Page 16 of Hot Tea & Bird Calls
A familiarity wrecked her concentration as much as the knowledge of being ‘back.’ They’d met some time in the past, beyond meeting last night.
Ah, that was it. Celene couldn’t help staring at her because she wasfamiliar, not for reasons too heavy or ultimately, consuming.
Waiting for the vents in her car to blow anything cooler than hot, muggy air, she nestled the fuchsia in the passenger seat, cushioned by her designer jacket from yesterday’s meeting.
An actual present. When had a woman last given her flowers?
The forager addressed the fuchsia as ‘her,’ projecting personality onto this wobbly, delicate thing. Celene fixed her sunglasses on top of her hair, lips quirking into a smile. “Who are you, Nature Girl?”
5
Celene wouldn’t call the Vale summer house beautiful. It had potential.
After storing the groceries in the refrigerator and lowering blinds for her new houseplant, she surveyed the lay of the land. The maintenance requirements pissed her off for getting involved. Did the house need consulting on its managerial staff? She could sortthatout for it.
The farmhouse-style property was already a relic when Byron first bought it, long past its prime. He’d been thrilled to afford something from the 1980s, driven more by nostalgia than by the modern amenities anyone else wanted.
Its best quality was its size—five bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms on a single story. The lot wasn’t vast within the neighborhood confines, but had plenty of playspace outside for her and her siblings years ago. Celene placed her hands on her hips, scrutinizing the dingy driveway extending to the street. Goldfinch Lane was quiet, at least.
As children, the dead silence of Yielding at night creeped her sister out. Celene remembered Elise sneaking into her bed, whining about hearing ghosts. Full of sibling wickedness, a nine-year-old Celene made up a grisly story of how in every family that lived there, a vine-y shadow demon would slaughter only the youngest sister. Elise, somewhat astute at seven, called BS until Celene assured her she’d heard it on televised news, and for some reason, that persuaded her. Poor girl hardly slept for the rest of the vacation, even after their parents found out and made Celene apologize.
Celene scuffed the heel of her trainers on thinned, dry grass and entered that in her phone. HerFIX THISchecklist was getting ridiculous; Byron visited this place maybe twice a year, and he was no handyman. However, he was a retired operations manager with expendable funds, keeping the basics current: appliances, air, heat, water, and septic system. Anything dealing with curb appeal and restoration fell by the wayside.
She sneered at the discolored paneling of the house’s exterior. Blemished with lichen, chalking damage on prominent edges. Had it always been this dreary and uneven? Their house looked like it’d died from the flu years ago.
The front yard’s shade was respectable, she evaluated, walking a path around several trees as well as Boob Mountain—their conjoined 5-foot boulders closest to the street. Many houses in Lake Harrier Reserve kept locally sourced boulders in their yards for aesthetic purposes, erosion control, and property markers. Byron followed suit.Alas, landscapers had an apparent vendetta against their family, giving them land titties. Boys used to draw nipples on them.
Years of weather wore one boulder down more than the other, so they were a little too lopsided and speckled with moss to evoke rocky breasts anymore. A relief.
Celene froze when a skinny green snake slithered lazily from the overgrowth around the boulders. She’d killed some bugs already, but she’d draw the line at reptiles. In her notes app, she added red exclamation points to the lawn care entry.
“My family owns the ugliest house in town,” Celene said, connecting to a FaceTime call with Nadine. She switched the camera’s view to hear a reaction.
Nadine’s back-of-the-diaphragm hiss sounded painful. “Byron has money. Can’t he hire someone to fix all this himself? You’re not qualified.”
“I’mnotqualified.” Celene relished the reasonable opinion. “He’s too damn sentimental about this place and wants one of us to fall in love with it. It’s not even lakeside.”
“That’s a façade only a father would love.”
Laughing felt so good. The snowballing number of challenges (yard work, checking insulation, replacing a host of old furniture, updates that would bring them into the 21st century, etc.) had deep-frozen her face into a scowl that hurt her jaw. Sneering at a slab of the rotting deck, she planned aloud, “I’m imagining two bigger, better decks. I can replace those god-awful dated porch doors with a modern sliding option.”
Nadine propped her phone up, freeing her hands to stab at a Cobb salad in her mother’s office. She wore her hair natural today, styling it up into a thick bun. Her statuesque, typically acute appearance softened with her cheeks full of romaine. “All that, Celene? No. Do the bare minimum and cash out. It’s less hassle and—wait, are you getting a cut of this sale? It must be worth a hundred times more than it did in the ’80s.”
“I mentioned that, and Byron babbled like, ‘yeah, sure, we’ll talk.’”
“Not him dodging the biggest questions.”
“Nobody does it better.”
“He’s raising a baby in his sixties. To think he’s got the energy to play pickleball every week.” Nadine spoke behind a manicured hand as she chewed. “I just googled. Yielding has some nice views.”
“Does this mean you’ll come by one day?”
“Don’t push it. I want you back here.”
“I’ll be there in a week.” Celene jiggled the tarnished latch of the backyard shed, then rubbed green oxidation from her fingertips. Earlier, she’d unlocked it in a short act of bravery and lost her nerve, considering what creepy crawlies could’ve set up shop there. Maybe a sunburned exterminator would yell out their window at her next. “Should I open it?”
Nadine had been sipping cucumber-mint juice, her gracefully lined eyes growing in horror. “What in the serial killer hideaway?! Step back. Do not enter, god, don’t we see the same danger?”
