CD player, and a few folding chairs. Kat thought he might wax philosophical about how someone's entire life fit into such a tiny space at the end, but he didn't.
"I'll take all this to the thrift store in the morning, and then it's done," Peter said, rubbing his eyes.
"If we used both our cars, we'd probably make it in one trip," Kat said. When he gave her an incredulous glance, she smiled, bracing herself for the inevitable laugh. "I drive a station wagon."
His eyes lit up. "Oh, excellent. Back it into the driveway."
By the time they dollied the boxes from the cars to the strip mall thrift shop, it was nearly ten. Kat and Peter leaned against their respective cars in the nearly empty parking lot, resting their aching shoulders and backs. With the darkness masking their exhaustion, Kat crossed her arms and checked out the rust in her new car's wheel wells. While in better condition than Kat's, Peter's Town Car was more suited for a much older person.
"Last time I was in a dark parking lot with a guy, things didn't turn out too well," she said.
Peter's grin morphed into a full-blown laugh. "I once took a girl to a park late at night. We were fooling around in the backseat … like you do. But when we got out to get back in the front, we shut the doors and locked the keys in the car. There was literally no one around for miles. This was before cell phones."
Kat giggled.
"Thank you so much for everything," he said, flexing his right hand as though contemplating a handshake or a hug, and dropping his arms by his sides. "I would have been doing this all day tomorrow if not for your help. I still don't understand why you did it, but thanks."
Kat shrugged and smiled. "I guess you reminded me of someone and ah…" the sentence dangled terminally. The only thing she was sure about the evening was that she'd be sore in the morning.
Peter grinned as he pulled out his wallet. "You're sweet."
"Oh, I don't want any money." She waved her hands.
He eyed her carefully.
"I just wanted to help," she said, but then wondered how much he would have given her. "Really."
He pocketed the wallet and sighed, signaling their imminent departure. "There should be more people like you." He took her hand, sandwiching it between his and squeezed. She stepped in and hugged him with her free arm and inadvertently inhaled at his neck, shutting her eyes as the soft, spicy scent hit her.
"So, ah, take— luck." She let him go. "Good luck."
He smiled and got into his car.
Chapter 4
Though the person in the plastic patio chair beside Kat's apartment door was about Bridget's size, Bridget wouldn't have been caught dead in the pastel shirt, mom jeans, and chunky, white running shoes. Kat's mother had found her. After two years of barely speaking and never visiting, she sat there uninvited, unannounced, and Kat's stomach shriveled.
Kat killed the engine, forcing the smile she'd worn all the way from the thrift shop to return before opening the door. The problem with her mom was that Kat couldn't be sure if the encounter would be more crying and hugging or yelling. The subject of guys always turned out badly even though Mom kept saying she wanted Kat to end up with a nice Christian man who made her happy. Every time Kat brought someone home, regardless of age or nationality, the response varied on the same theme: "Well. I guess I have to cook dinner, then," and Kat's mom would retire to the kitchen, where banging ensued.
Surprises happened just as often where Kat's mom embraced something unexpectedly. Letting Kat spend a week out of the country with Bridget was definitely something Kat thought she'd get an earful about, but instead her mom sat placidly on the sofa with a magazine, smiled, and said, "I hope you have the best time!"
Every homecoming, be it from a weekend sleepover, or a trip out of the country with her grandparents resulted in a big ol' hug and uncomfortable kisses from her mom. Dealings with men ended with tight-lipped yelling and allusions to having "failed as a parent." Kat had never dealt with both at the same time before, so with a fair buildup of anxiety, she gathered her purse and iPod, on which she'd been listening to her small collection of New Wave, and clanged the door behind her.
"Hey," she called as she climbed the stairs to her second-floor unit. "How'd you find the place?" The apartment complex sprawled across several blocks, with streets twisting between identical buildings. Kat had needed a few days before accurately navigating to her own unit.
"You're not the only one who can do a Google." The comment came out jovial, but experience told Kat to be wary. Her mom encased her in a thick hug as soon as Kat stepped onto the patio. "Why didn't you tell me you were coming back?"
Kat released her arms, signaling the end of the embrace, but her mom squeezed for another few seconds, moaning. Oh God, the huggasm. Kat reached for her keys and nudged her way to the lock.
"Is he here?" Mom asked, her voice dropped low as though someone were listening as she followed Kat inside.
Kat flicked on the kitchen light and dropped her purse on the counter, ignoring the question as she continued to the living room. She and her mom stared at each other from opposite sides of the sofa after the pleasantry of offering a drink. Like Peter, Kat could only offer tap water since her two liter of Coke ran out the day before.
"I didn't tell anyone I was leaving," Kat finally said, as the silence in the room became unbearable. The unplugged phone cord peeked from behind the side table. "Did you give him my number?"
"I would never do that."
Kat nodded. Of course not. When the introduction consisted of a muttered comment about having to order a pizza because she hadn't made enough dinner for company, Kat should have realized there would be no favors in the future. Jeremy had been a gentleman around Kat's parents, but her mom bristled at the mention of him until the day Kat walked out of her parents' home forever. Kat didn't think before accepting a new life in Philadelphia, if only to escape the hostile environment her home had become.
Oddly, she'd returned for the same reason.
"I didn't think I'd ever see you again," her mother continued.
"Maybe I —" she stopped. "I left and that's all you need to know."
Mom's lips tightened, and Kat felt a movie-influenced rant coming on. "You can tell me if something happened. If that sonofabitch," she whispered the cuss word, "did something to hurt you, I will go up there and kick his ass myself."
Kat tried to hide the grimace while struggling not to imagine her mom swinging her pudgy arms at an unalarmed Jeremy. She glanced at the microwave clock through the cutout to the kitchen. Usually, her parents went to bed at nine-thirty. Since Kat had been with Peter most of the evening, she guessed her mom had been sitting on the patio for hours.
"You can stay with your dad and me." She reached across the middle cushion to squeeze Kat's hand.
"I'm fine here. Why don't we plan for lunch on Sunday?"
Mom smiled at her openmouthed as though Kat had just awarded her a beauty prize. Kat averted her eyes and downed the rest of her water.
"I'd like that," Mom said, and her face flushed bright red, moistened around the eyes. "Your dad misses you."
Kat tried not to think about her dad with his sweet face and perpetual smile. He hadn't said a negative thing about the situation, though he would have been right, just like her mom. Quick with a hug and a Hindi term of endearment, Kat wasn't eager to see him because she knew she'd let him down. At least her mom made it easy to roll her eyes because of the theatrics. Dad was genuine.
"It's getting late, and I've been working a crazy schedule."
"You're kicking me out already?" Mom attempted a smile, but finally agreed to leave, provided Kat not forget to visit on Sunday. Maybe she'd invite some family over who hadn't seen Kat in a while. A great big you-should-have-listened party.
Kat closed and locked the door behind her mom and pulled her shirt off on the way to the bedroom. She changed into pajamas, grabbed the new jewelry box and tried not to let thoughts of her mother or Jeremy or extended family fizzle her brain.
She sat on the living room carpet and opened the box, blinked at its antique contents. Though she hadn't gone to Peter's house with an agenda — at least one she'd admit — good deeds weren't as satisfying as she'd hoped without an accompanying phone number. Sighing, she swept dust off the edge and nudged the velvet compartment. It wiggled, not connected to the sides. She gripped the divider and lifted the tray, revealing a rusty, grooved tin in a space underneath. Wedging her fingers around the tight fit, she pulled it halfway out before the halves separated, revealing a tightly coiled film.
She held her breath and stared at the glint of lamplight against the glossy negative. Film canisters on TV always seemed so much bigger, the strips miles long when unrolled. She eased the contents into her hand and pulled at the ribbon, a series of nearly identical pictures between perforated edges. Holding the strip up to the light didn't give much insight into the content of the film, but the people in it seemed to be dressed in period costumes from the twenties or thirties. Kat felt she'd just discovered something hidden and important. She wondered where she'd find a projector to play the thing and how soon she could get to it.
"Oh crap," she murmured, and quickly rolled the film back into the casing.
Driving through the dark streets for the sole purpose of seeing if a guy was home reminded her of her unrequited relationship with Matt Bauer, the guy from the church youth group she fell madly in love with when she was sixteen.
Instead of mastering the art of talking to another person without making an ass of herself or taking her friends on risky, newly licensed joyrides, she'd stand around the pool table in her church's youth center and watch the guys. Christian pop jangled in the overhead as they waited for the pastor to call them to their seats. That's when Matt showed up. He hardly had any pimples. His blonde hair parted down the center and flopped into his eyes like Jonathan Brandis', and she knew that if she could only say hi, they'd eventually get married.
She had to catch him after the lesson when most of the other guys left to eliminate competition. Matt hung around the pool table, shooting by himself. The first conversation was two words long, "Hi," "Hey," but left Kat giddy for the rest of the week. Since the ice was broken, she looked up his number in the youth group directory and practiced on the keypad a few days before pressing the buttons, but the only time she got him on the line, he was busy with an overload of homework.
Drives around town either alone or with friends always included a detour down his street, although she never spotted him through the windows or in the front yard.
She parked in Peter's empty driveway and let the engine idle a moment before shutting it off. Either he'd gone somewhere else — a house with a bed, perhaps — or he was tucked behind the dark windows, asleep. The grocery bag she'd put the film tin in crinkled when she grabbed it from the passenger seat. After jumping to see through the windows at the top of the garage door, and finding it empty, she went to the door anyway because she might as well.
Her phone rang as she pressed the doorbell. Without looking at the caller ID, she answered, "Hello?"
"Tadaa! New phone." It was Bridget.
"It's eleven o'clock. You got it just now?" Kat asked, speaking low without whispering. She pressed the doorbell again, listening to the muffled bing bong inside.
"No, at like seven," Bridget said.
"Where've you been?"
"Well, excuse me if you're not home for me to bother. Where are you? You're usually watching Conan by now."
Kat waited a few more seconds and stepped into the leafy yard to check for movement in the windows. She couldn't leave the film behind the screen door and hope he'd be back later.
"This phone is awesome," Bridget said, and chewed something. "I can't figure out how to use everything yet. The guy got all my numbers out, though, which was pretty miraculous."
"Did you tell him you dropped it in the toilet?"
Bridget huffed and crunched some more. "I didn't want him to touch a toilet phone if he didn't want to."
She didn't think she could leave the film in the mailbox — something about a law she couldn't remember. She knocked instead of trying the bell again.
"Guess who was at my place when I got back?" Kat asked.
"Back from where?"
"My mom. She was sitting in front of my door." She returned to the car and locked the door.
"Oh shit. I didn't tell her your address, I promise."
"She found me online." She paused. "I can't figure out how that's possible."
"Well, did you renew your driver's license? Hell, you probably shouldn't have gotten the land line. Did you tell her why you're here?"
Kat sighed. The street was quiet as though no one lived in the surrounding houses. "I can't."
"She might be able to help."
"There's nothing she can do. I won't give her the satisfaction. I'd rather let her think I left for my own reasons." She paused. "At least there's dignity this way."
"Yeah," Bridget said. "Seriously, though, where are you? It's eleven freaking o'clock. Everything open is bad news, according to my dad, in which case, you should have invited me."
Kat started the car and rolled down the street. At least having Bridget with her in spirit kept her from focusing on her botched adventure. She wondered if Peter would find a Missed Connection ad if she placed one.
Chapter 5
You: packing the remnants of an estate sale on Valley Glen Drive. Me: helping for no apparent reason. I found the film you were looking for.
The worst part about working the Vampire shift was that apart from Bridget, Kat had had very little human interaction since moving back to Memphis. Bridget still had college buddies she went drinking and sleeping with, two activities Kat thought better about participating in for the time being, which left Kat stuck either in front of her computer or TV, or in extreme cases, at the twenty-four hour Walmart.
The solitude of those first two weeks after two years of not having any privacy was a welcome relief in most respects. She left her belongings, however few, in the living room and returned to find them where she left them, not commandeered or thrown in the trash. Though her computer no longer had a key-logger, thanks to a few hours spent with Bridget's IT brother, and she was free to search whatever she wanted, Kat couldn't shake the feeling she was being watched, that someone was going to burst through the door. The baseball bat she kept under her bed wouldn't help if someone startled her in the living room.