A House by the Side of the Road

by Jan Gleiter

  Outside, the dog searched for creatures to chase while Meg sat on the pantry floor and wondered who had been in her house. And why.

  * * *

  “No, I’m fine,” Meg said into the telephone. Jack had called to tell her a very bad joke.

  “This horse walks into a bar, and the bartender says, ‘Why the long face?’”

  “Yeah…”

  “That’s the joke. He says to the horse, ‘Why the long face?’”

  Meg had laughed. “All right, I get it. It’s only barely worth getting.”

  “I think it’s hysterical,” said Jack. “My nephew called up to tell me. It’s his favorite joke. Just one more. Say ‘Knock, knock.’”

  “Knock, knock,” said Meg.

  “Who’s there?”

  Meg hesitated, then groaned. “So I’m the perfect victim for … how old’s Jeffrey?”

  “Nine.”

  “A nine-year-old’s jokes. But please!”

  “You sound kind of distracted,” said Jack.

  Her edginess had stayed with her through the evening. She considered telling him about the clothesline, about the switched drawers in her bedroom, about her disquiet. But she didn’t know him well enough. Or, rather, he didn’t know her. It would all sound so ridiculous, like the overreactions of an easily spooked female. It was ridiculous. She was afraid it was also true.

  “Is anything wrong?” he asked.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “Well, shut your windows tonight. It’s supposed to rain something fierce. If it does and keeps it up tomorrow, let’s do something. I’m working outside these days. Can’t do it in the rain. So come see my studio. Ooh and aah over my paintings. That is, the ones that haven’t been snatched up by wise collectors. I’ll make you some lunch.”

  “You have a studio?”

  “Not much of one—just a few rooms on the edge of town. Come see.”

  “I should work,” said Meg, only because she really should and knew it. Her next deadline was fast approaching, and she had badly neglected her income-generating tasks.

  “Work tonight,” said Jack. “You’re having lunch with me tomorrow. I’ll look for you around noon. If it’s raining.”

  “All right,” said Meg. “If it’s raining. Tell me how to get there.” She hoped it did rain. Hard.

  * * *

  At bedtime, she went to the door and whistled. The dog came, now, to her whistle.

  “Come in, Rowdy,” said Meg, patting her leg and trying out the name. It didn’t sound right. The dog hadn’t been disruptive since Meg’s first nights in the house. Besides, it sounded like a cowboy’s name. “Come in, girl. You’re sleeping inside from now on.”

  Then, with the dog at her side, she went through the house and closed all the windows. She locked them as well.

  It wasn’t rain she was worried about.

  Eleven

  When Meg awoke, the roof was dripping onto the honeysuckle bush outside the window, and the sky promised more of the same. The gloomy weather held two benefits: she could get some paying work done instead of being obsessed with finishing the fence, and she could obey the summons to have lunch with Jack.

  The house was cold, and dampness made it feel frigid. She set the thermostat on the dining room wall, praying—as she had each time she’d needed heat—that the furnace wouldn’t explode. Then she started coffee and took a bath.

  By the time she emerged from the tub, warmed and rosy, the house was losing its iciness. The dog barked to be let out. When she came back in, a few minutes later, she tracked mud across the kitchen floor.

  “You’re going to have to learn to wipe your little feet,” said Meg, shutting the dog in the kitchen and going to find a ragged towel. When she returned, the dog let Meg clean off her paws and rub her wet coat dry.

  “What do you think I should wear today?” Meg asked, settling herself at the kitchen table with coffee and a bowl of cereal. “No, not this robe, though I’m glad you think I look stunning in it. How about a long skirt? It’s cold out. What do you mean, long skirts make me look short? Yes, yes, I do want honesty. I apologize. So what do you suggest?”

  She ate cereal and thought. “You’re right. Jeans and a long white shirt and a pretty, short vest. Let me think about the pink socks. You have an extraordinary sense of style for a dog. Though perhaps not ravishing, I’ll be darn cute. And just artsy enough.”

  She spent the next several hours working well. She wrote better when she was in a good mood, and she was in quite a good mood. Outside the office window, the rain fell in a steady mist and the violets that had come up, generous in the yard, were a haze of purple.

  As noon approached, she got out of her robe and into her clothes, brushed her short thick hair until it shone, and drove to town. When she found the address Jack had given her, there was a parking place nearby.

  The building itself was set well behind the stores that fronted the street. It was a high one-story building, perhaps a converted stable. Jack yelled “Come in” to her knock at the door, and she opened it with curiosity. His studio did not look at all as she had imagined it would. The floors were a rich dark wood that seemed to glow. The main room had minimal furniture; no one would mistake it for a home, but there were comfortable places to sit and a mission-style table. The walls were snowy-white, and paintings and photographs hung on every inch of wall between the windows and covered the back wall of the room. The photographs were black-and-white shots of woods and meadows. The paintings were in many styles, some completely abstract, others impressionistic.

  If the day had been sunny, light would have poured through the windows on the other three walls—windows that had not been an original part of the structure, at least not if it had actually been a stable. They were large and plentiful, covered against the gloominess of the day with wide shades of some burlaplike fabric, dyed lilac and blue and moss-green. The center of the room was empty, but, pushed to one side and standing on a heavy drop cloth, was an easel with an unfinished painting and a table covered with tubes of paint and brushes.

  The painting was a portrait of a dark-haired woman. She wore cutoffs, revealing strong legs, one crossed in front of the other, and a T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She was laughing and leaning on a bat. Meg was startled and immensely gratified.

  “I’m back here!” shouted Jack. “Come on through!”

  She walked down a hallway past a small bathroom and into a room that held a refrigerator, oven, sink, and a tiny table.

  “Hey, kid,” said Jack, looking up from the lettuce he was tearing. “I was glad to wake up to rain.”

  “So was I,” said Meg truthfully. “But I’m confused. When I asked if you had a studio, I believe you suggested it was unimpressive. Ha! And something smells good.”

  “Rolls heating up,” said Jack. “We’re having chicken salad.” He smiled at her. “I’m glad you’re impressed.” He moved his head to indicate the table. “Get some plates out; it’ll speed things up.”

  Having declared her shortage of time, Meg thought it better not to admit that she wasn’t at all in a hurry. She opened a cupboard and took down two blue-speckled enameled plates. “I like the painting you’re working on. I didn’t know you’d actually used your camera that day.”

  Jack laughed happily. “It’s nice, isn’t it? I’m pleased. I didn’t think I could really get you, even with a good photo to work from. But I have, haven’t I?”

  “It’s amazing,” said Meg.

  She opened a drawer to take out silverware, and Jack reached around her to pick up a serving spoon. His arm brushed against her. She concentrated on not impaling herself with a fork.

  “Let’s dish up out in the kitchen but eat at the table in the other room,” he said. “It’s a tad crowded back here.”

  After the chicken salad, he served cheesecake with lightly sugared raspberries.

  “Raspberries? At the end of April?” asked Meg wonderingly. “Gosh, this is good. But how many long-distance calls di
d you have to deny yourself in order to buy raspberries in April?”

  Jack looked at her, his eyebrows drawn together in confusion. “Oh,” he said after a moment. “I get it. No, babe, it’s not spending money I have a problem with; it’s wasting it. There’s a big difference. Fresh raspberries could not be considered a waste of money.”

  As they ate, the rain passed on, and Jack got up to raise the shades.

  “It’s clearing up,” he said, “and everything is sparkling.”

  “Are you going to paint this afternoon?” Meg asked.

  “Can’t dance,” he said. “Too wet to plow. Want to stick around and watch a master at work? You could grin at me and I could try to get that subtle dimple right.”

  “I think you already got it,” she said. “And I’ve got work of my own.”

  She had been aware it was taking a great deal of thought to guide the food to her mouth but knew it would seem foolish, bizarre, to sit motionless with an untouched plate in front of her, seeing only the curve of his hand on the table. He wore one ring—thick, twisted wires of gold and silver.

  “Have you ever been married?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer immediately. “No,” he said, at last. “Almost … but no. You?”

  She shook her head slightly. “No. It sounds like something went wrong. Did something go wrong?”

  “Things go wrong a lot,” he said. He sat back in his chair, looking levelly at her. “Forgive me for seeming to avoid the question. It was all quite recent, and it’s a little hard to talk about.”

  “Oh,” said Meg. “I’m sorry.”

  He waved a hand. “Forget it. It hardly ranks as a tragedy. Just a case of being about as wrong about someone as it’s possible to be.”

  “Mmm…” said Meg. “That can happen.”

  “Constancy,” he said softly, looking across the room. “It seems so basic.” He moved his shoulders and turned his gaze to her. “You aren’t much into games, are you?” he said. “I mean, except for real ones, like baseball.”

  “No, I’m not,” she answered looking down at her hands, clasped on the table. “I hate them. I’m no good at them; perhaps that’s why.”

  “Keep being no good at them,” he said quietly, and his eyes, when Meg looked up, were contented-looking and very blue.

  * * *

  Meg stood in the library and looked around. She hadn’t been ready to drive home and try to fix her mind on work. She had needed to walk, fast and purposefully, and to think. What did he see in her? Jim had been impressed with her competence, her good nature, her calm. But he had known her. Jack didn’t know her; he couldn’t. Not yet, anyway. But there was … affection in him. Or there seemed to be.

  If he really did feel that way, why didn’t he indicate it a little more clearly? Because he knew how easy it was to be wrong about someone? Because he was still emotionally tied up with someone else? Whatever the reason, it was just as well he didn’t, she thought, sighing. She was skittish, too. Maybe that’s why the dog had taken to her. Maybe she had recognized a kindred spirit.

  The library was large for a small town, with high ceilings and row after row of white-painted shelves. It was quiet except for an occasional burst of childish laughter from behind a closed door with a “Story Hour in Session” sign.

  She wandered through the stacks. She loved libraries, loved just being in them. This one was particularly welcoming; there were clusters of easy chairs here and there in open spaces in front of the stacks. It would have been nice to spend the rest of the day curled up in one of them with a novel. It would be nice to lose herself in someone else’s life for a while.

  Instead, she supplied the necessary documentation to receive a library card, checked out an Angela Thirkell, so she could see what it was Christine liked so much, and the only comprehensive guide to gardening that was on the shelves, and drove home. She passed John Eppler, driving to town, and he honked and waved at her out his open window.

  * * *

  She worked all afternoon and into the evening, pushing everything out of her mind except the word lists. She completed a rhyming phrase match and wrote a set of short poems. She took a break mid-afternoon to call her parents.

  “Thanks for the letter last week, Mom,” she said. “It was my first mail! I went out to the mailbox, not actually expecting anything since there had never been anything, and there it was. It sounds like you’re busy.”

  “As always,” said her mother. “You know your dad. But you’re the one who must be busy, dear. How’s the house? I’ve been waiting to find out. We haven’t heard a word since you called to say you’d made it there. You can’t be too busy to write once in a while to your own parents.”

  “Yeah, actually, I am,” said Meg. “That’s why I’m calling. I am calling, you notice.”

  “At unnecessary expense,” said her father, breaking into the conversation. “Not that we’re not happy to hear from you. But what’s wrong with the U.S. mail?”

  “Gosh, Dad, you sound just like Jack,” said Meg. “I’ve met this guy here who writes letters. I thought letter-writers were a dying breed, that you and Mom were the last ones still kicking, but I guess not. And he has the same reasons you do.”

  “Now, Margaret,” said her mother. “Don’t get involved with a stingy man.”

  “Ha! Look who’s talking!”

  “Your father is not stingy! He’s just careful. Like I am. We’re just careful. And you would be more so, if you’d spent your early years poor like we did. Your friend didn’t grow up in the Depression, did he?”

  “Heavens, Jeanie!” said Meg’s father. “What would Meg want with a tottering old man?”

  “No, Mom,” said Meg. “He didn’t grow up in the Depression. I swear. He’s in his mid-thirties. And he’s not stingy; he’s just careful, like you. He’s puzzled about why ‘Thou shalt not waste money’ was left out of the Ten Commandments. Figures it was a printer’s error.”

  “Well, then, he sounds lovely,” said her mother. “Now tell us about Louise’s house. I was there only once, and I barely remember it.”

  Meg spent a happy twenty minutes describing the house, the fence, the yard, the dog, her baseball team, and the neighbors.

  “This Mike fellow sounds all right to me,” said her father. “And it seems you’ve made quite the impression.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Meg replied. But when she had hung up and returned to work, she wondered again at her change in fortune. Three years as one of several girlfriends, and now seemingly pursued by two men. It was a pleasant, if disconcerting, change.

  The dog lay contentedly on the rug behind her until seven-thirty and then got up, stretched, and nudged Meg’s elbow with a cold nose.

  “Okay,” said Meg. “I’m getting hungry, too. But let’s take a walk first and eat fashionably late.”

  The dog’s ears pricked at walk.

  “You’re a smart one, aren’t you?” said Meg. “Or was there somebody else who used to say that, and you’ve just remembered what it means?”

  She switched off the screen and got up and they went out into the cool evening. “Want to go say hey to Harding?” asked Meg. “That’ll stretch our legs and make him blissfully happy, all at once. And I can see if Christine has a pot big enough for pasta for when they come to dinner tomorrow.”

  “Rarrph,” said the dog.

  “The field’s still wet,” said Meg. “So we have to go by the road, which means you need your leash.”

  The dog reared up on her hind legs while Meg snapped on the leash. They walked facing oncoming traffic and moved to the edge of the ditch whenever a car approached. Few cars approached. Meg felt lucky to live on a largely untraveled road. The air was soft and fragrant and, even when she thought about Jack, her mind was easy. No clutching feelings in her stomach. This, she told herself, was a good sign. She wasn’t falling for him, after all.

  The downstairs front of the Ruschman house was dark but lights were on upstairs.

  “K
iddies are doing their homework,” said Meg. “Let’s go around to the kitchen door.”

  Harding met them on their way up the long driveway, barking with delight and rearing to crash his chest against the smaller dog.

  “You two run off and play,” said Meg, unsnapping the lead. “But stay away from the road.”

  The dogs ran off into the field and Meg remembered, too late, that there would be muddy paws to clean again when she got home. She walked on the smooth concrete of the drive around to the back of the house, her gym shoes silent. The kitchen door was open; only the screen door was closed, and she could hear Dan’s and Christine’s voices. Meg started to call out, to keep from startling them with a sudden rap at the door, but just then Christine spoke again, and the savagery in her voice stilled Meg’s own.

  “I won’t live with a man who lies to me,” Christine said. “I tell you, I won’t!”

  “I’m not lying to you,” said Dan. His voice held no anger. Neither was it light. It sounded, to Meg, as if he was close to tears.

  “Well, you might as well be,” said Christine. “You’re not telling me anything. Something’s going on, something that involves money I don’t know anything about. I don’t know where it came from, don’t know who it went to, or why. Something that involves secrets, Dan, secrets you’re keeping from me. From me! For God’s sake! What’s the story?”

  Meg started to creep away, backing up. She bumped into Dan’s truck and froze, frightened unreasonably by the unexpected barrier.

  “I will tell you the story, Christine,” he said, “as soon as I know how it ends.”

  Now it was Christine’s voice that trembled, and no longer with anger. “Just tell me one thing, Dan,” she said. “And tell me now. Will I be in the story at the end?”

  “Oh, God, I hope so,” said Dan. He paused. “You don’t think…? Christie! You don’t think…?”

  Meg slid sideways along the truck and hurried down the driveway. Nearing the road, she whistled for the dog, spoke firmly to Harding to discourage his company, and started home, feeling awkward and guilty.