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“My husband, God rest his soul, was in the Army. He volunteered to go to Vietnam.”
I nodded. The last thing I wanted to talk about was combat. It was behind me, and I wanted to keep it that way. I glanced around the kitchen and found that she had dozens of teapotsstashed on every open surface. There were big ones and small ones, ceramic, silver, decorative, utilitarian, all kinds.
“You collect teapots?” I asked.
“Yes!” She immediately launched into the origin stories for every pot in the kitchen. “Most of them were birthday gifts from my husband over the years. This one came from Disney World…”
I tried giving her my full attention but couldn’t. It was becoming obvious that one of the ways I was going to have to pay for this fully furnished apartment was by listening to Mrs. Washington talk about her late husband. After polishing off the pie, I realized I was dead tired. A shower and a nap were in order, possibly followed by some mind-numbing television.
“Can I see the apartment?” I asked abruptly.
“Of course,” she said with a smile. “Look at me, going on and on, when you must be exhausted.”
She took me down a set of stairs in the back of the kitchen to a one-bedroom apartment in the basement. There was a living room with a couch, television, and bookshelf and a bedroom with a dresser, nightstand, and queen-sized bed. Alongside it was a full bathroom with a small shower and a kitchen with a refrigerator, stove, and sink.
“You have your own entrance.” She pressed a key into my hand, pointing to a door in the living room. “This leads to the basement stairs, so you won’t have to worry about disturbing me.”
“Thank you,” I said, eager to be alone.
“All I ask is that you come up occasionally to have dinner,” she pleaded, desperate for company in her old age.
“Of course.” I smiled.
“Well,” she straightened, “I’ll leave you to it.”
She turned around and went back upstairs. I sat down on the couch. It was a cheap, scratchy fabric, the cushions worn out. There was nothing else in the room except for the television and an empty bookshelf. Just as well. I didn’t have anything to put on the bookshelf anyway. A window set high up on the wall reminded me I was in a basement, but it was clean and dry, and the walls were white. I tried not to see the enemy lurking in the bedroom as I kicked my feet up and lay down. I kept my boots on. Countless tours taught me never to take my boots off except in the shower.
I picked up the remote and flipped through channels. I just wanted something stupid to take my mind off my own problems. I finally settled on some ridiculous nature show where the host hiked up into the mountains of Hawaii looking for native species. The landscapes took me away, so lush and green. The problem was that I was carrying all this baggage around with me, all the heartache about being home and the trauma of the desert. I felt like a coil wound too tightly, like something was about to snap.
I closed my eyes and hoped my hometown had something good waiting for me.
2
ALY
Iwas swamped at work when I got the big news.
I worked as a receptionist at the only lumberyard in town. Because Singer’s Ridge was so small, the lumberyard represented one of the major employers for locals.
The complex covered at least four football fields worth of space, most of it dedicated to storing logs and boards. There was a covered area where the untreated wood was stored. A bargain bin held scraps and warped boards that customers could buy for pocket change. There were industrial machines to cut and shape. Rows and rows of product were stacked across an open area paved with gravel.
There was a parking area where customers could back their trucks up to load their purchases and a larger parking area in the back for the deliveries and the staff vehicles. A woodworking shop held a small selection of tools and the cash registers. A farmhouse that used to belong to the owners had been converted into an office at the back of the lot. There was also a small building that the floor managers used for their office, located right next to the staff parking lot.
I worked in the house, in a room on the first floor that had once been a living room. It was large and furnished with a couch, a desk, and three filing cabinets. I brought in a few plants to liven up my space, but other than that, there were no personal touches. I didn’t have children or pets to display photographs of, or prestigious degrees to frame and hang on the walls. There was one motivational poster that I contemplated often during phone calls and random peaceful moments. It said, “The secret to your future is hidden in your daily routine.”
I supposed it was intended to inspire me to work hard every day. Instead, it just gave me something to chew over while I was only half listening to customer complaints. It sounded romantic or adventurous. I could imagine something like a hidden treasure map in a secret compartment in my desk that would lead to life-changing riches, or maybe there was a puzzle that I would have to solve that would end with true love.
The background to the poster was a mountain landscape, something far away and up north. I had never traveled, and the picture felt less like a window to a foreign land than a cheesy backdrop for an even cheesier sentiment. I worked eight to five with a half hour for lunch. More often than not, I ate at my desk. There was a breakroom, once the kitchen, where many of the workers gathered for their breaks. But I was one of the only women on the job, and I wasn’t always comfortable sitting with a large group of men.
My boss Porter Hayes was a nice enough guy. It was no secret that he was in a recovery program. In his office on the second floor, he had a bunch of twelve-step sayings framed. Every so often, he would throw office parties where he would pull out a barbeque and make burgers and dogs for the crew. There was never any alcohol involved, only sodas and water. I was alwaysin charge of the chips and sodas, making sure all the paper plates were stacked and the condiments were arranged for ease of use.
It was Porter’s soon to be father-in-law who owned the lumberyard, though that wasn’t how he got the job. He had been friends with the original owner, a family named Weller who had lived in the house. In fact, I had been to school with both Porter and Mike Weller, the son of the original owners.
That thought brought me around to Lincoln Matthews. I was working on the accounts payable when my phone buzzed. There was no one else in the office, so I pulled it out and checked it. A text from my friend Mary Beth struck me with the full force of a hurricane. Lincoln Matthews was back in town.
Suddenly, the spreadsheet I had been working on lost its appeal.Are you sure?I texted back.
100%, was the response.
