Rooms: A Novel (3 page)

CHAPTER 4

The door hadn’t been there the day before. Had it? Micah pushed his front door closed with a soft click, never taking his eyes off the one at the end of the hall.

He’d done a full tour of this part of the home the day before and didn’t remember a room even being there, let alone leaving a light on. He hung his leather coat on an oak peg near the staircase, then eased down the hall toward the open door.

He pushed it open the rest of the way with two fingers and peeked inside. It was well lit. Too well lit; so bright he had to squint. At least twenty spotlights drilled down on a variety of magazine covers sitting on glass pedestals. Other pedestals held plaques; still others had laminated newspaper articles on top of them. Even before Micah’s eyes adjusted enough to see clearly, he knew what the room was.

How could—? He squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, he half expected the room to be gone.

It was a shrine to his meteoric rise in the world of software. Micah and Julie were on the cover of each magazine displayed:
Forbes, BusinessWeek, Wired, Fast Company,
and more, as well as newspaper articles from
The Wall Street Journal, USA Today,
and
The New York Times.

The plaques were awards RimSoft had won, from their first up to an award from last month. Whoever collected them hadn’t missed a thing. Micah shook his head.

Wow
.

Weird
.

He gazed at the walls filled with photos of Julie and himself, pictures from the earliest days of the company up to the present, just the two of them along with movie stars, athletes, and leaders in the world of software.

It must have taken months to dig all this up.

As Micah contemplated how they’d done it, he noticed a small door at the back of the room, only open an inch or two. He walked over to it and pushed, but it scraped to a halt after a foot and a half. He leaned his shoulder into it, and the hinges squealed in protest but opened enough for him to enter. For a new house this door was decidedly out of place.

The room was dim, and Micah couldn’t find a light switch, but his eyes slowly adjusted from the glare of the room he’d just left. The only light came from an oil lamp sitting on an oak nightstand in a corner.

More oil lamps circled the room, all sitting on oak stands, all unlit. Their charred wicks were evidence they’d burned once, but all were now out of oil. He turned back to the still-burning lamp. Next to it rested a Bible covered in a fine layer of dust. Beside the Bible were two pictures. Micah was in both of them.

In the first picture five kids and he handed out egg salad sandwiches at Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission. In the second his arm was around his best friend from high school youth group. Micah smirked. He was really into religion back then.

Almost against his will, he approached another lamp stand. On it was a sheet of paper. He held it up and squinted at it in the dim light.

Micah gasped. Impossible. Where would Archie have found it? It was a flyer for a concert—
the
concert—the one he’d gone to on a whim. The one where he’d decided to follow God.

Sweat covered his palms. This was beyond strange. It was bizarre.

There’s no way Archie’s builders could have gotten that flyer.

The pulse in his neck beat double time. He’d never understood people who had panic attacks. How could they go from feeling normal to expecting their body would explode any second? Now he knew.

He slowed his breathing. No help. Goose bumps broke out on his skin.

Archie wanted to highlight his career? Fine. Nice display. But the other room? Why dig so deep into his past? Who cares?

Archie. The words in his letter rang in Micah’s head.
“Time to face your past. It is time to deal with it.”

He rubbed the scar on his hand and made himself breathe slower. Pulling up long-dead memories that were none of anyone’s business. Why go to this much trouble to weird him out?

His body yelled run, and his mind joined the chorus. But where? Out onto the beach? The highway? Nothing was attacking him. Nothing was after him. So why was he trembling?

Get control!

He ground his teeth as he forced himself out into the hallway. He closed the door, and Micah stared at the knob as if the door might open and suck him back in. Make him face—no!

His breathing calmed but his hands still shook. He shoved them into his pockets. It helped. Slightly.

What was wrong with him?

Micah jogged into his living room and burst through the French doors onto the deck. As the ocean wind whipped through his hair, his dad’s comment about the precarious condition of Archie’s sanity came back to him. Which meant one of two things to his father—either Archie was consumed with God, or he had never made any money. The building of the house ruled out the latter, so Micah assumed Archie was, in his dad’s words, a Jesus-freak.

His dad believed all Christians had a serious crack in their psyche. He wasn’t vindictive about it. To Daniel Taylor it was fact. When Micah started following Jesus during his sophomore year of high school, his dad wanted to send him to a psychiatrist. In the end they agreed to make it a taboo subject, which pushed them even further apart if that was possible.

During college the world of software captured him, and the whole God-thing had faded. It wasn’t overt, just a slow slide onto the back burner of his life and then off the back of the stove to sit with the dust and grease spots where Micah didn’t miss it.

But obviously not missed by everyone. Archie had built two shrines. One to Micah’s worldly success, one to his God-stuff past. God was fine at one time. But that time was over. Whoever pulled off this stunt for Archie had stepped over the line. Micah grabbed one of the Adirondack chairs on his deck and tossed it against the railing. The idea of someone digging up his ancient history felt like someone had broken into his mind.

Micah stumbled down his deck stairs till his feet thudded onto the wet sand. He plopped down on a battered rain-soaked log, not caring about the dampness seeping through his pants.

In his mind he slapped a roll of crime-scene tape across the door of the shrine room. He’d slaved to create his software empire. He wasn’t going to let some crazy great-uncle slam him for it.

That night he had a double bacon cheeseburger at Bill’s Tavern & Brewhouse. Afterward he drove up to Astoria and plunked down money for a raunchy comedy he almost walked out on. Just like he’d done in Seattle the week before.

Why did he watch those things? He always felt like he wanted to take a shower afterward. Simple answer. They were the best way he’d found to keep from thinking—about the past, about the ever-pressurized world of software, and at the moment, the two rooms in Archie’s house. Both screaming at him. One screaming louder than the other.

He woke Monday morning as gray gave over to the light of day. Only a few lazy clouds hung over the ocean. Micah walked out to sit on his deck but his feet kept moving, and shortly the waves sent ice pricks into his feet and ankles. He stared at the ocean, and it stared back with no expectations, no pressure, no stress from frantic employees or clients pounding on his brain. Heaven.

So what if Archie was a little eccentric and had given him a blatant message from beyond the grave? He’d junk the stuff in both rooms, keep the door shut, and let the questions they asked die a quick death.

He turned back to Archie’s gift. A thread of light pushed over the mountain ridge to the east and lit up the top of his roof like gold. He faced the ocean and drew in its pungent smell. This had been his favorite place in the world before his mom died. Before his sand-castle world was washed away with one massive wave.

Maybe part of him did belong here.

No, it didn’t.
Sorry, Archie. The past will stay there.

No question. He’d sell the place.

He strode through saltwater swirling around his ankles back toward the stunning house.

But maybe not right away.

After breakfast Micah pulled onto Highway 101 and headed for Seattle. Traffic was light and he made good time, even with the rain that pelted down as soon as he hit Olympia. In less than four hours he crossed the Seattle city limits; twenty-two minutes later his tires squealed as he pulled into his parking spot in his condo garage. He’d take a quick shower, then head for the office.

Micah pulled out his cell phone to record his mileage, a habit held over from the early days of RimSoft. Eat Top Ramen six days a week, never turn on a light unless forced to, and record everything possible for write-offs on the ol’ tax return.

He squinted at his odometer and looked back at the file on his cell. Strange. Didn’t seem right. Micah did a quick calculation in his head. It couldn’t be. Again he looked at the odometer and the total on his cell phone. Too weird. One of the two machines was wrong. Had to be.

Or he’d just driven 16,341 miles in the past two days.

CHAPTER 5

Isn’t this energizing?” Micah asked Shannon on Tuesday morning. “Seeing all these people streaming through the doors, ready to conquer new worlds?”

She stood next to him in RimSoft’s foyer, her ever-present notepad and minicalendar in hand. He’d bought her an iPhone the previous Christmas, but she’d never taken it out of the box. They watched the lobby become a river of workers.

“Energizing? Not really. Does it energize you?”

He hesitated. “Most of the time it still does.”

Shannon stared at him. “Most of the time?”

“Life at the speed of light, three thousand miles wide, a millimeter deep.”

“You’re not getting philosophical on me, are you?”

He ignored the question. Micah spotted Brad, his racquetball partner, across the lobby. Brad’s crew cut and horn-rimmed glasses made him look like a blond Buddy Holly, but he played racquetball like the Tasmanian devil.

“Hey, Bradley, get over here.”

Brad sauntered over. “You want another beating like last month, huh?”

“What? Can you say delusional? I can, and you should. I took you down three of the four games last
Wednesday,
the fourth game fifteen to zee-row. Memory okay, my friend?”

A few people chuckled as Brad came to a stop in front of Micah. “Nice try, boss man. Maybe in your dreams. It’s been a month since we played. I admit, you sliced and diced me the first game but lost the next three straight. Would’ve been four if we’d played another.”

“Ignoring the fact you were beat like a rug won’t change history. After that session last week, I even had to go to the bone crusher to straighten my spine. Remember?”

Brad’s grin drained from his face. “We didn’t play last week.” He blinked.

“You okay, buddy? Of course we played.”

“No, I was in San Fran last week. The whole week.”

“So, your twin stood in?” Micah laughed. “That’s your excuse for losing!”

Brad reached into his briefcase and pawed through it. He pulled out a rumpled piece of paper and held it at his side. “Tell me you’re kidding, Micah.”

“About?”

Brad held up the paper. It was an Alaska Airlines itinerary. “Take a look at my flights. What’s the first date?”

“April 6.”

“And the second?”

“April 10.”

“So blow my brains out and tell me how we played racquetball on Wednesday, April 7, if I was in San Francisco?”

Micah stared at the paper.

“CAT scans are amazing these days. Check it out maybe?” Brad tapped his head. “When you’re stressing, the memory always goes first. I’ll beat you again Friday morning if you’re free.”

A shiver sprinted down Micah’s spine. He stared at Brad, then Shannon.

“Micah, want to play?”

“Yeah, sorry.” Micah turned to Shannon. “Am I open?”

“Let me look . . . yes.”

He flashed a thumbs-up as Brad walked away. “Shannon, what did I do last Wednesday?”

She licked her finger and pawed through her calendar. “Conference call at nine, a quick meeting with the bank at ten fifteen, then you got ready for an afternoon board meeting.”

“No racquetball?”

She studied her calendar and smirked.

“You find this amusing?”

“Only a little.” She spun toward him. “You have to admit, Mr. Never-Miss-A-Beat, Always-In-Control, missing a beat and being out of control is slightly comical.”

“Hilarious. But that’s the point. I don’t ever miss a beat. There’s not a sliver of doubt in my mind that Brad and I played racquetball last Wednesday. But apparently my memory is the only one in which it exists. That’s more than missing a beat.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to take a day off.” She adjusted her glasses.

“I just
did
take a day off. Last weekend. Cannon Beach?”

“Oh yes, that’s right.” Shannon grinned. “Did it help?”

Micah glared at her. They walked toward the elevators, their tennis shoes squeaking on the polished faux marble floor.

“So tell me about the place at the beach. Like it? Don’t like it? Somewhere in between?”

“I like it slightly more than I hate it.” He punched the button for the top floor.

“That makes no sense.”

“No question about that.”

Shannon tapped her lip with her forefinger. “Julie tells me you’re going to sell it.”

“Yep.”

“You want me to find a real estate ag—?”

“Nope.”

“So you really don’t want to sell it.”

He watched the elevator numbers light up from 16 to 17 to 18. “I do want to sell it. But I need to get a better feel for the area first, get a feel for what it would go for.”

“Isn’t that what an agent does?”

Of course it was. It wasn’t rational, his wanting to go back down. But something about the house felt so . . . He couldn’t name the emotion.

“Do me a favor okay? The next four Fridays, can you clear my schedule?”

“Interesting.” She raised an eyebrow. “You
do
like this place.”

“No.” Micah looked at the ceiling. “I’m intrigued.”

He walked into his office and pulled up his appointment calendar on his computer. He stared at it for more than a minute as a thin layer of perspiration grew on his forehead. He swallowed twice and kept his eyes riveted on the screen. But it didn’t matter how long he stared.

The racquetball games he knew he’d played with Brad had vanished.

||||||||

Two hours later Micah stood at his office windows and studied the ferryboats chugging across Puget Sound’s dark green waters. The same ocean lapped at the sand at Cannon Beach. Thoughts filled his mind of snow-white sand dollars, sand squeaking under his shoes, and those massive picture windows perfectly framing the surf.

If only Archie could have built the house in Lincoln City or Newport. Then he’d keep the place forever.

But he didn’t need Cannon Beach reminding him of the day that ripped his life apart every time he stepped onto the sand.

Shannon stood in his doorway. “Julie’s meeting starts in five minutes.”

“What?” Micah blinked and spun toward her.

“Welcome back to Earth.” Shannon pointed down the hall. “Julie’s meeting.”

“Right.” He left his office and met Julie at the conference room door. “You ready?”

Julie smiled. “Completely.”

For the first few minutes of her marketing presentation to their board of directors, Micah listened intently. But as Julie moved into the breakdown of their ad budget, his mind wandered. Three minutes later a sketch of his house at Cannon Beach and the surrounding mountains appeared under the rapid movement of his mechanical pencil.

“. . . and RimSoft’s logo will get an overhaul . . .” Julie’s voice droned.

Need to put a sand castle in there. A few more turrets on it. Perfect. Maybe a few kites in the sky. That’s an idea. He should buy one of those high-tech stunt kites. What a kick to learn to fly—

“Micah?” Julie’s voice cut through his moment of admiration. She and the board stared at him. “You with me here, partner?”

The lead at the tip of his pencil snapped off as he looked up. “Yeah. Sorry.” He set his pencil down and folded his arms.
Resist. Julie needs the support.
He glanced down at the sketch. It begged for a golden retriever. As Julie turned to her left to answer a question, Micah picked up his pencil and clicked twice. The lead leaped out as if at attention, ready for orders. Micah stopped drawing the instant Julie finished giving her reply.

When the presentation was over, he mouthed,
“Nice job”
to Julie, who shook hands with board members. She frowned at him.

As he strode out the door, his stomach alarm clock went off, and he shut it off with a Diet Coke and a turkey sandwich—extra mayo—from the company deli. When he got back to his office, Julie was leaning against his desk, arms crossed.

“I know you like doodling sketches when you’re in meetings, but this time was a little much. I think you caught two minutes of my presentation, max. Was your mental sabbatical to anyplace interesting?”

Micah ripped his drawing from his notepad and held it up. “Hmm?”

In the foreground was the ocean, then the beach with two sand castles, a stunt kite, and a golden retriever leaping for a piece of driftwood spinning through the air. His home was the focal point of the drawing, framed by trees on both sides, the picture windows in perfect proportion. Smoke curled out of the chimney.

“I take it that’ll be part of the brochure to get the thing sold?” Julie pulled her arms in tighter and leaned back.

“Hadn’t considered that. Yeah, maybe.”

“Don’t tell me you’re starting to like the place.”

“No way.” He stared at his drawing. He couldn’t keep his mind off Archie’s house. It drew him like a magnet. Yes, Cannon Beach was laced with razor-sharp pain from his past. But now, in some strange way, it filled him with anticipation. And that weird familiar feeling in the house continued to pull at him.

“I need to ask you something.” Micah laid the drawing on his desk and smoothed it out with both hands. “I want to make the next three or four weekends long ones and hang out down there. Be all right with you?”

“Wow.” Julie tried to laugh. “I’ve been ditched for another woman before but never a house.”

“Come with me.” He kissed her on the cheek.

“Do you want me to?”

“Sure. Yes.” Micah turned back to his drawing. “Of course.”

She shook her head. “Nope, sorry.”

“Why?”

“Because I know you. You want to be there.” Julie walked over to Micah’s windows and tapped on the glass. “But you don’t want me to be there with you.”

Micah coughed out a laugh. “I just said come with me.”

“‘Come with me’ is very different from saying ‘I want you to come.’ ”

Micah slumped into his chair. “Do we have to play the semantics game every time we talk? It’s exhausting.” He leaned forward and waited for her to answer. She didn’t.

“Fine. I want you to come.”

“Why do you let things come out of your mouth that your eyes tell me are a lie?”

Micah snatched his cedar letter opener off his desk and tore into the pile of envelopes sitting next to his laptop. “I thought you said you didn’t like the ocean.”

“I don’t, but I still wanted to see what you’d say.”

Micah slapped the letter opener down on his desk. “Do you think you could serve me up a nice slice of guilt pie with that side of manipulation?”

“You don’t get it, do you, Micah?”

He sighed. “What do you want from me?”

“You really want to know?” Julie leaned in till their faces were inches apart.

“Yes.”

“A decision. Take your next three or four weekends, fine. But when they’re over, you’d better be able to tell me if there’s a ring in my near future.”