I took a sip of wine. “Has anyone asked him the question?”
“The ‘Why are you in Wharton all summer?’ question?” Jason asked. “No, I haven’t. This is the first time we’ve talked to him.”
Gary emerged from the kitchen and poured a drink for himself. He popped some cheese into his mouth. “I’m all prepped for the dinner rush,” he said, “but I don’t think we’re going to have much of one tonight. Too early in the season yet.”
Jason narrowed his eyes at him. “Do you and LuAnn know why Dominic is in Wharton?”
Gary smiled. “I plead the Fifth,” he said. “Listen, my policy is a guest’s business is their business. I don’t get involved.”
“I’ve never seen him before, so I’m assuming he’s new to Wharton,” Jason pressed.
“Fifth,” Gary said, calmly taking a sip of his drink.
“He had to have heard about LuAnn’s from someone. It’s not exactly on the map.”
“F-I-F-T and H.”
Jason shook his head and took a sip of wine, scowling at Gary. “Remind me to use you if I ever need an alibi.”
Although I wanted to know more about Dominic, I appreciated Gary’s level of discretion. There was clearly no use in asking any more questions.
Gil glanced down at his watch, tapped it, and gave Jason a look.
“Oh!” Jason said, pushing himself off his barstool. “We’ve got dinner plans.” He leaned down and gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “Brynn, you are lovely. I’m so glad you’ll be here with us for the summer. See you tomorrow?”
“I’ll be around,” I said as they hurried out the door.
For the second time in one day, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. Go back to my room? Wander around town? Neither sounded like great options.
“Want some dinner, doll?” Gary asked me.
Doll. Nobody had ever called me that. It was so 1950s that it made me smile. I liked it.
“Whatcha got?” I asked him.
He leaned over the counter. “Everything on the menu is good here, because I make it myself when those kids who call themselves my cooks aren’t around. But for the special tonight, I’ve been roasting a pork shoulder all day with Mexican spices, and it smells like heaven. It would make a mean burrito if you’re wanting one.”
“Ooh, that’s tempting.”
“LuAnn herself likes a concoction she calls a taco salad burrito,” he went on. “It’s basically a taco salad, with the pork, lettuce dressed with chipotle ranch, tomatoes, and onions, along with refried beans and melted cheese, wrapped in a tortilla. Sour cream, guac, and salsa on the side.”
That was all I needed to hear. “Yes, please,” I said, not remembering the last time I had eaten anything that decadent.
“You go sit at that four-top by the windows, and I’ll whip it up for you,” Gary said, disappearing into the kitchen.
I did as I was told. Sitting there on my own, with nobody to talk to, nobody to take care of, nothing to worry about, I gazed out the window and let my mind simply exist in, and appreciate, the present. I was here in a beautiful little town for the summer. This boardinghouse was filled with nice strangers who might become friends as we got to know each other. I exhaled, realizing I was at peace for the first time in a very long time.
Gary emerged from the kitchen with my plate and set it in front of me.
“This burrito is as big as my head.” I smiled up at him.
He laughed. “That’s how we do it here. Enjoy, doll.”
I noticed some other patrons coming through the door. The dinner rush was starting, and Gary was back on the clock.
I dove into the rather large slice of heaven on my plate and watched the streetscape as I ate, people coming and going up and down the block, everyone laughing and having a good time. There was a positive vibe here. I was glad to be part of it.
Later, after polishing off that enormous burrito, I thought about taking a walk, but in the end, I made my way back up to my room, snuggled into bed, and flipped on the television. I made a mental note to stop in at the bookstore the next day. Reading for pleasure with nothing more important to do. What a delicious idea.
One day down in my Wharton summer. I can do this, I said to myself, exhaling. I can do this.
I awoke to find my room bathed in moonlight. I hadn’t pulled the shades when I had finally turned off the TV and gone to sleep, preferring to lie in my bed and look up at the sky full of stars through the window. I sat up, took a sip from the glass of water on my nightstand, and settled back under the covers.
“Hellooo?”
It was a voice as thin as tissue paper. I shot up, looking around my room. The moonlight shone in through the windows—there was the dresser, my closet, the door to the hallway (latched, I could see from my bed). I shook my head, not sure I had heard anything at all. Maybe it was the remnant of a dream.
“Hello? Is anybody here?” There it was again, scratchy and thin, as though it were coming from another time.
I slipped out of bed and grabbed my robe from a hook inside my closet door. I drew it tightly around me and padded up to my door to listen. The knob turned and rattled, first tentatively, slowly. Somebody was trying the door.
“Will you let me in?” the singsongy voice said. “Please, won’t you let me in?”
Would I let her in? Oh, hell no! I was frozen, staring at the door. Is this what Dominic was talking about earlier when I had met him at the showers? Was this the haunting? I watched as my doorknob turned back and forth, back and forth. Click, clock, click, clock.
Someone was trying to get into my room.
Then, a scuffling out in the hallway. Urgent voices, in whispers. Jason? I couldn’t be sure who it was, and I certainly wasn’t opening the door to find out. I listened as the voices seemed to make their way down the hall, fading until they disappeared.
I stood there for a good long time, my ear to the door. All was quiet. Wasn’t it? I let out a breath I wasn’t even aware I had been holding.
I had the urge to open the door to ensure the hallway was really empty, but I thought better of it. That’s what they did—monsters, ghosts, the undead—they waited quietly until you decided to check if they were gone. I’d seen enough movies to know that. I chuckled a bit at this silly thought and slipped back into bed, my robe still belted tightly around me.
But I lay there, my eyes wide open, my pulse racing. It took a while for my breathing to slow and my eyes to feel heavy once again.
As I was drifting off, not quite asleep yet, a dream came bubbling out of wherever they come from. It was one of those lucid dreams—I have them often—in which I commented to myself, almost like I was the narrator, about what was happening in the dream.
A woman I didn’t know, a lovely blonde older woman, reed thin, dressed in cream-colored slacks and a sweater set, was standing in front of the house where I grew up, a 1950s split-level home on a wooded lot not far from a meandering creek in the suburbs of Minneapolis. She was smiling at me, beckoning me to come closer.
“Hello,” she said. “I have something to show you.” She gestured to the door of my house. “Go on in.”
I walked through the door. The foyer was just as I remembered it, a short set of stairs on the right, living room on the left, kitchen straight ahead. I took a few steps into the living room—the rust-colored shag carpet looked new, as did the sofa and armchair with big rust-colored flowers that my mother had bought when I was a kid. I hadn’t thought of those in years.