Mickelsson's Ghosts by John Gardner (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

the front of her coat. The suit underneath was powder-blue, as pale as her eyes. When he lifted the coat from her shoulders she dusted her hands as if about to set to work. “Isn’t this lovely,” she said, “isn’t this lovely!”

Tim stood with his hands in his coatpockets, looking around admiringly; then he too decided to take off his coat. He threw it over the end of the couch. “Boy,” he said, “it’s really beautiful, Prafessor. You’re really a handyman!”

“Oh, well,” Mickelsson said.

The doc said, examining the wallpaper seams (she would find no mistakes), “I was always so busy, you know. I just never gaht a minute for the poor howse. My goodness, what’s this?” As if someone had told her how he’d changed the former workroom, she’d gone straight to the door, opened it—it was already part way open—and looked in. “Don’t tell me you did all this yourself!” she exclaimed. “Well I never!” The queerly girlish laugh he remembered struck him now as unearthly. Whether or not he was right that the doc was gravely ill, she’d aged noticeably during her few months in Florida; her features had sharpened and she seemed much more pale; clearly she hadn’t been lying around on beaches. Yet her voice was, if anything, younger than before.

Tim sat down on the couch, smiling, and hung his hands over his knees, keeping out of things, giving the doc playing room. Mickelsson, with part of his mind, worked at whether or not the man was homosexual, but he got nowhere. One would not be quite as open about it in Susquehanna, he supposed, as one might be in Binghamton.

“Yes, it makes a good diningroom, doesn’t it,” Mickelsson said, getting out his pipe. He saw that she was looking now at the scraped place where once the hex sign had been. “Can I offer you a cup of tea?” he asked.

“That would be lovely, if it’s naht too much trouble!”

“Nothing for me, thanks,” Tim said, and waved. Now he too was getting his pipe out.

The doc crossed to the Dutch door, visibly decided not to mention the missing hex sign, and turned to look at the stereo instead. “What a lovely phonograph! That’s another thing I just never take time for. How we do let things slip by us!”

“I suppose that’s so,” Mickelsson said. He nodded, excusing himself, still poking tobacco into his pipebowl, and went into the kitchen to fill the teakettle.

She came into the kitchen behind him and suddenly froze. He followed her eyes to the cat, which stood, stiffly arched, by the cellar door, staring back at her. Its mouth was drawn away from its fangs, ready to hiss. Mickelsson stepped over and opened the cellar door, allowing the cat to flee.

“I’m sorry. I take it you don’t care much for cats,” he said, closing the door and smiling.

“Oh no, it just stahrtled me, that’s all,” she said, then laughed. She raised one hand, brushing something invisible from in front of her face.

He finished putting on the kettle, then got out cups, two teabags, and sugar. When he bent his head, taking spoons from the drawer beside the sink, he became aware again of how large the woman was, taller than he was by an inch or two. When he glanced at her shoes he saw that her heels were low. The aroma of Tim’s pipe tobacco drifted in from the livingroom, the same Dunhill Mickelsson himself smoked, or maybe the similar but cheaper mixture Balkan Sobranie.

She asked how things had been, whether or not he’d encountered any trouble with the house.

“Nothing serious,” he said. “I must say, I was surprised to learn it’s haunted.” He glanced at her.

“Oh, that!” she said, and laughed. “How on earth do you suppose such a thing gaht stahrted?”

There seemed no doubt that she spoke innocently; but he asked, “You never saw them, then?”

“Saw them?” She tipped her head. Apparently deciding he was teasing, she said, “Naht that I know of!” She laughed again. “But it seems as if just about everybody else in Seskehenna has. At any rate that’s what they told that poor Prafessor Warren. He was very interested in the house, I suppose you know.”

“I’m not sure whether I’d heard that or not,” Mickelsson said, and casually watched her.

“Oh my yes! He just couldn’t get enough about it! But I’ll tell you, just between you and me and the gatepost”—she waved her hand as if sweeping away nonsense—“I don’t think he believed those stories for one minute. All he really wanted was to find owt how they gaht stahrted—who lived here at the time, where the noises seemed to come from, and such.”

“And did he find out?” Mickelsson asked.

“Why you know, I haven’t gaht any idea. I never stahrted them, that I can tell you!” She laughed gaily.

The kettle had been hissing; now it rose to a full whistle, frantic. He turned the heat off and poured hot water over the teabags in the cups. “Sugar?” he asked. He glanced at his wrist, then remembered he’d given his watch away.

“No thank you. Never use it—steals the vitamins.”

As he moved nearer to give her her cup he caught her scent, not a smell of soap or perfume, it seemed to him, but of spring itself. No doubt she’d brought it up from Florida. The scent was pronounced, remarkable. When he noticed her expression, he realized he’d shown his surprise.

“It must be beautiful in Florida at this time of year,” he said.

“Oh yes, very nice. They have the whitest sand, you know, down on the Gulf where we ahr.” She took the cup from him and moved ahead of him to the livingroom. Tim stood bent over near the glass-topped table, looking at something—the old wooden cheesebox with its few remaining keys. His face was prepared to make some interested comment, but he seemed to decide not to break in on the doctor’s conversation.

“Well,” she said when she and Mickelsson had seated themselves—she on the