My head buzzes like the beetle traps in Harold’s yard as I try to figure out why Chuck told me this story. There’s a reason for everything with Chuck, though. I try to take as many notes as I can, in my head, because I’m already betting that I’ll need to remember his story later.
As we get closer to Serendipity Place, he says, “Let’s turn down Joy Boulevard. Take the long way to your house.” Chuck glances around while he walks, breathing deep like he’s in the midst of something wonderful.
“Always did love this neighborhood,” he says. “You know, these houses were built before electricity,” he adds, as though this is really something to admire. “Wires had to be put in later on.”
Not that it really matters. It’s not like anybody in our neighborhood has a computer or even cable TV. We’re more like taped-together rabbit-ear antennas and antique everything. As we get closer to my house, at the corner of Sunshine and Lucky, it feels like we all have as much need for electricity as a camping tent.
“Lot of history in this neighborhood,” Chuck insists.
Sure. History. As I stare at my own house, I think that “history” is cloth awnings over side windows, each of them dotted with giant mismatched patches of material. It’s duct tape on screen doors. It’s a whitewashed house with gray shutters, every inch of paint peeling like skin after a sunburn. It’s a fence made out of wrought iron so rusty, nasty orange grit comes off on my hand when I touch it.
For the first time, it hits me that maybe the only fancy thing about my neighborhood is its pretty name.
“See you tomorrow,” Chuck says, swinging open my front gate. “At Montgomery.”
“Montgomery?” I ask. My heart beats a little faster.
“Sure. We had to find a place to hold church services,” he says, his face turning as dark as a storm cloud.
“Isn’t Hopewell getting fixed up?” I ask, feeling a tight, worried twist in my stomach.
“Of course,” he says. “But we need a place to have church in the meantime.
“I saved everything,” he goes on. “Even the tiny little broken bits from the stained-glass windows. Not sure what I’ll actually do with them, but—sometimes, when you love something, the letting-go can’t happen with a single sweep of the broom.”
He forces a little strip of sunlight into his smile as he motions for me to walk through the open gate.
“Tomorrow then,” he says.
And because I don’t know how to say anything to him about the forced sunlight in his smile, I nod and agree, “Tomorrow.”