I look around too. I’ve never seen this many flowers in one place in my life. The apartment’s decor can best be described as Grandma-core.
The floors are hardwood, but clearly old and not refinished. The draperies at the window are lacy. The walls are covered in floral wallpaper with bold burgundy, gold, and greens. The side tables are mismatched, and each holds a lamp. One is a round porcelain lamp covered in flowers with a plain white shade. The other has a brass base, and the shade is the flowered part. Glass with bright red flowers that, again, don’t match anything else.
The couch in between is an oversized, lumpy, floral-upholstered piece—this time featuring pink and blue flowers. There is a blue armchair, a scarred coffee table on a braided, multi-colored rug, and a television that easily weighs fifty pounds sitting on a very rickety stand. There’s a ceiling fan, turning lazily overhead, and an air conditioning unit in the window, humming and rattling intermittently.
To my left is a half wall that divides the living room from the kitchen. From what I can see, there are more flowered curtains on the window over the sink.
I smile. Someone either did it intentionally or honestly did not careat alland just threw furniture into this room haphazardly. There’s no in between.
There’s got to be a flowered comforter or a quilt on the bed, and a wooden side table that was new sometime in the sixties, and if there’s not an armoire, I’m going to be very disappointed.
“All of this furniture was donated by people in town,” Bruce says. “So treat it well.”
I give a soft snort. This furniture has seen some stuff. I don’t think I can do anything to it that hasn’t been done.
He frowns. “And be careful what you say about it down in the café.”
“I would never disparage the furniture down in the café,” I tell him.
“Miss Dora says this is the most comfortable couch in town,” Ruth says, crossing to the piece and plopping down in the center cushion. She bounces up and down. “She says her husband took hundreds of naps on this couch.”
“Is that right?” I ask, eyeing the couch. I do like a good nap now and then.
“Yep, took his very last one right there,” Bruce says.
I look at him quickly. “Do you mean…he died there?”
Ruth nods. “Miss Dora said she didn’t know he was dead for hours because he always slept here.”
I take a step back from the couch without thinking. I have a sofa a guy died on. A guy wasdeadon that sofa. Terrific.
“Was that recent? In this room?” I ask.
Bruce shakes his head. “She had it in her living room for a couple of years before she donated it to us.”
I look at Ruth. “How do ghosts work? Do they stay with the furniture, or do they stay in the room where they die?”
She giggles. And doesn’t answer me.
That isn’t reassuring in the least.
“The refrigerator won’t be telling you the weather, or giving you the headline news, or making you different shapes of ice,” Bruce says. “There’re a couple of ice trays up in the freezer, and if you come to the café before eight, you can get all the weather and headline news in person.”
He really did read that article fromHockey Hunks. Yes, my fridge in Portland does all of those things. But I can live without all of that for seven months.
Probably.
“Washer and dryer are downstairs, back of the kitchen. You’ll have to share with the café.”
Nowthatmakes me pause.
I’m going to have to do laundry.
I don’t do that in Portland. The same woman who cleans my apartment and cooks for me three nights a week also does my laundry and handles my dry cleaning. And yes, we had a housekeeper and cook when I was growing up. No one taught me to do things like laundry, and it’s never been an issue.
That’s not really myfault. It’s just a thing. Like people who are never taught to ice skate can’t play ice hockey. It’s not a mark against their character.
But I’m not going to say that to Bruce. He probably read that in the article and is just waiting for me to react.
