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Authors: Marlys Millhiser

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C
HARLIE'S LEATHER JACKET felt good that evening when she and Edwina prowled outside to get away from the television blaring inside and the ancient, dried-up smell of the home place.
Everyone had left before seven to get home to their television shows. Before they left, the women had all the dishes washed by hand and put back in the buffet in the dining room and the leftovers covered with plastic wrap and in the refrigerator. Except for the pies, which were supposed to sit out. People didn't pause over dinner at the home place.
“This had a high railing all around,” Edwina said of the front porch, where the main entrance to the house was boarded over and a sign read USE BACK DOOR. “And we had family reunions in the shade of trees all over the front yard.” She kicked at a stump that must have been three feet across. “There used to be seven or eight picnic tables, old wooden ones with benches, and Grandpa Staudt would reserve one of them to carve watermelons and that table would get so gummy flies would stick to it, and we kids could run and yell and spit seeds and get as messy as we wanted.”
After seeing the table inside today, Charlie didn't even want to imagine what there might have been to eat on the other tables out here back then. No trees, no grass—just weeds, a broken picnic table or two, just pieces now. The television was noisy clear out here. Canned laughter from some sitcom almost drowned out Uncle Elmo's snoring. One window flashed weird lightning in colors.
Charlie desperately wanted to jump into the rental car and head for Mason City and a hotel. If it had an airport, it had hotels. Not that it was much of an airport—runways for commuter puddle-jumpers and small private planes, no Concourses or Jetways. But Edwina was so busy dealing with her issues, Charlie couldn't bring herself to play hardball right now.
Dry grasses and harvested stalks rustled in the fields all around like a sea of stealthy footsteps. The crippled barn and the stilled windmill stood as vast shadow ribs in the half-light.
Edwina and her issues continued around to the back of the house. “The barn was always full of cows and cats and pigs and pigeons. There're still pigeons. You can hear them from here. I had my eyes done.”
“I noticed. There's not even a shower in that bathroom in there, Mom.”
Edwina stood on top of a mound. “This was the root cellar, with shelves for home-canned goods and potatoes and apples, and it was where you headed at the approach of a tornado.”
“Like in
The Wizard of Oz
. You had them done above and below.” Why are you doing this? At your age, who cares? It's not like you're in the movies. “Did you get the laser job, too? Or did you get contacts?”
“Laser. I still need reading glasses, but it's the first time in my life I haven't worn eyeglasses all the time, can get up in the night to go to the bathroom without them. It's a miracle what they can do now.”
“Hey, you're talking to the bionic woman here.”
“Headaches gone?”
“Yeah, and the hearing blackouts are getting fewer and fewer. And the dizzy spells.” Careful, mother of mine, we're talking about something important here without confrontation. She remembered Uncle Elmo's words and wondered if before she was even born, her relationship with Edwina had
been forged on the home place, where important things weren't discussed. Way weird.
“And there were geese, huge geese—used to scare the shit out of me. And this was the chicken house and this the machine shed.” They were stepping over foundations, walking toward the barn. The wind grew chillier and the windmill made not a creak, but every board in the barn—only every other one was about all that was left—groaned and rasped like it was twisting, tortured.
“Had some facial hair lasered away, too, and I'm glad.”
“You know, I really, really need to return a phone call, and it's Florida and I don't feel good about using Uncle Elmo's phone.”
“I'm spending your and Libby's inheritance on myself.”
“You don't owe us an inheritance. We're doing fine.” And you've already done so much for us, dammit, I can't bring myself to just go off and leave you here. “But I sure do want to.”
“Sure do want to what?”
“Nothing. Just—”
“Just talking to yourself. You know, I swear you did that the minute you could talk. Like you never bothered to learn to walk. Just took off running. Always at cross purposes, as I remember.” Standing inside the barn looking at the holes in the roof and all around the walls, she added, “Sign of rebellion, I think I read somewhere.”
Resenting Edwina for every affront and discomfort, Charlie had a lukewarm bath in the giant tub that had no shower (all that family dishwashing had depleted the resources of an ancient hot-water heater) and slept soundly until about midnight, when the brisk October breeze that made weeds and harvested stalks sound like an army of stealthy footsteps marching, marched into the room despite the fact that no window was open. Charlie reached down to the foot of the
bed to draw up another dusty down comforter and slept until morning.
At which time Uncle Elmo had hot if weak coffee brewed, and Charlie had a piece of lemon-meringue pie for breakfast. He had mashed potatoes and a dinner roll. Edwina had coffee and a headache.
“Shirley, I am sorry, but I was at a funeral—well, a graveside service—and when I finally got a chance to return your call, I was apparently too far away from a tower to use the cellular.” They were approaching the stone bridge at the entrance to Myrtle, Charlie driving again. The bridge crossed a fair-sized river with that white, almost marblelike stone along its banks. “This is the first chance I've had.” Jeesh, agents have families, you know. Edwina was not handling this Iowa situation at all well.
And poor Shirley Birkett was even worse off. She had been asked to speak at a writers' conference in Denver—her first book not even out yet—and had sat in on a series of panels held by independent booksellers and media and print reviewers on how to promote one's book. “I thought that's what publishers did.”
By this time, Charlie's hot new author was sobbing and difficult to understand. And Myrtle was glorious in the morning sun.
“What are those trees with all the red and orange and gold leaves?” Charlie asked Edwina as softly as she could so as not to further distress the next Danielle Steel. She'd seen them in New England, too.
“Maples. Go straight here.”
It seemed that authors were not only expected to get in a book a year, but must line up their own media interviews and book reviews by hounding authors who'd been interviewed to put in a word for them, must hound publishers for bound galleys—if they're not bound, they should bind them themselves.
They should send chocolate and thank-you notes to all interviewers, reviewers, and independent bookstores that give them an autograph party. Oh, and send galleys early because a book is old news a week after publication and it takes a month or more to line up reviewers and then get reviews into print.
“My book's out in three weeks and nobody has sent me any galleys.”
This sun-dappled, peaceful hamlet, presided over by a huge blue bulb on Granddaddy Longlegs spindles, resembled its main street at close quarters. For every well-kept and orderly lawn and house, there were two lots where the buildings had white paint peeling like at the home place—two-tone where patches of exposed wood had weathered to gray. Many corrugated-metal roofs replaced the old shingled ones, the result contradictory. Charlie didn't see any doublewides, though.
“And I should be sure to take wine and cookies and cheese to the autograph parties. And set these parties up myself by going into each independent bookstore and politely requesting a moment with the owner. And in a small town, it's a good idea to set up an interview with the local weekly newspaper first by myself. Then the bookstore can coordinate the signing. Don't expect the bookstore to line up the interview.”
“What's the gaudy blue blob up there?” Charlie whispered to her mother. It had MYRTLE lettered on it.
“Water tower. Stop here a moment.”
Charlie pulled over to the side of the road and realized she hadn't met or passed another moving car since she'd crossed the stone bridge. Edwina stared at a large Victorian. She was sort of biting on her knuckles, so Charlie figured her mother was dealing with still more issues. Rags of water-stained wallpaper fluttered in the breeze instead of curtains, not a shard of window glass left, windows and doors gaping wounds of eyes and mouths. It was the kind of house remnant
that didn't need a ghost to be haunted. Charlie shivered and turned back to her author.
“ … helps to publish a nonfiction book while I'm at it. It will increase fiction sales. And I'm supposed to fly myself all over the country. I don't have that kind of money, and if I spend all my time organizing these things, when do I research and write the next book? I don't have a life now, and I'm pregnant again.”
Charlie had an acid-reflux moment. Lemon-meringue pie tasted better going down. “Well, look at it this way. It's your book. Your only one—the publisher has hundreds to worry about. Maybe you could do some things like that locally. Your publicist in New York doesn't know the review and media people there as well as you do.”
“Oh, that's another thing—I should hire my own publicist. Don't count on my publisher's publicists. And Charlie, I just moved here. I don't know anybody.”
“Maybe your husband could help out, free you up some at home so you could travel—figure out ways to do promotion. The best publicists in the business are often spouses because you're their only client. Shirley, you signed a great contract for a new author, and there was some stipulation for promo money.”
“Well, I don't know where it went. And my husband is helping out by earning the living. Don't publishers do anything? Oh, and I should upgrade my Web page with new and interesting material at least every two weeks and write and send out my own newsletter and keep track of all fan mail and e-mail names and addresses so I can notify them of new books and signings in their area as well as participate in the numerous chat rooms available to writers on the Internet half the night.”
“Consider that the publisher has given you a break hundreds of thousands of writers are waiting for by printing your novel and lending the credence of their name to give it validity. What you do with this golden opportunity is up to you.
You're really in business for yourself and that takes an enormous commitment.”
“Charlie? I quit.” And the Danielle Steel of Tampa, Florida, hung up on her agent.
“Edwina, I swear I'll never take on another book author. I'm sticking to screenwriters from now on. They usually have some clue about the reality of the industry.”
“You've been saying that ever since you went to L.A. and got a big head. I liked you better in New York.” Charlie's mom was beginning to sound like herself again.
Edwina had paid for Libby's childcare as well as Charlie's out-of-state college tuition and living expenses in hopes that Charlie would become a high-school English teacher. Instead, Charlie went into a low-paying editorial job in D.C., which required more subsidizing, and then on to a literary agency in Manhattan, which required a lot more subsidizing. It wasn't until Charlie was hired away by Congdon and Morse Representation in Beverly Hills that she began to pay her little family's way in the world. She owed her mother too much for comfort.
“So, is this the house where you lived with your parents?” Charlie started the Lumina.
“No, Charlie, this is the house where you were born.”
Charlie let the engine die and looked again at Edwina Greene and the haunted house that didn't need a ghost.
“
A
RE YOU TRYING to tell me that I'm from Myrtle, too? Is that why I had to come here with you?”
“In a way, Charlie. In a way.”
“But you said you adopted me from an agency in Boulder.”
“Just let me sort some things out. I can't believe you had no interest in this before now. At the end of this road, turn right.”
Charlie'd always figured one family was complication enough in this life and hadn't been that curious about probably some poor embarrassed pregnant teenager. Charlie was a lot more interested in friends and her status among them and the allurements of life in general. Until she became a poor embarrassed pregnant teenager.
This road ended at a white rock wall resplendent in a winered ivy intent upon covering it completely one year soon. The crushed rock of the road narrowed to pass through a gate and beneath an ornate wrought-iron arch in which GENTLE OAKS was lettered in among curlicues and metal leaves. The crushed rock in and around Myrtle was white like the bridge at its entrance instead of rock-colored, which Charlie thought of as gray like the tombstones in Myrtle's crowded little graveyard.
Gentle Oaks, Uncle Elmo had explained, was one of the three viable businesses owned by Harvey Rochester, native son who'd returned to make good. “Smart man, but he talks funny.”
Gentle Oaks, judged by its drive, should have been a fabulous mansion. It was, instead, the last stop for many before
the Myrtle Cemetery. Unlike the grain elevator and the railroad station, converted into a restaurant—the other two businesses of Harvey's—Gentle Oaks was labor-intensive and the largest employer in town. And Myrtle was lucky for it, because in most small towns around, the women had to travel to a monolithic hospital system in Mason City for work. Ice and snow storms could make that a worry.
Uncle Elmo was a wealth of information. Since Edwina had gone reticent on her again and on her place of birth, she would ask him when they got back to the home place instead of badgering the woman beside her. Charlie was never sure whether love among the three generations of her female family was really displaced fierce loyalty or loyal fierceness. Talk about dysfunctional.
Edwina could control her progress down memory lane at least long enough to confirm that the trees towering over the drive were oaks. They looked suspiciously like half of those at the cemetery. Humongous, with black bark and huge brown leaves with knobby fingers. The other half of the graveyard's forest were maples with huge leaves and jagged fingers. The drive circled around a center island where ornate, stilled fountains had filled with leaves instead of water and stone lawn ornaments posed as if for sale—deer, racoon, bear, squirrel, duck. No plastic and no flamingoes.
The building curled a semicircle around the end of the drive opposite the island with lawn ornaments. A one-story brick, it had bright white pillars holding up the porch roof, and matching shutters at the paned windows, sort of a colonial ranch house-motel hybrid. There were French windows and doors, and the porch was lined with empty wicker lawn furniture, white with bright floral cushions and a scattering of brown leaves. The oaks, soaring over the place like a Disney nightmare, didn't look gentle to Charlie. Perhaps it was her mood, this being a somber place on a somber trip.
The help and service trucks must park behind the building—but there were no NO PARKING signs on the drive, so
Charlie pulled up right out front behind the marshal's Jeep. Maybe his grin would lighten up her day.
The small lobby, decorated in pleasant pastels, had chairs and a couple of sofas, silk-flower arrangements, and the closed door to the administrator's office. There was no reception desk, so they opened the double doors at the back of the lobby and were met with two women rushing out—one in a wheelchair—and the overriding stench of human feces and the startling blare of an alarm. When they turned back into the lobby to get a breath of air, the wheelchair lady grinned a mouth missing half its teeth and took a magazine from one of the end tables.
Cousin Helen was next through the door. “Oh, it's only you, Gladys.” She turned back inside and held the door open to reach behind it and the alarm blessedly silenced. “Sorry about this,” she told Edwina. “It's just nuts today. And tonight's the full moon.”
“Should we not have opened the door?” Charlie asked.
“It's not you gals. It's Gladys and her ankle bracelet that set off the alarm.”
Gladys had a lovely head of gray-streaked hair and a leg in a knee cast, extended out in front of her on a sort of plank. Her other leg was bent at the knee, that foot on a foot rest, and around its ankle she wore a black band with an oblong box on it. She grinned even wider and as Cousin Helen turned away from her, slipped her magazine up her skirt and reached for another. “I have three boyfriends, honey, how about you?”
“There was another woman slipped through with Gladys,” Charlie said.
“Oh, shit.”
“We got plenty of that.” Gladys clapped her hands and drool slid down over her chin. Her glasses were so dusty it was a wonder she could see. “We're gonna have fun today. It was Marlys.”
“Where's that no-good Delwood when you need him?”
“His Jeep's outside,” Charlie offered.
“That, I know.” Helen wore white polyester pants with a blue-flowered smock almost to the knees.
“Not Marlys Dittberner?” Edwina said. “That was—”
“The very one. Welcome home, cuz.” She opened the doors to let the smell out into the lobby and yelled, “Darlene, tell old Delwood to get his sweet ass out here fast.”
“How can you stand it?” Charlie asked, breathing through her fingers.
“I can't believe it, Marlys Dittberner. Still alive,” Edwina said.
“Oh, the smell? You get used to it. And it's worse in the morning. You got what, eighty filled adult night diapers to change? And we're fully staffed. Think what it's like out in the real world where women and junkies can get paying jobs.” Cousin Helen looked like herself but didn't sound like the woman Charlie met in the church basement and ate dinner with last night. “We're usually spiffied up by nine, ten in the morning. After-lunch bowel movements are a lot less trouble. Staff can often get them on the potty chair in time. We're talking full-grown infants here, you know.”
“I am a kid around here, you have to understand.” The marshal of Myrtle was trying to explain to Charlie why he got no respect from Cousin Helen. They drove the streets of Myrtle looking for Marlys. “I am a forty-five-year-old kid. Kids get no respect in Myrtle.”
“Even if they dig your grave and plow your streets and arrest speeders and protect your home and—”
“Nah, kids owe them that much, and hey, I even get paid for what I owe them anyway. Sweet deal all around. But, I tell ya, Charlie, I'm a little shocked you went off and left your mother back at the Oaks that way. I was only kidding about needing help looking for Marlys. Your mom seemed kind of stressed out, as in totally destroyed.”
“I can't help her. She won't talk to me about anything
important. Show's me a house that looks straight out of Kosovo and tells me I was born there after telling me all my life that I was adopted at an agency in Boulder. And then clams on me. Won't explain the discrepancy.”
“She might have good reason.”
“I don't even know why I'm here. And it's not like we don't both have lots to do at home.”
He rolled the windows down and stopped the Jeep. “Man, you're steamed. Hey, Kenny, looking for Marlys. You seen her?”
And this tall guy, must have been six foot four with a weight lifter's chest and biceps, leaned against the marshal's door and bent down to look inside. He had a jaw, and his teeth flashed in a smile that left his eyes cynical. “Marlys. Not again. Del, you're going to have to take charge of that loony bin and establish order up there. What kinda lawman are you? Who's your friend?”
“This is Charlie Greene—”
“As in?”
“Yeah. Charlie, this here's Kenny Cowper.”
“As in Viagra?”
“I live on the stuff.”
“Does it help?” Charlie asked politely.
“Whew. Better keep the windows down or this heap's toast. I'll spread the word on Marlys.”
“‘This is Charlie Greene as in' what?” Charlie demanded as Kenny Cowper walked off. He wore a forest-green sweatshirt, Levi's, and dark hair with an excellent cut. He was one of those guys who could look at you and leave residue.
“He was insinuating you were hot enough to burn up this here vehicle.”
“That part I got, Delwood. My question stands.”
“Well, it's not like your visit was unexpected, you know.”
“It was to me. I barely got tickets and they cost the earth. And explain to me how, in a place where no one discusses things that are important, does news like my visit get around?”
“You know, I've always wondered that myself.” Del wore a red-and-blue-plaid shirt with sleeves rolled up and Dockers. His hair was sort of a medium brown with a couple of gray streaks.
“There, that's the house she was talking about. Slow down.”
“I know.” He stepped on the gas. “But we're looking for Marlys.”
“What do you mean you know? What do you know?”
“I know it's pheasant season and there's gonna be loose ammunition flying around and I want to find Marlys before a stray bullet does. That's what I know.”
“Why did my mother's Great-aunt Abigail point me out as the reason for Gertie's death? And my mom tell me Abigail is why we came to Myrtle? And my mother, who never cries, has done nothing but since we got here?”
“It's family, Charlie. No explaining it, but it's the most powerful force for good and evil too. Probably because it goes deeper than the sinkholes around this town.”
“Myrtle has sinkholes? Is that why the dirt sucks?”
“This is the best dirt in the world. You can grow a full-grown tree in ten years. We don't really have sinkholes. Lots of old wells cave in and there was rock mined and then filled over to grow crops. Pays to watch children around here, though.”
“You have a family?”
“Divorced. Three kids. She got everything—kids, house, car, bank account. Fine with me—she's the better parent.”
“You have parents?”
“Now them I got in spades. I got my parents and three of their parents.” He pulled over at a railroad trestle when a man in overalls like Uncle Elmo's came running at the Jeep.
“Looking for Marlys? Just spotted her heading down the alley toward the house.” He looked across Del at Charlie. “That—?”
“Yeah. Thanks, Ben. Looks like you get your wish after all, Charlie Greene.” And, siren blaring, they did a U and headed back down the road, screeching to a stop in front of the haunted house that didn't need a ghost.

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