Heart and Home (14 page)

“I freaked out! I drove home
and tried to tell myself it was just my imagination. By the next day I’d
convinced myself that it was a dream or something, but I’ll tell you this much:
I never drove home that way again.”

“I would have done the same
thing.”

“So,” she leaned closer,
“why did you want to know? Is something wrong?”

I shook my head, “I don’t
know. I think I’m going crazy. Weird things keep happening at the house,
especially in Mom’s sewing room.” All I needed to do was close my eyes in order
to see her standing at the top of the stairs, otherworldly, but so real. “And
you’re going to think I’m crazy too, but last night while Troy was dropping me
off, I noticed someone watching at the window. The light was on upstairs and
everything. As soon as I looked, the curtain fell back into place. I thought it
was my dad, but once I went inside and started up the stairs, there she was.”

“Chandra?”

I nodded and reached for my
iced tea. “She was standing at the top of the stairs wearing this gown that
seemed to flow in a wind I couldn’t feel. Her mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear
anything she was saying at all. I freaked out and closed my eyes, and by the
time I looked up again she was gone.”

“Okay, Janice, you’re giving
me the chills,” she admitted.

I lifted my arm to show her
the hair standing straight up. “I’ve had them for days. I think that’s one of
the real reasons I decided to stay on an extra week.”

She took a bite of soup
while processing what I’d just told her, and then asked, “You say it was like
she was trying to tell you something?”

“That’s what it seemed it
like, but there was no sound at all.”

“Has your dad seen
anything?”

“I don’t know, if he has, he
isn’t saying anything about it.” He hadn’t even seemed the least bit concerned
when I told him the sewing machine was on again, despite his having unplugged
it, but then my father was never one for communication. “I mean, he has to know
something weird is going on. There’ve been some odd things that happened around
the house since she died. Even before last night.”

“Like what?”

I told her about the crash
in the sewing room while I’d been taking a bath the night of the funeral, and
the strange writing on the mirror when I came back.

“Oh my god,” she shivered.
“What did it say?”

“It just said Stay, but it
was backwards, like it had been written from the other side of the mirror.”

“Stay?”

“That was it. I mean, she
had so many people over all the time, a lot of them had kids. Maybe it was just
a coincidence, but then there have been all the different happenings in her
sewing room. The sewing machine has been unplugged and turned off twice in the
last couple days. And last night, after I saw her in the hallway, I finally got
upstairs and her sewing room light was on. Dad was sound asleep, so I turned it
off and went to the bathroom. When I came back out, it was on again.”

“Holy crap!” She gasped.
“This is so weird.”

“Yeah, it’s really starting
to freak me out.”

“Well, yeah!” She nodded. “I
would be freaked out too.”

“So what do I do? I mean, if
it is her and she’s trying to tell me something, I can’t hear her.”

“Have you tried talking to
her, out loud, I mean? Maybe asking her what she wants?”

“Kind of, but nothing
happened. I guess I could try it again, but it’s really scary, Becky.”

She reached across the table
and touched the top of my hand, “I know. Maybe we could both get online and do
some research about that kind of stuff. Believe it or not, there are a lot of
groups now that specialize in that kind of activity.”

“Okay,” I agreed. “I’ll see
what I can dig up before Troy picks me up tonight, and I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“You better call me tomorrow
anyway,” she said. “I want an exclusive report on that date.”

For the moment the eeriness
was washed away by her joke, but even as I smiled I felt a strange weight and
uncertainty pressing down on me. I’d seen my fair share of horror movies, read
enough ghost stories in my lifetime to not want anything to do with the whole
situation.

When Becky finally dropped
me off at my car around one-thirty that afternoon, she must have sensed that I
was still uneasy because she reached across and touched my shoulder before I
got out. “Hang in there, and if anything else happens between now and whenever,
don’t be afraid to call me, okay?” The concern she wore was far more than I
might have expected, and I realized if I shared a wacko story like that with
any of my colleagues in the city, they’d have called the men in white coats.
“Even if it’s the middle of the night, I don’t care.”

“Thank you, Becky. For
everything these last few days.”

“Hey, that’s what friends
are for, right?” Her final smile definitely lightened my mood, and I couldn’t
stop laughing when she called out, “Remember what I said about love. It doesn’t
honor our agendas.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” I
rolled my eyes and closed the door to her minivan. Ducking into my car, I waved
one last time before she started to pull away.

She was certainly
persistent, I’d give her that. I wondered for a moment if she and Troy were
somehow in cahoots with one another, plotting against my heart. It wouldn’t
have surprised me in the least, but my greatest curiosity was why? He was not
only single and ruggedly handsome, he had an obvious sense of family value that
would have made most women swoon. So why was he so fascinated with me when he
could have just about any woman he wanted. Not that I didn’t think I deserved a
nice guy like Troy, but after the way I’d been acting with him, did I really?

I started up my car and let
it warm up for a few minutes before I drove back to the house, half expecting
to walk in on some kind of ghostly garden party or something. All was silent,
and when I ducked upstairs to grab my laptop I was surprised to see that not
even the light in the sewing room had been turned on since I’d left. Maybe
lifting the burden by telling Becky fixed whatever problem had been there. It
was impossible to tell, so I set up at the kitchen table and waited for my
wireless to connect to the house signal.

At last, I typed Ghosts into
the search engine bar, and it brought around fifty million hits. I reworded the
search to
how do you know if you have
ghosts
, and started to browse through the results. I was particularly
fascinated by a couple of pages that explored sensitive reactions to paranormal
activity; some cases actually included fainting. I sat back in the chair and
tried to put the moments into perspective, but couldn’t tie anything paranormal
or odd to the times I’d fainted.

I was still reading through
some material when Dad walked in at 3:15.

“Well, well, well,” he
paused behind me and laid a hand on my shoulder. “If it isn’t the night owl.
What time did you crawl in the door last night?”

I closed the screen to keep
from disturbing him with my research. Yes, I wanted to know if he was
experiencing anything weird, but I didn’t want him to know it was getting to me
as much as it was.

“I think it was about one or
so.”

“Mm-hmm.” He squeezed my
shoulder. “I hear the Kepner boy gave you a ride home.”

Kepner boy? “This town
doesn’t miss a thing, does it?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Yes, he did. I had a little
too much to drink, and he drove both Becky and me home.”

“He’s a good kid,” he patted
me and stepped away to open the refrigerator.

“I’m glad you think so,
Dad,” I started, “because I’m going out with him tonight.”

“Well, well,” he was leaning
against the counter when I turned back to look at him. “There’s something the
town missed.”

“I’m sure it’ll be on the
six o’clock news,” I stood up. “Speaking of which, I should start getting
around. Do you want me to make you something for dinner before I leave?”

“Nah,” he shrugged. “I think
I’ll just heat up a can of soup and make myself a sandwich.”

“Well, I’ll be upstairs
taking a shower and cursing my limited wardrobe selection if you need me.” I started
toward the stairs and paused for a moment to consider asking him if he’d
noticed anything weird. “Hey, Dad?” I’d even gone so far as to start, but then
once he looked up at me to see what I wanted, there was something about his
face, maybe it was just the tired look he wore, that made me not want to go
that far. “Never mind.”

“Suit yourself,” he called
as I disappeared up the stairs to start getting ready for my date.

Chapter Fourteen

Troy surprised me by
skipping town and driving us into Williamsport, the closest thing to a city
within 100 miles of Sonesville. There was a quaint little seafood place nestled
behind the busiest strip in town, where we settled into a table and continued a
stream of steady conversation. We had actually been talking almost nonstop
since he’d picked me up about everything from the downtrodden and now defunct
Sonesville Standard
to the high school
football team’s final game of the season.

With the menu in front of
me, I stole a glance across the table and admired him for a moment. He still
hadn’t shaved, but it was closely clipped to maintain that rugged look that had
been driving me crazy since I’d first noticed it. The curls of his dirty-blond
hair seemed almost purposely unruly, but like the stubble, it only served to make
him even more attractive. I watched him bunch his lips and push them to the
side while deep in thought, and then, as if he felt my stare burning into his
skin, he looked up and turned his face as if to ask what I was thinking.

“I can’t believe that you
actually asked me to come out with you tonight,” I shook my head and looked
back down at the menu. “Especially after the way I acted last night on the way
home.”

“You were a little angry
last night,” he admitted. “But I chalked it up to the alcohol.”

“I am not usually like
that,” I assured him. “In fact, I hardly ever drink.”

“Last night was a special
occasion.” He watched me trace the condensation on the outside of my water
glass.

“I guess it sort of turned
into one, yeah.”

“Don’t worry about it,
Janice, really.” I thought there was a nervous catch in his voice. “I came on a
little strong myself a couple times, poking my nose in where it didn’t belong,
but you have to understand I’ve waited ten years to find the nerve to ask you
out on a date.”

I couldn’t tell from his
expression whether or not he was telling the truth, but even as a false
admission it made me feel strange inside. “What are you talking about?”

“Seriously,” he turned and
folded the menu closed almost casually, but then I noticed it wasn’t so much
casual, as it was a way to distract himself. “Admitting this is probably going
to kill me, but I’m gonna just be straight with you.”

“Okay,” the entire tone
turned suddenly awkward.

“I had a crush on you all
through high school.”

“Wait, weren’t you going out
with Sonya Whatshername ten years ago.”

“Not exclusively,” he
shrugged his left shoulder up against his cheek. “I mean, we went out and all
that, but I never wanted to get as serious as she did.”

“Well that explains the
writing on the bathroom wall in the girls’ locker room.”

The muscles in his face
reacted in a slow grin, exposing both dimples. “What writing?”

“I believe it said
Sonya and Troy forever. Eyes off, hands off,
death to all who dare
… or something to that effect.”

“And that explains why I
couldn’t get a date with anyone from here to Canton until I was twenty-two.”
The mood was already lighter between us than it had been all week, and the
sound of his laugh only drew me further off guard. It could already tell that
my whole plot to not let the night go to my head was about to be spoiled.

“Forever is a very long
time, Troy,” I pointed out.

“And you dare tempt her
wrath now?” Troy arched one eyebrow curiously toward me, but before I could
answer our server stepped in to take our orders. I ordered the Scallops
Mascarpone, and could almost hear Becky’s voice booing that I should have
ordered the lobster to show him I was really interested.

As our server walked way,
Troy leaned almost casually across the table. “I can still remember the first
time I really noticed you. You were in ninth grade. We were all at some pep
rally before a big away game against Montgomery, and you and that girl you were
always hanging out with, what was her name?” I started to open my mouth, but he
insisted, “I’ll get it, give me a minute.”

“I’ll give you a hint,” I
said, “it starts with an E.”

“Erika Lewis, I knew it
would come to me. You and Erika were sitting way up on the top row of bleachers
with your arms crossed defiantly against the whole charade. In fact, I believe
one of you spent that whole rally reading Shakespeare or something, and I
wanted to ask you which play you were reading.”

“It was Chaucer, actually,”
I started, “and I never did understand that whole pep rally thing.”

A slow, clever grin played
against his features as he admitted, “I think that’s what I liked about you.”

“What? You were some kind of
renegade football player that hated winning?”

“No, I loved football, and I
loved winning,” he shrugged and leaned back into his seat. “I just never really
liked cheerleaders all that much.”

“So that whole football
player and cheerleader thing… is that some kind of myth?”

“Beats me,” he laughed
again. “All I know is that most of them were too full of themselves to be much
fun on a date, and conversation was usually pretty dull.”

As I took a sip of the ice
water in front of me, I wondered how many people thought Amber Williams was
dull back then. I shook my head as I thought about our teenage expectations.
“Isn’t it funny how none of our stereotypes seemed to really fit? I mean, I
would have never expected you to want to talk about Shakespeare.”

“No?”

“Nope.”

“Well, Shakespeare’s all
right, I guess, but I’d much rather talk about Byron, Shelley and Keats if we
were going to talk about literature.”

Feeling brave, I allowed my
eyes to widen with delight. “A real Romantic?”

I couldn’t tell if it was a
conscious act, but Troy’s tongue moved slowly over his lower lip before he
admitted, “You have no idea.”

Before I could utter the
dooming phrase, “I can’t wait to find out,” the server returned to pour our
wine, and I’d never been so grateful for someone else’s timing in my life. I
heard Becky’s warning that falling in love didn’t follow our own planned
agendas, and actually questioned the likelihood of fate or destiny for a
moment.

He brought his wine glass up
and breathed in the heady aroma before taking a drink. “So, ten years ago I saw
you across a crowded gymnasium and thought, ‘Now there’s a girl I’d like to go
out with.’”

I held my glass and swirled
the wine almost thoughtlessly while I tried to figure him out. “And why didn’t
you ever ask me out back then?”

Seriously, he could have
dated anyone in that school, and I’d never been afraid of Sonya. Despite the
fact that I was some rebel town-hater who thought she hated football players
and wrestlers, I wondered what I might have said if he’d asked me out back
then. Would I have gone with him? Would my life have turned out
differently?
 

Troy cleared his throat and
looked down at the table. “Sonya was part of the reason,” he admitted. “But
mostly… I don’t know, I guess felt intimidated by you, I mean, you were
beautiful and in your own world. I never felt like I was good enough for you.”

An ache of guilt stiffened
inside of me while I leaned my back into the chair. In high school, I certainly
hadn’t thought of myself as beautiful, but maybe I carried myself just a bit
like I was better than everyone else. I’d had a couple of boyfriends from
rivaling schools, but it wasn’t like the guys were falling over themselves to
ask me out, and while I didn’t fall into any of the cliques or stereotyped
groups, I’d more or less done my best to get along with everyone. While I tried
to imagine how I might have reacted if the Troy of yesterday actually worked up
the nerve to ask me out back then, I couldn’t even picture it clearly in my
mind.

But the two of us as adults
and in that very moment seemed right together, no matter how much I wanted to
deny it.

“And now, here we are.
You’re even more beautiful than I remember,” he said. “And without Sonya around
to hold me back, I figured why not take a chance.”

I couldn’t look at him when
giddy flutters of embarrassment seized me. I couldn’t even remember the last
time a guy who wasn’t my father told me I was beautiful, and whoever he was he
certainly hadn’t said it in the middle of dinner. I hadn’t been expecting such
a heartfelt confession, and suddenly my erratic behavior with him made me feel
stupid and naïve. His rushing to my rescue at every turn, his insistence that I
give him a call if I need anything at all, his presence the night before at the
bar… all of it went right over my head.

Even though I entertained
thoughts of my own it never really occurred to me that he might feel the same
way, and I certainly never expected to hear that he’d felt that way for the
last ten years.

I wondered how he felt in
his role as confessor. Whatever he felt, his confession definitely set the tone
for the evening. My subtle resistance was easily thwarted and all through
dinner I noticed myself studying him, and then looking rather clumsily away
whenever he’d catch me in the act. How could he have liked me all those years
ago, and I’d never known? Had he ever tried to make it obvious? Had there ever
been any moments I should have looked across the crowded cafeteria and caught
him just as he was looking away?

There were no answers to any
of those questions, at least none that would ever solve my curiosity, so when
he made conversation about things like my work I talked, and found myself
asking equally mundane questions when there was so much more I wanted to know.

After dinner we headed back
toward Muncy to catch a movie at the new Multiplex theatre just outside the
shopping mall. Both of us agreed that in the spirit of Halloween a scary film
was in order, so we ducked into the 8:15 showing of
Paranormal Activity 3
.

We made small talk about how
fast the area seemed to be growing, and how much it changed since we were kids.
When the movie started, I felt awkward sitting so stiffly beside him. I may not
have realized it at the time I agreed to go out with him, but we were on a real
date, and I hadn’t been on any kind of date in so long that I’d almost
forgotten what it felt like. Should I try to hold his hand to show him I liked
him, or did I let him make the first move?

There were several points
during the film that made me uncomfortable, especially as manifesting
paranormal activity became too real to deny. It reminded me of the questionable
experience I’d had myself the night before and just thinking about my mother’s
ghost standing at the top of the stairs made me shudder in my seat.

Troy seemed undisturbed
beside me, intently watching the plot unravel, but from time to time I sensed
him looking at me in the dark, and when he finally reached tentatively over to
take my hand I was actually grateful. Whether he sensed it or not, the gesture
brought me a great deal of comfort, enough that I didn’t even withdraw my hand
from his as we walked out of the theatre and into the damp chill of another
October night together.

“What time will you be
turning into a pumpkin?” He leaned in close as we walked together toward the
far end of the near-empty parking lot.

“A pumpkin?” I laughed.

“I have done my best to be
Prince Charming this evening.”

“Prince Charming was Snow
White’s prince.”

“Really? I thought he was
just a chivalric stereotype.”

“In the old stories, I guess
he was. Maybe I’ve just been watching too much
Once Upon a Time
.” I covered our clasped hands with my free one and
looked up into his eyes. “Either way, you have fulfilled that role tonight very
well.”

We paused in the parking lot
face to face. The wind was subtle, but cold enough that it cut easily through
the thin layers of my long skirt. Troy took my other hand and squeezed it
softly inside his own as he leaned in closer and lowered his forehead against
mine.

“Does the lady have a
curfew?”

“Not that I know of.”

The truth was, since his
confessions at dinner the rest of our date had been set on fast forward, and
now I didn’t want the night to end. I wanted to know more about him, to dig in
and find out everything there was to know inside, and in that moment I would
have given anything for him to kiss me.

Even though it was dark, the
orange glow of light from the parking lot made the color of his eyes stand out.
He loosened his left hand and reached up to tuck my hair behind my ear, “Can I
show you something top secret?”

“Top secret?”

“Mm-hmm,” his finger
lingered there just beside my ear.

The horror movie mood still
gripped me, and I looked down at our hands still clasped between us. “Should I
be scared?”

“No need,” he shrugged one
shoulder upward, “I’ll protect you.”

I shivered just a little as
his finger moved down my cheek and snuck under my chin to tilt my face into
his. I should have been surprised by the delightful movement of his mouth over
mine, but I sunk into it almost too comfortably and lifted my free hand to rest
against the stubble on his cheek. I reveled in the fantasy I’d been dreaming
about for days, and actually relaxed against him. His earlier confession still
made my insides feel like molten goo, but that was nothing compared to the
onslaught of butterflies that took over my heart. When he drew his lips away
from mine, he hovered close for just a moment, and then grazed the corner of my
mouth before he backed away.