Page 1 of Why Cheese?
CHAPTER ONE
Goudafellas
ON THE CORNER sits a cheese shop full of painful memories, dark shadows, and the unfortunate name ofGoudafellas. I try to muster a small chuckle for the pun my great uncle would have been proud of, but it fails in the gloomy rain. Winds tear at the umbrella in my hand. I cinch tighter, causing the mass of keys to jangle.
Two planter boxes made from old cheese crates sit astride the glass door. Tufts of brown grass and leaves tumble from them. In three months no one’s bothered to clean any of it up even though it’s on the street. What horrors will I find inside?
Taking a breath, I approach the door. Peering through the dark window, I spot a hint of display shelves inside from waist-height down to the floor. Two great beams bisect the floor, giving the place its charming industrial feel. A long banner stretches between them. Back in the corner rests the counter where I’d spent a couple of summers pretending I ran the store. Tourists found the girl in pigtails counting back change hilarious.
My hazy memories turn to mold as I remember why I’m here. Someone stuck a white envelope to the door with my name on it. The damp air has undone most of the tape. It falls open in my hands.
Ms. Violette Reely,
Per the arrangements of the will, all of the paperwork to transfer the sole proprietorship of the store known asGoudafellasinto your name has been completed. Please contact my firm if you need any more assistance.
Thunder claps and I yelp. Nervously, I peek over my shoulder. No one cares I’m here. Cars slush on past washing filthy water up the curb toward my shoes. Maybe wedges and a boho sundress weren’t the best choices for today.
There’s no more putting this off. Uncle Mateo’s been in the ground for months. I stick one of the dozen keys in the lock and turn. The lawyers told me no one’s been in here since his death. I hold my breath and walk into my childhood.
A loud ring bursts from behind me. I spin back, expecting to come face to face with an alarm system I accidentally triggered. Then, another more incensed ring rises from my back, and I sigh. “It’s your phone,” I say to calm myself and answer it without checking.
“Vi—”
“Hi, Mom.” I bury the exhaustion in my voice.
“Have you finished yet? I haven’t heard from you for hours.”
She isn’t going to like this. I blink at the dark store while seeing my mother, red claws clutching her landline as she tears a vitamin packet with her teeth and dumps the pills into her smoothie. Steadying myself, I say, “The plane was delayed. I’m afraid I just got there.”
“What? But it’s almost nightfall!” Panic doesn’t so much seep into her voice as ram it with a truck.
I pass the phone to my left hand and hunt for a light switch. “I know, Mom.”
“You’re in the city. There could be killers anywhere!”
That was one of the reasons she’d given me when I couldn’t spend my summers with Uncle Mateo. The others were more convincing lies.
My fingers brush up a wall. I swear the switch is right around… “Ahh!” My heart bursts and I wrench my hand away. Sticky spiderwebs twist about my fingers.
“Vi, what is it? Are you being stabbed?” my mother screams.
Biting down my shrieks, I swipe the cobwebs across my chest. The spider silk lands in a glob on my left breast.It kinda looks like…
My face burns at the dirty thought taking up residence in my mind. If my mother could read minds…
That’s more terrifying than her thinking I got cum on my chest.
“I touched a spiderweb.”
“Wash your hands,” my mother commands. “They could be poisonous.”
Wash your handsechoes in my head, threatening to grow louder than thunder. I close my eyes, finally pinging the light switch. A low hum shivers through the shop. Then, one by one, the industrial lamps come to life. An otherworldly yellow glow radiates around the store like a fluorescent angel.
The refrigerated sections have been cleared, but mummified cheeses dried onto the shelves in alcoves cut into the walls. So many of the massive wheels have sunken in, becoming crescents instead of circles. Curious, I ease closer to one that’s the color of the sky just before a storm.What type could that be?
I almost place my finger on the rind before I realize that it doesn’t have a rind.Oh, that’s mold.
“Vi? Are you done?” my mother insists.
