by Mark Lukens
“You sure? If there’s anything that—” She searched for the right word, not wanting to offend them. Was strenuous the word she was looking for? Difficult? Overwhelming?
“Yes, ma’am,” Lou said quickly before she could finish her sentence. He folded up the piece of paper neatly and stuffed it down into the pocket of his plaid shirt. “We can do it all, I promise you that.”
“Great,” Paula said. “If you need tools or a pressure washer—”
“We have a pressure washer,” Lou said. “And our own tools.”
Paula just nodded and smiled again. She tried to place their accents. For some reason she didn’t think they were from Florida. They didn’t have a southern or northern accent. Midwest maybe? Iowa or Nebraska? She could imagine them as a farming couple. “When can you start?”
“Today,” Lou roared. “Right now if you’d like.”
“How much do you charge?” Paula asked. “Do you charge hourly or by the day? By the job?”
Edna glanced around at the vast property and stately two-story home, then she looked back at Paula with a tight smile. “Whatever you think is fair.”
Lou nodded in agreement.
“Okay,” Paula said. “You can start with the fence if you want to. It needs to be pressure washed. There’s mildew growing on it.”
Lou and Edna nodded.
And that’s how it all started.
*
Lou and Edna scrubbed the metal fence and then rinsed it with their own ancient-looking pressure washer that sounded like it was going to blow up at any moment. The old couple moved slowly at first. It took them a while to get going, to set their buckets and scrub brushes up, to run the garden hoses out to their pressure washer. But they kept chugging along in the heat, never even stopping for a break.
By the end of the day they had gotten an impressive amount of work done. Scott was already home by then, and he was pleased to see some of the work around the house getting done. They both loved their big house and property, but it was a constant battle keeping the place up.
*
The next morning Lou and Edna were back. They had arrived right after Scott left for work. They unloaded their pressure washer from their RV and started working on the fence right where they had left off. Paula thought the old couple worked well together; they didn’t seem to argue or bicker at all.
Paula had to go out and show some houses, but she felt okay leaving the old couple there on the property. She left Sadie inside—that dog still went crazy every time she saw the couple.
When Paula got back that evening, Lou and Edna were packing it up for the day. She talked to them for a few moments. They didn’t even seem tired from the day’s work—they actually seemed more energized the more they worked, like they were getting slightly younger and healthier.
“Great job today,” Paula told them. “You’ll be back tomorrow?”
“Bright and early,” Lou told her, and his smile sent a shiver across her skin, yet she wasn’t sure why.
Paula watched from the living room window as they drove away in their RV. Sadie sat right beside Paula, growling lowly. She looked down at her dog. “You sure don’t like them, do you?”
*
“I’m really glad Diana and Ronnie told us about Lou and Edna,” Paula told Scott as they lay in bed that night.
“Me too,” Scott said. He sounded like he was on the verge of sleep. He told her earlier that it had been a grueling day at work. He’d downed two mixed drinks after dinner, and then he’d popped two of his Tylenol PM pills before bed.
“I called Diana to let her know how they’re doing,” Paula said. “But her phone was disconnected. I’ll have to drop by her house if I get a chance.”
Scott was already sleeping—he hadn’t heard a word she’d said.
She lay awake for the next two hours, unable to fall asleep for some reason. She lay in the darkness, listening to the soft purring of the air conditioning blowing out of the vents above her in the ceiling.
Sadie sat up on the floor, alerted by something outside. She bolted to the window with a growl in her throat.
Paula heard the sound from outside—a vehicle was out there driving down the dirt road just beyond their front fence. No big deal really, even this late, but Sadie’s reaction alarmed her. Paula got up and walked to the window, listening to the rumbling and rattling coming from outside. She knew that sound.
She pulled the curtain aside and looked out beyond the front lawn at the dirt road that ran in front of their home. A vehicle was driving away, the taillights disappearing in the darkness. The heavy vehicle rumbled along. It was an RV . . . it was Lou and Edna’s RV, she was sure of it.
*
“Can I ask a silly question?” Paula asked Lou and Edna the next morning before they got started working. “Were you guys here last night around one o’clock in the morning?”
Edna scrunched up her face and shook her head like it was the silliest question she’d ever heard. “No. We were fast asleep by then.”
Lou nodded in agreement, stooped forward. Even with his slight lean forward, he seemed taller than Paula remembered, and a little bigger. “Fast asleep,” he agreed.
“I told you it was a dumb question,” Paula told them and then laughed it off. She let them get to work.
*
That night Paula couldn’t sleep. Scott was out cold again, and Sadie was growling at the window. Paula got out of bed and walked over to the window. She hadn’t heard a vehicle driving around out there, but something had Sadie bothered.
Paula looked out the window and saw Lou and Edna’s RV parked in the weedy field next to their property beyond the fence. The vehicle was parked under the canopy of the trees, the shadows hiding the vehicle a little. There were no lights on inside the RV. It just sat there, a dark hulking behemoth in the hot and humid night.
Should she go out there? Should she wake Scott up?
Just then, as if Lou and Edna knew she was watching them, the RV started up and the headlights came on. The RV pulled out of the field, onto the dirt road, and drove away.
*
“Maybe they don’t have anywhere else to stay,” Paula told Scott as he got ready for work the next morning.
He shrugged and sighed as he adjusted his tie. “I don’t know. Just ask them.”
Paula felt a little pissed off that Scott was so dismissive about this. She wanted him to handle this for her, but he was passing it to her like this was entirely her deal. He was already upset with the old couple because there were areas of the fence that had turned a light gray after they scrubbed and pressure washed it. The lighter-colored splotches all over the metal made it look worse than it did before when the mildew was on it.
“Maybe the fence was always like that,” she’d told Scott, defending Lou and Edna. “Maybe we never noticed those lighter splotches until they washed all of the mold and mildew off.”
Scott didn’t think so.
Ten minutes after Scott left for work, Lou and Edna showed up. The couple looked refreshed and invigorated. The more they worked the more energetic they seemed.
How was she going to ask them about parking in the field last night? They stood there, smiling at her as if they were expecting an inquiry from her.
Paula decided to just spit it out and get it out in the open. “Were you guys parked over there in that field last night?”
The old couple’s smiles slipped away. They glanced at each other with looks of guilt.
“It’s okay,” Paula said quickly. “It’s okay if you stayed the night there.”
They looked nervous and pathetic.
“You guys don’t have anywhere to stay, do you?” Paula asked them.
“We can find somewhere else,” Edna said.
“No. Please. That’s not what I meant. Please stay. We could even run some electrical cords out to your RV. Maybe even hook up some kind of water line.”
“That would be wonderful,” Edna said and seemed to melt with relief.<
br />
*
Two days later Lou and Edna had their RV parked in the side field near the trees. They had an awning pulled out. Underneath that awning they had set up a table and two lawn chairs. They had built a fire pit surrounded by a circle of bricks. There was a dilapidated barbeque grill near the rear of the RV. They hadn’t wasted any time getting comfortable in that spot.
They had gotten some work done in the last two days, but Lou ripped out the wrong shrubs yesterday. Paula didn’t make too big of a deal about it. She lied and told him that she never really liked them anyway.
Scott wasn’t too happy about their new living arrangements.
“Why don’t you just pay them and tell them to pack that thing up and park it somewhere else?”
“I don’t think the little bit of money we’re going to give them is going to help their situation.”
“Then give them more.”
“It’s not that bad, Scott.”
“That thing’s an eyesore.”
“It’s not like we have any neighbors to complain about it.”
“That’s not the point, Paula,” Scott said and shook his head. He was arguing with her, but already giving in. He seemed distracted by something, which was so often the case these days. She knew he would eventually capitulate. This house was her domain, everything built and remodeled to her wishes. Sometimes she thought this house was only a place for Scott to sleep until he went back into his real world, the place where he really belonged, the world that mattered to him—his software company.
Scott walked away and mumbled, “Whatever.” And that was the end of that.
*
The next Monday Edna accidentally started a fire at the back corner of the house. Thank God Paula had seen it in time. The old couple helped her put it out. The damage wasn’t too bad. The day after that Lou busted a pipe and the garage flooded. He promised he could fix any of the water damage done to the drywall and baseboards.
“They’re causing more damage than they’re fixing,” Scott said that night after he got home from work.
Paula could tell that he’d had enough of this. He joked that the old couple was going to destroy their entire home soon.
“You need to get rid of them,” he told her, and then he gulped down the rest of his bourbon. He’d been drinking a lot more these last few months.
“Get rid of them? You mean fire them?”
“Yes. Fire them. They’re not working out. When one of my employees isn’t working out then I have to fire him.”
Paula was horrified at the idea of having to fire the elderly couple, but she was also strangely relieved. It would be so nice to have her house back to herself and to be able to let Sadie run around in the yard again. But still, it was going to suck to have to fire them.
“I’ll give them until the end of the week,” Paula said. “Just so they can make a little extra money.”
“You want me to tell them?” Scott asked. The alcohol had given a hard edge to his voice, and there was a dull and mean glare in his watery eyes.
“God, no. I said I’d do it.”
“Do what you want, Paula,” he said as he walked away. “You always do anyway.”
*
When Paula got home from work the next day, she realized that Sadie was missing. She asked Lou and Edna if they had seen her dog. They hadn’t.
The only thing Paula could figure was that Sadie must’ve gotten out of the house somehow, but she couldn’t figure out how.
Lou and Edna claimed that they hadn’t seen Sadie outside at all.
But how could that be? Paula wondered. If Sadie had gotten out, she would’ve run right up to the old couple and barked and growled at them. How could they not have seen her? She couldn’t help thinking that they were lying to her.
Lou looked past the house towards the lake in the distance. Paula could read the man’s thoughts as he stared at the water: If Sadie went down by the lake with all of those gators . . .
Paula felt like firing the old couple right then and there. She wanted to slap those stupid blank expressions of indifference off of their faces. What’s the big deal? their expressions said. It’s just a dumb dog.
Lou and Edna volunteered to help Paula look for Sadie. They walked around the property, calling the dog’s name. But Sadie never came running.
*
Could Lou and Edna have let Sadie out? Paula wondered that night as she stared out the bedroom window at the old couple’s RV parked in the field outside the metal fence that was now bleached light gray in so many places from whatever caustic cleaner they had used. Could they have accidentally let Sadie out and then didn’t want to admit it? They’d surely had their share of accidents and mishaps so far. But then a more sinister thought came to her: Could they have let Sadie out on purpose? Could they have hurt Sadie?
Paula let the curtain fall back in place over the window and went back to bed. It was already three o’clock in the morning. Her real estate business had been suffering lately because she had to spend so much time here at home watching over Lou and Edna. Her broker was getting tired of asking other agents to cover for her. Once Lou and Edna were gone, things would get back to normal.
She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep . . .
A creaking noise sounded from the hallway outside their bedroom door.
Her eyes popped open in the darkness.
Someone was out there in the hallway. Someone had just stepped on the squeaky floorboard.
Paula rolled over to see if Scott was out of bed—but he was still there, breathing deeply, heavily sedated. She thought about nudging him and waking him up. But it would be hard to wake him up. When he took those damn sleeping pills, he was out cold.
Creak.
She looked back at the open door and the darkness of the hall beyond it.
Lou emerged from the darkness and stood in the doorway. His pale bald head seemed nearly luminous in the dark, his eyes like empty black holes. He was bent forward a little. He seemed so much taller than before.
Paula jumped up and grabbed Scott. “Wake up!”
“What is it?” he mumbled, his voice thick with sleep. But at least he sat right up.
“Someone’s in the house. Someone was right there at the bedroom door.”
She didn’t know if it was her words or the panic in her voice, or both, but Scott was out of bed in a flash. She looked back at the bedroom door, but Lou was gone now.
Scott flipped on the lamp next to his side of the bed and then marched to their bedroom door. He turned on the overhead bedroom light, and he went out into the hall, disappearing into the darkness.
Paula held her breath for a moment.
The hall light came on.
A few minutes later Scott came back to bed, turning the lights off on his way. He looked annoyed and relieved at the same time. “No one in the house. All the doors and windows are locked. The alarm’s still on.”
Paula shook her head. “No, I saw someone standing in our doorway.”
“What did he look like?”
Paula didn’t answer. She felt like crying.
“It was probably just a nightmare,” Scott said as he rolled back over onto his side.
She wasn’t going to let Scott act like she was a child this time. “It was Lou,” she told him. Let’s see how he dealt with that.
Scott’s body seemed to stiffen as he laid there with his back to her, facing the windows that looked out onto the front yard and then the field beyond that where Lou and Edna’s RV was parked right now. She felt a strange feeling of satisfaction from his reaction, his shock.
Scott turned around and stared at her, deadly serious now. She would’ve guessed that he wouldn’t have believed such a preposterous idea, but he seemed to accept it immediately.
“I mean, that’s who I thought I just saw in the doorway,” Paula said.
“You think Lou was in our house?”
“It might have been a dream,” she said quickly, afraid of Scott’s su
dden willingness to believe that the old man had been sneaking around inside their house. “You just said that all the doors and windows are locked and the alarm’s set.”
He shook his head like he was past the point of putting up with this.
“A couple more days,” Paula said. “By this Friday they’re out of here. I’m going to pay them what we owe them and then they’re gone.”
“Good,” Scott said as he rolled back over, facing away from her. He was asleep again in minutes.
*
The next day Paula spoke to Lou. She didn’t dare come out and ask if he’d been inside their home last night, watching her through the doorway. Instead, she talked to him about other things, and as she did, she tried to gauge his reaction. He didn’t seem uncomfortable around her. In fact, he seemed confident. He looked stronger now . . . somehow younger.
“I need to go into town for a few hours,” Paula told Lou. “I need to run a few errands,” she said as if she owed him an explanation.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. He had a pair of pruning clippers in his hands, and they looked like a dangerous weapon to her now.
Paula nodded at Lou and forced a smile on her face. But she didn’t think she was pulling off her act, and she could tell by the look on Lou’s face that he was amused by her nervousness. She hurried to her GMC Denali, got in, and left. She wasn’t running errands like she’d told Lou. No, she needed to go see Diana and Ronnie. She still couldn’t get through to Diana or Ronnie on their home or cell numbers—both had been disconnected. She needed to talk to Diana about Lou and Edna, and since she couldn’t get a hold of her on the phone, then she would go to her house.
*
Paula parked her GMC in front of Diana and Ronnie’s house. She stared in shock for a moment before she got out of her vehicle. She glanced at the large FOR SALE sign near the road, and then she looked back at the house beyond the iron gates and brick walls. She got out of her SUV and walked to the gates. The house looked abandoned. But not only that, the house was damaged. Part of the right side was stained black from what looked like a fire.
