Three Story House: A Novel (19 page)

“It shows,” Elyse said, trying to head off the discussion from veering into questions about the photograph. “Everyone’s coming. I’ve got Lizzie setting up hotel rooms, although we might stay with Gram, and she’s figuring out flights right now.”

Daphne squealed. “Can you believe I’m actually getting married? I can’t wait to hang out with everyone now that we’re all grown up. I told Landon I’d need at least three nights out with the girls—one for you and the cousins, one for my college friends, and one for my high school girls. We’re gonna party!”

“Yes,” Elyse said, not sure if she were agreeing to the night out or acknowledging that her sister had spoken. She looked at the girl behind the counter, who held up several styles of note cards and mouthed “my designs” to Elyse.

“Wait until you see the wedding dress. I wish you lived here. At the bridal shop for the fitting, there was a whole roomful of brides with their sisters and their mothers and their aunts. And everyone kept remarking on how strange it must be when I told them I was getting married before my older sister.”

“It’s not that unusual,” Elyse said, her voice becoming strained even as she tried to sound flip. “This isn’t an Austen novel or, heaven forbid, the Bible. No one is going to make Landon marry me and then wait another seven years for you.”

The girl behind the counter wasn’t even pretending not to eavesdrop. She thumbed through a few more of her personal note cards and pulled out one with a red and orange design on the front.

“Oh, sweetie,” her mother said. “You’ll find someone. We’ve got to get you back home where the eligible bachelors are.”

“The right someone,” Daphne added. “I’m sending you a photo of the dress fitting so you’ll feel like you were there. Love ya!”

Elyse didn’t say goodbye. A few seconds later her phone buzzed and a picture of her sister in a wedding dress appeared on the screen with the text, “Yay! Me!”

“She’s pretty,” the girl behind the counter said.

“My sister,” Elyse said.

“I don’t suppose she needs—”

“Already sent.”

“Of course, of course. I however have found you the perfect statement card,” she fanned out several of the red and orange cards. “Red is definitely your color. These are one-of-a-kind—like little pieces of art, handmade by
moi
and for you today only twenty percent off on account of our grand opening sale.”

“Grand opening,” Elyse echoed, bringing out her wallet.

“Do you want them personalized? I can add your name. It’s very popular. Or even your sorority. Were you in a sorority? I’m Chi Omega. I think it’ll add to the handcrafted sentiment of stationery. Make it personalized—that’s what Daddy told me. If this is going to work, I needed to personalize all of it.”

“No,” Elyse said handing over her credit card. “These are fine the way they are. Right now what I need most is a little anonymity.”

“Ahhh.” The girl boxed the cards and leaned across the counter. “You must have something up your sleeve. Besides, life’s better with a little mystery, especially if it’s handwritten.”

F
ew women know how to fall out of love. Elyse didn’t. In truth, she didn’t know much of anything about love except that it mattered in that same soul-crushing way that God used to matter to whole populations of people. She lifted the hair from the back of her neck and waved it, trying to dry the sweat that ran down her back. How did people think in this heat? In Boston, June was light breezes and sunshine, but in Memphis it smelled like sweat and sour garbage. Maybe she’d feel differently if Spite House had proper air conditioning. Glancing at the inefficient window unit, she cursed and then curled her body around the letter she was writing as if concealing test answers. She carefully printed Landon’s name in block lettering, looking up after each letter to be sure no one had snuck up on her. She was supposed to be by herself in the house, but everyone’s schedule was too erratic for guaranteed aloneness.

She continued writing and eyeing the back door—her ears attuned for footfalls or the bumping of a tire against the curb. During one of these furtive glances, she caught sight of the top of Benny’s head through the glass of the back door. Before he could see her, she turned the red and orange note card face down and crumpled several pieces of notebook paper with scribbling on them. Then, as he raised his hand to knock, she opened the door, hoping he wouldn’t want to come in. A blast of heat and the sweat dripping from his nose nearly wilted her resolve not to invite him in, but glancing behind her at the atlas open on the table, she merely greeted him, waiting for him to explain what it was he needed.

“Ma’am,” Benny said, looking past her. He was searching, Elyse thought, for someone with authority—either Lizzie, who paid him, or even Isobel, who’d improbably become like a boss to him. He swallowed, stepped back, and took off his hat. She’d never seen the top of his head before and watching him run his fingers along the edge of his baseball cap as if he were looking for a way to tear it open, she saw that the hair near the crown of his head was noticeably thin. The spot on his neck seemed more purple than usual.

“They’re not here,” she said to preempt his question and hurry him along. She felt the sweat trickle down the back of her knee. How on earth could Southerners be so slow to get at what they needed in the face of such heat?

Benny cleared his throat. “Have they seen it?”

“Seen what?” Elyse let her impatience show by keeping the screen door shut between them.

He took a yellow piece of paper from his back pocket and unfolded it. “We missed the deadline to renew our TOP.”

Elyse blinked at him several times. The acronym didn’t mean much to her.

“Temporary occupation permit.” He put the hat back on and gestured at the house. “So you can stay here during the work.”

She cracked the screen door and extracted the permit from Benny’s hand. He had unusually long fingers for a man—and they appeared to be more delicate that one would anticipate based on how he made his living. Of course, if Isobel were here, she’d joke that Benny’s version of working with his hands meant hiring someone else’s hands to do the actual labor. She read over the yellow paper, taking note of the court date, and then refolded it, shoving it deep into the wide pocket of her wrap skirt before raising her eyes to his. “Is this bad?”

He took a handkerchief from his back pocket, shoved the brim of his hat up, and wiped his forehead. “I—uh. I’m not—”

The sweat pooled at the small of her back. She locked her knees—giving them no chance to buckle as the heat enveloped her. “I’ll tell them,” she said, starting to push the door closed. In the distance, she thought she heard rubber brush against concrete.

Benny nudged the screen door open with his elbow and stuck his foot inside the door before she could fully close it. “I need to look at that panel,” he said, “to see if it’s ready for the HVAC guys who are coming in tomorrow.”

Elyse stepped back. He smelled like sawdust and gasoline. With his baseball cap back on, his most prominent feature was his large roman nose, so straight and solid. “So, that’s actually happening? It’ll be a relief to have central air.”

“You looked a little peaked. Is the window unit not working?” Without waiting for an answer, he walked to the air conditioner in the corner of the room and made a few adjustments. The air stirred her papers on the kitchen table. “That ought to be better for you,” he said before exiting into the hall.

Elyse stared after him, watching the beaded curtain rustle where he’d walked through. Sitting at the table, she put her hand firmly on the card she’d been writing and let the noticeably cooler air wash over her. She read over what she’d been writing. Would her gambit work? Of course she shouldn’t be doing it, but her hand, as if it held its own free will, sealed the note, deliberately unsigned, and addressed the matching envelope to Landon in her disguised handwriting.

Benny called to her from the hallway. “The lights may go out.”

She replaced the cards in their original box and tucked the one for Landon into her skirt pocket. Standing at the stove, she turned on the gas and lit the bundle of crumpled paper on fire, watching it burn a moment before tossing it in the sink. It had taken her six pages to figure out what she’d wanted to write—trying to be coy and interesting was more work than she’d imagined. Leaving the ashes in the sink, she entered the hall and stood next to Benny at the new electrical box Elton had installed a few months earlier.

“The current isn’t quite right,” Benny said, flipping the switches in order, checking the power to different parts of the house. The lights went out in the hallway where they stood, and he turned to her. “I promise I’ll fix this,” he said.

She stepped back. It had seemed to her that he spoke directly about her problems, the ones she was running from. “Fix what?” she asked.

“The permit, the electric, all of it.” He leaned his head against the wall, forgetting to flip the switch to bring the hall lights back up and looked at her through half-closed eyes.

Elyse saw that he was drunk. “You should go home.”

“Don’t fire me,” he said.

“We wouldn’t,” she said, realizing as the words left her mouth how automatic they sounded. “Besides, I would have thought that T. J. would have told Lizzie about the TOP.”

“It’s not the boy’s fault—he’s not in Hoot’s court all that often.”

“Whose fault is it?”

Benny looked as if he couldn’t draw a full breath. “It wasn’t on purpose. I had it, and I thought I’d give it to Lizzie after I took care of it. I mean, I’m the one who understands this house and all of the secrets the old girl is keeping.”

“I know you do,” Elyse said, taking another step away from him, but at the same time wanting to lean past him and flip the circuit breaker to bring up the overhead lights.

The rattle of keys in the back door quickened Elyse’s heart.

“Who’s home?” Isobel asked, parting the beaded curtain and clomping along the hallway. “I’ve got good news. The very best sort.”

With one quick motion, Elyse reached around Benny and flipped the switch, flooding the hallway with light.

Isobel threw her arm up against the sudden brightness, which gave Elyse the opportunity to grab Benny’s arm and drag him toward the front door. She felt protective, knowing that if Isobel discovered he was drunk, she’d fire him on the spot and find some way to oversee the project herself. And the last thing any of them needed was Isobel in charge. Besides, she thought, it was in Lizzie’s best interests if Benny stayed on the project as long as possible, even if he had screwed up on the permit.

“Is he feeling all right?” Isobel asked, after watching Elyse shove Benny out the front door.

“No,” Elyse said, fishing the paper out. “He feels guilty because Lizzie has to go through another one of those ridiculous court hearings to get permission to live in her family’s own house.”

As if on cue, Lizzie stepped through the beaded curtain. “You left the back door open,” she said to them. “That’s the sort of carelessness that explains our utility bills.”

“I wanted the fresh air,” Isobel said. “I can still smell that poison you keep laying down to try to kill all the ants in that kitchen. It tickles my nose.”

“It’s odorless,” Lizzie said, returning to the kitchen.

“Not to the ants,” Isobel said. She lowered her voice and turned toward Elyse. “You going to tell her about the permit?”

Elyse shrugged. Isobel had never been able to stomach conflict. In her mind, Elyse held a perfect picture of her cousin as a child, holding her hands over her ears in response to any discipline administered by any adult. Or maybe that had been in her television show. Sometimes, the two bled together in her memory, the television version of Isobel, with her scripted problems and solutions, becoming the cousin she played with at the beach.

Instead of telling Lizzie the bad news, Elyse palmed the yellow paper and passed it to her as if she were tipping a concierge.

Lizzie looked at it without comment, pulled her cell phone from her pocket and sent a short text message. While she was typing, Isobel returned to the kitchen and Elyse followed her.

“They’re getting serious, you know,” she said, nodding toward Lizzie.

“Who?” Elyse asked.

“That code officer, the one with the shaved head.”

“We’re not serious,” Lizzie said, setting her phone aside and tapping a rhythm out on the table. “We’re friends.”

“That’s what everyone says these days,” Elyse said.

“Everyone I know isn’t dating and then one day out of the blue they’re engaged—telling me how it was like
When Harry Met Sally
.”

“He hasn’t slept over,” Lizzie said as if that were a distinction that mattered.

Isobel fluffed and then smoothed her hair so that, rather than parting it in the middle, she slanted it to one side so a part of her hair covered her eyebrow and forehead. “They’re going to broadcast the special at the end of August.”

“Congratulations,” Elyse said, wondering if she should comment on the length of time between now and when it would be shown.

Lizzie clapped her hands together. “This is exactly what you need.”

“I haven’t seen it, but my agent said they ended up making me the tease.”

“The tease?” Elyse asked.

“You know, the interesting story that you watch the whole show for. Stay tuned and all that nonsense.”

Lizzie brought her hand to her mouth as if it were a microphone. “You’ll never believe what America’s sweetheart has gotten herself into way down South. Coming up after the break a hunka, hunka burning house.”

Isobel giggled. “More like Spite House rock.”

“Her current living situation has her singing ‘Don’t be tool’,” Elyse added.

A sharp rap at the door startled the women. Lizzie jumped to open the door and greeted T. J. with a hug. Isobel let out a whistle and nudged Elyse with her elbow. “I told you they were getting serious.”

Lizzie buried her face in T. J.’s shoulder and her neck, visible because of the high ponytail she kept her hair swept up in, turned a splotchy red. She murmured something that sounded like, “Shut up, you guys.” T. J. rubbed her back. He appeared taller and younger than Elyse had remembered. He had the look of many men his age, with his head shaved and impressive muscle tone that spoke more about his discipline than genetics. He had lovely eyes, though. They were dark brown, like aged wood, and soft at the edges.