Page 13 of A Very No Strings Halloween
“Until he metyoooouuuu,” she says in a hushed voice.
“He cared about me like a granddaughter, Chelsea.” I don’t tell her that when he told me he wanted the property to pass to me he mentioned itwas situated near Assawompset Pond, so it made sense for me to live there. I try not to read into that. Ever. “He was a sweet, lonely old man with no family, and I liked him.”
These living room windows are easier to open. Heavy and a bit sticky, but I can lift them open. I run my fingertips along the molding around the big window. It’s dusty, but everything here seems solid. It just needs to be lived in. And brought into this century.
I notice that I have goose bumps on my forearms and that reminds me to turn up the heat. As I pass through the room to adjust the thermostat, I remember there is no thermostat. Because this house was built in the late 1940s. I brought a space heater with me last time. I think I left it upstairs in the bedroom.
“It is sweet that he was your buddy,” Chelsea says. “Oh shit, I almost forgot! Joel finally has a new guy working in his office who’s recently divorced and kinda cute and probably not a creep. You gotta come to dinner with us—we’ll do a double date.”
“I don’t date, Chels, you know that.”
“Still?”
I freeze when I hear the floor creak upstairs.
I think.
Did I? It could have been the floor creaking beneath my feet, and it just sounded like it came from upstairs. Or there’s probably mice and who knowswhat other kinds of critters living in the attic. They’re probably super cute, like Disney cartoon animals, who are more scared of me than I am of them. We could peacefully coexist, and they’ll sing to me while helping me clean and get me dressed for a Halloween ball.
“Babe, it’s been, like, two years since Trevor…” She doesn’t finish that sentence because the sentence would end withdumped you and moved to Florida after you left Philly to go to the same college as him.Or something along those lines.
“It has nothing to do with Trevor,” I say with a tremor in my voice. “I just don’t have time to date.”
“Ohhhh, I see why you like that house. It reminds you of your neglected, cobwebby vulva.”
“Actually, my vulva is very well tended to, thank you so much.”
“By what?”
“By my no-strings guy.” With a deep, shaky breath, I gather my courage and head for the stairs.
“What no-strings guy?”
“My neighbor. I told you. We’ve had this thing for well over a year now.”
“Wait, not the neighbor you were always complaining about when you first moved to that apartment? The one who’d blast Chumbawamba late at night?”
“Yeah. That one. But he’s changed a lot. Now he uses headphones to listen to that song.”
“Well, I don’t like you being out there by yourself, and I can’t leave work. I’d send Joel over, but he’s at work too. Why don’t you call your friendly neighbor to come help you, Donna? He sounds like the kind of guy who doesn’t have regular office hours. Someone who can help you get back up again when you get knocked down…”
That makes me laugh again. “Accurate. But that would be breaking the no-strings rule. We have a pact about this kind of thing. It’s just sex. We don’t get involved in each other’s personal lives. And I don’t need help. It’s just a house. I’m just going to do some cleaning. I can handle it all by myself. You get back to work. I’m fine, really. Don’t worry about me.”
“You text me when you leave and when you get home, and you call me if you need to talk again, okay? I’ve got an admin mess or five to clean up over here. Love ya.”
“Love you—bye.”
I feel better now. The very thought of calling Billy for anything other than a sex or party emergency is hilarious. Although I can’t get over the fact that he actually fixed my dishwasher last night. And covered me with a blanket. That was pretty sweet. But I know he went out after that, so it’s not like it meant anything to him. And that’s fine. That’s the deal. He gets it.
I remove the earbudsfrom my ears and drop them into my shoulder bag. Now the house seems excruciatingly quiet. Expectant. Almost like it’s anxiously listening for a response from me…
Which is also hilarious because houses don’t have ears.
Ignoring the flutter of anxiety in my chest, I take one step up the staircase and wait. For what, I don’t even know, but nothing happens. Nothing creaks. No hellmouth appears, swallowing me up and trapping me in the basement. Two more steps up and I stop in my tracks because I hear something that sounds an awful lot like an exasperated sigh. But it’s probably steam seeping out of a pipe.
This is beyond ridiculous.
But I go out to my car to arm myself with a crowbar, just in case.
