This is my entry in the 2009 NYC Midnight Short Story contest. I entered on a whim, prompted by a craigslist ad for someone to write a story about someone who entered the contest...if you follow that. Upshot...I checked out the contest, and decided I'd rather be a short story writer on this one than a reporter. This was the deal: genre and setting assigned at random; 8 days to submit a finished product; 2,500 word limit on the story. It was a helluva week...not much time to write. In fact, I worked until 7 pm on the day of the midnight deadline, got home dog tired with about 500 words to cut and a whole ending to re-think. I made the deadline with 13-minutes to spare! I've never written mystery...never been anything more than a curious wanderer in an antique shop...so brace yourself.
As always, thanks for reading!
She found her way into town that morning on the strength of her memory of the road and the steadiness of her nerves. That - and the voice of her father tugging at her like a relentless child in a candy store:
“If ya insist on drivin’ in fawg, remember theyah prob’ly gonna be otha people as stupid as you ah on the road. Fagawdssake, roll down ya window so ya can ‘eer ‘em.”
So her window was down, even though it was February and the fog frizzed her hair. And it was cold – even in Lindenberg, Texas. Sara Williams-Satterly - 37-year-old PhD History professor, born of Massachusetts fisherman stock, newly widowed, alone in the world - was a long, long way from home.
“So why does it feel like the Atlantic coast?” she wondered aloud.
She pulled into a space in front of the yellow clapboard storefront that sat on a wide swath of sidewalk between The Nib&Feather and The Wistful Weaver. Lindenberg, a quaint tourist stop wedged between the birthplace of a president and a booming college town, had not yet come to life this morning. Sara killed the coughing engine of her Land Cruiser and sat for a moment, staring through the fog-streaked windshield at the bright purple door that seemed to be her destiny. She peeked under the top of the windshield, squinting as if the sign over the door were hard to read: Jefferson’s Junction.
“Gotta have a new name,” she announced to nobody as she slid out of the car and into the first day of her new life: Antique Store Owner, or Proprietor of Great American History - Furniture Included, as she preferred to tell people.
“Welcome to Foggy Hollow,” she called out to the invisible Spirits of Living Rooms Past as she turned the lock and pushed open the purple door. “Let’s call ourselves Foggy Hollow today…it will feel a bit like home.”
Sara walked slowly and ceremoniously through the shop, using her new cache of keys to unlock every cabinet and closet and drawer. She ran her hands across each piece of furniture, every picture frame, and stacks of folded quilts, introducing herself as she went. “Hello, I’m Sara. Hi. Nice to meet you. I can’t wait to imagine your history.”
Her mind danced a smooth waltz between the happiness of this dream come true store, and the lingering emptiness of the life left behind thousands of miles away. Friends at the university had told her it was too soon to make a big change in her life, but the store was perfect and the price was right. And she honestly didn’t know how to move forward without moving away.
She stopped at a pair of striped Hepplewhite chairs and closed her eyes. The full-bodied aroma of musty and mahogany and mineral spirits triggered a gentle wave of memories. At once, she was in the living room at Nona’s, the tearoom in Nantucket, the curio shop on her favorite corner in Gloucester, her father’s furniture re-finishing garage.
Yes. The right place at just the right time in my life, she thought.
Eyes back open, she resumed the task of exploring the map of her future. She found nibs and quills and a crumbling stack of note cards in the cubby of a New England Federal secretary desk. Something else – a small manila envelope – was stuck in the back of the hole. She grabbed a pencil and pried it out.
HIGH GRADE MULTI-PLAY STEEL PHONOGRAPH NEEDLES was stamped in red on the small package. Inside, indeed, there were at least 50 stubby steel needles.
Is there a victrola in the store? She couldn’t place it.
“Let’s see if we can find one…” now talking to a package of needles.
Sara wound her way through the Chippendales and the Sheratons, eventually locating the Brunswick, circa 1916, phonograph. She studied the mahogany cabinet before lifting the lid to see the turntable. It appeared to be in beautiful condition.
“Record included,” she smiled. “Ah, surprise, no needle.”
She pulled one of the small, well-defined pieces of steel from the envelope and twisted it into place, then reached around the cabinet and turned the crank carefully. She placed the tone arm into a wobbly groove, and congratulated herself for her mechanical skill as scratchy 1920s jazz came to life. Sara’s head turned along with the revolution of the record. Fletcher Henderson was the artist. The album was titled Yeah Man! She liked it.
Yeah Man!
As Fletcher filled the room, Sara boogied a bit, dancing her way to the last unlocked drawer beneath an Old National solid brass cash register. The key required a jiggle and an extra tug. And a whack and a swear word. It didn’t open. She glared at the lock, as if her steely stare would melt metal.
“Open, drawer!”
A loud knock brought her back to standing attention.
She leaned around the Old National to look toward the door. It was still early…not even 7 AM. Through the foggy haze, she could make out a man in a dark coat on the other side of the purple door. He was peering through the window with a searching kind of squint.
Sara knew only three people in Lindenberg – her realtor, her landlord, and the bartender at the Sleepy Eyes Inn. This man was none of these.
She walked toward the door and shouted through the glass.
“I’m sorry, I’m not open.”
“Oh, I was looking for Mary,” he shouted back.
Sara froze. Mary Lindsay had owned the shop for 15 years. Eight months ago she asphyxiated herself in her garage. All of Lindenberg was devastated by the suicide, and was still completely awash with speculation over what might have sent Mary toward such dire and never mentioned despair. Her realtor had told her everyone considered Mary the happiest shop owner in town.
“Um…well…Mary has been gone for quite some time.” She didn’t want to be indelicate.
“Oh,” he said, clearly a bit embarrassed, “I guess it’s been a while since I’ve been here. I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t frighten you.”
“N-not at all,” she lied. “I hope you’ll come back when I’m open.”
“I hope I can,” he said. “I’ve always loved the place.”
“I love it too.” Sara felt herself relaxing with this stranger on the other side of a locked door. “Thanks for stopping by.”
She watched him walk to the end of the sidewalk, where he seemed to disappear into the fog. It was a full first day. She drove home late that night, humming a short “do-doot-do-doot-do-doot-doo” and wondering where the tune was from.
The next day she hired her first and only employee – Judy. Judy, like Sara, was a retired college professor, and had taught early American literature most of her life. She had grown up near Lindenberg, and decided she’d like to grow old there. They were, almost instantly, best friends.
On day three, Sara remembered to bring the screwdriver from home, and jimmied the lock open on the drawer beneath the Old National. She was a little disappointed to find a nest of paper scraps - food wrappers, receipts, and a half dozen post-it note messages - along with a few random pencil sketches of faces. Or maybe it was one face. Sara stuffed the pile back into the drawer, promising herself a long look at what remained of Mary Lindsay when she had more time.
Judy found the phonograph that day, and she absolutely loved the sound of the squeaky turntable and the scratchy recording of Yeah Man! She said it added an ambience of life and chased away the suggestion of death that antiques and Mary Lindsay brought to the place.
“I guess that’s why it was still on the player,” Sara said.
That night, after Judy left, Sara pulled out the collection of paper scraps in the cash drawer. She spread them out on the marble countertop, hoping to discover the catalyst in Mary Lindsay’s demise. There were no collection notices, no love letters, no medical bills. Just junk and those sketches. The drawings were good, not great, but they were somehow recognizable. Who was that person? An historical figure? A Lindenberg resident? A sports hero? He definitely looked familiar.
Sara sorted through the papers, threw most of them away, and stuffed the drawings back into the drawer. She headed for the back room to brew some tea, and stopped to crank the phonograph as she passed by. Fletcher Henderson - again. What was that song? Do-doot-do-doot-do-doot-dooo. She stopped the turntable and lifted the tone arm. Queer Notions. Hmmm, she thought, how incorrect is that? She put the tone arm back in the plastic groove and turned the crank another half dozen times.
Then there was knocking.
The man in the black coat stood at the door. Another inappropriate hour, she thought, this time nearly 9 PM. Something akin to electricity sprang from her bone marrow and pricked every nerve ending in her body. This is weird. Why is he here again?
She walked to the door, and cracked it open a bit. “I’m really sorry. I just bought the store and I won’t be open for at least another week – maybe two.”
The man laughed in a way that instantly calmed and disarmed Sara. His eyes, she could see by the porch light, were clear and dark and kind. His smile was guileless and contagious. She felt herself smiling back at him.
“I’m sorry to be a pest. I’m not sure what drew me here tonight. I guess I thought I might see you.”
Wow. Brazen. That’s what she was thinking, but instead of that thought, these words came out of her mouth: “Want to come in? I was making tea.”
“I actually don’t have any other reason for being here tonight,” said the stranger. And through the purple door he came. They talked East coast schools, Texas thunderstorms, and the differences between Colonial and Jacobean cabinetry.
This meeting of Sara and the Stranger with the kind eyes and infectious smile continued 4-5 times a week for several months. The conversations grew more personal but never too intimate. Sara looked forward to ending her days with a friend. It was almost like going home to a husband, she thought…without the responsibilities. The circumstances of the visits were always the same: the shop closed at 6, Judy left at 6:15, Fletcher Henderson was cranked to life on the old Brunswick by 6:30, tea was made, and the man she knew as John Jeffries would appear at the door.
She had learned less about him over evening tea than he had learned about her. Sara knew John was a widower in his mid-50s who had a place “up the road” and an entrepreneur’s portfolio that included investments in “musicians.”
“Which musicians?” she had asked one night.
“Oh, probably nothing you know…just a lot of queer notions.” He flashed that big, crazy smile that made her feel like he loved the fact that she had Fletcher Henderson on the phonograph every night.
On a slow Tuesday in June, Sara took her first day off in four months.
Judy opened the store early and went straight to the phonograph to crank up Fletcher Henderson. Sara didn’t think early 20th century jazz did much to sell 18th century furniture, so she frowned on playing the phonograph during business hours. But Judy didn’t like quiet. She picked up the tone arm to move the needle into the grove…and it broke.
“Crap,” Judy whispered to herself. “I’m busted, now.”
“No worries,” Sara said the next morning when Judy confessed. “Those tone arms were made of pot metal. The stuff wears out, eventually…at least every 90 years. Just order a new part online.”
She locked the door and started tea after Judy left that night. The same thing the next night. And the next. Sara began staying at The Foggy Hollow until after midnight, hoping John would stop in. She replayed hours of conversations with him, wondering if she’d missed the mention of a trip away. After a couple of weeks, she began checking obituaries from nearby newspapers. She asked Judy, to whom she’d never mentioned her evening visitor, if she’d ever run into a man named John Jeffries in Lindenberg.
“Nope…never even heard of a Jeffries family from around here,” she said.
Six weeks passed and no John. Sara lost her appetite for tea. She switched to coffee, which she drank all evening while re-balancing the store’s books, dusting furniture, and checking the sidewalk outside the shop every 15 minutes. One of those jittery evenings, she began to think about Mary Lindsay, and remembered the sketches she’d locked away 6 months earlier.
She had to jimmy the lock open again, and realized she was trembling as she reached for the drawings. Sara spread the photo-sized, hand-drawn images out on the counter. The drawings were of John.
She held herself up like a drunk trying to hold steady at the bar just before collapsing. She thought she might faint, so she slowly lowered herself to the floor, in one fist, the sketches. She sat and stared.
When she found her breath again, she reached for a pencil, and began writing on the back of each drawing. By the time she left that evening, a moist summer fog had settled into the hills on the road toward home. She wasn’t thinking of her father that night - only John - so she forgot to roll down her window. At a curve just a half-mile from her driveway, Sara Williams-Satterly wandered unknowingly across the double yellow and met a 2-ton pick up truck head-on.
Judy went to the store Friday night after Sara’s funeral. It was late, but she was hungry for a comforting memory of her friend. A small package had been delivered and was wedged behind a flowerpot at the purple door. Judy picked it up, and walked inside, tearing through box tape, wondering what Sara had been expecting.
It was the tone arm for the phonograph. Judy poked around in search of a screwdriver, and found the drawer under the Old National open. There were pencil drawings inside. “Sara didn’t draw. What are these?” she said, as she picked up the renderings of a middle aged, kind looking gentleman. Instinctively, she turned the drawings over. There, in Sara’s handwriting, were what seemed to be random, incomplete thoughts.
John. John Jeffries.
Mystery man.
Friend.
I love him?
I miss him.
What about Mary?
Who are you?
What did you want?
The screwdriver was on the shelf under the drawer. Judy put down the drawings and went to the back of the store to repair the phonograph. It was easy. She turned the crank, moved the needle gently into its groove and let Fletcher Henderson loose on her grief.
She turned the volume all the way up.
Even so, she heard the knock at the door.
Empty
1 year ago
