Souvenirs of Starling Falls

“I’ll take another beer,” said Barnaby.

“I’m good,” I said.

“I’m fine. None for me,” said Priscilla. She was delicately licking her fork tines like a cat. It was inappropriate, yet oddly fancy. I didn’t like that the time it would take to drink another beer had been added on to our entertaining.

Barnaby and Tom cracked open their beers. After taking a swig, Barnaby shifted in his seat a little and asked, “Would you be up for giving us a tour?” He nodded toward our front door.

Tom shrugged and nodded.

“If you don’t mind a mess,” I said. “We’re not settled in at all, of course.” At least now I could get away from the pie. And we’d be one step closer to going to bed if we were inside the house instead of out here.

“A tour! We thought you’d never ask,” said Priscilla. She and Barnaby stood up before Tom and I even had a chance to.

“We were curious about this place, but it wasn’t for sale when we were looking,” said Barnaby. “Do you know much about its history?”

“Well,” I said, “I guess it was always in the same family. It’s been vacant for… How long? Do you remember?” I looked at Tom.

“Three or four years,” he said. “Maybe longer. They put it up for sale just two days before we came to town to look at houses. We hadn’t even seen its picture in the MLS.”

Priscilla’s eyebrows went up and her face got big and moony. “Three or four years, Tom? That’s quite a while to stand empty. There could be mice.”

“I think that’s to be expected with an old house,” Tom said.

“We don’t have mice in our house,” she said. “Knock on wood,” she added, leaning over and knocking on the porch railing.

“Well,” Tom said—why was he using his flirty voice?—“if you’re not too scared, I’ll take you on a tour.”

I looked at Barnaby to see if he was picking up on the fact that our spouses seemed to be having a conversation just with one another. Not that I wanted to be his co-conspirator. But he was cleaning his glasses again, oblivious.

“Of course I want a tour,” Priscilla said to Tom. My Tom. “The outside is gorgeous, but I’ll bet it’s even better once you get inside. I imagine it’s going to be sublime.”

313 Hawthorne Avenue, Main Floor

313 Hawthorne Avenue, Second Floor

Chapter 2

Tom opened the old wooden screen door and led us inside. We went through the small tile-floored vestibule into the large, open front hall. In the daytime, light poured in from the second story window, over the balcony above, but at night just sconces lit this huge room. There were boxes everywhere. “Don’t trip,” said Tom.

“Ooh, I like your purse,” Priscilla said to me, picking up my vintage handbag and admiring its tiny brass feet.

“That’s a great staircase,” said Barnaby. “Is there just one?”

“There’s a back set of stairs, too, heading up from the kitchen,” said Tom. “Let’s go this way first.” He led us to the right, to the parlor.

“You gonna keep this wallpaper?” asked Barnaby, pointing his bottle of beer at the faded flowers.

“That’s up to Courtney,” said Tom.

“I kind of think it’s nice,” I said. “For now, I guess we’ll keep it.”

“I like it,” Priscilla declared. “Our house doesn’t have any. It was redone before we bought it. You’re lucky that you get to make your house whatever you want it to be.”

“There’s a bedroom back here,” said Tom, showing them a room off the parlor.

“Are you going to use it for your bedroom?” asked Barnaby.

Tom and I looked at each other. “I guess we haven’t gotten far enough along to figure that out,” I said. “For right now, we might, but we’ll get settled upstairs soon.” We hadn’t even blown up our air mattress. Before they’d shown up, our plan had been to have a quick break on the porch before calling it a day.