“Right.”
“We’re safe now.”
“Then why are we still whispering?”
“Ghosts.”
My legs feel weak, so I take a seat at the top of the stairs. My heart rate is dropping to normal, but I still have a healthy grip on the candlestick. I can’t explain what’s just happened. I know what I heard, but I don’t believe in haunted houses or spooky stuff in general. I’m sure there’s a rational explanation, like the old house is settling or wind or, God forbid, an actual swamp rat. “You watch too many horror movies,” I say, at a normal volume this time.
“I’m never watching another scary movie as long as I live.” Lindsey sits next to me and shakes her head with conviction. “I’m done with ghosts and witches and demon possessions.”
This is southern Louisiana. The heart of voodoo queens and hoodoo curses. “You didn’t mention zombies.”
“Oh, I love zombies. Zombies aren’t real. Not like chain-saw massacres and evil birds.”
9
March 18
Mom’s DNA and man buffet.
HOW MANY men does it take to move a four-poster bed made of solid walnut?
Five. Four to do the work and one to tell them how to do it. That one person is Simon. “When you boys are done passing a good time,” he hollers down the stairs, “these old mattresses aren’t going to haul themselves out.”
Apparently, I’d paid the mattress store for delivery but not for setup and removal, and no cash bribe could induce the two deliverymen to haul the new ones up the curved stairs or take the old ones out. They’d dumped them in the middle of the parlor and said, “That’s not part of the job,” as they’d walked out, practically slamming the door in their haste, leaving me and Mom and Lindsey staring at the mattresses and box springs. Sleep-deprived and on the brink of an emotional breakdown, I couldn’t think of a solution.
“Call the doctor,” Mom suggested, as if the man who’d called me a swamp rat and saddled me with an obnoxious bird was going to do me any favors.
I ignored her and looked to Lindsey, who still seemed a little pale after last night’s creaking-house shenanigans. “Suggestions?”
“This is above my pay grade,” she said, like I was going to tell her to haul the mattresses upstairs on her own back.
“Call the doctor.”
Too tired to argue, I dialed the first number on Simon’s business card and handed the phone to Mom. To my shock and Mom’s delight, Simon arrived within an hour with three beefy men and a redheaded guy so skinny his wrists and elbows poked out of his skin.
“This isn’t a debutante come-out party,” Simon hollers down again, sounding like a drill sergeant with a fresh crop of soldiers. “We gotta lot of work before you get your cucumber sandwich and Sprite.”
“Ohh.” Mom sighs. “I wore blue at my come-out party.” She stands next to me near the bottom of the stairs, transfixed by the buffet of men before her. She’s wearing her yellow velour tracksuit and white sneakers, and I fixed her hair in a braided bun. She painted her lips a bright flamingo pink in anticipation of “our guests.”
“Our guests” are charging me a hundred dollars per man, and because I am more my mother’s daughter than I like to admit, I pulled on a pair of fabulous black jacquard pants with just a hint of dark-blue plaid. My blue silk blouse could use a touch-up with an iron, but I didn’t pack one so I’m out of luck. I “put on my face” and braided my hair and shoved my feet into ankle boots with a modest two-inch heel. A lifetime of Mom’s warning to “always look your best just in case” is embedded in my DNA.
“Don’t lean on that rail. Y’all’ll be in a world of sufferin’ if it gives out,” the drill sergeant warns. “Where’s Jim?”
“Sure hope no one breaks a neck,” Mom says.
“Comin’.” The skinny guy with fuzzy red hair runs from the parlor and grabs the tail end of a mattress.
“Someone might break a neck.”
The last time I glanced into the parlor, Lindsey had set herself up in the corner of the couch, where she was texting while keeping an eye on the empty birdcage as if Raphael might materialize like it was an intergalactic portal.
The stupid bird is still at large, but he did leave evidence of his continued existence: a clue dropped on the white table in the breakfast nook. A disgusting bird-poop clue that made Lindsey gag and run for the bathroom.
“That skinny fella is gonna break his neck.”
“He’s stronger than he looks.” I glance at Mom and see she’s wringing her hands as she watches the “skinny fella.”