A Broom With a View (11 page)

IN A
blind panic, Liza woke up with a start, sweat dripping from her forehead and pooling on the blankets around her. She’d had a terrible nightmare but couldn’t recall a single thing from it. Now, wide awake and watching her digital alarm clock flash 3:15 am repeatedly into the darkness she found herself shaking, unnerved. What was that sound?

Whatever it was, it was chilling her to the bone. It was something she didn’t think she’d ever heard before, something that made her skin crawl. Should she get up, light some candles? Sprinkle salt around her bedroom door? Light some sage?

And then it hit her, what the sound was.

It was silence.

There was nothing in the room other than the sound of her own ragged breathing.

Liza pounced out of bed and threw on the overhead light, instantly flooding the room with a rude fluorescent yellow. The faint hum from the old fixture settled her nerves somewhat and she could feel herself start to relax as she stumbled to the door and snatched her bathrobe down from the peg on the back.

“What the hell is the matter with me?” she demanded of herself. “What am I doing? I’ve never run a business before. I’ve never lived in the country before. What if I want Chinese in the middle of the night? What if I want Taco Bell? Who’s going to deliver my pizza? How am I going to make friends? I don’t know anyone. I don’t go to church. I don’t have kids to make playdates with other parents. Oh God, what if I have kids and I still haven’t made friends and then they grow up to be crazy loner psychopaths and shoot up a school or something?”

She paced back and forth, her anxiety and panic leaving little tufts of smoke behind her with every step. She didn’t realize it, but all the downstairs lights were now flickering off and on, unsettled by the nervous energy she was transmitting above them.

“What if I die here in the house? What if I have a carbon monoxide leak and die and nobody even knows that I am gone and I stink up the whole house and my body starts to rot and…”

The water in the bathroom sink began trickling from the faucet, followed shortly by the water in the tub.

“What if my business tanks and I don’t make any money and I have to go on Food Stamps or–oh my God!” She paused in her pacing and looked at her reflection in the dresser mirror in horror. “I’m getting divorced! I won’t have insurance anymore. How will I go to the doctor? What if I get sick?!”

The toilet flushed in response.

Had an outsider chosen that moment to approach the house they would’ve assumed someone was throwing a big old party. The lights flickered off and on like a fun house, the radio player in the living room cheerfully scanned through all the stations, playing several seconds of random tunes before going on to the next one, and Nana Bud’s prized collection of Thomas Kincaid music boxes all wound themselves up and began playing in off-tune unison.

Liza Jane heard and saw none of this. She was too busy having a breakdown.

In danger of leaving a permanent groove in her pine floors from the frantic pacing, Liza only stopped when her phone rang, the shrill song indicating her sister. She paused, cast it a furtive glance, and promptly ignored it.

Bryar Rose had some tricks of her own, however. When her voice should have gone to voicemail, it rang out through the room.

“Liza Jane Merriweather Higginbotham! You stop it!”

Now Liza really
did
stop. So did the rest of the ruckus. She would never even know anything happened downstairs. The lights gave one last halfhearted flicker and then the room went dark. The radio cut the Rolling Stones off mid-song, leaving the living room feeling oddly lonesome. Except for one light house music box whose faint strands of the “Love Story” theme wouldn’t quite give it up, the living room was quiet.

The smoke that trailed her dissipated.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” she muttered, marching over to where her phone was charging on her dresser.

“Hello?” she answered with irritation. “I was in the middle of a perfectly good rant and pity party. What do
you
want?”

“You were in the middle of waking up the entire east coast and causing a major power outage,” Bryar complained. “You woke me up from the middle of a perfectly good dream that involved George Clooney and the little psychiatrist from
Law and Order: SVU
.”

“I can’t believe you still have a thing for Dr. Huang,” Liza mused, dropping to the floor and leaning back against the dresser.

“Missing the point, sister,” Bryar snorted. “Now what’s the matter with you?”

Liza sighed. “Feeling overwhelmed. I don’t know this town, I don’t know these people. I don’t know what I am doing. I–“

“Don’t say it!”

“I miss Mode.”

Liza could feel the burst of hot air that came from her sister’s mouth, as hot and powerful as any dragon’s. “Oh for crying out loud. You don’t miss him. You miss the security of knowing what was going to happen every day. The stability.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Liza conceded. “But I still don’t know what the hell I am doing here.”

“You’ll get to know the town,” Bryar lectured her. “Mom didn’t know the Boston area when she first moved there. Look at her now, she even has an accent.”

“I think that accent is fake.”

“Well, you know what I mean. You’ll learn to fit in. You’ll learn what it’s about. And you’re already meeting people. Like the Christmas tree farmer? He’s been over there all the time helping you out. Probably done more for you in a month than your husband did in years.”

“How do
you
know?” Liza demanded.

“I know stuff,” Bryar replied airily. “So go back to sleep and keep it quiet.
Some
of us have stuff to do in the morning.”

With that, the phone went dead.

Liza remained on the floor and considered her sister’s words. Bryar was right. Liza
would
make friends and meet other people and learn the town and county. Like most everything else, though, she’d jumped right into the move and change without giving it any real thought. It was natural that she’d be nervous. She’d never lived in the country before; her suburban home up north had done nothing to prepare her for the life she was living now.

She’d be fine. And, if not, at least there was another witch in her corner who had her back.

“
I
didn’t realize how dependent I was on the Internet,” Liza said over the hum of the truck’s engine.

“Yeah, I finally had to break down and get that out at the farm,” Colt admitted. “That and a credit card machine. Nobody wants to carry cash anymore and I got tired of checks bouncing.”

It was the third time she’d met him but now Liza Jane was feeling awkward. Damn her mother for putting ideas in her head.

“Sorry to be keeping you away from business like this,” she apologized after a few minutes of awkward silence passed.

Colt raced over a pothole, sending both of them bouncing up in the air.

“It’s no problem. Busy season is just now kicking up,” he shrugged. “I had some errands to run in town anyway so it’s okay.”

Liza couldn’t wait to get the vehicle sorted out so that she could start loading up supplies and bringing them into town. She also needed to go ahead and buy some paint and talk to someone about hiring a contractor. Again.

“Hey, you know anyone who can build stuff?” she asked. “I need someone who can work on my buildings. Pull up some carpet, build me some shelves and a countertop, and put me up some walls so that I can have an office.”

“My cousin, Corn,” Colt nodded. “He can do that for you. And he’s a licensed electrician too.”

“Um, excuse me, but
Corn
?” Liza asked incredulously.

“Well, it’s short for ‘Cornbread,’” he conceded.

“Your aunt and uncle named their child Cornbread?” she was still shocked. What was
wrong
with these people?

Colt laughed. “That’s just his nickname. Nobody’s called him his real name since we was kids.”

“I think I’ll have to go with his real name. I don’t think I can go around calling someone ‘
Corn
,’” Liza shook her head.

“Okay, but his real name’s Fartel…”

“Oh.” She thought she might give “Corn” a try.

“
It’s
a good truck,” Colt assured her. “It’s reliable. You’ll get at least two or three good years out of it and that’s about all you can ask for these days in a used vehicle.

Liza was still slightly embarrassed that he had stayed with her all morning while she’d looked around and test driven the vehicles she liked. She wasn’t used to strangers going out of their way to be helpful and it was making her nervous. There was enough small town, mountain blood in her to accept his overtures politely and with grace. But there was enough big city paranoia in her to make her slightly afraid he might just be getting her in
his
good graces so that he could take her to some rural backroad and attack her.

The line was blurry.

In the meantime, she appreciated his expertise when it came to knowing cars (or trucks as the matter may be) and his family connections.

“If you say the Chevy is a good buy then I’ll go with it,” she said, hopping from the cab.

“You want to take it to a mechanic and have them look at it or anything?” he asked.

Liza snorted. “Well, I’ve been in town for less than a week and you and Jimmy Dean here are the only people I’ve met so far. The idea of having to find another mechanic is stressing me the hell out. I’ll take your word for it.”

Colt waited for her and chatted with Jimmy Dean while Liza went over all the paperwork and signed what she felt like was her past away. She’d had a lot of good memories in that Malibu. It was the only vehicle she’d ever bought brand new. It had taken her and her girlfriends for nights out on the town in Boston, had taken her and Mode up to Vermont for weekends away on more than one occasion…had brought her down to Kentucky to start a new life. She was attached to its stale interior, littered floors, and the sticky dashboard (a Coke can exploded in the car two summers ago when the temperatures soared above 90 degrees; she’d never been able to get it all completely off).

“So what made you go with the Chevy over the Ford in the end?” Jimmy Dean asked with interest.

Liza cringed as she watched him pick up a Coke can and spit into it, although she had to admit she was slightly impressed at the way he was able to get the whole wad into the small hole without hardly glancing at it. Practice, she guessed.

“Hmmm?” she asked, distracted by the line of tobacco juice that was running down his chin.

“The truck? What made you go with the Chevy? Was it the newer model, lower price…?”

The brown line of spittle wasn’t moving. It was simply sinking into his grizzled skin, becoming a part of him. “It was red,” she murmured, fascinated.

“Huh?” he asked, scratching his tuft of gray hair.

Colt snorted. “Don’t ask. I have three sisters, remember?”

Once she’d moved everything from her old Malibu over to the truck and patted her car goodbye she turned to Colt. “Thanks for helping a lady out. I think I can handle it from here.”

He reached out and patted her on the arm. The spark of electricity shot between them again, this time followed by a tuft of blue smoke that neither one of them could miss.

“Huh,” Colt said, confused. “I must be holding onto static or something.”

“Or something,” Liza agreed, smiling faintly. Her whole body was buzzing like she’d been plugged into the wall and turned on “high.”

“I think you probably could’ve managed this on your own, though,” he said, his eyes twinkling.

Liza Jane might have swooned a little, but it could just as well have been the fact that she hadn’t eaten yet.

“Oh yeah?”

He nodded and stuck his hands in his back pocket. “I’m keeping my eyes on you. There’s something about you I haven’t figured out yet.”

As he turned to walk away she found herself studying his backside and the way his soft, faded jeans clung to him. “And I’m keeping my eyes on you, too,” she said.

Colt stopped and turned. “I’m sorry, did you say something?”

Liza Jane flushed under his gaze. She didn’t think she’d actually said that out loud. “Sorry, I just asked if your cousin was named after the country singer or…”

Colt threw his head back and laughed. “Oh no. His name isn’t ‘Jimmy Dean’ at all. It’s Sausagea.”

“Of course,” Liza said drily as she unlocked the door to her new truck.

Of course it was.

LIZA JANE HAD
never owned a truck before and didn’t know anyone who had except for her grandfather when she was little.

Now that she was riding high on the road, she wasn’t sure how she’d lived so long without one.

After her second trip to The Healing Hands, Liza realized that she had nothing else left to bring. She’d been able to bring all the new stuff she’d ordered in just two loads–something it took her car at least four or five trips to accomplish the last time.

“Yeah baby,” she sang as she hopped from the bed and landed on the pavement, a box full of office supplies balanced on her hip. Her boots, which she’d bought for aesthetic reasons but was finding them helpful for a variety of reasons when it came to living in the country, clicked when she walked.

She enjoyed the sound; it made her feel authoritative.

It had taken Colt’s cousin, Cornbread “Corn” Crusher, only a week to do the work–
much
faster than she’d expected and quicker than it had taken the other group of guys the first time.

Of course, Corn had brought three men with him, which was probably a good thing because Cornbread was fond of his numerous “breaks” which could stretch into all afternoon.

Once, in the middle of installing the new floors, he’d stood up with his hammer mid swing, announced that he was going to walk over to the gas station to get a fresh cup of coffee, and left–hammer still in hand.

He hadn’t returned by the next morning.

“Uh, guys?” Liza had nervously asked when the other men filed in and began picking up paint brushes to work on the wall in her treatment room. “Your boss gonna come back any time soon?”

“Don’t know,” the youngest of the three shrugged, his back to her.

None of them appeared to be particularly concerned regarding their boss’ absence.

“Might do,” another one had replied, his voice muffled by the fact that he had to talk around the e-cig that was permanently glued to the corner of his mouth. “Might not.”

Liza could feel the heat rising in her neck, something between irritation and blind panic. She
had
to open the business soon. She couldn’t go long without any income. Even if she tanked, she
had
to at least get the ball rolling again and try.

“Well,” she attempted to sort it out again, although it was clear none of the men were going to be chatty, “will you all be able to work without him here?”

“We’s workin’ now ain’t we?” the heavyset one they all called “Joker” answered. (She had no idea if that was his real name or not.)

Agitated at their lack of communication and Corn’s abrupt departure, she’d stalked off to the second floor to stare at her boxes and panic in solitude.

There wasn’t much she could do until the floors were in and she could get the furniture back out, but she liked looking at the boxes and rearranging their contents. Seeing all her supplies and products again sent a little thrill through her. It would be the first time in what felt like forever that she’d be contributing to her own living expenses and taking care of herself.

If she could ever get started.

Her internet had been installed, both at the house and at the store, and she tried getting online and setting up some social media pages for marketing. So far, the only people she knew in Kudzu Valley were Colt, Effie Trilby, Taffy, and her neighbor Jessie, so her local contact list was slim. Still, she’d never played around with the business side of social networking and she needed to learn. There was a lot to get done in a short amount of time.

That day, however, wasn’t the day.

“Colt,” she found herself moaning girlishly into the phone. “I hate to bother you but…”

“Hey, what’s up?”

He always sounded so damn
cheery
.

“It’s your cousin. He left yesterday to supposedly get coffee, and he’s not back yet. I haven’t heard from him and I’m getting nervous.”

The sound of a motor on the other end of the phone was making it difficult for her to hear what Colt was saying in return.

“Sorry, what?!” she raised her voice and called into the receiver. “You’re going to have to speak up a little.”

The motor died down and she could hear Colt shuffling around with something. “Sorry,” he replied. “Leaf blower. I asked if you were having trouble with the other men. They still working and all?”

Liza told him they were and then felt silly. She’d called him,
again
, and like a damn irritating woman who couldn’t hack it on her own had interrupted his work. Worse, there really hadn’t been a good reason to do it. The others
were
working, after all, and there was no reason for her to think her business wouldn’t open on time, unless it was because of something she, herself, had screwed up.

And it wasn’t like Colt was his cousin’s keeper.

“Look,” she apologized, embarrassed and appalled by her actions. “I feel stupid for calling. I shouldn’t have bothered you. I know you’re trying to run a business and with Christmas in just a few weeks you’ve got to be busy to your eyeballs. I’m just real anxious to get this open and I’m nervous about wanting it to do well. I guess I’m wound up pretty tight.”

“No need to apologize; I know how it is, especially in the beginning. I can pretty much guarantee you, though,” Colt returned smoothly. “I run a business myself. But, uh, don’t worry none about the other part. Cornbread will be back tomorrow, next day at the latest. I guaran-damn-tee it.”

An image flashed in Liza Jane’s mind just then, something that crossed through the wires and space between her and Colt. The visual, of Corn in a narrow cot surrounded by a powerfully raw stench, made no sense whatsoever.

“Is everything okay? I mean, is he–“

“He’s alright, just in jail,” Colt laughed. “But it’s okay. He has to go in every weekend between now and the end of December. He was probably too embarrassed to tell you yesterday; that’s why he left the way he did. They’ll let him loose tomorrow night. Knowing him, he’ll probably head over to your place and catch up on his work even if you’re not there so don’t worry none.”

Now the sound of the heavy sliding doors banging shut and the visual of the metal toilet and sink that had flashed through her mind earlier that morning made sense. Not that it was any less weird.

“If it’s okay, can I ask what he got arrested for?” she asked with some hesitation.

“Oh yeah, it was drug charges,” Colt answered. “Some opioids that weren’t his. Found ‘em when they did one of those traffic stops. They thought he looked high so they checked his truck and found the loose pills rolling around in the floorboard.”

“Did he steal them or something?” she asked.

“Naw, not Cornbread. They weren’t his, they were his buddy’s. Guy admitted it. He was so stoned when he left Cornbread the last time he hadn’t noticed them falling outta his pants pocket. Had a hole in it.”

“Then why’d he get arrested?”

“Oh,” Colt laughed. “Well, they might not have been his pills, but he was still drunk.”