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I FOLLOWED HER INTO the kitchen and peered up at the light above me as she went to work making a coffee. It seemed to be hanging on, but I wondered how many other ones in this house were about to give out.
She hummed to herself as she made coffee for the two of us, and I watched her as she worked. She looked a lot more comfortable here than she had before, as though she was getting used to being back in this place. Whatever had kept her away for all this time, it seemed to be falling away, failing to hold the same sway over her it had before, and I was glad she was getting more at ease here. It might mean she would stay longer, and I was sure her mom could use all the help she could get.
I still wasn’t sure how she had managed to get that huge dresser down the stairs. I had told her the day before to wait for me to help her, but I had guessed even then she wouldn’t listen to me. She had decided she wanted to move it, and there would be no arguing with her. It was just built into her DNA, it seemed, this stubbornness that let her do anything she saw fit.
I liked it about her, honestly. It might have been a little frustrating at times, to know she was doing stuff she should have been waiting for help for, but I knew it was just the kind of person she was. When she decided something needed to get done, she was going to do it, and she wasn’t about to let anything stop her, no matter what.
As she made the coffee, I wondered if it was something she had picked up in her line of work. Something she’d had to adapt to as part of her business. I still didn’t know entirely what it was she did, but I was curious to find out, curious to know what went on when she wasn’t here.
“Ellie,” I asked her, and she glanced over her shoulder at me, her ponytail bobbing away from her face as she did so.
“Hmm?”
“What do you do for work?”
“You don’t know?” she asked, furrowing her brow, and I shook my head.
“I have no idea,” I replied. “Your mom never really told me. I’m not sure she totally understands it, either.”
“Oh, okay,” she laughed. “I just figured you already knew. I do a bunch of stuff, but for the most part, I’m focused on helping out Angela Londson, the art dealer, get the best deals on her new acquisitions.”
“Oh, damn,” I replied, shaking my head. “That sounds really tough.”
“I love it,” she replied, her face lighting up as she spoke. “I know it sounds difficult, but it’s the kind of thing I thrive on. Having to make deals with people, having to get down to business and make things work, having to convince them she’s the best one for the job...it’s a lot, but it suits me down to the ground.”
“I can imagine,” I replied, and I meant it. She seemed like the type who knew how to barter a deal; even when she was unsure of herself, she had that in her.
“That’s why I was in Europe when you called me,” she explained. “I was helping with her new gallery out there, her set-up.”
“You must miss it,” I remarked, and she nodded, a little wistfully.
“Yeah, I really do,” she sighed. “I’m so used to life out there, you know? It’s as if I don’t know how to live back in America.”
She looked out of the window for a moment, as though there was more on her mind than she could put into words. I smiled.
“Where are you going when you head back?” I asked, and she shook her head.
“Oh, I have no idea at the moment,” she replied. “Wherever Angela wants to send me, I’ll go. I’m not picky.”
“Sounds like an adventure,” I remarked, and she nodded.
“It really is,” she agreed, a little wistful. I wondered how long her heart would cope with being so far from a place she missed so dearly, and if that was why she had seemed so out of sorts when she first arrived here. I knew she must have been having a hard time, wrapping her head around returning, but I hoped she would find some peace while she was here.
“Have you travelled much?” she asked, and I shook my head.
“Not as much as I’d like to,” I replied. “It’s...I’ve always been too busy to really find a way to fit it in.”
“You should get out there if you have a chance one day,” she told me, her face lighting up. “If you ever need advice on where to travel to, just let me know. I have experience all over the place.”
“I’ll be sure to,” I replied. The thought of travelling with her sounded pretty good; I had no idea where I would start, but I liked the thought of getting out there, under her guidance.
“So, where’s your favorite place you’ve lived?” I asked her, turning the conversation back to her. She tapped her finger on her chin as she considered the question for a moment, then replied.
“I loved Thailand,” she replied. “The food was probably some of the best I’ve ever had anywhere in the world. And Bologna, too. But Madrid, where I just came from, it was so full of life...”
She continued on, filling me in on the details as she ran through the places she’d lived. I listened, hearing her voice lift as though she could hardly wait to fill me in. It was clear this was her passion, her focus, what she wanted more than anything in the world, and I was glad for her, glad she’d had the chance to experience so much of it.
And maybe that was why she had left in the first place. Maybe she had just needed more adventure than this small town could give to her. Some people just never felt comfortable in the home they had, and needed to get out and see what the rest of the world had to offer them.
But something else was nagging underneath it, something telling me there had to be more to what was going on than I was seeing. Did people really leave for that long if there was nothing else driving them away? I was sure there had to be something more to it, even if she didn’t want to admit it, even if she was still hiding it from me. If I had lived in this town a little longer, I might have been able to ask around, find out what it was, but for the time being, I was relying on her to fill me in, and I doubted she was giving me the whole truth.
“Sounds like you’ve been on quite the adventure since you left this place,” I remarked, and she nodded, smiling widely.
“Yeah, I have been,” she agreed. “It’s...it’s not what I thought I would be doing with my life, but it suits me. Down to the ground. I love it.”
“Well, I’m glad you found something that makes you so happy,” I replied. “And I hope...”
I was going to say I hoped she could get back to it soon, but if I said that, I would be all but admitting I wanted her gone. And I didn’t like the thought of it at all. I didn’t like the thought of losing her, when she had so recently come into my life, turned it upside-down in the best way possible.
“Me too,” she replied, as though she could tell what was going through my mind right now. “I...I miss it.”
“Did you miss Maple Valley when you were gone, too?” I asked, and she paused before she replied.
“Yeah,” she admitted. “Sometimes. Out in the world, you can be whoever you want to be, but back here, I was always just myself.”
She lifted the coffee cup to her lips, and gazed out of the window once more, as though she wasn’t sure she wanted to look me in the eye as she said the next part. As though she might have been a little too real, and didn’t want to expose me to the side of her she had clearly worked so hard to keep hidden.
“But you’ve met me, you know how annoying I am,” she added, brightening up and brushing it off as though it was nothing. “It’s not a big deal to leave it behind, is it?”
“I don’t think you’re all that bad,” I replied, and she cocked an eyebrow.
“Just not all that bad?” she replied. “Damn, I thought I made a better impression than that.”
“You’ve still got time,” I reminded her. “We’re not done renovating the house yet.”
“Oh crap, don’t remind me,” she groaned, clamping a hand over her eyes as though she could barely face the reality of it. “There’s still so much left to do.”
“Yeah, I know,” I agreed. I wanted to reach out and touch her arm and tell her it was all going to be okay—even if I knew there was probably way more than she could handle on the cards right now. She had come back here to take care of her mom, and now, she was getting dragged into a full-fledged renovation project that had her unable to do anything without first cleaning the house and picking up the pieces.
“We could take a look at the wiring, if you like,” I suggested. “See what’s going on with the flickering light up there.”
“Yeah, that sounds like a good place to start,” she agreed. “My dad’s dad did the wiring in this place, I think.”
“Was he an electrician?” I asked, impressed. Back then, especially, someone qualified enough to put together all the electricity in a house like this must have been hard to come by. She shook her head, snorting at the thought.
“Oh, hell, no,” she replied. “He was just some guy. Which probably explains why the wiring is faulty.”
“Okay, let’s see what we’re dealing with,” I told her, and she led me through the house to the breaker panel, where it was rigged in a small closet next to the back door. As soon as I opened it, I winced—there were wires sticking out every which way, and it looked as though it had been strung together by someone who didn’t have a clue what they were doing.
“Yeah, I think I can see why it’s not holding up too well,” I remarked, as diplomatically as I could.
“Is it that bad?” she asked.
“Do you really want the answer?” I replied. She grinned.
“I’m just glad it didn’t burn down while I was living here,” she joked. “I didn’t realize what a mess it was.
“It’s...yeah, it’s going to take some re-doing,” I remarked.
“Can you manage it?” she asked me hopefully. I shook my head.
“I wouldn’t even know where to start,” I replied. “It’s...it’s not going to be that easy. You’ll need to get a real electrician in here if you’re going to get this place to where it needs to be. I’m not sure who would work on a place this messy, though.”
“Right,” she sighed. “Well, thanks for letting us know, I guess. Better that than it all falls apart or bursts into flames when we least expect it.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t had it happening more,” I replied.
“Anything you can do to help speed it all along a little?” she asked. “I mean, I don’t want my mom living in a place that looks like it’s about to go to pieces at any second.”
“Yeah, I can have a look at where all the wires go,” I replied. “See if they make a little more sense somewhere else in the house. Do you have any idea where they end up?”
She paused, furrowing her brow, as though she knew this one but just needed a second to bring it back to mind.
“I...yeah, I think I do,” she replied, slowly. “Up in the attic, if I remember right. You want to take a look for yourself?”
“That would be great,” I agreed.
“I have no idea how bad a condition it’s in,” she warned. “It could be a mess up there.”
“I can handle it,” I assured her. “Come on—let's take a look.”
And, with that, she led me towards the top of the house, so we could take a long, hard look at the attic—and just what kind of mess we would be dealing with up there.
