Kitabı oku: «For Now and Forever», sayfa 5

At midday Emily heard the sound of a thrumming engine outside. She rushed out, excited to greet the service man who was coming to set up the phone line and Internet.

“Hi,” she beamed from the door.

The day had brightened even more than she’d anticipated and she could see sunlight glinting off the ocean in the distance.

“Hello,” the man replied, slamming the door to his truck. “My clients aren’t usually so happy to see me.”

Emily shrugged. As she led the man inside, she felt the eyes of the mustached man following her. Let him stare, she thought. Nothing was about to bring her mood down. She was proud of herself for having sorted out another necessity. Once the Internet was installed, she’d be able to order some things she needed. In fact, she’d order a whole shop online to avoid bumping into Karen again. If the townsfolk didn’t like her, then she wasn’t about to give them her business.

“Do you want tea?” she asked the Internet man. “Coffee?”

“That would be great,” he replied as he bent down and opened his black tool bag. “Coffee, thanks.”

Emily went into the kitchen and brewed up a fresh pot of coffee as the sounds of drilling emanated from the hallway. “I hope you take it black,” she called out. “I don’t have any cream.”

“Black’s fine!” the man shouted back.

Emily made a mental note to put cream on her shopping list, then poured two cups of steaming coffee, one for the service man and one for herself.

“You just moved into the place?” he asked as she handed him a cup.

“Sort of,” she replied. “It was my father’s house.”

He didn’t push her further, clearly inferring that she’d been left it in a will or something similar. “The electric system’s pretty shoddy,” he replied. “I’m guessing you don’t get cable here or anything.”

Emily laughed. If he’d seen the house just three days ago he wouldn’t have needed to even ask the question. “Absolutely not,” she replied jovially. Her dad had always loathed TV and had banned it from the house. He wanted his kids to enjoy the summer, not sit around watching TV while the world passed them by.

“Do you want me to hook you up?” the man said.

Emily paused, considering his question. She’d had cable TV back in New York. In fact, it had been one of her few pleasures in life. Ben had always derided her for her taste in TV, but Amy had shared the same love of reality shows and so she’d just talk to her about it. It became a sticking point, one of many, in their relationship. But he’d finally accepted that if he was going to spend every weekend watching sports she was allowed to watch the new season of America’s Next Top Model.

Since coming to Maine, it hadn’t even occurred to Emily that she’d missed all her favorite shows. And now, the idea of inviting that trash back into her life again seemed strange, like it would sully the house somehow.

“No, thanks,” she replied, a little shocked to discover that her TV addiction had been cured just by getting out of New York.

“Okay, well, that’s all done. Phone line’s installed but you’ll have to get a handset.”

“Oh, I have a hundred,” Emily replied, not exaggerating in the slightest – she’d found a whole box of them in the attic.

“Right,” the guy replied, a little bemused. “The Internet’s up and running too.”

He showed her the Wi-Fi box and read out the password on the back aloud so she could connect her phone to the Internet. The moment she got her phone online, it, to her surprise, began vibrating, a constant stream of emails flooding in.

Her eyes glazed over as the counter in the corner kept going up and up and up. Amidst the spam emails and mailing list emails from her favorite clothing companies, there were a handful of sternly titled emails from her old company regarding the “termination” of her contract. Emily decided she’d read them later.

A part of her felt her privacy invaded by the Internet, the emails, and immediately longed for the past days when she had none. She was surprised to realize her own reaction, given how addicted she used to be to her email, her phone, hardly able to function without it. Now, to her shock, she actually resented it.

“Someone’s popular,” the service man said, chuckling as her phone vibrated again with another incoming email.

“Something like that,” Emily mumbled, stowing her phone back in its perch by the front door. “Thank you, though,” she added, turning to the service man as she opened the door. “I’m really glad to be connected to civilization again. It can get a little isolated out here.”

“You’re most welcome,” he replied, stepping out onto the front steps. “Oh, and thanks for the coffee. That was really great. You should think about opening a cafe!”

Emily saw him out, mulling his words over in her mind. Maybe she should open a cafe. There wasn’t one on the high street that she’d seen, whereas in New York there was one on every corner. She could just imagine the look on Karen’s face if she decided to open her own store.

Emily got back to work cleaning the house, adding stuff to the mound on the sidewalk, scrubbing surfaces and sweeping floorboards. She spent an hour in the dining hall, dusting the picture frames and all the ornaments in the display cabinets. But just as she felt like she was finally getting somewhere with it all, she took down a hanging tapestry to shake the dust out and saw that behind it was a door.

Emily stopped short, staring at the door with a deep frown. She didn’t have even the vaguest memory of the door, though she felt certain a secret door hidden beneath a tapestry would be the sort of thing she would have adored as a child. She tried the handle but found that it was jammed. So she rushed into the utility room and fetched a can of WD-40. After oiling the handle of the secret door, she was finally able to turn it. But the door itself felt like it was stuck fast. She rammed her shoulder against it once, twice, three times. On the fourth shove she felt something give, and with a final almighty push, she forced the door open.

Darkness opened up before her. She felt for a switch but couldn’t find one. She could smell dust, the thickness of it getting in her lungs. The darkness and creepiness reminded her of the basement and she ran to get the lantern Daniel had left for her on the first day. As she brought the light into the darkness she gasped at the sight that opened up before her.

The room was enormous, and Emily wondered if it had once been a ballroom. Now, though, it was crammed with stuff, like it had been turned into yet another attic, yet another place to dump stuff. There was an old brass bedstead, a broken wardrobe, a cracked mirror, a grandfather clock, several coffee tables, a huge bookcase, a tall, ornamental lamp, benches, couches, desks. Thick cobwebs criss-crossed between all the items like threads tying everything together. Awestruck, Emily slowly paced around the room, the lantern light in her hands revealing mildewed wallpaper.

She tried to remember whether there was a time when this room had been used, or whether the door had been hidden beneath the tapestry when her dad had first purchased the house and he had never discovered the secret room. It didn’t seem plausible to her that her dad wouldn’t’ve known about this room, but she simply had no memory of it and so it had to have been closed off before she was born. If that was the case then this whole wing of the house had been abandoned longer than any other part, had been abandoned for an indeterminate amount of time.

It dawned on Emily that it would take even more effort to get the house cleaned out than she’d previously anticipated. She was exhausted from the day’s work and still hadn’t even made it to the upstairs yet. Of course, she could just shut the door and pretend the ballroom didn’t exist, as her father clearly had, but the idea of returning it to its former majesty was too great a pull. She could picture it so clearly in her head; the floorboards buffed and gleaming, a chandelier hanging from the ceiling; she would be in a long silk dress, her hair up in a bouffant; and they would be twirling, waltzing together across the ballroom floor, she and the man of her dreams.

Emily looked at the heavy, massive objects in the room – couches, metal bed frames, mattresses – and she realized there was no way she’d be able to move them by herself, to fix up the ballroom alone. Getting the house in shape was a two-person job.

Though she’d resolved not to draw on his help, Emily had to admit for the first time that she needed Daniel.

*

Emily stomped out of the house, preemptively frustrated for the conversation she was about to have. She was a very prideful person and the idea of asking Daniel of all people for help irritated her.

She strolled across the backyard toward the carriage house. For the first time, the snow had melted enough to give her a clear look at the grounds and she realized how well kept they were, something that was clearly Daniel’s doing. The hedges were all trimmed neatly and there were beds for flowers, bordered with neat pebbles. She could imagine it looking beautiful in the summer time.

Daniel seemed to have sensed her coming, because when she looked away from the hedgerow and back toward the carriage house, she saw that his door was open and he was standing with his shoulder wedged against the threshold. She could already read the look on his face. It said, “Come to grovel?”

“I need your help,” she said, not even bothering to say hello.

“Oh?” was his only response.

“Yes,” she said brusquely. “There’s a room in the house I’ve discovered and it’s full of furniture too big for me to lift. I’ll pay you to come help move it all.”

Daniel clearly didn’t feel the need to respond right away. In fact, he didn’t seem bound by the rules of normal social etiquette at all.

“I noticed you’d been doing some clearing out,” he said at last. “How long are you planning on leaving that mound for? You know the neighbors will get twitchy.”

“Leave the mound to me,” Emily replied. “I just need to know if you’ll come help out.”

Daniel folded his arms, biding his time, making her stew. “How much work are we looking at?”

“To be honest,” Emily said, “it’s not just the ballroom. I want to clean out the whole house.”

“That’s ambitious,” Daniel replied. “And pointless, considering you’re only here for two weeks.”

“Actually,” Emily said, drawing the word out to delay the inevitable, “I’m staying for six months.”

Emily felt a thick tension in the air. It was as though Daniel had forgotten how to breathe. She knew he wasn’t particularly fond of her, but it seemed like rather an extreme reaction on his part, like someone had told him of a death. That her presence in his life could cause such palpable distress irked Emily immeasurably.

“Why?” Daniel said, a deep line creasing his forehead.

“Why?” Emily spat back. “Because it’s my life and I have every right to live there.”

Daniel frowned, suddenly confused. “No, I mean, why are you doing this? Going to all this effort to fix up the house?”

Emily didn’t really have an answer, or at least not one that would satisfy Daniel. He just viewed her as a tourist, someone who breezed into town from the cities, made a mess, then swanned off back to their old lives. To think that she may enjoy a simpler life, that she may have a good reason for running away from the city, was clearly more than he could comprehend.

“Look,” Emily said, growing irritable, “I said I’d pay you to help. It’s just moving some furniture, maybe painting a bit. I’m only asking because it’s more than I can do on my own. So are you in or out?”

He smiled.

“I’m in,” Daniel replied. “But I’m not taking your money. I’m doing it for the sake of the house.”

“Because you think I’ll break it?” Emily replied, raising her eyebrow.

Daniel shook his head. “No. Because I love that house.”

At least they had that in common, Emily thought wryly.

“But if I do this, know that this is strictly a working relationship,” he said. “Strictly business. I’m not looking for any more friends.”

She was stunned and irritated by his reply.

“Neither am I,” she snapped. “Nor was I proposing it.”

He smiled wider.

“Good,” he said.

Daniel held out his hand for her to shake.

Emily frowned, uncertain about what she was getting herself into. Then she shook his hand.

“Strictly business,” she agreed.

Chapter Seven

“The first thing we should do,” Daniel said as he followed her down the path, “is get the plywood off the windows.” He was holding his metal toolbox, swinging it as he walked.

“Actually, I really just want to get the old furniture out,” Emily replied, frustrated that Daniel was already assuming the position of boss.

“You want to spend every day sitting in synthetic light when the sun’s finally coming out?” Daniel asked. His question wasn’t so much a question as a statement, though, and the subtext was that she was an idiot for wanting to do otherwise. His words reminded Emily a little of her dad, of the way he wanted her to enjoy the Maine sunshine rather than sit cooped up watching TV all day. As much as it pained her to admit it, Daniel did have a point.

“Fine,” she said, relenting.

Emily remembered how her first attempt at removing the plywood had resulted in her smashing the window and nearly breaking her neck, and she was grudgingly relieved to have Daniel on board to help.

“Let’s start in the living room,” she said, trying to gain some control back over the situation. “It’s where I spend most of my time.”

“Sure.”

There was nothing else to say, the conversation extinguished thoroughly by Daniel, and so they walked silently into the house, along the corridor, and into the living room. Daniel wasted no time setting the toolbox down and searching for his hammer.

“Hold the plank like this,” he said, showing her how to support the weight of it. Once she was in position, he began popping the nails out with the clawed end of his hammer. “Wow, the nails are completely rusted.”

Emily watched a nail fall to the floor and hit it with a thud. “Is this going to damage the floorboards?”

“Nope,” Daniel replied, his focus completely on the task at hand. “But once we get some natural light in here it is going to show up how damaged the floorboards already are.”

Emily groaned. She hadn’t factored the cost of getting the floorboards sanded into her budget. Maybe she could rope Daniel into doing that as well?

Daniel popped the last nail and Emily felt the weight of the plywood drop against her body.

“Got it?” he asked, one hand still pushing the board against the sill, taking as much of the weight off her as possible.

“I’ve got it,” she replied.

He let go and Emily staggered back. Whether it was her determination not to show herself up in front of Daniel again or something else, Emily managed not to drop the board, or whack it against anything, or generally make a fool of herself. She lowered it gently to the floor then stood up and clapped her hands.

The first shard of light burst in through the window and Emily gasped. The room looked beautiful in the sunlight. Daniel was right; sitting around in the electric light rather than the natural light would have been criminal. Starting with the windows was a great idea.

Enthused by their success, Emily and Daniel worked through the downstairs of the house, revealing window after window, letting the natural light fill the place. In most of the rooms the windows were massive floor to ceiling things, bespoke, clearly created especially for the house. In some place they were rotten or damaged by insects. Emily knew it would cost a lot to replace custom-made frames and tried not to think about it.

“Let’s do the windows in the ballroom before we head upstairs,” Emily said. The windows in the main part of the house were beautiful enough, but something told her the ones in the abandoned wing would be even better.

“There’s a ballroom?” Daniel asked, as she showed him into the dining room.

“Uh-huh,” she replied. “It’s in here.”

She drew the tapestry back, revealing the door behind, reveling in the look on Daniel’s face. He was usually so stoic, so difficult to read, that she couldn’t help but feel a small thrill at having caused him to experience shock. Then she opened the door and shone a flashlight inside the room, illuminating the vastness of it.

“Whoa,” Daniel gasped, ducking his head so as not to hit the beam and gaping into the room. “I didn’t even know this part of the house existed.”

“I didn’t either,” Emily said, beaming, glad to share the secret with someone. “I can hardly believe it was hidden here all those years.”

“It was never used at all?” Daniel asked.

She shook her head. “Not to my recollection. But someone used it once upon a time.” She shone the light directly at the heap of furniture in the middle of the room. “As a dumping ground.”

“What a waste,” Daniel said. For the first time since Emily had met him, he seemed to be expressing genuine emotion. The sight of the hidden room was as mind-blowing to him as it had been to her.

They stepped inside and Emily watched as Daniel paced around in much the same way as she had when she’d first discovered the room.

“And you want to throw this all out?” Daniel said over his shoulder as he inspected the dust-covered items. “I bet some of this is antique. Expensive.”

The irony of a room filled with antiques hidden in the house of an antiques enthusiast did not pass Emily by. She again wondered whether her dad knew about the room. Had he been the one to fill it with furniture? Or had it been like this when he bought the place? It just didn’t make sense.

“I guess so,” she replied. “But I wouldn’t even know where to begin. I mean, you can see what I mean about there being some big pieces of furniture that I wouldn’t be able to lift on my own. How would I go about selling it? Finding dealers?” That was her dad’s world, a world she’d never really understood or had much enthusiasm for.

“Well,” Daniel said, eyeing the grandfather clock. “You have Internet now, don’t you? You could do some research. It would be a shame just to throw it all out.”

Emily considered what he was saying, and was struck by one particular detail. “How did you know I had Internet?”

Daniel shrugged. “I saw the truck is all.”

“I didn’t realize you were paying such close attention to me,” Emily replied with an air of faux-suspicion.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” came Daniel’s dry response, but Emily noted that there was a wry smile on his lips. “We’d better get this stuff out of the way then,” he added, breaking through her reverie.

“Yeah, great,” she replied, snapping back to reality.

Daniel and Emily got to work removing the plywood from the windows. But unlike the windows in the main part of the house, when they got the plywood down and out of the way, the window that had been hidden beneath was made of beautiful Tiffany glass.

“Wow!” Emily cried, completely in awe as the room filled with different colors. “This is incredible!”

It was like stepping into a dreamland. The room was suddenly bathed in pinks, greens, and blues as the daylight rushed in through the window.

“I’m sure if my dad knew these windows were here he would have had this part of the house opened up,” Emily added. “These are an antiquer’s dream come true.”

“They’re pretty amazing,” Daniel said, eyeing them in a practical way, admiring their intricate construction and the way the glass pieces fit together.

Emily felt like dancing. The light streaming through the window was so beautiful, so breathtaking, it made her feel carefree, as though she were made of air. If it looked this gorgeous in the winter sunshine, she couldn’t begin to imagine how amazing this room would look once the bright summer sun was streaming through those windows.

“We should take a break,” Emily said. They’d both been working for hours and this seemed a good a time to stop as any. “I could make us some food.”

“Like a date?” Daniel said, shaking his head jokingly. “No offense, but you’re not my type.”

“Oh?” Emily said, joking along with him. “And what is your type?”

But Emily didn’t get a chance to hear Daniel’s response. Something had fluttered out from the ledge of the window, where it must have been lodged for years, and it had caught her attention. All the laughing and joking of a moment earlier disappeared, fading around her, as all her attention zoned in on the square piece of paper on the floor. A photograph.

Emily picked it up. Though it was aged, weathered, with mildew on the back, the photo itself wasn’t particularly old. It was in color, though the colors had faded over time. A lump lodged in Emily’s throat as she realized she was holding a photo of Charlotte.

“Emily? What’s wrong?” Daniel was saying, but she could hardly hear him. Her breath had been stolen by the sudden sight of Charlotte’s face, a face she hadn’t seen for over twenty years. Unable to stop herself, Emily began to cry.

“It’s my sister,” she choked out.

Daniel peered over her shoulder at the photo in her trembling fingers.

“Here,” he said, suddenly gentle. “Let me get that for you.”

He reached out and took it from her grasp, then led her back out of the room, an arm around her shoulders. Emily let him guide her into the living room, too stunned to protest. The shock of seeing Charlotte’s face had hypnotized her.

Emily, still crying, looked away from Daniel.

“I… I think maybe you should leave now.”

“Okay,” Daniel said. “As long as you’re all right alone.”

She stood up from the stool and gestured for Daniel to head toward the door. He watched her cautiously as though weighing whether it was safe to leave her in that state, but finally he collected up his tool box and headed for the door.

“If you need anything,” he said on the threshold, “just call.”

Unable to speak, she shut the door on Daniel then turned and pressed her back against it, feeling her breaths come in great shuddering gasps. She sank down to her knees, feeling darkness crowding in around her, wanting to curl up and die.

*

It was only the sudden shrill sound of her cell phone ringing that snapped her out of the horrible, suffocating sensation. Emily looked around, unsure how long she’d been curled up in a ball on the floor.

She looked up from her crumpled heap and saw her cell phone on the little table by the door blinking and vibrating. She stood up and saw, with surprise, Ben’s name flashing up at her. She stared at the phone for a moment, watching it flash, watching his name fill the screen just as it had done a thousand times in the past. It was so normal, those three little letters, BEN, but suddenly so foreign, and so, so wrong in this house, at this moment, after seeing Charlotte’s face, after being with Daniel all day.

Emily reached out and declined the call.

No sooner had the screen turned to black than it lit up again. This time it wasn’t Ben’s name, but Amy’s.

Emily snatched the phone up, relieved for the lifeline.

“Amy,” she gasped. “I’m so glad you called.”

“You don’t even know what I’m going to say,” her friend quipped.

“I don’t care. You could read the phone book for all I care. I’m just glad to hear your voice.”

“Well,” Amy said, “I do have something exciting to tell you actually.”

“You do?”

“Yes. You know how we always used to talk about living in that converted church in the Lower East Side, and how awesome it would be?”

“Uh-huh,” Emily said, not knowing where this was going.

“Well,” Amy said, her tone sounding as though she were gearing up for a big reveal, “we totally can! The two-bed has just come on the rental market and we can totally afford it.”

Emily paused, letting the information filter into her mind. When Amy and Emily had been students in New York, they’d constructed a whole fantasy about living in the converted church, surrounded by all the cool bars in the Lower East Side that they loved to frequent. But that had been back when they were in their twenties. That wasn’t Emily’s dream anymore. She’d moved on.

“But I’m happy here,” Emily said. “I don’t want to come back to New York.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the phone. “You mean, ever?” Amy finally said.

“I mean for at least six months. Until my savings run out. Then I’ll have to make other arrangements.”

“What, like sleeping on my sofa again?” A hint of hostility had crept into Amy’s tone.

“I’m sorry, Amy,” Emily said, feeling deflated. “It’s just not what I want anymore.”

She heard her friend sigh. “You’re really staying there?” she said finally. “In Maine? In a creepy old house? Alone?”

Emily realized then how strongly she felt about staying, how completely right it felt to her. And saying it aloud to Amy had made it completely real.

She took a deep breath, feeling confident and grounded for the first time in years. Then she stated simply, “Yes. I am.”