Two

Echo Brennen squatted on her heels and gazed at the mural she’d just uncovered. “This is delightful.” Echo studied the picture of four women, obviously members of the frail sisterhood, standing on a curving stairway, lined up one above the other. Edging closer, her eyes narrowed as she examined the painting. Turning her head, she compared the actual stairway leading toward the two floors above her. Sure enough, they were the same. At least that part of the hotel structure hadn’t changed from the time of the painting.

The renovation of the hotel was nearly complete. There were only two more weeks before the grand opening date and, as she stood in the middle of the awful mess she’d just made, she wondered why she’d stripped the lobby of its dull, aged wallpaper now. The thought of the grand opening filled her with anxiety. Would she finish on time? Would eager customers fill the hotel and restaurant? Heaven knew she’d used most of her money on this project. She needed it to be a success.

A few strands of her hair caught in the perspiration beaded on her face and she swiped at her forehead with her sweatshirt-encased arm. The wicked smell of the dissolving agent attacked her nostrils and stung her eyes. Surely, it had set long enough to soak through the remaining layer of paper bordering the wall. Fully aware of the treasure underneath, she slid the wide putty knife delicately against the plaster.

An hour later, with the wallpaper stuffed into four large garbage bags, she wiped away the last traces of the smelly mess.

“Will you look at that?”

Echo whirled around. “Oh, you frightened me, Alexis. When did you come in?”

“Just a m-minute ago.” She stared wide-eyed at the mural in front of her. “Have the girls come back from the swimming pool?”

“No, no, they haven’t.” Echo’s heart went out to her friend. Since Alexis’ divorce six months earlier, the woman had become overly protective of her fifteen- and sixteen-year-old daughters, Julie and Maria, but Echo understood. Right then, the teenagers were all she had.

She and Alexis had been friends since high school. When Echo returned to Sage, they took up as if the years had never separated them. When Alexis and her husband divorced, it was only common sense that led Echo to hire her. Alexis performed every task asked of her without complaint and kept her sanity by applying for positions as child psychologist—her true calling. She had a master’s degree—but part of the problem in finding a job was that she had little experience. Her husband hadn’t allowed her to work. No one wanted to hire a beginner in the field and pay the high wage her advanced degree demanded.

Leaning back against the heavy wooden doorframe, Echo crossed her arms, observing Alexis’ amazement. “What’s the matter with you?” she asked, trying to douse the laughter choking her. Alexis’ face, pinched in distaste, made a comical sight.

“Th-Those women! Their chests are nearly bare. Surely, you’re going to paint over that thing.”

Echo pushed herself away from the doorway. If only Lex could see what she looked like! She reminded her of a priggish schoolmarm: hands on her slender hips, face turning a brighter red by the moment. It only added to the humor of the situation.

“Honey, this building was a whorehouse. I could glorify it and call it the Yellow...Bordello.”

“Now that’s an interestin’ handle for this place, and catchy too! Is that its new name?” Jerrica Chappel asked as she sauntered into the foyer from the sitting room.

“I don’t know yet what I’ll name it. Bordello just popped out,” Echo said to the woman hired only that day as the chef.

“Well, it’s much better than the old name, ‘The Yellow Hotel,’ the town folks stuck on it. I’ve been wonderin’ why you didn’t change it to somethin’ more...” She stopped in her tracks, looking first at the mural, then at Echo. “I like ‘The Yellow Bordello’ much better, and they’d fit in perfectly,” she said as she looked back at the mural.

“I agree.” A smile broke across Echo’s face. “The Yellow Bordello it is.” She’d worked many weeks to get the name for the restaurant, finally settling on ‘The County Seat.’ It sounded naughty, considering the women employed as prostitutes used their backsides to make a living, but a fitting name just the same. Until that moment, arriving at the perfect name for the hotel had left her perplexed.

“What do you think of my addition to the establishment?” Echo questioned, gesturing toward the painting with the sweep of her arm. Jerrica turned to stare at her, then at Alexis, ignoring the mural. The woman had a strange way of looking right through a person.

Echo bent forward, lifted one of the garbage bags, and reached for another.

“Here, let me help you. I can take a couple of them,” Alexis offered.

“And I’ll open the doors for you,” Jerrica volunteered. Her long, flowered skirt created a breeze as she rushed toward the back of the house around the two younger women. The dangling beads on her red peasant blouse jingled as they swayed over her full bosom.

Echo wasn’t sure of Jerrica’s age, but suspected she was sixty-something, especially since, during the interview, Jerrica spoke of having been a hippie during the sixties.

The two heavily burdened women made their way through the house and out the kitchen door. Echo stopped to catch her breath and looked toward the hill rising directly behind the alley. “Every time I look at that big hill, I can just imagine how happy the residents of Sage were that it was between them and the hotel when it was a...a... Well, you know! It gave them some distance from the illicit business being done here.”

“Me, too. Without that hill, it would have been the last business on Main Street,” Alexis said as she followed Echo’s gaze.

Echo took a deep breath, hoisted her burden again, and headed to the dumpster sitting behind the carriage house.

“I wish I could finish this cute house and make it livable, but I just don’t have the time right now,” Echo said.

“What all do you need to do in there?”

“Not much, since the previous owner had already converted the building into one large apartment after the bordello closed. It just needs cleaning, mostly, but that alone could take weeks. There’s so much junk in there! Boxes of automobile parts, old Playboy magazines and heaven knows what else.”

Alexis looked over at the brick building with its arched, leaded glass windows. “Ummm, I like the way the afternoon sun shines on the wavy glass.”

Laughing at the distorted reflections, Echo said, “Well, I have to get the hotel finished before tackling the carriage house, but living in the hotel isn’t too bad, now that I have you and the girls living here with me. All those rooms gave me the creeps. You know, at times I felt like someone was watching me.”

“Like who?”

Echo shrugged. “Do you believe in ghosts, Lex?”

Alexis shook her blonde head. “No. Absolutely not. You know what kind of coward I am? If I thought for one minute the hotel was haunted, I’d move out. Immediately.” She tossed her bags into the dumpster, then took Echo’s from her.

They’d turned and started back up the gravel path toward the house when Echo asked, “How’s your mother doing today, Lex?”

“Better, but she has a long way to go. The doctor said she needs speech therapy three times a week. Is that going to be a problem?”

Taking a turn off the path into the overgrown rose garden, Echo ambled over to a cement bench and sat on the hard, cold surface. “No, of course not. Sit with me for a minute?” she asked.

Alexis sat on the bench facing into the awakening garden. “I’m so sorry, Echo. I know we have a lot of work to do to get this place ready for the opening, but...”

“Nonsense! Your family has to be the most important thing in your life. Your mother isn’t that old. Her stroke must be devastating to her.” Reaching out, she took her friend’s hand. Tears welled against Alexis’ dusky lashes. “She needs you now.” Changing the subject, she asked, “With school concluding for the summer next week, do you think Julie and Ria would help me?”

Alexis’ eyes opened as the notion passed through her mind. “The girls were talking just last evening about getting summer jobs... er, would this be a paying job?” Her cheeks reddened as she spoke. “I’m sorry, but...”

Echo held up her hand. “No, don’t worry about that. I can’t pay them a huge wage, but I will ask around to some other businesses in town to see what they’re paying and try to meet it. How does that sound?”

Smiling softly, Alexis nodded in agreement. “You’re a wonderful friend, Echo. I just wish I could repay you for all you’re doing for the girls and me, like letting us stay in the rooms without charge.”

“Hey! You’re buying all the food and paying half that immense utility bill, after all. Without customers filling the other fifteen bedrooms, I don’t know how I would have done this without you.”

Alexis blushed. “Not to change the subject from me,” she laughed, “but what was Jerrica Chappel doing here?”

“You will be pleased to know I hired Jerrica and her husband Howard. They are our new cook and gardener.”

“Wow, can you afford them?”

“I can’t afford not to have them. I need to collaborate with the chef—uh, I mean Jerrica. We’ll have to develop the menus and get in harmony, and, as far as gardening goes, when have any of us had the time to clear this brush out and make the landscape presentable for guests?” She wound down, smiling at her tirade. “I guess I answered your question, huh?”

Alexis mimicked her smile. “Sure did, and I agree with you, too.”

Looking around the garden, Echo could tell it had once been beautiful. She could still detect a gravel path that wound its way around the center fountain. Dark red sprouts broke through the ground announcing that, in a few weeks, wild rose buds would scatter this area in colorful abandon. Echo stood. Reaching out her hand, she playfully pulled Alexis up from the bench.

“Are the Chappels going to live at the hotel with the rest of us?”

“No.” Echo shook her head, sending the end of her long thick braid swishing. “They have their own home. They’ve no need to live on the premises.”

“Hey! Does this mean I don’t have to take my turn at cooking?” Alexis asked playfully.

Echo smiled at her friend and laughed. “No, it means I won’t have to eat your dreadful cooking. I hear Jerrica is a fantastic cook. We need that—our reputation needs her talent.”

“Our reputation or the hotel’s reputation?” Alexis asked, giggling. “You know, a few people have joked about what my chosen profession will be here!”

Echo laughed until a pain in her side had her doubled over. “I hadn’t th-thought,” she gasped, “of that. Can’t you see us dressed up like ladies of the evening for the grand opening?” Linking their arms, the women hurried back into the house.

~ * ~

MISS FIRE FLOATED TOWARD the kitchen door, dressed in her inexpressibles. “Ha! I’d like to see what those girls would wear.” Her wispy shape wafted through the screen door into the yard. “Do they think that making fun of us will bring in droves of customers?” The other spirits, sunlight streaming through their ethereal forms, followed her.

“Don’t be so mean,” Magnolia said. “Look what they’re doin’ to the house. It’s much, much more beautiful than when I came to live here. Y’all need to stop tryin’ to run everyone off. I like people around,” she drawled.

Sitting in the new spring grass, Lolly pulled her thick black hair over her shoulder and meticulously braided it. “I like the new name for the house.”

“The Yellow Bordello?” Magnolia howled with laughter, her full breasts bouncing with gaiety. The sound blended with the spring breeze that whispered through the cottonwood trees surrounding the property. “Now that’s right catchy, honey! But a little too sweet, even for me.”

“I’m with Lolly,” Jewel said in her sweet-toned voice that was nothing more, nothing less, than the sound the green fragrance of the budding trees and the new sprouts of grass would make if they were able. “I like the name, too, but I’m afraid that girl will change everything and force us out of here. Then where will we go?”

“I’ve decided,” Miss Fire said, looking around at the large yellow building. “This has been my home for years and years.” The others looked at her expectantly. “We have to help this woman. I don’t understand what has trapped us here or what this Echo has to do with all of this, but I feel we have to make her succeed—for our sakes. It won’t help our cause one bit if she becomes frightened and moves out of the hotel bag and bagpipe.”

Lolly drew her slender knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “It will be so much fun to have people in and out of the house again. I miss the commotion.” A sparkling tear ran down her round cheek.

Jewel jerked her arms skyward in mock frustration. “I’m getting weak from trying to physically move items around this place. I’m the most delicate spirit,” she said in an exaggerated soft voice tinged with a hint of humor. A wide smile played across her translucent face.

“Now girls, stop this pity party.” Miss Fire stood, dropping her hands over her rounded hips. “We have work to do. That girl—no, I’m going to use her name—I expect the rest of you to follow suit. Echo wants to open this place soon. I have a plan to relieve us of these taxing, mundane duties. We’ll have much more energy to direct our attention to Echo’s customers.”

“What? What?” the trio cried as they gathered around their leader, drawing their heads together in glittering colors of blonde, red and varying shades of brown that shimmered through the garden like the sun bouncing off healing crystals.

Excitement twinkled in Jewel’s eyes, and she clasped her hands in front of her chest. “Oh! This is going to be the most fun I’ve ever had!”

~ * ~

ALEXIS TROTTED UP THE wide, curving stairs, and Echo turned to stare at the mural gracing the wall in the entryway. She studied the painting and noticed one side of it was sun-damaged; the colors weren’t as bright as those on the other side. Though it wasn’t a splendid work of art, she hated to cover it up with paint or wallpaper. For some reason, she didn’t understand why, the painting drew her in, pulling her into its depths. “Who were these four women?” she whispered.

A fluttering piece of loose paper near the top of the mural caught Echo’s attention. Standing on her tiptoes, she could just reach one corner. As she pulled gently, a large strip peeled away in her hands. A title written in gleaming gilt across the top of it answered her question. Echo read, “Angels of the Night.”