Three Story House: A Novel (9 page)

“And they called it Spite House because he built it just to show it could be done?” Isobel asked, running her fingers along the roofline to try to locate the source of the water.

“Yes and no,” Lizzie said.

“What about the story out front, on the marker?”

“Ooooh,” Elyse said, her eyes widening. “What it says about unmentionables being hidden from prying eyes makes me think there’s so much more to the story.”

Lizzie hated the simplistic nature of the story on the historical marker. The sign explained that there were two kinds of spite houses. The first were made out of spite—that is to piss somebody else off. And this house had supposedly been built because it was the only land their grandfather was given. The other reason was particularly Southern. There’d been a tradition during the 1800s of hiding away disgraced relatives (the knocked-up, the financially ruined, the sexually confused) in smaller houses on large estates. After emancipation, estate owners discovered they had an excess of smaller structures.

Lizzie shrugged, blew again on the glass, and drew a heart. “I don’t know much about that part of the story. Grandpa Roger died long before I was born. Mama didn’t even know him that well. She was eight or so when he had his heart attack while working up at the brewery. They paid him to watch the place at night.”

Lightning struck the protective rod on the office building next door, and the windows shook in their frames. Elyse jumped as if she’d been bitten, pointing and yelling, but her words were lost in another bromide.

“You’re such a scaredy-cat,” Isobel said.

“There’s another leak,” Elyse said, “and now my pants are wet.”

The two of them started arguing as if they were sisters rather than cousins. They’d been like this when they were children. The tension made Lizzie nervous. Looking for a distraction, she took up the broom and nudged the ceiling, seeking the source of the leak. The handle landed in a soft spot near the center of the room, and without thinking, she pushed against the give of the tile. In one rushing motion, the center of the ceiling split and water rained down on the three of them.

When the screaming stopped, the laughter started. Lizzie had gotten the worst of it. Because the water had soaked her, bits of the drywall and insulation stuck to nearly every part of her body. Her feet sloshed in her sneakers as she tried to step over the rubble. Elyse had managed to stay mostly dry by jumping down the ladder to the third-floor landing. She lay sprawled on her back, like a pill bug turned over, laughing so hard that her stomach jiggled. Just past where the ceiling had opened up, Isobel stood, her hands still raised to protect herself and spewing out a long string of swear words that were as nonsensical as they were loud.

In the noise of the collapse, Lizzie couldn’t make out what her cousin had been saying, but now that it had stopped, she heard the tail end of Isobel’s tirade. “Holy hell and dammit all for fucksake stop.”

“Yes,” Lizzie said, reaching for the broom handle that stuck up from the rubble like a flagpole. It took a minute to wrench it free and then another minute for her to decide where to start sweeping.

It took the better part of the day to mop the water from the space and clean up the bits of drywall, roofing tile, and insulation that littered the cupola floor. Because Lizzie couldn’t stand for long periods of time, Isobel had taken away her broom and given her a screwdriver, telling her to pull the hinges off the window seats and set the cushions to dry in the empty front rooms.

To their surprise, neatly stacked inside each seat were dozens of wooden cigar boxes. Lizzie didn’t remember them being there when she’d spent time at the house regularly. But that in and of itself wasn’t remarkable. Although Mellie’s house had been stuffed, she’d constantly moved her keepsakes around. Once they got a tarp strung across the hole and Isobel was satisfied that they’d cleaned up most of what they could in preparation for the contractor, they carried the boxes to the kitchen table.

There were only a few items remaining from their last sorting project, when they’d emptied the wardrobes. Elyse had a pile of items in the corner that she felt they could sell online, and Lizzie had taken the mementos she wanted to keep to her room. “I feel like that girl who learns the spell to make soup but doesn’t know how to stop it,” Lizzie said as she set her stack of boxes on the table.

“Time,” Isobel said. “Your grandmother spent decades putting her stamp on this house. Don’t tell me you expect to undo that in a matter of weeks.”

“I don’t feel like I’m learning anything.”

“Patience,” Isobel said.

“I guess old Grandpa Roger smoked cigars,” Elyse said, opening a wood box with a white owl on the lid and passing a handful of black-and-white photographs with scalloped edges to Lizzie. A girl in eyelet lace stood in front of the remains of a building that appeared to have been flattened. The wing of an airplane stuck up from the wreckage. Flipping it over, she saw that someone had written “Melanie L., 1944.”

“None of these are of any use,” Lizzie said as she opened a few of the cigar boxes and rapidly flipped through handfuls of photographs. “I need stuff from the eighties.”

Lizzie found a few more photos that showed various angles of the downed plane and puzzled over the wreckage and her grandmother’s presence in it. In the background, she recognized several buildings from the Crosstown area of Memphis.

Isobel examined the photographs as Lizzie set them down. “What was your grandma’s maiden name?”

“Linwood,” Lizzie said.

“I thought that was her married name,” Elyse said. She carefully stacked the square photographs and then asked if she could have them. “There’s a mystery here and a hint of tragedy.”

“It’s not a book,” Isobel said.

“Still.” Elyse closed her eyes and for a moment looked as sad as Lizzie had ever seen her. “There’s so much you don’t know about people.”

“They’re yours,” Lizzie said before shutting the lid of each box and scowling. “Do you know my mom never had any photo albums of her childhood in our house once she married Jim? I didn’t even know these existed.”

“Everyone values different items,” Isobel said. “My dad carts all of his high school swimming trophies to every house he’s ever lived in, but I’ve never seen a graduation picture.”

“Useless,” Lizzie said, gathering up the last of the boxes without opening them. She’d wanted the pictures they’d found to have value. At that point, she couldn’t see how anything about her grandmother’s life would tell her what she needed to know about her mother’s pregnancy. She kept searching the house hoping for anwers about her father, but instead, every clue affirmed how little she knew about her family. She’d come back to the boxes later, when she had the patience for her grandmother’s secrets.

Benny, the contractor, didn’t believe in knocking. This is what he said to Lizzie the next morning when he walked into the house unannounced and surprised her in the kitchen. She had her back to the narrow hallway and had been doing her prescribed leg-strengthening exercises. Although she hadn’t admitted it to anyone, her knee didn’t feel like it should. There was a resistance when she tried to straighten it that had never been there in her previous recoveries. She had an appointment with Phil, her old therapist, for the first part of February. In the few weeks she’d been in Memphis, she’d tried the rehab specialist suggested by the team, but it hadn’t felt like a good fit, and she’d missed more appointments than she should have. Although she was careful to follow the regimen prescribed by the team, she found that she couldn’t make herself actually see the therapist. The woman who worked with her kept telling her how poorly she was doing and using words like “realistic.” Phil had been there for her through her other two surgeries and what she knew about him was that he believed in her healing.

“Biggest flood we ever had was in winter,” the contractor said by way of greeting. “Course we been in a drought situation ever since last summer. Not that you’d know it looking at what the Lord blessed us with today.”

Lizzie tightened the belt of her robe and took his extended hand as he introduced himself. She wished Isobel hadn’t scheduled some interview with the local paper about her temporary stay in Memphis. That was the girl’s mother in her, seeking publicity at the least opportune times. She would have dealt with Benny (and his handshake, which had turned into a high five) with much more ease. Afterward, Lizzie shook her stinging hand, thinking that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d engaged in such an adolescent gesture.

“I didn’t expect you so early,” she said, forcing her eyes to his so as not to stare at the birthmark covering his neck. It was a deep purple and looked for all the world like a pair of hands trying to choke him. His eyebrows were so thick they looked false, like something you’d buy at Halloween to dress up as the mad professor.

“Isobel left me a message, said you girls had made a big ole mess yesterday. A roof collapse? I have to say I was worried you girls might not hire me, but now I can prove what I can do.”

Lizzie felt her face redden and knew she wouldn’t admit her fault in the matter. “Upstairs,” she said and motioned for him to follow her. His eyes lingered on the stacks of cigar boxes.

She apologized for the mess and directed him to the top floor.

“Those boxes down there look old,” Benny said as Lizzie tugged and heaved at the rope attached to the stairs.

“The water must have made the wood swell,” she said, breathing harder than she had anticipated as she tried again to pull down the stairs.

“I’d tell you to put your weight into it, but you haven’t got any,” Benny said, reaching for the rope. He gave two short tugs, like warm-up pitches, and then put enough force into the third pull that he was left swinging on the rope when the stairs popped free. He gave one last jerk and the stairs came down with an audible groan.

“Grandma Mellie liked to say that wood likes to remind you it was a living thing once,” Lizzie said.

“She was a great old lady. We got to be friends after your mama moved out.” Benny looked away from her. “It’s true. Wood has a way of talking to you when you work on it—with the groaning and the squeaks.”

Lizzie realized that Benny was close in age to her mother, which made him younger than she’d expected—closer to fifty-five than seventy. He had the weathered skin of someone who’d spent most of his life outdoors. Isobel’s daddy was like that. Lizzie’s stepfather was the youngest of the Wallace brothers, and no matter what happened, he would always look the part because he hadn’t ever lost the little-boy fullness in his face. Benny started up the stairs.

“You may want to leave them open for the time being—give the place some air and let the wood dry out a bit,” he said and then winked at her.

Lizzie turned away as he climbed the stairs, realizing she couldn’t follow without shoes. Not wanting to go all the way to her room, she ducked inside Elyse’s room, which had been Lizzie’s mother’s room. It was one of the smaller rooms that shared a wall with the bathroom and opened up by way of French doors to the front of the house. Lizzie hadn’t spent much time in the space, but looking around, she was surprised at the sparseness of the room. In her youth, Elyse had been a clutterbug—arranging mementos like Laffy Taffy wrappers and trinkets purchased with arcade tickets—on every flat surface of their grandparents’ summer home. The only clue that she lived there was a small notebook on her bed. Picking it up, Lizzie thumbed through it. She heard Benny call out to his crew, who she assumed were outside, and only took the time to glance at a few pages. She hadn’t written much in it. Mostly it looked like passwords to her e-mail accounts. Grabbing a pair of sneakers, she shoved her feet into them, thankful that she and her cousins also shared the same shoe size.

“What’s the damage?” Lizzie called as she emerged into the cupola.

Benny didn’t respond. He was tossing chunks of the ceiling to the two men below, watching as they raced their wheelbarrows in an attempt to catch the shingles and pieces of wet drywall. His laugh sounded like a smoker trying to clear his throat. “Man, I could do this all day,” he said, turning toward Lizzie and waving at his men to join them on the roof.

“Even in this rain?” she asked. She was a little angry that he’d been so presumptuous as to bring workers with him. “You’re pretty sure you got the job, huh?”

He shook his head as if the topic weren’t worth discussing. “This is a drizzle and as long as you’ve got money to pay, then I’ve got time to work. Y’all got enough money? Can’t say as your grandma ever had any; that was why your mama was so unhappy here.”

Lizzie pulled her shoulders together and stepped back from him so she’d appear taller. “Isobel said that’s what you’re here to do. Give us an estimate.”

“Oh, we will,” Benny said. “But it seems to me the most pressing concern is the hole in your roof, and that wasn’t something me and Isobel discussed over the phone. That is what we call a change order and it’s what kills any budget.” He gestured to the sagging roof on the cupola. “Looks like another twelve hundred.”

Lizzie didn’t want to think about money. “Write up an estimate, and then we’ll come to an agreement.”

Benny continued talking as if he hadn’t heard her. “The last time I worked on South Bluffs, the lady of the house kept changing her mind. I retiled the kitchen four times, and don’t even get me started on the painting. Took me six weeks and fourteen colors to get one she could stand. I do love rich women.”

“We’re not rich,” Lizzie said.

Benny licked his lips. They were chapped, suggesting it was a habit rather than a come-on. “Didn’t that cousin of yours use to be famous? And you were in the Olympics or something?”

“Or something,” Lizzie said. She walked to the cupola to inspect the damage.

Benny returned to the work. “People like that always got money.”

Lizzie’s eyes turned to the damage to the cupola. The hole itself wasn’t as large as it had felt the day before—it was about the size of an open umbrella. She heard the clatter of Benny’s men as they entered the cupola awkwardly, trying to bring up a small ladder. Lizzie tried to help them maneuver the space, concerned about the panes of glass. The thought of breaking the irreplaceable terrified her.