The Root Cellar - Part II

A novella.

(Click here to read Part I)

II.

After lugging the sack up the slimy cellar steps, we take out all the jars and set them on the tailgate of Rick’s truck, which is parked under a shady tulip poplar near the Winnebago. Skip is up on his hind feet between us, sniffing the jars curiously. I’m suddenly conscious that I’m beside myself with wonder and anticipation. Not typical control-freak behavior. (Composure, girlfriend.)

“So,” Rick says, holding a pair of large channel-lock pliers. “What’s your pleasure?”

“Well, I guess we could all use a little more happiness in our lives.” I pick up the HAPPY jar and wipe off what appears to be a century of caked-on dust. “Even if it’s, what, over 100 years old?”

“Happy it is,” Rick says, handing me the pliers. “I’ll let you do the honors.”

I take the pliers, grip the rusted gold flange and give it a counterclockwise twist. Nothing happens. But after applying more elbow grease, it breaks free. I unscrew the flange, put it aside. Rick and I are studying the petrified grot around the edge of the vacuum-sealed lid, which may not be as cooperative. 

“This might help,” Rick says, handing me the beer bottle opener.

After working all the way around the edges, I feel the lid squirm on the rubber gasket, enough that I can lift it with my fingernail. I take it off slowly and we both stare at the contents. Waxy-looking globs suspended in the gooey red sludge. Speckled with tiny seeds. I dip the tip of my little finger in—warily—hold it under my nose and sniff. Nothing seems immediately putrid, so I decide it’s safe enough to lick my finger.

“And?”

“Well,” I say with a grimace, taking a swig of beer to cleanse my palette. “The strawberries must’ve lived a good, long life before dying, but the sugar is still alive and kicking.”

Rick takes a taste himself, smacks his lips but not in a way that seems satisfying. “Wow, that’s, you know…wow.” Suddenly his phone vibrates off the top edge of the truck bed and tumbles to the ground. He picks it up still ringing, then frowns at the screen. “Ah, sorry. Need to catch this.”

While Rick’s on the phone, I survey the mysterious time capsules in front of me. Curious about the why of it all. Why the mysterious labels? Why had they been stored like that? Add those to the inventory of seemingly unanswerable questions about my biological family. Of course, I do have a superficial sense of the who after digging up a Pulaski Citizen newspaper article about the fire that seemed to have doubled as an obit for each member of the family. But it’s just a rough sketch, typical bio info. 

Just as I notice Rick wrapping up his call, I also notice two other things I didn’t catch at first: JOYFUL is dated with my birthday—April 14th, 1966. HOPEFUL’s date is the day of the fire—December 21, 1970. Another thing I don’t notice (but should have) are the tears running down my cheeks.

Rick is suddenly leaning against the tailgate next to me, arms crossed, quiet as a monk. 

“This is sort of unexpectedly weird,” I say dizzily, wiping my face. 

“I can imagine,” Rick says, scratching Skip on the head. “Think I’ll take a few measurements, snap some photos. I can start on a ballpark estimate tonight.”

“That’s fine. I’m taking some vacation so I’ll be here for a couple of weeks.” Skip is gazing up at me with his big, brown eyes, softly whining. He’s either hungry or feeling what I’m feeling. Knowing him, maybe both. 

“Did I give you my number?” I say, making a valiant effort to regain my control-freak composure.

“Oh, right. Good idea,” Rick says with a beaming, good-old-boy smile. One that feels a little unnerving, but not in a bad way. 

* * *

Early the next morning—Monday—Skip is whining and licking my face before dawn. I’m disoriented in the pitch black of a strange place and also by waking up in the cramped camper bunk with a throbbing migraine. 

Suddenly the memory of a dream breaks through my fogginess and starts replaying itself in my mind’s eye. It’s a baseball game. I’m looking down at the field—bird’s eye view. Bright noonday sun. People are cheering and jeering as the players—teenaged boys wearing baggy, old-timey uniforms—are arguing with one another on the field. Under a big shady tree behind home plate, a young couple is reclined next to a picnic basket. He’s laughing. She’s crying. The last thing I see is a ring sliding onto a finger.

After letting Skip out to do his business and feeding him, I take my medication, crawl back under the covers while trying to hold onto the sweetness of the dream. Soon I fall into a black nothingness for two more hours, lulled into it by the American Pharmaceutical Industry and the sound of the droning air conditioner in the camper.  

* * *

By early afternoon, the pain has lifted. I’m eating tuna salad and avocado and reading unanswered work emails. Every now and then, I glance at the nine mysteries lined up on the dinette table, which I’ve arranged by date from left to right. 

HAPPY - August 25th, 1919
SAD - January 3rd, 1921
DESPAIRING - May 24th, 1930
SURPRISED - October 15th, 1933
AFRAID - July 4th, 1937
ANGRY - August 10th, 1941
EXCITED - March 13th, 1954
JOYFUL - April 14th, 1966,
HOPEFUL - December 21st, 1970

I have some instinctive (or anal-retentive) inclination to taste them in chronological order. Naturally, I don’t relish the idea of tasting all of them. 

Suddenly my phone dings with a text message.

I have a final walk-thru at 4 pm today—house I’ve just finished similar in design and style to your specs. Address is 1632 Trade Branch Road. Thought you might want to join me, take a look. Let me know. Rick

See you there, thanks. K.

A couple hours later, after freshening up and locking Skip in the Winnebago with a fresh rawhide toy, I plug the address into the GPS and head out, driving for about ten minutes south of my place. Soon I see the gleaming white house from the road. I turn in and pull up in front of the construction site. Rick’s out front, taking photos. To my eye, it’s strikingly beautiful in its simplicity. Board and batten siding, large windows, sprawling wrap-around porch and a copper cupola on the roof peak. The weathervane above the cupola is a trotting horse, spinning slowly in the afternoon breeze. Two burley young men wearing straw hats and chin-curtain beards are walking around with 5-gallon pails, filling them up with post-construction trash.

“So, what do you think? Kinda-sorta?” Rick’s peering at me over his shoulder, smiling, 

I know what he means by the question, but suddenly I have a question of my own that seems more urgent. “Did you have any dreams last night?”

He answers with a blank stare.

“Sorry, that’s a little open ended,” I say. “I mean like of a ballpark, or field. Ball field?”

“Not that I can remember. Why would I?”

“It’s nothing.” I smile, suddenly feeling a little exposed that I brought it up. 

I walk down a brick sidewalk closer to the house. It takes me a second to realize Rick looks different. Dressed up, clean shaven, as if he’d just come from some casual Friday board meeting. I glance back at him, feeling woefully underdressed by comparison in my work clothes, boots and frizzy hair.  

“I had a closing, at the bank,” Rick says, noticing me noticing him. But he seems transfixed on the cupola, though, not his classy duds or my roaming eyes. 

“Eli!” he shouts in the direction of the young Amish guys, pointing at the trotting horse weathervane. “It’s wobbling. Can you look at that, please?”

I step up on the porch while mentally checking a box: Sweats details. 

“It’s close. Kinda-sorta,” I say.

“Good. Check it out.” Rick opens the front door and I walk in. The living room and kitchen spaces are flooded with natural light from the windows. Lots of natural outside world infusing the inside world—just the way I like it. Rick sees me gawking down between my feet, under which is the most exquisite antique heart pine floor I’ve ever seen.

I rub my hand across one of the rough, tawny-red stones used to build the massive fireplace. “Are these local?”

“Fresh out of the Elk River.” 

I walk down a short hallway and duck into both bedrooms. Typical rectangles with lots of closet space, the walls paneled a third of the way up with custom-cut shiplap wainscot. The master bath is much too big for my tastes. No on the Jacuzzi tub, yes to the rain shower head. I stroll into the kitchen space, which occupies one entire end of the house and is outfitted with fancy Bosch appliances. All of which might be overkill for me since I only need a can opener and corkscrew most of the time.

“You’re hired,” I say, dreamily glancing up at a high vaulted ceiling that almost takes my breath away. But I’m trying hard not to telegraph too much giddiness.  

“That’s a first. What about the estimate?”

“Look, I’ve been through this drill enough to know what something like mine should cost. Right down to the last roofing nail.” I take a step closer to Rick, give him my most intense Lauren Bacall glower—chin tucked down, eyes tilted up—and start twirling my key chain on my finger. “Just don’t fuck me over,” I say, tempering it with a wink and a smile (which I immediately regret). 

My playful warning momentarily knocks Rick off balance, but he recovers quickly with something that sounds like either a challenging tease or a veiled insult. “Don’t worry. I won’t…fuck you.” 

As I drift towards the front door—my eye drawn to the lion-head antique brass knob—What a shame suddenly falls out of my mouth in what I hope is an inaudible whisper, remembering that my expression and Rick’s truncated variation can have very different meanings. 

#

(Click here for PART III)