Sketch № 13: Fresh Paint and Bandaged Bones
Just about two weeks had gone by since Mrs. Creaverton was visited by the ghost of her late husband when we all finally got some indication just what his visit was all about in the first place. We’d been waiting to see if his prophecy would come true — or, at least, the prophecy Mrs. Creaverton said he delivered, since she was the only one who “saw” or “heard” him. I’m still having trouble reconciling the idea of a ghost with the idea of, you know, empirical reality. Supposedly, Mr. Creaverton was going to show us a “future memory,” a vision that feels like a memory but hasn’t happened yet. That’s what we’d been awaiting. Well, it finally happened, all of us getting that future memory.
Thing is, we didn’t even realize we’d had the vision at all until yesterday.
Around three in the afternoon, Mrs. C, Violet, Roscoe, and I all happened to be in the café, and the place was hopping. Mrs. C was behind the counter, taking orders and making various iced lattes and cold foam concoctions. The rest of us were in the Riverview Room: Roscoe was at a table working one-on-one with Clarke, one of the members of his writing salon; Violet and a Fastionista client of hers, Mitzy Binkowski, were discussing updates to Mitzy’s wardrobe; I was also at the ladies’ table, taking notes. Since losing my job as a reporter, I’ve been living off savings, but the wheezing death rattle the ATM makes when I try to take money out can’t be ignored any longer. I’ve started doing transcriptions, odd writing or proofing jobs for businesses in town, taking notes for Violet’s Fastionista sessions. Vi can’t pay much, but I’m pretty sure she employs me because she likes bossing me around.
Mitzy, a bubbly fifty-something with a tall, curvy figure and short hair, was telling Violet she’d like to incorporate more of her favorite color into her clothes. “I’d love to find more blue,” she said. “But not navy. I have plenty of navy. I want” — her hands shot up, palms out, like a pose in a Bob Fosse musical — “blue!”
“Jazz-hands blue?” I asked. Violet shot me a look. “Sorry,” I said.
I’m not supposed to engage with the clients when I’m taking notes. That’s been explained. Several times.
At least I got a laugh out of Mitzy. “You know,” she went on, “like the new color of the O’Connor house. That kind of blue.”
“Oh,” Violet and I both said, immediately understanding. Violet shot me a look. “Sorry,” I said.
Last week we had begun work on the old O’Connor house several blocks away. It, like every other building in town except the café, had fallen victim to the rot — a sudden dilapidation of porches and roofs and paint and even lawns that sprang up in the aftermath of the mysterious Quake in April. The O’Connor house is one of the oldest buildings in Applewood, and that’s saying something for a town that’s been around since buckles on hats* were all the rage.
*Yes, I know it’s been debunked that pilgrims wore buckles on their hats, but too many of my grade-school notions about America have been completely shattered, so let me still have this one, please.
A bunch of townsfolk, then, got together to start cleaning up the house. They split their time working on their own houses and businesses with coming together and each putting a little effort into the O’Connor house. I helped too. Mary Edna O’Connor, the last surviving O’Connor who hasn’t moved away from Applewood, still lives there, but while she’s still mainly self-sufficient, she relies on help from friends and neighbors to take care of the place. When the outpouring of neighbors showed up on her doorstep, she baked everybody cookies and took votes on which of a selection of colors the town should paint the house, now that the rot had peeled its old eggshell away. The vote was for this gorgeous royal blue.
That was the blue Mitzy was talking about wanting for her wardrobe.
From Roscoe’s table, Clarke, who had apparently overheard our conversation, said, “I love that shade. I was there when they picked it.”
Roscoe said, “I helped put in a brand-new window frame and patch up the foundation. What do they say about houses? Good bones? Place has good bones; they were just a little broken.”
Mrs. C, who had just come back to the Riverview Room to deliver a frozen hot cocoa to the very pregnant Mrs. Williams at the next table over, chimed in too: “And I heard the rot hasn’t returned.”
This last bit was news to all of us, rather big news. Each time a family repairs their roof or a business owner replaces cracked siding, within a matter of hours the damage is back.
No one seems to know how to get ahead of it. Even Pastor Beauregard Sweeney can’t keep the glass of his Our Lord of the Ascension church from cracking each time he replaces it. The rot just seems to take hold all over again; I know — I was in the church’s sacristy once when the new glass just started breaking, a crack forming all on its own in a window.
From her table, Mrs. Williams said, “Excuse me.”
Mrs. C turned back to her. “Sorry, honey, anything wrong with the cocoa?”
“No, it’s delicious,” she said. “I just don’t know what you’re all talking about. The O’Connor place is a wreck, just like everywhere. It hasn’t been fixed up. And, far as I know, it’s still that off-white color.”
“So the rot did come back?” Mrs. C said, crestfallen.
“No,” said Roscoe. “If it had, it would have peeled the blue paint.”
Violet asked Mrs. Williams, “When is the last time you saw it? Perhaps you have not seen it since we all painted it.”
Mrs. C raised an eyebrow at Vi. “We all?”
“Yes, I painted it in spirit with you as I stood in the safe zone across the street,” said Violet. “Like I was going to chance getting spatter on my dress.”
“I live down the block from it,” said Mrs. Williams. “I drove past it, what, half an hour ago.”
With her lips set in a determined line, Mrs. Creaverton took off the half apron she wore. “Well, now I have to see this for myself. Anyone want to come along?”
Mitzy, Clarke, and Mrs. Williams stayed behind; Roscoe, Violet, and I followed her like a line of ducklings as she walked out of the café, calling out over the afternoon bustle to her baristas behind the counter, “Hold down the fort, guys. Be back soon.” We piled into Mrs. C’s minivan.
Five minutes later, we all four stood outside the O’Connor house, staring at it — peeling eggshell paint and all.
“But I remember fixing that window frame,” said Roscoe.
“The blue is as vivid in my mind as the first time I saw a Coco Chanel original,” said Violet.
“Oh, my,” Mrs. C breathed. “I wonder if this is it. The future memory. Do you think? Mr. Creaverton said that when he showed it to us, it would have something to do with the rot, and with how we all came together like the way we did to save the café.”
Roscoe picked up the train of thought. “We were all part of the group who combatted the rumors Nessie started about you and Confictura. We all got customers to come back to the café. We four, Clarke, Mitzy was there too.”
Vi jumped in: “We should see if Doc Graham has the same memory, since he was part of that group too. Well, someone should see. I have no wish to see him.” She blushed.
“If we’re right,” said Mrs. C, “and this is a future memory, then we will all come together to fix the O’Connor house, paint it, heal it. And maybe in doing that, we’ll find a way to start healing the town. Do you think it has to be those specific people doing the work? Is that why the rot finally doesn’t come back?”
I said, “Mrs. C, you made a comment the night everyone started coming back to the café. Something about we are the café, meaning the townspeople can make or break it. What if that’s the trick here? Everyone coming together to help their neighbor?
Applewood isn’t just a collection of houses and businesses individually owned. The town is the people. Maybe the cure for the rot is in a collective effort to heal each other’s homes because we’re all in this together.”
Mrs. C clapped a hand on my shoulder. “You may just be on to something there, Blogger.” She started up the front walk toward the O’Connor house and called back to us, “Let’s see if Mary Edna is home and feels like a little company. I’m in the mood to talk about paint.”
We followed her up, sharing how strange it was, having this memory in our heads that came from nowhere. Yet none of us were scared by it or even all that weirded out.
Because it gave us hope.
As we went up to the front door, I noticed several houses down, standing in the street, was Nessie Fyne, arms crossed, watching us. Later, by the time we left the house, she’d gone. I don’t need a future memory to tell me she’s skulking around for a reason, and I don’t think it’s to make sure we have enough brushes and rollers.
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Clarissa J. Markiewicz is also the author of Christmas In Whimsy — a heartwarming, fun novel readers compare to Hallmark Christmas movies, and recipient of Readers’ Favorite 5-star Seal — and the genre-bending new-age mystery The Paramour Pawn.
This and any related blog posts are works of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Any reference to living or dead public figures, entities, places, events, and the like, are of a fictional, opinioned, and/or parodic nature. No healthcare professionals have been consulted in writing this. Any advice given or inferred is anecdotal and used at your own risk. Consult your doctor in all healthcare matters. ©2024 Clarissa J. Markiewicz. No portion of this or any related blog post may be used to train any AI application without explicit consent from the author.
