No Dark Valley

by Jamie Langston Turner

  Celia stayed that night until the worst of it was cleaned up, then left Patsy vacuuming out the pantry while she cinched the bulging bag tightly and took it outside to the garbage can. As she dropped it in, she imagined all the bugs inside it, still teeming with life, probably still multiplying, all of them closed up inside that plastic bag with all that food. What a night they would have! She clamped the lid of the garbage can down tightly. She thought of the vacuum cleaner bag also—would the force of the suction kill them all, or would they crawl out and start all over again? Maybe they would crawl down the basement stairs to her apartment.

  After she went back to her apartment, she kept seeing visions of her own cupboards overrun with bugs. She checked them all carefully to make sure Patsy’s bugs hadn’t already found their way downstairs to her kitchen. And later during the night she kept waking up with a prickly feeling, as if things were crawling all over her skin. She remembered the crunch of the bug against her thumbnail. Finally she got up and washed her hands a long time, then took something to make her fall asleep.

  “They said they wouldn’t stay long,” Patsy was saying on the telephone now.

  Celia had no idea what she was talking about. In remembering the bug incident, a thought popped into her mind: She had a partly used bag of cornmeal in her cupboard right now that she needed to check on. She scolded herself for not sticking it in the freezer after she opened it. She should probably go ahead and throw it out just to be on the safe side.

  “So they’ll be here in about thirty minutes if that’s all right with you,” Patsy said.

  “I’m sorry. I missed part of that,” Celia said. “The TV is up kind of loud. Who did you say was coming?”

  Patsy raised her voice a little. “The people who are buying Lloyd’s house next door. They made an offer on it yesterday, and I guess it’s all settled now. Lloyd called this morning from Atlanta to tell us. He’s sure glad to have it sold. They want to move in sometime next month.”

  Celia didn’t see what any of this had to do with her. “Well, that’s good. And so . . . they’re coming over in thirty minutes, you said?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, okay, but why do I need to know? Do you need me to do something?”

  “Well, I thought you’d want to know. I didn’t want to just show up at your door with two total strangers.”

  “At my door? You mean they’re coming here to my apartment? What for?”

  There was a pause, but when Patsy spoke again she gave no sign of impatience. She was like that, steady and dull. If somebody told her to, she’d repeat something twenty times in her loud, husky monotone and never once sigh or ask why. “They want to see the layout of your apartment,” she said now, a little slower and even louder, no doubt thinking that would help Celia catch it this time around. “They’re planning to finish out Lloyd’s basement and make an apartment down there like we did, and they want to see how we did ours. The woman’s brother is a handyman, and he’s going to do most all the work for them. They want to get started on it soon as they can. I told them Milton could probably help some, since his hernia’s all healed up now.”

  As if they were interested in Milton’s hernia, Celia thought. More than anything she wanted to get back to Pride and Prejudice, then eat her macaroni and cheese in peace and try to get this long day behind her, this day that had twisted itself all out of proportion. If her whole life were a novel, as she often mused, this one day alone would take up at least four chapters. She wanted to finish the last few paragraphs, not drag it out longer. She sure didn’t want two strangers coming to look around in her apartment.

  But it was such a little thing, she didn’t see how she could say no. “I really wasn’t planning on company tonight,” she said, then paused. “They said they wouldn’t stay long?”

  “I can ask them to wait for an hour or so if you’d rather,” Patsy said. “They were wanting to drop in right away but said they could come around eight or so if that would suit you better. Or they could come tomorrow sometime. And you sure don’t need to go to any trouble straightening things up. They’re just—”

  “No, no, it’s not that,” Celia said. The fact was, she kept things so neat she didn’t need to do any straightening up. She was a little offended that Patsy would even suggest such a thing. “Oh, okay. Thirty minutes did you say? Tell them to come on, I guess.”

  “Well, I really don’t need to tell them anything,” Patsy said. “I said I’d call back if they needed to wait, but if it was okay with you, then I wouldn’t call and they’d know they could come on.”

  “Fine, fine,” Celia said. Honestly, Patsy Stewart had to be the most tedious person on the face of the earth. It was a wonder Milton hadn’t died of boredom over the years. Of course, he wasn’t much more exciting than she was. For fun, Milton Stewart shelled pecans. He had a friend across town who had pecan trees in his yard, and Milton brought them home by the sackful. Then every night after supper he sat in his recliner in front of the television and shelled them. That’s what Patsy had told her. Every single night. He went over and got them during November and December and stored them in huge washtubs in the basement, then spent the rest of the year shelling them, a small bowlful every night.

  Oh yes, the Stewarts led a reckless, zany life upstairs. Real party animals. Celia had no complaints, though. Milton was not only meticulous about his method of shelling pecans, using a toothbrush to clean out between all the little grooves, but he was also generous. He regularly gave Celia sandwich bags full of them, which she sometimes used in cookies but more often ate right out of the bag.

  Evidently the people who were buying the house next door couldn’t wait the entire thirty minutes, for they were there in twenty. The macaroni and cheese was in the oven baking when Celia heard the doorbell ring upstairs. She stopped Pride and Prejudice right as Elizabeth Bennet was tromping through muddy fields on her way to Netherfield to visit her sister Jane, who had taken ill while visiting the Bingleys. It had always puzzled Celia that the detail of Elizabeth’s muddy shoes was never dealt with once she arrived at Netherfield.

  She knew that when she restarted the movie, Elizabeth would be sitting beside Jane in one of the bedrooms, but whether Elizabeth had taken off her shoes at the door and was going around in her stocking feet or whether she had gotten a rag and brush and already cleaned them up, or perhaps had borrowed an extra pair from Bingley’s sister or was wearing Jane’s shoes or . . . Well, none of these possibilities was offered. The omission of this detail was one of the few imperfections in the movie in Celia’s opinion, and it surprised her how much it bothered her every time she watched it. No doubt the director of the movie was a man. A woman would have made sure the matter of the muddy shoes was settled.

  A minute later she heard voices outside her front door, which actually faced the Stewarts’ backyard, and then two short rings of the doorbell. She was glad Patsy had brought them around that way instead of coming downstairs through the basement and knocking on the hall door next to her bathroom, as she sometimes did when she had a question about something. The front door gave a better presentation of her apartment, Celia thought.

  Celia opened the door and immediately wished she could slam it in their faces. Patsy had failed to mention that they would be bringing a baby with them, but there they stood, the happy little all-American family, smiling at her, all except the baby, who was staring about wide-eyed. Words were already spilling out of the woman’s mouth about how much they appreciated this and they wouldn’t stay but just a few minutes and they surely didn’t want to inconvenience her and so forth and so on. Patsy stood behind them like a humorless chaperon. Celia clenched her teeth and stood aside so they could all enter.

  “Here’s your paper,” Patsy said, handing it to Celia. “I picked it up for you.” Celia thanked her and tossed it onto the couch. She had been in such a hurry to get to tennis practice this morning that she hadn’t brought it in and then hadn’t even noticed it when she came home later. She
was ready to cancel the subscription anyway. Even though she still did a little writing for it from time to time, the Derby Daily News bored her.

  The couple looked to be close to Celia’s own age, the woman a little on the plump side but with shiny dark hair, perfectly straight white teeth, and enormous glamour-girl eyes. Patsy was introducing the couple in her slow, ponderous way, but Celia’s mind was in such a state that all she caught was the woman’s first name—Kimberly. The woman glanced up at the man and then cocked her head and smiled down at the baby, shifting into the silly kind of talk adults use with babies. “And this is baby Madison. Can Madison give the nice lady a smile?” Celia barely noticed the man except that he was tall. She tried not to look at the baby, but she couldn’t help it. Madison—girl or boy, Celia couldn’t tell at first—suddenly let out a string of gibberish, most of it unintelligible except for the last two words, which were very clearly “my ball.” The baby appeared to be well over a year old, probably walking by now, which Celia hoped her parents wouldn’t let her do inside her apartment.

  Celia nodded and introduced herself by first name only. She didn’t offer to shake hands, and neither did Kimberly, who was busy pulling the baby’s hood back and smoothing its dark hair, which had a tiny white bow clipped in it. So evidently it was a girl. Celia looked away. This was all she needed today. It came to her suddenly that this was the first time a baby had ever been inside her apartment, at least a real baby. Her dreams didn’t count.

  “Go ahead and look around,” she said. “I’m watching something in the kitchen.” And she turned and left them.

  She stood for a moment against the kitchen counter with her eyes closed, then filled the sink with sudsy water and slowly set about washing up the things she had used to make the macaroni and cheese. Breathe in and out nice and slow, she told herself, and they’ll be gone before you know it. And don’t look at her anymore!

  * * *

  As they proceeded through the apartment, she heard most of Patsy Stewart’s commentary: “So Milton added this closet here to get rid of the wasted space” and “These are all new windows.” And a few seconds later, “We found this carpet at a close-out sale, and Milton laid it by himself. It’s made in these big squares so you can replace just one if you stain it.” Then, “Lots of apartments only have showers, but Milton wanted a tub down here. He did all the plumbing himself.”

  Patsy was clearly enjoying herself, reciting all the wonderful things she and Milton had done to make the apartment nice, plus the added bonus of getting to look around and see how Celia was keeping things up. Celia had wondered before if Patsy ever took sneak peeks at the apartment during the day while she was at work. She had to admit that she herself would be tempted to do that if she owned a house and had a renter.

  The woman, Kimberly, responded enthusiastically to everything Patsy said. “Oh, how handy!” “Yes, that’s very nice.” “What a great idea!” “We ought to think about doing this, Bruce.” “You don’t even feel like you’re in a basement down here!” While they were still back in the bedroom, she heard Kimberly say sharply, “No no, don’t touch!” and the baby started crying. “Oh, happy day,” Kimberly said. “I hope she didn’t break it.”

  Celia thought of all the things in her bedroom that could be broken. She hadn’t heard anything fall over, though, and no sounds of glass breaking. On top of her bureau she had a clay figurine of an old Chinese man fishing. Maybe the baby had somehow grabbed the fishing pole, a tiny thing as slender as a toothpick, and snapped it in half. A baby certainly could break that. Or maybe she had knocked the whole figurine onto the floor. On the bedside table next to Celia’s most expensive lamp, the one with the porcelain base and hand-stitched shade, was a beautiful sculpture of a nude couple embracing. Surely the baby hadn’t broken either of those. Those would have made a loud sound.

  Curious and a little worried, Celia quickly dried her hands and started toward the bedroom, only to find the others coming out into the living room again. She saw that the man was now carrying the baby, and Kimberly was holding a silver necklace in both hands, examining the clasp. “She still loves to play with my jewelry,” she was saying to Patsy. “She broke my best gold chain last week.”

  “Maybe you ought to quit wearing it until she outgrows it.” This was offered by the man. Typical of a man, Celia thought. Practical as the day is long. Always ready with a suggestion to fix any trouble.

  Celia pretended to be checking the thermostat, relieved that it wasn’t anything of hers that had gotten broken. While they went into the kitchen to look around, she went into the bedroom to stay out of their way. “Milton found this countertop in a Dumpster over at a construction site,” Patsy said. “It was brand-new, but it must have been what was left over. It fit perfectly in here. And all the cabinets came from one of our neighbors. She was remodeling, so she gave us these, and Milton just repainted them.”

  Kimberly laughed. “Sounds like Milton ought to have one of those home repair shows on TV. Maybe he can help us out, huh, Bruce?”

  With hardly a breath, Patsy forged ahead. “And we got a good sale on the refrigerator. It had a dent on the side that’s against the wall, so they marked it down two hundred dollars. It has an ice maker, too.” It occurred to Celia that Patsy was talking louder than she usually did, probably to make sure that Celia heard it all and would be filled anew with gratitude and admiration for all the talents her paragon of a landlord possessed.

  Finally, after Patsy pointed out the second door into the bathroom, the one off the tiny hallway next to the kitchen, they were done. They came out of the kitchen into the living room, and Celia came out from the bedroom. The man, still holding the baby, stopped in front of the first oil painting Celia had ever bought and stared hard at it—a small still life including a vase of delphiniums, a pincushion, a wine jug, a string of beads, and several pine cones, all artfully arranged on a brilliant blue cloth. Celia wished he would step back a little. She could imagine the baby swinging out a fist and knocking the painting off the wall. Or spitting up all over it, though the baby looked a little too old to still be doing that.

  Kimberly smiled at Celia and extended her hand. “You don’t know how much we appreciate this,” she said. “I sure hope we didn’t mess up your schedule.” Celia assured her they hadn’t. “We’re anxious to get started on this basement project,” Kimberly continued. “My husband has to travel a lot, so we like the idea of somebody living in the basement.”

  Celia felt a prick of irritation. She hated it when women referred to “my husband” right in the presence of the man himself. Why didn’t she just call him by his name. Bruce, wasn’t it? “My husband” sounded so proprietorial, as if the woman wanted to remind any single women present that this man was already claimed, rubbing it in: “I have a man, but you don’t.”

  She glanced up at the man, noticing for the first time that though he also had a nice smile and a head full of thick dark hair like his wife, the skin on one side of his neck and jaw was red and shriveled. She saw also that one of his hands bore the same scars. Celia wondered if he’d been in a fire and whether it had happened before or after he and Kimberly had met.

  “Nice art you’ve got,” he said, waving a hand around at the walls. “Lots of good stuff.” Celia nodded and thanked him. At least he appreciated good art. And really, aside from the scars, he was a nice-looking guy. She looked at Kimberly. Except for the fact that she was considerably heavier than her husband, the two of them actually looked enough alike to be brother and sister. Funny how that so often was the case with married couples.

  “You know,” the man went on, looking back at the painting and pointing to the blue cloth, “that’s the same blue you get when you react a copper ion with ammonia solution. Copper ammonia complex ion—that’s the name for it.”

  Kimberly laughed. “Can you tell Bruce was a science major?”

  There, at least she used his name.

  Bruce smiled again. “Well, not exactly, but I did take
a lot of science and math.” Then he looked right at Celia and said, “You can get some beautiful colors in the lab. The barium salts usually make green, and strontium is a crimson red. Sometimes the copper goes to a pale blue instead of the royal blue like in that painting.” With his free hand he pointed to the wall and started gesturing. “If you can picture the periodic chart, see, all the elements in the middle will make colors. The ones stacked on the sides will be clear. It’s really—”

  Kimberly broke in. “Hey, Bruce, we need to go and get out of this poor woman’s hair. I’m sure she has more important things to do than stand around listening to you talk about the periodic chart.” She held her hands out to the baby. “Here, Madison sweetie, come to Mama. Let’s go home and get you to bed.”

  “My husband travels a lot, too,” Patsy said. Such a remark, so ill-timed as to be irrelevant, was typical for Patsy.

  But Kimberly touched her shoulder sympathetically and said, “Well, after we move in, we can sit around together and feel sorry for each other.” Just then the baby reached up and touched Kimberly’s earring. “Oh no, you don’t, you little rascal, you,” Kimberly said, catching her hand. They thanked Celia again and headed out the door.

  “I’ve got to make up a test tonight,” she heard Bruce say to Kimberly right before she shut the door behind them. Celia wondered briefly what kind of job he had that would involve both traveling a lot and making up tests. Maybe he did training sessions for some corporation or chemical tests for a research lab or something.

  “Oh, happy day,” Kimberly said. “Another late night.”