The Perfect House (2 page)

She grabbed the fork, the skin of her hands flaked and ashen. “As always, you’re exaggerating,” she grumbled, moving the hand out of her sight. “I know that you do it because you try to protect me, but sweetie… You’re suffocating me. I’m only tired.
However
…” She paused for dramatic effect. “I’ve already hired three teams of contractors. They do most of the heavy lifting. Do you want me to hire a fourth? I’ll do it, if that’s what it takes to get you off my back. The house is cleaning up very nicely, you surely have noticed
that
.”

Tyler steepled his hands in front him, frowning at her untouched plate. “Yes, I have. You did an
astonishing
work. Knocking down most of the interior walls and rebuilding the rooms. You redefined the house… took a pile of collapsed bricks and holed roofs and turned them into a house. I would have never believed it possible. That building seems to bloom under your touch. What worries me is that this project of yours drains you of energy. The better the house looks, the worse you look.”

She poked the crepes with her fork, then shoved the plate away. “Thank you, sweetie. I think you look great too.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it. You don’t look just tired. You look
sick
—purple circles under your eyes and…” He paused in search of an appropriate word, balling his fingers into fists. “
Hollow
. Your eyes are
hollow
. Like you’ve been ill for months and lost way too much weight.”

She moaned and threw her napkin next to the silverware. “I can’t eat this. I’m just stressed out, because…” Her words waned off.

“Because
what
, Lydia? What’s going on? Talk to me, please!”

“The dreams,” she whispered, her eyes insisting to study the tablecloth. “I’m having weird dreams. Then I wake up more tired than when I went to bed.”

He circled the table and kneeled next to her. “Tell me.”

“Actually they are
beautiful
dreams. The house is talking to me. He is-”

“He?” Tyler interrupted her, an eyebrow raised.

Outside a bird called its mate, with flute-like trills. “In my dreams, the house is a man, not much different than you.” She omitted the part where Phrixus represented the Photoshopped version of her fiancé, thrice improved. “He tells me he’s my twin. That my love for him gives him strength and beauty. They are lovely dreams, truly, but… In the morning I’m worn out, worse than after a day of heavy lifting or wall priming. If anything, the work makes me feel better.”

“I’m no doctor, but, honey, this sounds like a stress-related issue. You dream about the house because all you can think of is the damn house. How about you let the contractors do their job and the two of us go on a vacation. I can call my boss and take a couple of personal days. Stick them next to a weekend and we can have a decent outing. What do you think?”

彡彡彡

Lydia drove the paint roller up and down, up and down, until her arm muscles started to cramp. The movement had a hypnotic quality, sending her mind in swirls of nothingness. Up and down. Up and down. After days of pondering, she had chosen for the living room a golden peach. The color brought the entire space to life, instilling a feel of cheerfulness.

“Isn’t this posh?” Tavia, her best friend gushed, yanking her out of her trance.

“You think so?”

“Definitely, my dear,” Marvin, Tavia’s husband concurred. “When you bought this junkyard, I thought you lost your minds, but, my gosh, is this
amazing
! Do you need any help? Tav and I would gladly give you a hand.”

Tavia threw her arms around Lydia’s neck. “Please, please, please… Both of us are in
loooove
with this place.”

With her paint-splattered hands as far away from the other’s dress, Lydia relaxed in her friend’s embrace. “Of course, you can help me. I need all the support I can get.”

“Lovely, dear. You do look like you could use a break.”

Lydia’s hand shot up to the corner of her eye, unconcerned that she coated her skin with a fresh layer of paint. “What do you mean?” Without realizing, she patted the delicate skin. This morning, the mirror had issued a horrid warning—crow's-feet.
I’m only twenty-five. I cannot
possibly
have crow's-feet,
she had protested. Now, she only repeated “What do you mean?” while Marvin made a show of studying the groundwork of a water wall.

“Nothing, dear. You only need to take better care of yourself. I believe something in this paint or whatever you’re using affects your skin. Here, here. No need to feel so self-conscious. I can get you an appointment with my beautician tomorrow, first hour. I bet Tyler would like that too.”

With a reproachful frown and a hurt cast, Tyler’s face invaded her mind. Last night they had fought for the first time since they had become a couple. “This isn’t a whim,” Lydia had yelled. “This is my childhood dream.” They had shouted and shrilled and she had left his house with tears streaming down her face. She had driven to
her
house and crawled inside a sleeping bag, lied straight on the cold marble floor. When at last sleep had overcome her, it was
the other
whom she had dreamt—Phrixus. “You’re doing the right thing,” he had said, flashing a set of teeth that would have made any dentist seethe with envy. “Tyler is jealous that he has no part in our relationship.”

“-dear?” someone said from far away. “Are you all right?”

“Yes and yes. I’ll see your beautician. I think something around here is damaging my skin. Weird because I buy only the best stuff. I even asked a couple of contractors to double-check the house and the supplies. They assured me that everything is safe.”

“You’re probably more sensitive,” Marvin chimed in. “How about you give us a tour, then we go out for lunch?”

Lydia stretched her spine, trying to ignore the cramps that pestered her. Something in her body felt rusted. It had felt rusted for a few days now, though she couldn’t remember when it had started. “Yes, lunch break sounds like a great idea.”

彡彡彡

“There is nothing supernatural about this house,” Madame Astera, fortuneteller and psychic medium emerita, declared.

Crestfallen, Lydia’s face beseeched the woman to change her conclusion. She had assembled this meeting specially for Tyler, in an attempt to persuade him that her house
was
special. Yet, now that the expert had spoken, Lydia realized that it had been her all along who had yearned to hear that verdict. “Are you sure? I mean, you didn’t take any measurements, like they do on TV.”

Her fiancé tried to massage the tension out of his neck, feeble hope considering his frown. He opened his mouth to say something, but Madame Astera interrupted him. “I don’t need to dress like a clown and parade some measuring stick to be a medium. I
am
one. This means that I feel the emotions, which surround places and people. Well, this house is bursting with
love
. If there is something unusual about this place, it’s the amount of love that radiates from it.”

“Which makes it
non
-supernatural?” Lydia grumbled, reaching for a croissant, then pushing it away.

“If you were a happy spirit from across the veil, would you willingly cross over to this hell? All supernatural beings we encounter in this world are depressed, dislodged, or angry spirits. Forget the children stories about angels and protectors. The only ones who ever come here are the criminals from the other side.”

“Even I refuse to believe that,” Tyler countered, eliciting a grateful look from Lydia.

“All right,” Madame Astera conceded, taking a bite of her own croissant. “Maybe there are exceptions every millennium or so, when a good spirit gets lost in this world.
I
’ve never felt one, nor have I heard of anyone reliable who mentioned one. To all who’ve really felt it, supernatural means hatred, fear, or anger. This house of yours is a temple of love.
Your
love, Ms. Jordan. I feel it all around me. And whatever you hope to hear, I don’t think your house hosts some straggled angel. Because all supern-”

“
Thank
you, Madame Astera,” Lydia interrupted her explanation. “That was very enlightening. The check is in the entrance hall. Take it on your way out.”

The medium flashed the exasperated look of a grandmother, whose favorite grandchild just blundered an easy task.  “I don’t need your money, Ms. Jordan. Before I leave, let me ask you something. Other than the dreams, had there been anything else that made you believe your house is haunted?”

Lydia touched the edges of her eyes, where fresh wrinkles had ensconced in her skin. “The graffiti… When I bought the house, someone had painted on every wall ‘
Die
.’ Also…” Tyler gasped, but Lydia refused to make eye contact. “Then one day, the inscriptions scrambled into…” She hesitated until her fiancé whispered “Honey?”

“The new inscription said ‘
Run
.’ ”

Tyler stretched to hug her, shaking his head. “Did you wear a face mask, honey? If you inhaled some of the old paint, that could explain the hallucinations.”

“They weren’t
hallucinations
,” Lydia yelled, reaching for the closest object and hurling it into the wall. “Out! Both of you, out. You can tell all your obnoxious friends that the wedding is cancelled. Don’t ever speak to me again.
Out!
Get the hell out of my house.”

彡彡彡

Lydia shuffled behind the curtain. In the dark, no one could peek at her from the outside, neither her parents, nor Tyler, nor Madame Astera. Four months had passed by since that accursed meeting with the medium, during which all who fancied themselves
loved ones
had taken turns at harassing her. Why didn’t they understand that she didn’t want to leave her house? That she didn’t want to see them? If not for them, she would have almost forgotten the outside world. Drowning her sorrow in work, she had moved, painted, selected, and discarded, completing the renovations in record time.

The house was done.
Her
house. Her beloved
perfect
house.

Only Tavia and Marvin had been permitted to visit her now and then—until she had ended their interference as well. Today though, Lydia wished they were the ones skulking in the yard. Alas, it was Tyler again, proclaiming his love and reiterating his support with loud declarations yelled from the front yard. If she were honest to herself, she ached for his touch, for his care. But it had been his jealousy that had ruined everything. His insane jealousy on a
house
. How deranged is that!

She staggered away from the window, her legs too frail to scamper. The mirror in the corner tried to break the resolve of her decision, before she averted her eyes.
It was worth it. Everything was worth it. Tyler, the job, her parents, her…

She couldn’t complete the thought and for several moments her eyes dashed back towards the mirror. The woman who stared back at her whispered “It was worth it. You have the perfect house.”

“You bet,” Lydia gurgled back, her heart brimming with delight. Under her fingers, the construction had metamorphosed into an architectonic and interior-design wonder. Even she admitted that the transformation seemed a bit too impressive. It was as if the return on her investment had been not only three hundred percent, but three thousand percent.

A commotion, coming from outside, forced Lydia to wiggle back to the window. She squeezed her eyes, trying to focus on the blurred image. “Are those Tavia and Marvin? What are they doing here, talking to the Police?”

The salvage dance of the red and blue lights filled her field of view with black spots. The flashers blinded her and the sirens deafened her, scattering her thoughts away. Recently she had been so exhausted that sometimes she found difficult to focus on any idea longer than a few moments.

Her head bobbed up and down, the neck too weak to support its weight. Through the haze of fatigue and bi-color beams, she distinguished a shape arguing with the police officers. “Is that… Tyler? Is he fighting with Tavia?”

For a reason she couldn’t explain, fear crawled inside her, bringing with it the musty smell of sweat.
‘RUN’
the inscriptions had said. No! The writer had lied. Whoever had vandalized her house
had to have
lied. Still, now when she wanted to run, her legs refused to budge. Cold crept up her fingers, arms, torso, then down her spine. She shivered and turned away, whatever energy she had left fighting to uproot her feet.

All around her, the house exuded joy. That fact was certain—she noticed it in the excitement of the decorative ceiling fan, in the brightening of the paint color, in the speeding of the water wall, even in the aroused frolic of the sparks inside the fireplace. Above all, she could
feel
it.