by K. S. Lindsay
Walking home from her shift at the video store was often a highlight of Meg’s day – and not just because the road sloped downhill the whole way. Trudging up the steep incline of Lake Street to the store, and running late as she always felt she must be, required so much energy and concentration for each heavy, hasty step that she rarely had time to look around.
Heading home, sailing down the sidewalk, fairy-light thanks to the immutable laws of gravity, she could gaze around her and take in the often infinitesimal changes a day had wrought. Meg held her head high and her shoulders back, mostly to keep her body from falling forward, so she could easily see everything she passed, from the people to the buildings to the posters tacked on the telephone poles.
Today, Meg took pleasure from the crisp, yet brisk fall air, and determined not to notice the already gathering dusk. She focused instead on the decorations cropping up on an ever increasing number of businesses, and the posters multiplying on windows as promotion for the annual retailers Trick-or-Treat.
Meg also had to return waves to people that she passed, grateful when they didn’t add on a, “Hey, Meg!” She kind of liked the waves and acknowledgements, but she didn’t enjoy the salutations. First off, while many people knew her name, she could rarely remember theirs. Second, she could never tell if they wanted her to stop for polite conversation. (Seriously, would they really care how she was? She didn’t care how they were, unless they could give more than a ‘fine.’)
Still, she waved back and, when required, responded with an enthusiastic, “Hey!”
While some knew her from the store, most just knew her. Meg had grown up here. Her grandfather had run a popular tavern in Orange, and when her dad fled in the face of fatherhood, she and her mom had landed back here. Her mom got a great job through family connections, and they stayed. Two years ago, Mom had married again, and moved to Central Washington – just as Meg found herself moving back to the neighborhood.
Orange wasn’t a place anyone was from. It was just a small neighborhood in a larger city, with lots of people that kind of flowed through. Not particularly pretty, the area had blue collar roots with a hard-won polish, mostly won by a handful of people who had deliberately stopped their flow to stay in Orange a while. Meg had thought her time as an ‘Orangine’ over when she left for college, six years ago. She’d been shocked when her boyfriend announced, two years back, that he’d found a great deal – a steal of a deal – on renting a house in Orange.
Now, she enjoyed walking the area she’d known nearly her whole life. She studied her surroundings, looking for the slightest change, even as the buildings around her shifted from commercial restaurants and stores into residential apartment buildings, duplexes and condo complexes. The decorations didn’t lessen much – Orangines loved Halloween – but the number of people she passed did.
So, she thought decorating her own home. She hated to decorate, and not only because she had to do it at work. Still, living right on one of the main streets in Orange – like the houses she passed – it seemed a little ‘party pooper-ish’ to be without fake cobwebs or a plastic pumpkin or two.
She thought about cheap ways she could decorate, particularly since she couldn’t afford the drive to raid her mom’s stash right now. She considered conning a talented co-worker into drawing Jack-o-Lanterns while she waited for a cross light at N 39th St. After crossing, she thought about collecting the very real cobwebs from her boyfriend’s piles and boxes, and moving them on to the front porch.
Her thoughts, about cobwebs and boxes, were thankfully interrupted by another “Hey, Meg!” The apartment buildings here gave way to the other, more central business district of Orange, and this meant more people on the sidewalks – especially at this time, when so many offices and shops closed for the evening.
As she turned the corner at the Orange Public Association complex, however, Meg tried to make herself invisible. Volunteers were out in the courtyard, between the modular buildings, sorting bins of materials donated to the non-profit. Meg didn’t want to be recognized, and get drawn into helping. Lately, she’d felt too drained to give time to help, but she knew she would if a friend – or even an acquaintance – asked.
After O.P.A., more small shops and restaurants squatted alongside the sidewalk, on both sides of the street. Meg’s step slowed here, in part because this street, compared to Lake, sloped less, but also because she liked to scan the windows she passed, looking for new displays or signs.
Meg stopped to look at a poster advertising yet another Halloween party, this one with an entry fee of only $5. It got Meg wondering if she could justify spending the money, on a ticket, on a costume, on the time… As she wondered if there was any way she might be able to talk Tommy, her boyfriend, into letting her go, she heard another hail.
“Meg?” came from behind her, “Hey, Meg!”
Meg turned reluctantly. This time, she knew the voice, and the name. She raised an unwilling hand to the shape approaching her out of the growing gloom, giving a vaguely passive wave as she answered, “Hi, Mr. Danielson.”
Morgan Danielson, one of longest standing Orange polish-and-shiners, approached her with his characteristic grand stride. The large man held his shoulders back and his hands relaxed, now loosely folded across his large belly, giving him a deceptively laid-back look, but his long legs quickly chewed up the distance between them.
Reaching her, he still towered over her, which always made her uncomfortable, among other things. At 5’9”, Meg rarely ever had to look up at people. However, what may bother her more is that Danielson had known her for nearly all of her 24 years, including all through her awkward years of 7 to, oh, well, now?
“Say, Meg, you’re in Zlinter’s house now, aren’t you?” Danielson said, foregoing polite niceties.
Meg, glad not to have to feign a ‘fine,’ actually smiled, “Yea, Mr. Zlinter rented us the top two floors of his house.”
“Great!” Danielson said, clapping his hands, “So, we were talking about doing a haunted house again this year, and wondered if you might be interested?”
Meg gaped. “A haunted house?” she asked, “In our house?”
“Yea, I know, I know,” Danielson said, waving a hand as though erasing that and all of Meg’s other, unvoiced objections, “it would be a colossal imposition, but the one last year, in the Tyrell’s warehouse was such a great success. We raised a few thousand for the O.P.A., and drew hundreds to the neighborhood.”
“Hundreds?” Meg muttered, to herself, looking down at the sidewalk, feeling a little sick.
“We’d find some place for you and your boyfriend,” Danielson went on, “Is it Tim?”
“Tom.” Meg answered, still quietly, “Tommy.”
“Yea, Tommy.” Danielson said, “We’d be able to pay for your trouble. Not a lot, since this is meant as a fundraiser, but we could maybe find a little money and a free place for the two of you to stay for the few weeks it would take to decorate and operate the House.”
Meg had to put a hand over her mouth. She still couldn’t look at Mr. Danielson.
“You know we are kind of short of empty places in the neighborhood these days,” Danieleson went on, his voice very upbeat and jovial, “It’s a great problem to have, even if it makes it hard to find a place for the Haunted House…”
He paused there. Meg knew it was time for her response, but she couldn’t. She feared that if she opened her mouth right then, she’d either be sick or start spewing the verbal equivalent.
“Zlinter has his carriage house empty right now, and between that and your two floors, we’d have a lot of square footage to work with. We thought that between that and the small empty warehouse down the block – where the engraving place was – we could do two Haunted Houses that would equal the same as what we had last year at Tyrell’s.”
Meg knew that when Danielson talked about “we” that he meant the Orange Business Association (abbreviated as O.B.A., and pronounced by all Orangines as ‘Obey’.) She knew also that she faced a steam engine barreling down on her in the form of Danielson and the other OBAy members with this request.
A steam engine on one side, and the wall of stone that was Tommy and his boxes of stuff on the other; no wonder she felt sick.
Meg swallowed, with difficulty, as she looked up at Morgan Danielson. She tried to straighten her spine and stiffen her shoulders, and only felt a crushing weight too heavy to lift. Still, she did manage to get herself to speak up.
“I’m sorry, but I just can’t do it,” she said. “Tommy and I…” She stopped. She couldn’t think of an excuse, and she couldn’t tell him the truth. She would rather be splattered than admit that her boyfriend was King of the Pack Rats, and that she lived year ‘round in a house haunted by the ghosts of what-might-one-day-be… As firmly as she could, Meg did manage to wring out, “It just isn’t possible. I’m sorry.”
Danielson didn’t argue. In fact, he turned thoughtful. The reaction surprised Meg, and then it unsettled her. He also didn’t respond for a few seconds, just slowly crossed his arms across his chest as he regarded her.
“I want to help, but we just can’t do that,” Meg said, needing to fill the empty silence.
“That’s okay,” Danielson said, “it was just an idea.” He uncrossed one arm and waved the hand around, as if erasing the suggestion now. “I know you would do it if you could,” he offered, still looking thoughtful.
Morgan Danielson owned an art gallery, in addition to the building it sat in and about half a dozen other properties surrounding it. He liked to be known, however, for the art gallery, and his connections in the art world. Meg had never talked to Danielson about anything but the art gallery, art and how to better promote Orange as a place to come see his gallery.
Standing on the sidewalk, within blocks of her house, as the hustle and bustle of evening traffic swirled around them, Meg feared she was about to have a heart-to-heart talk with Morgan Danielson. She couldn’t articulate why she feared it, but she did.
“You know, Meg, when we were talking about it, some things were said…” Danielson started, hesitantly, and the new attitude didn’t suit the big man. He actually looked a bit scared himself, Meg noticed, when she could finally raise her eyes to meet his concerned ones.
She squashed an urge to comfort him, and forced herself to ask, “What was said?” She tried again to straighten her spine, holding her arms at her side and tipping her head back.
“Oh, you know,” he hedged, “people really care about you, and we want the best for you. And some people have noticed that, you know,” Danielson waved his hand again, but this time it looked more like he was trying to summon up something, “We’ve heard some things about you and this Tim that, frankly, have us a little worried.”
“Tom,” she automatically corrected, too horrified to stop herself. She felt her hand grip her elbow. Unconsciously, she’d slid her right arm behind her back to grip her left elbow. As soon as she felt the touch, she let go abruptly, hearing Tommy’s voice in her head, criticizing her for making him – and everyone, he insisted – feel uncomfortable. ‘You look like one of those circus-freak contortionists,’ he’d often complained.
Quickly shaking her arms, pretending she felt cold, Meg tried to find a response to Danielson. “Things are fine with me and Tom,” she said, forcing herself to put all the ‘fine’ into her voice that she could summon. “I don’t know what people could be talking about.”
“Well…” Danielson said, drawing out the word while he adjusted his arms across his belly, “I just think that a few people have noticed that Tim – Tom! Sorry! That Tom can be just a little, um, well,” he no longer looked at her. Morgan Danielson refolded his arms, cleared his throat, and said, “He can be a little abrupt, and a little, um, critical, and, well, a little…”
Meg’s eyes grew wide. When she realized it, she looked away, staring down the street, in the direction of her home. This cannot be happening, she thought.
“It’s fine,” she said, but her words came out garbled and choked. “I’m fine,” she managed to say more forcefully, “really, we’re fine!” Meg managed to face Danielson, and found him regarding her and being all thoughtful again. She realized that she wanted to slap him, and all of them. She wanted to rail at all those busy bodies. Instead, she found her spine and finally straightened it. “I don’t know what everyone is on about, but I’m fine,” she said, perhaps a little more forcefully than she should have.
He caved. Meg was shocked to see it happen. Danielson’s expression shifted suddenly to grateful relief. He instantly started backpedaling. “I don’t know what we were thinking,” he said, “Just too much talk, I guess.”
Meg watched him back off, and suddenly her spine felt ready to crack. She slowly let herself lower her shoulders, smiling and nodding while she folded in on herself.
They both wrapped up the conversation swiftly then, both ready to make and accept excuses as a way to go their different ways without really ever saying good-bye.
It wasn’t good-bye, of course, Meg knew. She’d see Danielson again the next day, or the next, or the next. She saw him all the time – and he saw her, and Tommy. Everyone saw her and Tommy together, she thought as she hurried home.
Nearing the big, old house, she didn’t slow her pace a step, wanting to get inside as fast as possible – more willing to face the mess inside than the people of the neighborhood. As she inserted the key into the lock on the front door, she reminded herself that she hadn’t wanted to move here.
Tommy had met Zlinter and worked the deal, promising to fix up the place in exchange for cheap rent. Tommy had bragged about the deal, and then grew hurt and angry when Meg had ‘not been enthusiastic enough,’ he’d said. Then he’d said the deal was done, and started packing.
He wanted it, she reminded herself, This wasn’t my choice.
Just inside the door, Meg heard Tommy shout her name. “Meg? Is that you?” he said, “Where the hell have you been? I thought you were going to make dinner tonight?”
Meg closed her eyes, unable to face the boxes and piles that she would have to navigate to get to the kitchen, and to Tommy. We’re fine, she told herself, over and over, we’re going to be fine.
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©2014 Kirby Lindsay. This column is protected by intellectual property laws, including U.S. copyright laws. Reproduction, adaptation or distribution without permission is prohibited.