Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! (48 page)

“Here we go. I didn’t think she locked it. Come on in.” It was dark inside, all the curtains drawn, and as Beverly quickly went around the front room opening them, Dena noticed a certain smell, a sweet smell, as if someone had been baking. The house still had the original venetian blinds. The curtains in the living room were thick and floral, green and yellow and maroon, with what looked like palm leaves. There was some furniture left. A small desk was in the living room over by the window; and a little telephone table in a small alcove in the hall off the living room; and several old Aladdin lamps, yellow with white flowers; and a stand-up lamp in the living room that still had the original shade, maroon, and with a maroon silk ruffle around the top and the bottom. Beverly switched it on and
the old lamp gave off a soft yellow light, almost golden in color, not like the harsh blue white glare of all the new lamps.

As Beverly turned on more lamps, all the light seemed to glow in a soft, muted way that somehow Dena found soothing. They walked down the hall and Beverly turned on the single hanging lightbulb. “Look at that old cedar chest. I just love the smell of those things, don’t you?” They had walked into a bedroom and Beverly had some difficulty opening the closet door, but a pro, she made light of the wobbly, old glass doorknob that had come off in her hand by cheerfully pointing out another feature. “One of the wonderful things about these old houses is that all the closets are cedar, too.” Dena looked inside and the closet was huge and dry and the mothball smell was still there, fresh after all these years. Beverly pointed to a small white saucer with a dozen large mothballs in it. “Look at those, I haven’t seen those in years.” It was obvious that Beverly had never been in this house but was doing such a good job of faking it that Dena had to admire her for trying. “The great thing about these old houses is that they built them to last.”

“When was this built, do you think?”

“Oh, I’d say probably around 1925, no later than the thirties, I would guess by the transoms over the doors and the wallpaper. I think this is the original wallpaper. I remember my grandmother had this same paper so it had to be somewhere in the twenties.” There was one chest of drawers in the second bedroom. Dena opened a drawer and the scent of old-fashioned talcum powder came to her. The ceilings were about twelve feet high. Dena had lived in apartments and hotel rooms so long she had forgotten about high ceilings. It seemed so strange to have all that space up there. The floors were in excellent condition, a beautiful oak. All the rugs were gone but she could see where they had been. She noticed a few brown stains on the wallpaper in some of the bedrooms, but other than that the house was in pretty good shape. The bathrooms all had the huge claw-foot bathtubs and large pedestal sinks.

The dining room’s brass chandelier had four milk-glass shades with Dutch scenes on them, and the living room had a round, pink glass ceiling fixture that Dena liked.

They walked to the back of the house. As soon as they entered the kitchen, Dena said, “Smell that? Someone has been baking a cake or something in here.” Beverly sniffed a few times. “No, I don’t smell anything.” The kitchen was huge; a lone lightbulb hung over the white wooden table. There was a big white enamel sink and drain board with a floral-print skirt around it, a huge icebox, and a 1920s white O’Keefe & Merritt stove in perfect condition. “Look at this pretty stove,” Beverly said, and she turned on one of the burners. The flames popped right up. “And it works, too!” Dena looked in a drawer and there was an old O’Keefe & Merritt cookbook still there. They walked out of the kitchen onto a large, screened-in back porch and saw that beyond the backyard there was a field. Beverly said, “Oh, look, there’s an old sweetheart swing. I just love those, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” said Dena, not having any idea what a sweetheart swing was.

“They say there used to be a big radio tower out in the backyard and that people could see it for miles around.”

“Really?” Dena went back to the front porch and sat on the swing by the window with the writing on it and waited for Beverly to finish locking up. When Beverly emerged, Dena said, “I’ll take it.”

“Oh. When would you want it?”

“Today, if possible.”

“Oh,” said Beverly.

That afternoon after Dena had signed the lease, she went through the house again. She still could not believe she had actually rented an entire empty house, never having lived in a house that she could remember. She went from room to room. She opened the cabinets in the kitchen and found a few white cups and saucers, and three little plates that had
TROLLEY CAR DINER
around the edge. There were several pictures hanging on the walls and a few small blue glass violin-shaped vases in the windows that had some sort of dried-out plants hanging over the sides. On the wall outside on the back porch was a 1954 calendar with a picture of a little boy in his pajamas holding a
tire and small candle, and the name of the sponsor, Goodyear Tire Co. In the living room was a picture of a cottage with flowers covering a white picket fence, and in the room off the front porch there was hanging a movie-magazine picture that someone had framed of Dana Andrews. Down the hall was a print of an Indian on a pony sitting on the top of a cliff with his head hanging down, captioned
END OF THE TRAIL
.

Up in the attic was a dog’s bed, boxes of Christmas decorations, and a few diving trophies that read,
FIRST PLACE, CASCADE PLUNGE, 1947, 1948, 1949
. Other than that there was little trace of the people who had once lived there, only the smells that had somehow permeated the walls and the floors. The back porch still retained the pungent, sweet smell of grape Kool-Aid. Dena sat in the living room in a chair she had found and looked at the stripes of sunlight on the floor, shining through the old venetian blinds. She sat there until it got dark and turned on a lamp. She hated to leave. There was a feeling, an atmosphere, something in the air that calmed her. The house smelled familiar, it felt familiar, almost as if she had been there before. The air inside that house held the faint memory of a dream she might have had.

The next day, Aunt Elner’s friend, Merle, brought over a couple of old mattresses and a hideous brown sofa that Dena had bought at the Goodwill store out on the highway just so she’d have something to sleep on and sit on until she figured out what all she wanted to put in the house. She borrowed some sheets and a few pillows from Norma’s linen closet. After Merle left, Dena walked down to the grocery store and bought coffee, cream, milk, eggs, and a few frozen dinners, and came home and wandered around the house. Beverly had left her a coffee pot, a box of cornflakes, and some bananas. Dena found a bucket and Octagon soap under the sink and started cleaning the venetian blinds. They were in perfect shape and still had the original plastic bell-like pulls on the ends of their thick cords. While she was cleaning, she looked up and saw a black-and-white cat sitting in the window glaring at her. Dena walked to the front door and opened it and the cat shot by her into the house, like a person trying to get the best seat in a crowded bus. There was a green, tin wastebasket with a picture of a cocker spaniel on it in the living room that had tipped over, and the cat ran over and curled up inside of it and went right to sleep, highly indignant that it had to wait so long to get in the house. Dena was a little afraid of it and left it alone.

A few minutes past three, Dena heard a knock on her door. “Yoo-hoo.” Dena saw a tiny woman of about sixty-five standing at the door. “I’m Tot, your next-door neighbor. I’m not going to bother you. I’m just going to drop this off and run. I know you are busy.”

Dena opened the screen door. “I’m not busy. Was just doing a little cleaning; please come in.”

“Well, I’ll just stick this in the kitchen for you. I figured you might not want to go out so I brought you this just to have in case you get hungry. I know you have a bad stomach so I made you a cream-chicken-noodle ring. If you need anything, anything at all, just holler.” Tot was in the kitchen by now and was putting the food in the refrigerator. “Just heat it up a little when you’re hungry. I’m not going to bother you, I promise, but I just wanted you to know that we’re right next door.” As she walked back through the house she looked in the living room. “Oh, I see B.T. is here.” She laughed. “That’s one of my crazy cats. I hope she’s not a bother. She doesn’t like everybody but she seems to have taken a liking to you. That’s good luck, you know, but if she gets in your way just throw her out. But I can tell you right now it won’t do a bit of good. I hope you like this house, it’s a friendly old place.” Tot was at the door. “I just hated to see it standing here empty. Anna Lee and her husband had to move to Arizona.”

Finally Dena got a word in. “Yes, I heard.”

“All the neighbors are thrilled you are here and we’re not going to bother you. You don’t remember me but I remember you when you were just a tiny thing. Well, come over if you need anything.”

Dena watched as Tot walked back to her house. Then she went into the sunroom and went back to the blinds. She opened them and she could see the outline of the round rug that used to be on the floor and evidently a sofa. At about six-thirty, she was tired. She went out in the yard and sat in the swing and watched the sun go down over the field. When she came back in, she remembered the casserole, turned on the oven and heated it up, and ate almost the entire thing.

As she sat at the table she noticed how quiet it was in the kitchen. All she could hear was the ticking of the clock on the stove. When she felt something under the table brush against her leg, she almost jumped out of her skin. She looked down and saw the cat, rubbing back and forth on her leg, looking up at her and meowing. Dena
said, “Good God, cat—you better go home.” She went to the back door and opened it. “Go on, kitty, go on home, go on …” The cat just looked at her. Dena stood there with the door open but the cat would not budge. Finally, Dena closed the door and sat back down and tried to finish eating but the cat kept staring at her and meowing so Dena gave the cat what was left. After the cat ate, Dena opened the door again. “Don’t you have to go to the bathroom or something?” But the cat cleaned its paws and ignored her.

Dena walked around the house turning on all the lights. The four milk-glass shades of the little brass chandelier in the dining room had turned slightly yellow with age and gave off the most beautiful glow. The dining room had a bay window with white sheer swag curtains that looked pretty at night. She walked from room to room thinking about furniture she might put in them. It was so quiet. After a while she went out on the front porch and sat in the swing. The cat appeared at the front door and pushed her way out and went down the stairs and into the yard. A few minutes later the cat came back and sat on the porch with Dena. It was a warm and balmy evening but a small breeze kept the air moving and she could smell the flowers that were just starting to bloom on the side of the house. A few cars drove by; other than that, there was no activity.

At about eleven o’clock she and the cat went inside. She went in the bathroom and ran the water for a bath. The deep white tub had a round white rubber stopper on a beaded metal chain. It took a long time to fill up and when she got in and sat down, the water was almost up to her neck and she had to laugh. It was like getting into a small swimming pool. After her bath she went into the bedroom and took her nightgown out of the chest of drawers. It had picked up just a slight aroma of talcum powder. She bent down to pull her bed covers back. The cat jumped up on the bed and crawled under the sheet. A minute later, she felt something pushing at her arm and heard the cat purring away, happy and contented to have her for a bed partner. She reached over and petted it. She had not slept with a cat since that night so many years ago at her mother’s friend Christine’s apartment, when Christine’s cat, Milton, had slept beside her in the living room. It felt good.

In the morning she went over to pick up a little ivy plant for her window that Aunt Elner wanted her to have. Aunt Elner was overjoyed she was going to be so close by. “I’m just tickled to death you are going to be living in Neighbor Dorothy’s old house. Oh, honey, many is the broadcast I heard from there.”

“Was there a studio there or something?”

Aunt Elner sat down at her kitchen table. “I don’t know if it was a studio or not, it was just in her living room. That’s where the show came from, every day from nine-thirty to ten, like clockwork. I never missed.”

Dena reached over and took a fresh biscuit. “What was it, a kind of news show?”

“A news show? I guess you could call it that. But she had all kinds of things on there. She had music—there used to be an organ in the living room that Mother Smith played, but after Mother Smith died they gave it to the church. And all kinds of people used to sing or play or do whatever they had a mind to. She gave out household hints, recipes, and had talks.”