“And that hideous brown lawn.” Shoulder slump.
“Weed that garden, roll out some fresh sod, put a couple of potted mums on the porch, et voilà! Curb appeal!”
Haley-Anne hands her an inventory of to-dos as she leaves. Gus promises she’ll get right on it. The bank has given her three months, so the sooner they list the house, the better. Gus posts the to-dos on the fridge under a puppy magnet. She stares at it.
How hard can it be to create curb appeal and clean up a little?
Harder than she thinks.
Gus spends the weekend moving from room to room like a balloon bouncing off the furniture. The melancholy follows her as she hovers in doorways. Gets sucked down halls. And occasionally clings to a wall while Lars sends her text after text.
Babes, where you at?
What the fuck, Augs?
Please come back.
You’re dead to me.
I love you, Auggie.
She runs her fingers along dusty windowsills where paint peels away in lovely cracked patterns that remind her of the backs of Rose’s wrinkled hands. She stares through cobwebs crisscrossing the front window as the world outside moves past, a carousel of mothers and strollers, dog walkers, a postman shouldering a heavy bag, a garbage truck wincing as it stops and starts. All moving past Rose’s house. Unaware that Gus is watching from behind the cobwebs.
Miss Santos probably looked out this same window as life passed her by. Waiting for an old woman to take her last breath so she could collect on a promise.
Gus has been at Rose’s house since Thursday evening. It takes her until Monday to move herself into the room where Miss Santos used to sleep. The smallest, starkest bedroom in the house. The one with the single bed in the corner and the TV sitting across from it, knowing its blue flickering will keep her company at night. She closes the door to the periwinkle guest room that used to be hers and leaves it closed.
Levi has been sleeping on Rose’s bed. Every evening after supper, Gus hears his nails tick-tick-tick up the wooden stairs and down the hall. Then the soft squeak of the box spring as he hoists his old bones up onto the bed.
Tuesday, Gus stumbles into the kitchen wearing one of Rose’s long flannel nightgowns. She found a stack of them neatly washed and folded on top of a hamper. Made of soft cotton that reminds her of the nighties she used to wear as a kid. Gus sits at the kitchen table with her coffee, just like she has the previous four mornings. The to-do list waiting on the fridge. Levi at her feet.
Wednesday, she pokes around upstairs. Opening the drawer in the small teak table next to Rose’s bed. Three linen dollies, a melted candle, matches, a Bible, and a small handgun along with a box of bullets tucked underneath a half-dozen Reader’s Digests.
In the closet, Gus finds a collection of hatboxes, a different colored hat inside each. Pink, plum, daisy yellow, and pistachio. Sunday hats. Each a delicate pastel bouquet resting inside a satin coffin. Some gilded with pearls. Others decorated with feathers or tiny silk roses. She opens the daisy yellow box and tries on the hat. Sitting in front of Rose’s vanity, she pulls a strand of gray hair from the rim. It’s caught in a pearl.
A remnant of Rose.
On the vanity sits a hand-carved jewelry box. Its velvet-lined pockets are brimming with bangles and shiny rings and rhinestone necklaces coiled like sleeping snakes. Costume jewelry. Cubic zirconia and simulated diamonds. Lars used to deal in junk jewelry. She knows it well. Gus clips on a pair of dangly earrings and looks in the mirror.
A child playing dress-up stares out at her.
She dips back in time.
8
Rose
GUS IS FIVE WHEN SHE’S CAUGHT SNOOPING IN ROSE’S jewelry box. She’s never seen Rose that angry before. Rose was always so kind. She gave her powdered green mints from a candy dish with a glass lid. She let Gus play on the living room carpet with her Russian nesting dolls. But in that moment, she’s a different person. Her pastel lips pull back to reveal yellow teeth like fangs.
How dare you touch my things.
She snaps the jewelry box shut. Grazes the back of Augusta’s hand with her fingernail, leaving a scratch that almost bleeds. Gus is so ashamed of what she’s done that on the way home in the car, when she finds a ring on her baby finger that she forgot to take off, she howls and throws it out the window. She falls into a fit of hysterics. Her mother has to pull the car over. Shannon doesn’t know what’s happening and Gus can’t find the words to explain how Rose turned on her so unexpectedly. Shannon rubs her back and tells her she’s overtired. Probably ate too many of Rose’s mints.
But Gus isn’t tired and she didn’t eat too many mints. She’s horribly sad. She’s discovered that there are lines only grown-ups can see. Lines children are not supposed to cross. But these lines are invisible. And these lines are everywhere. From that day forward, Gus watches for them. Her nerves fray from looking so hard. From trying to spot them.
She crosses another when she’s eight.
When she asks her mother about the photo of the ballerina.
Gus stares in the mirror. She’s twenty now. All grown-up. No one can how dare her anymore. She can drink coffee from Rose’s crystal, eat mac and cheese on the fine china, and wipe down the wet dog with the good towels if she so chooses.
This is her house. For ninety days at least. So there.
Gus tosses Rose’s yellow Sunday hat on the carpet and storms down to the kitchen. She looks around. Then she pulls the table closer to the back door so the morning sun will cascade across it when she’s having her coffee. She duct-tapes the broken screen back in place and tosses the crusty dishes into the trash bin under the sink. Then she spends the rest of the afternoon stretched out on her belly on the living room carpet playing with Rose’s collection of Russian nesting dolls. She opens each maiden until she finds the smallest one hiding inside. The small ones have nothing inside them. They’re solid. Not hollow like the others. These are her favorites. Gus opens all ten nesting dolls, then lines up the ten smallest in a row on the front windowsill so they can watch the carousel pass by.
Thursday, Gus browses through Rose’s LP collection that sits in a wire rack next to a turntable inside a wood cabinet. Lawrence Welk and His Champagne Music. Patsy Cline’s Greatest Hits. Pat Boone, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash. Old lady music. Gus plays Sinatra’s “My Way” cranked up loud. She spins around the living room letting her grannie nightie float like wings around her.
Friday morning, eight days since arriving at Rose’s house, Gus is pouring her second cup of coffee when Haley-Anne phones to see how the to-do list is coming along.
“Oh, it’s going great,” Gus lies. Not wanting Haley-Anne to come over and burst her cocoon. If mail didn’t tumble through the slot every afternoon, it would seem impenetrable. Gus could stay inside Rose’s house forever. Ensure is amazingly filling.
“Give me a week and I’ll give you curb appeal.”
Levi walks into the kitchen as Gus hangs up. He’s got one of her sneakers in his mouth. She darts at him, tries to grab the runner, nearly passes out from hunger.
Might be time to get some real food. She ventures out. Heads to the Metro grocery store around the corner. Fills a plastic basket with bananas, bread, a bag of mini Mars bars, a box of Honeycomb cereal, a six-pack of pink cream soda, and a chew toy for Levi. At the checkout counter, the guy stares at his register, then at her.