Crooked House (13 page)

“You don’t get it,” he said, sticking his finger in her face
. He was shaking he was so mad. “You don’t...God damn it, Sarah. This is important to me. Why don’t you fucking get it? Huh? Why? Why?”

“Don’t shout at me.
” She was looking him in the eyes, and her voice was controlled, but she was backing away a few steps at a time, like he was poisonous.

“No
. You listen to me. This is – ”

She held up a palm to his face and turned away.

“Don’t you...don’t you walk away from me, you...”

Robert trailed off there
. He was so mad he wanted to break something. But then, as abruptly as it came over him, the red cloud of rage began to dissipate. He saw Sarah standing in front of him, and he read the look of fear and disgust and indignation on her face, and for a moment he didn’t know where he was. He felt like he’d just woken up, and found himself standing here. Then he remembered how angry he’d gotten. Not so much what he said, but the echo of the meanness he must have shown her. He drew back with a gasp. He was breathing hard, looking about the room, confused and frightened by what he’d just experienced. Whatever it was, it was gone now, but he could still feel its filthy residue. He gasped again and looked at Sarah.

She was standing near the foot of the stairs, staring at him with barely contained contempt.

“You what?” she said. “Yo
u
bitc
h
? Is that what you were gonna say?”

“I, I don’t...Oh God,
Sarah, I...I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was...”

“Whatever.
” She curled her lip at him. “I’ve got to go show Kaylie where everything is.”

He nodded and she went back to the kitchen without saying another word
. Robert stood there, sweat popping out on his forehead, and for the life of him couldn’t figure out what had just happened. It was like...well, he didn’t know. Not exactly. He just...lost control. It was like a part of him, a vital part, had just shut down.

Or, maybe, had been held down
. Forcibly suppressed.

Yes! he thought
. That was exactly what it was like, like he was getting smothered while something else moved through him, spoke through him.

He shivered
. God, this was awful. And he still had the party to deal with.

Sarah
came out from the kitchen and walked right by him.

“I’m sorry,” he said to her back
. “I really am. I don’t know what happened just then.”

“You were an ass, that’s what happened.”

He bristled. Robert felt his skin tingle and his hands start to go numb. The anger was building again, threatening to wash over him, and that scared him. It came so easily, so quickly. He forced it back down, suddenly aware that he was sweating again. Christ, he thought, what’s wrong with me?

“Let’s go,” she said
. “It’s ten dollars an hour and we’re wasting money standing here.”

*

They got to the party about ten minutes after seven, along with about eight other couples. Everybody seemed to know Robert’s name, and there were waves and introductions all around as the group made its way up the drive to Ron and Kathy Anson’s house. Robert had never been good with names, and he and Sarah had worked out a system for social situations like this that had become automatic for them by now. Whenever Robert forgot somebody’s name, he would plow into the conversation without introducing her. After a pause, Sarah would interject, making some offhand remark about how Robert never introduced her to his friends. She was doing that now as they walked, all the while smiling and shaking hands. She’d been quite frosty to him in the car ride over, and for a moment, because her smile could be so infectious, he allowed himself to think that maybe she was over her anger. But then they fell behind the rest of the group and she turned to him and said, “I told you nobody ever shows up on time to a party.”

To a passerby the comment might have sounded like gentle chiding, a casual remark between husband and wife, but Robert recognized it for the caustic burn it was meant to be from the look in her eyes.

And, for just a moment, warmth spread across his cheeks and the red cloud that had overtaken him back at the house threatened to overwhelm him again. Christ, he’d apologized. He meant it too. Couldn’t she see that? Why was she still beating up on him for something he’d apologized for? Well, she was gonna cut that shit out. He’d make sure she –

He stopped there, horrified with himself.

He swallowed and looked at her again. She had said something, and he’d missed it.

“A
re you even listening to me?”

He suddenly felt sick
. He nodded.

She looked doubtful
. “I said I don’t want to stay too long. I’m serious about that. And no getting drunk, either.”

The Anson’s house
– Ron taught Latin American history and Kathy Chemistry – looked to be every bit as big as Crook House, and was no doubt a gift from Lightner. It was a large, blockish two story of white stone and red barrel tile in the eclectic Spanish style so common to the Monte Vista neighborhoods north of downtown. It featured a wide, immaculately manicured front lawn shaded by the tallest oak trees Robert had ever seen, window boxes of black wrought iron, a car port ringed by thick white columns, and a trio of Moorish-style arches at the front entrance. The guests weren’t headed to the front of the house though, and instead made their way through the car port and around to the back. A servant’s quarters larger than the house they’d owned in Florida was nested among some crepe myrtles along the right side of the Anson’s property line, facing a lawn studded by white tables and chairs beneath red and gold cloth awnings. There was a bar off near the house, a buffet table, and a few early birds in suits and nice dresses standing around chatting in little groups. Everybody seemed to have a drink in his or her hands.

“This looks really nice,” Robert said.

“Yeah, it’s something all right,” Sarah answered. “Ah crap.”

Robert looked at her in surprise
. She was staring straight ahead, her face without expression. Robert followed her gaze to where Thom Horner was working his way through the crowd.

“Hey Robert! 
Sarah!” Thom said, waving at them. He was wearing a blue suit with cuffed pants and black wingtips and a red tie with candy canes all over it. He had a martini in his hand and to Robert it looked like it wasn’t his first of the evening. “Merry Christmas, you two!”

“Merry Christmas to you, Thom,” Robert said.

Sarah mumbled and looked away.

“So, how’s the house
? Is it everything I told you it’d be?”

Neither Robert nor
Sarah spoke. The silence was so pregnant that Thom picked up on it. His smile faded a bit, then turned mischievous. “Don’t tell me you guys have started seeing ghosts?”

“No,” Robert said, trying to make his voice light
. “Of course not. We like the house fine. Don’t we, Sarah?”

She nodded, but with little enthusiasm
. “Would you guys excuse me, please? I need to find the bathroom.”

“Ah,” Thom said
. He pointed toward the house with the hand holding his martini. “Right through there. You go in through the kitchen, take a right, and the bathroom’s down at the end of the hall. Can’t miss it. There’s one of those Mayan calendar wheel thingies on the wall right next to the door.”

Sarah
nodded and then was gone.

Robert turned to Thom
. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I pissed her off before we left.”

“What
? Oh, no, she’s great. Sarah can do no wrong, believe me. But you guys
are
liking the house, right? I haven’t gotten much of a chance to talk with you since you moved in and all.”

“We love it,” Robert assured him.

“Good. No ghosts, right?”

“Of course not
. The place is absolutely wonderful. It’s everything you promised, Thom, and more.”

Robert smiled, even managed to laugh, but a little voice inside him challenged that confidence
. Nothing in his life had ever forced him to question the existence of something other than his commonplace reality. And yet, what could he make of the last few days? What could he say about that room at the top of the stairs, of the smell of smoke inside Angela’s room? What could he say about the crazy fits of anger that came over him? It was a painful thing to admit that he might not be right in the head – too painful, in fact, to admit just now, in the light of day, in front of all these people.

Thom patted him on the shoulder
. “Excellent. We need to get you a drink.”

“Yeah, that’d be great.”

There was a bar set up on the back patio and a punch bowl beside that. “I’d steer clear of that if you’re the one driving home,” Thom said. “Kathy Anson is, uh, famous for her Christmas cheer when it comes to the punch, if you know what I mean.”

Robert chuckled
. “Yeah, I think I get it.”

He went for
a glass of red wine instead and the two of them moved around the enormous patio making small talk with the other guests, most of whom seemed to have already gotten pretty deep into Kathy Anson’s famous Christmas punch.

Then Thom touched him on the shoulder and said, “Hey, this is somebody you need to meet.
” Thom lead him over to a pretty young woman in a black knee-length dress with black heels and great legs and a head of blonde hair that was a wave spilling over her shoulders. She looked to be in her late twenties, early thirties maybe, and Robert’s first thought was that she was some promising young Ph.D. candidate Thom had taken under his wing. “Jean,” Thom said, “this is Robert Bell, our new guy. Robert, I want you to meet Jean Bernall. Jean is the one who set you guys up with your babysitter. “

“Oh, that’s right,” Robert said
. “We owe you big for that.”

“Oh, it’s my pleasure,
” she said, and touched the back of Robert’s wrist. “Trust me, I’ve got three little wolves myself. I know the importance of a reliable sitter. The high school girl we tried before Kaylie, as soon as my boys saw her the youngest asked, ‘Are you even a grown-up?’”

“Oh no,” Robert said.

“My boys ate her alive. So trust me, I get it about the babysitter.”

Robert nodded
. Three boys and she still looks like that, he thought. I bet the other moms hate her.

“Robert,” Thom said, “Jean
is also one of the leading authorities in the country on – ”

“On Jack London,” Robert said
. “Yes, I know. I’ve read your books.”

“You have?
” Robert sensed her stiffen, as though bracing for poisoned flattery. Robert recognized the look from every conference and every office party he’d ever attended. English faculties at American universities, with all their petty jealousies and back stabbing, were a lot like shark tanks, and it didn’t take one long to develop a keen ear for contempt and derision masquerading as casual compliments from one’s colleagues.

He saw the look of suspicion and moved quickly to dispel it.

“Absolutely. I though
t
Of Snow and Gold: Jack London and the Commercialization of American Literatur
e
was brilliant. Your thesis that London was sort of the nexus of popular fiction and literary fiction, bringing them together and legitimizing each to the other was fantastic. I had always thought that role belonged to Mark Twain, but you developed the argument for London so clearly I was, well, you won me over.”

Abruptly, her smile returned.

“Thank you. That’s sweet.” She was drinking a white wine. She took a quick sip and said, “You know, your comment about Twain is a perceptive one. He was a mentor, of sorts, for London. Not like Hawthorne was for Melville, of course, but there are several letters between them in which London asks him for advice on how much he should be making for magazine articles and stories, things like that. London could be very direct when it came to money.”

Thom rattled the ice in his glass
. “Which reminds me,” he said. Robert and Jean looked at him. “Would you two excuse me for a minute? I’m empty here.”

Robert nodded, and went back to talking with
Jean Bernall about Jack London. She was fascinating, and her passion for London’s writings made him wonder if there wasn’t a note of schoolgirl crush buried under all that enthusiasm. But the quality of her scholarship was incontrovertible, and listening to her talk, he could tell that she must be an especially vibrant presence in the classroom. That was something he knew he did not possess. Or, rather, had possessed at one time, but had lost somewhere along the way.

They talked until their glasses were empty and went into the kitchen, for the evening had turned a little too chilly for
Jean. There was more wine inside, and they poured and talked, drank and talked, Robert really starting to enjoy himself.

And then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Thom and
Sarah talking in a corner of the living room. Sarah had her back against the wall, and she looked upset. She looked really upset, near tears, in fact. Thom was standing over her, and his expression was serious, stern even. Frowning, Robert trailed off mid-sentence.

Jean
followed his gaze and said, “Is there a problem, Robert?”

“What
? Oh, no. Listen, can I introduce you to my wife?”

He gestured toward Thom and
Sarah.

“Sure,” she said.

Sarah saw them coming and broke away from Thom right away. After their fight earlier in the evening, Robert was surprised to see the look of relief on her face, like she was actually glad to see him.

“Everything going al
l right?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Thom said
. “Just fine.”

Sarah
looked strangely blank. Robert tried but couldn’t read her expression. Then she glanced at Jean and smiled and said, “Hi, I’m Sarah, Robert’s wife. He never introduces me to his friends.”

“Yes, I know,”
Jean said. “I’m Jean Bernall. We spoke on the phone.”

“Oh!
” Sarah was beaming now, and the change had happened so quickly Robert barely had time to process it. “Listen, Jean, I am so stealing your babysitter.”

“Isn’t Kaylie fantastic?”

“She’s wonderful. You should have seen the way she and Angela got on.”

“Well, you can have her on the weekends, but I need her on Wednesdays and Thursdays
. I’m the secretary for our PTA and a volunteer for Jack’s Boy Scout troop, and it seems like every week we’ve got one or the other.”

“I know what you mean
. I have so wanted to talk to somebody about the school. Do you mind if we go get a drink? I’ve got about a million questions.”

And without another word to him
Sarah led Jean Bernall back to the bar and out of earshot. Robert watched her go, feeling more than a little confused. He turned back to Thom and said, “What were you guys talking about?”

“Hmm
? Oh, you mean before you guys came over?”

Robert nodded.

“Well, I figured I would try again to get her to come back to work for me. I’m afraid that didn’t go well. I wasn’t trying to make her angry.”

“I don’t know why she gets like that.”

“You don’t?”

“No
. Why, do you?”

Thom let out a sigh
. Robert recognized the gesture. He was about to get a lecture on life. Thom said, “I should have seen it, but then, I can be kind of dense about these things. I’m surprised you have figured it out yet, though.”

“Figured what out?”

“Robert, look around you. We’re surrounded by some of the most well educated people in the country. We may be nothing but a bunch of rollicking drunks in real life, but we can look at our diplomas on the wall and feel a certain sort of elitism over the rest of society. We’re part of a cabal, if you will. When you met Sarah, she was a secretary for people like us. On the fringes of our world, but not a part of it. But now, showing up here with you, as you
r
wif
e
, she can interact with them on their level. She’s part of the club. They can see her as a social equal, even though she doesn’t have the diplomas. How do you think it would make her feel going back to being their secretary?”

Robert didn’t have an answer for him
. Thom had thrown a light on a part of his wife’s psychology that had completely escaped his notice. It was humbling.

Thom patted him on the shoulder again
. “Something to think about, eh?”

“Yeah.”

“Listen, there’s someone else I want you to meet.”

Thom took him into the kitchen, where a small, chubby, red-faced man in a black suit was cutting up limes for a vodka tonic.

“Robert, I want you to meet Anthony Udoll, from the History Department. Tony, this is Robert Bell. I’ve just put him into Crook House. Robert, Tony here specializes in San Antonio history, and he is, from what I’ve gathered, the expert on Crook House. Thought you guys might like to compare notes about your haunted house.”

Udoll smiled blandly at Thom, the look of
a man who knows he’s being mocked and has grown used to it. He caught Robert’s eye for just a moment, but it was enough for Robert to see something there. A note of curiosity, maybe? A question? Is it true, all they say about Crook House?

But if in fact he had seen anything, the look was gone now
. Udoll was still smiling blandly at Thom, a small paring knife in his hand poised a few inches above a rather puny looking lime. Then Udoll, who to Robert looked like a neat, tidy little man, like an art dealer or a hotel manager, seemed to realize he was still holding the knife. He put it down and wiped his hands with a towel and extended his right toward Robert.

“It’s so good to meet you, Dr. Bell.”

The two men shook hands, and Thom excused himself, leaving the two of them to, as he put, talk about ghoulies and ghosties and all the things that go bump in the night.

“You can call me Anthony,” Udoll said.

“Anthony, okay.”

“Yeah, only our exalted leader there calls me Tony
. I’ve told him before it’s Anthony, but he just blinks at me and then goes right on with whatever he’s talking about. How about you, are you Robert or Bob?”

“Robert.”

“Ah, good. So you know my pain, I’m sure.”

“All too well.”

“Can I interest you in a vodka tonic? I’ve been told I make a good one.”

Robert tossed back the last of his wine and said, “Sure, I’ll have one.”

Udoll mixed a second drink, cut off another wedge of lime, and hooked it to the corner of Robert’s drink. “Here you go.” He raised his own glass. “To Crook House,” he said. “May it stand for eighty more.”

Robert chuckled
. He liked Udoll already.

Udoll put his drink down
– careful, Robert observed, to keep it on a napkin – and said, “So tell me, what do you think of Crook House so far? You’ve been in it for, what, about a week now?”

“About that
. It’s nice, I guess. It’s big.”

“It’s a ghastly rock pile, if you ask me.”

Robert nearly choked on his drink. He looked at Udoll, wondering if he was making a joke or not. But evidently he wasn’t, for he wasn’t smiling.

“It’s the way the thing got cobbled together after the fire,” Udoll said by way of explanation
. “It confuses the eye, makes you feel like the whole thing’s just a little off center. You know what I mean?”

Robert remembered the first time he’d stood on the front steps of Crook House and stared up at the structure, the vertigo he’d felt, the queasy, almost seasick sort of unease
. “I know exactly what you mean,” he said. “It’s like it’s crooked.”

“Truth in advertising,” Udoll said
. “I guess Thom told you about the fire.”

“Yeah, he told me about it when he was showing the house
. He got some of his facts wrong, though. Dates, mainly.”