The People in the Mirror

Emerson & Tilman, Publishers

Suite 55

129 Pendleton Way

Washougal,
WA 98671

www.E
m
ersonandTilman.com/publishers

© Emerson & Tilman /Thea Thomas

All contents copyright © Emerson & Tilman /Thea Thomas

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Emerson & Tilman

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Chapter I

  I peered up into the drizzly sky at the tall, sad, gray front of the apartment building. It rose up into a sad, gray sky, and I thought... I cannot believe I have to call this place home.

  An irritating mist-rain-wetness fell into my eyes as I made out gargoyle faces halfway up the building. I looked farther up and saw wet, gray gargoyle bodies at the top  of the building – up there in the shifting mists. So a person could tell where the gray building stopped and the gray sky took over, I guessed.

  “Isn’t it fabulous?” Dad asked, all cheery like he’d built the building himself and was really proud of his work. He moved the umbrella he was sort of holding over Mom and me around some more, shaking more water on us than if there was no umbrella.

  “It’s... really something,” Mom said.

  Good. At least she didn’t think it was “fabulous.”

  For some reason we continued to stand there, drinking in the view, I guess, Dad still beaming.

  “Kind of shades of
Rosemary’s Baby
though – don’t you think?” Mom finally ventured.

  “Nah!” Dad said, “not at all! Wait ’til you see the inside, it just doesn’t quit.”

  Oh boy, I thought, more and more of
this
. “Well, let’s go see it then,” I said, trying to resign myself to two things: one; I was actually going to have to live in an apartment building that two; came from some old horror movie.

  “Good idea,” Mom agreed. “Let’s go inside, we’re getting wet.”

  “Oh! Sorry!” Dad, all apologetic moved the umbrella around some more, which made sure we were good and wet. “Well, okay,” he said behind us. Mom and I had made a beeline for the front door.

  At the door was this “portly” doorman, tall and round, wearing a dark taupe uniform. Yeah. Taupe. That color that just... isn’t really gray, isn’t quite brown. He held the door open for us. Felt pretty weird. I can open doors myself, thank you very much.

  “Welcome, Mr. Francis!” The doorman said in a reserved jolly way. “This must be your lovely family.”

  “Right, Homer. My wife, Clarice and my daughter, Dominique, but we usually call her Nikki. Clarice, Nikki, our doorman, Homer.”

  I couldn’t believe it, he actually tipped his hat. No one had ever done that to me. But I’d never been introduced to a doorman before.

  Once inside, I saw another man in a different sort – but same color – uniform, on the phone, so Dad didn’t introduce us, thank goodness. But I could just feel him memorizing Mom and me as he nodded to Dad.

  “Security guard,” Dad whispered as we passed him.

  Why whisper? I wondered.
We
weren’t doing anything wrong.

  We stopped in front of elevator doors that were all shiny silver and brass, with artistic designs on it like Art Deco, which, actually, I like. Okay. So the elevator doors I can live with. Dad pushed the button and one of the elevator doors slid open. Then Dad pushed “7” once we were inside.

  “Well...” I said after the doors slid shut and I gently shook the rain from my hair with my finger tips, “I just wonder what all the paranoia’s about.”

  Mom and Dad turned and looked at me as if I’d just learned to speak, for pity’s sake. They both looked completely bemused.

  “What do you mean?” Dad finally asked.

  “Those men checking us out, seeing if we have a right to be here.”

  Neither of them said anything as the elevator door slid open. Dad led us down the hall to “717.” The carpet in the hall was so thick I felt like I was sinking in it up to my ankles. It had a heavy, scrolly, burgundy and gray Victorian print. Then I noticed the soft gray walls and the ornate, brass wall sconces every few feet that had these little pink-hued bulbs in them. I had to admit to myself that the whole effect gave the hall a cozy, warm light. So, all right, nice elevator doors, nice light in the hall. Not much to go on, but better than nothing.

  Dad waited until he let us in the apartment before he answered me.

  “It’s security, Nikki, not paranoia. They’re here for
our
protection.”

  “Yeah, well,” the irritation I felt when the “ security guard” checked me out rose up my throat again, “ no more casually having a bunch of friends over after school, huh?”

  Dad studied at me for a moment, a little frown working its way across his forehead like happens when he has to sort out something new. “I hadn’t thought about that, sweetheart. But it’ll all work out.”

  I nodded, thinking, I’m
sure
my friends – of course, I don’t
have
any friends here, so it’s completely moot – but, anyway, I’m sure if I
had
any friends, they’d all just
love to come into a stuffy place like this. But I kept the thought to myself. Dad can’t help it he got transferred to Seattle. Just because I’m not happy I don’t suppose I have to go out of my way to make him feel miserable.

  Anyway, I finally looked around the apartment, and my jaw hit the floor
–
metaphorically. The place was
beautiful!
Walls a pale peach with solid cherry woodwork in the door and window frames – I took shop last semester and had gotten into learning about different types of wood. I knew you didn’t see cherry woodwork that often.

  Dad had subleased the apartment from a man in his company who’d been sent to England for a year, so the place was completely furnished. All the furniture was big, solid antiques, mostly made of deep rich walnut, with a couple of cherry end tables. I liked it all on sight. Thank goodness the people hadn’t gone in for all that spindly Louis-the-Whatsit stuff.

  We went from the foyer into a huge living room, where Mom stopped in her tracks. She quietly breathed, “
Wow!
” An actual baby grand piano took up the entire corner. And it
was
“ wow.” I knew this made Mom happy. She’d told us both that she was going to get back to her piano playing if Dad dragged her away from teaching third grade for a year. Mom loved those kids.

  The baby grand must be the “ little surprise” Dad had been hinting and hinting at for the last couple weeks after he came back from Seattle from signing the lease on the apartment. Mom went straight to the piano, sat down and played a couple scales. The sound swelled in fat round notes right to the walls.

  “Beautiful quality,” she said, “ and doesn’t even need to be tuned.”

  We toured the rest of the apartment. Three bedrooms, two with private baths, a kitchen, a little breakfast nook, a formal dining room, and an actual greenhouse room on the corner of the building with two exterior glass walls, full of a riot of all kinds of plants. The whole place was like out of a Victorian movie. I hated to have to admit it, but it was, altogether, pretty cool.

  “Didn’t I tell you?” Dad got just more and more proud of himself as Mom “oohed” and “ahhed” at everything, and I even let out a couple of “oohs.” It was that impressive. We came back to the living room and settled on facing sofas, covered in a soft, pale green and peach scrolly-patterned velvet.

  “This isn’t an apartment,” I finally said. “It’s a house – stuck up in a building. I think it’s bigger than our house.”

  “I told you it was huge,” Dad said.

  “You said it was a huge
apartment
. I didn’t know apartments could
be
bigger than a house.”

  “You’re not in Laguna Beach anymore.”

  “Yeah, Dad. I got that part.” I shrugged, my depression returning. No. I was not at home. I was not with my friends. I was not going to hang out at the beach today. Or any day soon. I was not going to school on Monday at the school I pretended to hate, but now missed in a mega way. With my new driver’s license I’d just gotten a few weeks ago I would not be going anywhere. No movies with friends tonight. No shopping tomorrow.

  Yes. That old depression climbed right out of that gray sky and poured itself into me.

Chapter II

  But then I pulled myself together somewhat, and tried to be philosophical. A few days later I thought about how there was bad and good in most things. This was something my grandmother told me when I was only three or four and I’d left my treasured picture book she’d given me at the playground
–
“Tootles Favorite, Funny Friends.” When we went back to get it, it was gone. I cried so hard I started hiccoughing. That’s the first time my grandmother said to me, “There’s bad and good in most things.”

  About a week after that my mom handed me a package and said, “This came for you in the mail.” I tore it open and there I held in my hands, “Tootles Favorite, Funny Friends!” I thought at the time it was magic, but now I guess my grandmother got another copy and sent it to me.

  Anyway, back to now and about living in this apartment. On the bad side was the security guard, but Homer, the doorman, had gone over to the good side just because he turned out to be such a nice guy. He talks to me like I’m a
person
, not a kid, which is excellent. On both the good side and the bad side was the new school. Good – only three blocks from home. Bad – after four days, no one has even said “hi” to me. Another bad – the non-stop drizzling sky. I always felt wet. And cold.

 
Very definitely good
– my room. As big as our living room at home, with a gigantic private bathroom the size of my entire bedroom at home.

  And, as I’m not entirely heartless and selfish, also on the good side – how much Dad loved his job here, which I know because practically every day he’s said, “I love my job here!” and how much Mom loved that baby grand piano. As I made up my “THE APARTMENT AND SEATTLE: GOOD–BAD” lists she was playing Beethoven’s
Fifth
. It floated on the air like sweet whipped butter.

  I wished I had something I loved so much I could completely lose myself in it. The only thing I loved like Dad loved his work and Mom loved playing the piano was reading – but that’s not a talent, it’s a hobby. You couldn’t make more of reading than just... reading. I was reading the “Horror in the Heights” series. The heroine in the pictures on the cover of the books looked exactly like I wished
I
looked.

  I put down the “Horror in the Heights, #6 – Working with Goblins, Pixies and Gnomes” I was reading and got up to study myself in the mirror inside the walk-in closet. This closet was the other incredibly great part about my room,
huge
closet, a room all by itself. It was next to my bathroom, and pretty much the same size as the bathroom, with a gigantous mirror on the back wall, big enough for me to practice ballet in front of it – if I took ballet.

  But it was the strangest mirror I’d ever seen, with a dark, smoky quality. I decided it was all dark and smoky because it was so old. Whatever the reason, I loved the way it made me look. Why? Because everyone always says I’m “cute” and I hate being called “cute.” There’s nothing special about “cute.”

  But the dark, smoky mirror faded my freckles, and made my pale blue eyes a shade darker, which looks so exotic. Everyone in my family has pale eyes, and it just seemed to me that people with dark eyes came from exciting places. The mirror made my hair a shade darker too. Now, finally, it had a color I could name besides “dishwater blonde.” What kind of a color was “dishwater blonde” anyway? Ugh!