The Color of Dust

by Claire Rooney

  That wasn’t right. Carrie picked the flowers out of the pile, gathered them in a bunch and took them back to the house with her where she carefully trimmed the stems, filled a vase with water and put the flowers in it. She was not going to put them on her dressing room table. Instead, she put the flowers in the library on the mantel piece next to the mirror where they could watch themselves fade and she wouldn’t have to. But maybe that was too cruel. She took the flowers off the mantel and put them on the desk next to the poem where they could be sure that someone appreciated their predicament. That was better, if not ideal.

  Carrie sat at the desk and dropped her head into her hands. She must be losing it. Since when did she ever feel sorry for flowers?

  They were pretty, but they lived and died just like everything else in the world. She should have gone into town to get that pizza and beer. Two pizzas and a case of beer. Tomorrow, she would go for sure. For lunch. An early lunch. She went upstairs, showered, grabbed a book and went to bed.

  Carrie sat up. She looked out the window at the pale moonlight shimmering on the tops of the trees. Something woke her, but she didn’t know what it was. There was no wind or rain, no clouds. The night was quiet and still. Through the window, she could see that the sky was full of stars. She tilted her head and squeezed her eyes shut, listening hard. What was it that woke her? Her dreams had been full of things she couldn’t remember but they left her feeling odd and disjointed. She tilted her head to the other side and then she heard it. Not clearly, but it sounded like the tapping of a drum, the tooting of a flute, the whine of a bow across strings.

  Carrie slipped out of bed. She walked quietly out of the bedroom, tiptoed down the hallway and stood at the head of the stairs. The music was clearer there, though still tinny and faint.

  It sounded like it was coming from right under her feet. That was the library. She shivered and pulled her pajama top tighter around her. The stairs looked steep and narrow in the darkness, but she hugged the railing and went down them one at a time until her bare feet hit the chilly parquet floor.

  The library doors were closed. She didn’t remember closing them, but she didn’t remember them being open either. Carrie put her ear to the door. The music was definitely coming from in there. She could hear it, the tap-tap of a drum, the trilling of a flute, the scrape of a bow. The sound of a woman laughing.

  Carrie opened the door just a crack. The library was dark and still. She didn’t see anybody but she could hear the music playing from somewhere inside. She stepped into the room and turned on a small table lamp.

  Dim yellow light threw crooked shadows across the floor.

  The music box sat beside the fireplace. It was open, the lid raised.

  A small winding key turned slowly. She didn’t remember the lid being open either the last time she passed it. But, then again, she hadn’t known what it was the last time she passed it. Carrie walked over to the box and looked inside. Gears and cogs were turning. Long thin pins plucked at spokes on a brass disk making the sounds of a vaguely familiar song.

  Carrie slowly closed the lid. The music stuttered and died.

  Gillian had told her it was stuck. She touched the winding key and then turned it. The key clicked quietly as it rolled easily under her fingers.

  Well, whatever had been stuck must have come unstuck.

  That seemed likely enough, but she thought she’d better have a look around anyway. Carrie walked around the room, peering under couches, behind chairs and curtains without finding so much as a dust bunny. She jiggled the handles of the patio doors.

  They were locked tight. She wandered back over to the desk.

  Nothing had been disturbed. The poem still lay there next to the bills, next to the flowers. Fallen petals from the roses lay scattered across the papers. They were small and dark in the dim light, cupped and curled. They looked like large drops of water or maybe something darker.

  Carrie cursed and shook the petals into the wastebasket. She was letting the house get to her. It was too big and too empty with just one person in it. She was letting her imagination get the best of her. There had been music, but it was only the box.

  The petals were only petals. There was nothing to be scared of or nervous about. Dreams were only dreams. They didn’t mean anything. They weren’t real. Carrie turned off the light and made her way back up the stairs and back into bed. She lay with the sheet pulled up to her chin, looking at the stars still filling the sky, and tried very hard not to think of the woman laughing.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The doorbell rang, or thunked, rather, as the brass clappers high up on the wall in the foyer still needed a new spring. Carrie looked up from her book. Her eyes were still tired from staying up so long, listening while trying not to hear. Reading had helped, but it was now nine in the morning and she was still reading, still trying to shake off the odd prickly feeling that sat at the base of her spine. The doorbell thunked again followed by a brief staccato knock. Carrie put her book down and went to open the front door.

  Gillian stood on the welcome mat in a bright yellow slicker, sparkles of rain dotting her hair. “Hey,” she said with a little wave of her hand. “Good morning to you. I hope you don’t mind me dropping in like this.”

  “No. Not at all.” Carrie smiled as she opened the door wider. “I wasn’t doing anything much. Come on in and have some coffee or something.”

  “Thanks.” Gillian smiled back at her. It was an odd smile, quirky and amused, as usual, but also just slightly shy with a dash of distracted. She came in, took her raincoat off and hung it in the closet underneath the right most set of stairs. It was a door that Carrie hadn’t opened before.

  There was nothing in it but a set of wooden coat hangers and now Gillian’s yellow raincoat. Carrie led the way to the kitchen.

  “Coffee?” She asked holding up the press pot. “This is still warm, but I can make you a fresh pot if you want a cup.”

  Gillian stopped at the kitchen door and leaned against the frame. She shook her head. “Already done my quota for the day, but thanks anyway. I can’t stay but a while. I just wanted to drop by real quick to see how things were going.”

  Carrie shrugged. “They’re fine.” She stopped herself. That wasn’t a very good answer but she was still feeling a little shy of Gillian, especially with her standing the way she was, leaning against the doorframe with such casual elegance, looking so fresh with her rain-spotted hair. She smiled again, maybe more at herself than at Gillian. “Actually, everything is just wonderful. All the lights work, the toilets flush on the first try, the showers are clean and have hot water. What more could anyone ask for?”

  “You may be asking for a new furnace, come winter.” Gillian came into the kitchen, pulled out a chair and sat at the table.

  “Zachary took a look at the old one and said that he didn’t recommend turning it on before you had someone out to take a look at it. I forgot to tell you that the other day.” She smoothed her hands over her hair smearing the raindrops into darker streaks. “In fact, there were a whole lot of things I forgot to tell you, but now that I’m here, I can’t remember what they were.”

  Carrie looked at the pot and then poured herself the last of the coffee. It was her fourth cup, but she still felt tired. “I get like that, too. I’m only thirty, but, God, sometimes I feel so old.”

  “Makes me wonder how we’re going to feel when we really do grow old.” Gillian tapped her fingers on the surface of the kitchen table. “Have you made any decisions about this place?

  I know it’s none of my business, but I was just wondering what your plans were.” Gillian’s eyes shifted around the room. “If you’re going to sell the house, I can help you get good prices for the furniture and things.” Her fingers kept tapping as her voice trailed off softly into nothing.

  And there again was the trick. There always was a trick. Good never happened without bad, but as bad things went, seeing what motivated Gillian wasn’t too awful. More disappointing t
han anything else, but Carrie knew from the beginning that people like Gillian didn’t look twice at people like her without a good reason. Potential commission money was always a good reason.

  It was heartachingly disappointing but not unexpected.

  Carrie took a sip from her cup. It had been steeping for far too long. The coffee tasted bitter and burnt. “I take it you think I should sell the house and move back to Chicago.” After all, what did she know about small towns and old houses? Or antique dealers for that matter?

  Gillian’s fingers stilled. She flattened her hands and moved them back and forth across the tabletop, her fingers bumping over a knot in the wood. “Actually, no. I was hoping to talk you out of it if that’s what you had decided.”

  Carrie stared at her as she took another tentative sip of her coffee. Maybe it didn’t taste all that bad. “That’s not exactly what I would have expected from you.”

  “Oh, I know.” Gillian flashed a wry smile at her. “I don’t understand it myself. Just look at me. I’m practically salivating over this table, but I don’t think I could stand to see it anywhere else but right here.” Gillian’s hands stilled. “I think you should stay, too.”

  Carrie watched Gillian’s hands pressed against the tabletop, fingers parallel to the grain, palms flat, and discovered that it was possible to feel jealous of a slab of wood. She cleared her throat lightly. “I have been thinking about it some. I don’t know what I’m going to do, ultimately, but I think I’ll stay here for at least a while. There’s still so much that needs to be done before I can make any final decisions.”

  Gillian’s hands curled as she looked at Carrie. “Do you miss your friends in Chicago?”

  Carrie heard the subtext of that question clearly. Gillian wasn’t asking if she missed her friends but if she had any friends and what kind of friends were they?

  “Yes, I do miss my friends, but I would be missing them even if I was still in Chicago.” Carrie leaned against the kitchen counter, both hands wrapped tightly around her coffee cup. “I was at the ass end of an ugly breakup before I came here. It got a little physical there at the end and I lost most of my friends because of that. And all of the good furniture.”

  “I’m sorry.” Gillian took her hands off the table and put them in her lap. “I went through something like that, once. It’s hard to watch your friends walk away from you. I’m sure you miss everyone terribly.”

  “Actually, I miss the cat most of all.”

  Gillian laughed and then shook her head. “Lord knows, he must have been a real sorry bastard to take your friends, the furniture and the cat, too.”

  Carrie took a deep breath, inhaling the faint scent of coffee, wet hair and Gillian’s perfume. What did she have to lose, besides another friend? “She was. A complete and utter bastard.

  Although, I have to say that it’s still hard for me to think about it very rationally. Megan had a way of pushing every last button I owned.”

  “Oh.” Gillian looked at the hands in her lap, her brow creased with a frown.

  That wasn’t the reaction Carrie was hoping to get but, again, she wasn’t surprised, only a little disappointed. “If that makes you uncomfortable, you don’t have to stay.”

  “No, it’s not that.” Gillian looked up. “I’m not uncomfortable. I was just trying to remember what I said about Jo the other day and if I said anything that might offend you.”

  Carrie shrugged. “If you did, I don’t remember it.”

  But, in spite of what Gillian said, she did look uncomfortable with her spine stiff and straight, her hands buried in her lap.

  There wasn’t much Carrie could do about it. She was already standing a respectful distance away from her and with a kitchen table in between, her posture as casually non-threatening as she knew how to make it.

  Carrie looked into her mug. The coffee wasn’t that bad, but it had a sour aftertaste. “I still can’t tell you how much I appreciate you putting together that cleaning party. It’s amazing how people are willing to come together to help a stranger.”

  “It really wasn’t for you.” Gillian spoke down at the table.

  “You keep saying that.”

  “It’s true.” Gillian smiled softly. “Did you find the poem?”

  “Yes.” Carrie gave up on her coffee and put it on the counter.

  She folded her arms across her chest. “I thought it was strangely moving.”

  “I thought so, too.” Gillian looked up, caught Carrie’s eyes and then looked down again.

  There was a spark of something in that glance that was hard for Carrie to identify, nervousness or fear or a fierce flash of…something. She couldn’t tell.

  “Do you know what else I found?” Carrie asked. “In the little graveyard out past the south meadow, there’s this marker way in the far back corner. It’s very small with no name or date. There’s only a flower carved on it. I was wondering if it could have been someone’s pet.”

  Gillian’s expression turned thoughtful. “It could be a pet, but that would be unusual. In the past, people didn’t tend to personify their animals as much as we do today.” She glanced over toward the kitchen window. “Maybe when it stops raining I can come back over and take a look at it.”

  The coffee stirred in Carrie’s stomach, not in an entirely unpleasant way. She folded her arms tighter against her chest.

  “Thanks. That’d be great.” It would be something to look forward to, anyway. She felt a large stupid grin slowly spreading across her face, but she couldn’t stop it. “Thank you,” she said again. “Now, if only we could find the attic I’d feel like all the bases were covered.”

  “Oh,” Gillian said as her eyes lit up, “we did find it. That was one of the things I forgot that I forgot to tell you. It’s in the back of the linen closet upstairs in the east hallway. Very hidden, but that’s not unusual for a house this age.”

  “Really? What was up there?”

  “We didn’t go up because it was dark and we didn’t have a flashlight handy. Would you like me to show you where it is?”

  “Sure.”

  Carrie followed Gillian out of the kitchen, up the stairs and down the east hallway. She hadn’t looked through this wing very much, only a quick glance at the guest rooms, a light rummage through their empty closets and drawers. Gillian stopped in front of a plain looking door and opened it. Behind the door was a large, deep closet with old sheets and towels, blankets, comforters and crocheted throws piled on shelves built into one side. On the other side was another door. Gillian stepped inside the closet and pulled at a small latch. The door opened and revealed a wide, steep staircase. The stairs were dark and dusty. Gillian stepped out of the way and Carrie went up a few steps. She could see from the spill of the hallway light an empty light socket and a chain hanging down.

  “It looks like there’s a light at the top of the stairs but it doesn’t have a bulb in it.”

  “I know where the lightbulbs are. Should I run and get one?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  Gillian disappeared and Carrie walked up a few more steps.

  The air was hot, dusty and dry. It tickled her nose. Her eyes began to adjust to the darkness and she could just make out squat square shapes and tall thin shapes. Gillian came back and stepped carefully up the stairs. She handed Carrie a lightbulb. Carrie reached up and screwed it into the socket. She pulled the chain.

  Gillian shrieked and Carrie nearly jumped out of her skin. A woman in a formal dress was standing right beside them. A wide hat and frizzy hair framed an empty face.

  Gillian began to laugh.

  “It’s only a mannequin,” Carrie said.

  “It’s a dress form…not quite a mannequin.”

  Carrie was holding Gillian’s hand. She wasn’t sure when that had happened, but she had probably better let it go. She didn’t want to, but she made her fingers relax and Gillian’s hand fell away from hers. Gillian was staring at the dress with wide eyes. It was very beautiful in an old-fashioned
way, with puffy crinoline and a tiny waist, lace and pearl trimming at the neck and wrists, fancy embroidery around a hem that swept the floor. It was too dusty to tell what color it had been.

  “Wow,” Gillian said and stepped away from her. She walked around the dress, reaching out a hand but then letting it fall back again before her fingers brushed the fabric. “This is just so amazing.”

  Carrie was staring, too, not at the dress but at Gillian, at the flush of her cheeks, the cling of her shirt, the slope of her shoulders, the drape of her slacks. It wasn’t anything special. The shirt was cotton, her shoulders were thin, the slacks were just a pair of chinos. But taken all together, each part in its place, it was extraordinary. Carrie had never seen anyone more stunning than Gillian was when she was lusting after some dusty old antique thing.

  Carrie shook herself mentally. She was being stupid again.

  With a stubborn willfulness, she turned her back to Gillian and the dress and looked around the rest of the attic. It was a large space running the length of the east wing and it was stacked with old broken furniture, boxes, trunks and crates. There was a lot of stuff. Too much stuff. Certainly, it was more stuff than any one family needed to have and far too much stuff for just her. She looked back at Gillian still gawking at the dress. What would Gillian look like wearing a dress like that? The thought made Carrie weak in the knees.

  Gillian finally tore herself away from the dress and looked around at the rest of the attic. Her eyes began to sparkle in a way that made Carrie’s chest feel fluttery. “We definitely need to do an inventory.”

  “Should I go get some paper?”

  Gillian looked at her watch and then shook her head slowly, reluctantly. “I don’t have time today. Damn it. I have to get back to the shop.”

  “How about tomorrow? We could do the inventory and then I could take you out to dinner or something.” The words came out of Carrie’s mouth before her brain registered what she was saying. She felt her face flame but didn’t try to take back her words.