Five Roses by Alice Zorn

Author:Alice Zorn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dundurn
Published: 2016-06-23T04:00:00+00:00

The doorbell rang. Maddy dropped her brush into the plastic tub of paint, and wiping her hands on an old T-shirt, traipsed down the stairs. “Coming!” she hollered. She wore a pair of pink shorts so ancient the corduroy had rubbed bald, and had tied a head scarf around her curls.

Fara stood below the steps on the sidewalk. “Hi. Am I disturbing you?”

Maddy held up green-spattered fingers. “Painting one of the rooms upstairs.”

“I can come another time.” Fara backed up. “I just wanted to say hi.”

“Come on, then, if you don’t mind me facing a wall.” Maddy had already turned away, assuming Fara would follow.

“Your banister is gorgeous. The real estate agent told us about it.”

“What real estate agent?”

“The one who sold us our house. She said hippies used to live here and they stripped all the wood. She said she’d love to sell your house.”

“Real estate agents.” Maddy blew a raspberry. “They keep pushing cards through the mail slot. I know they can sell my house. But tell me, if I sold it, where would I live that wouldn’t cost me just as much to buy as I’d make on the house? I’d be no further ahead.” She stooped for her brush and stood back to survey the corner where she’d left off.

“But this is such a big house and you’re all alone. You could buy a smaller place.”

Maddy smoothed the brush in slow up-and-down strokes. She found painting relaxing. “What if tomorrow I meet the love of my life and get pregnant with triplets?”

“I didn’t mean —”

“It’s okay. I’m joking.” Actually, only half-joking. She wished people with partners would think before assuming that people who were single were fated to stay that way.

Fara said nothing for a moment. “I like this pale green. It makes the room look fresh. Maybe I’ll use it for one of our upstairs rooms. We’re shuffling everything around again. We had our bedroom in the front, but the street’s too noisy.” She peered down the hallway. “You sleep in the front?”

“Always have. I’m one of the original hippies — that’s how long I’ve been here. Why don’t you grab a chair? There’s one next door.” Maddy pulled the ladder toward the corner and climbed a couple of rungs.

Fara returned with the chair from the sewing room. “This would make a nice bedroom.”

Maddy sucked in her lips. For nothing in the world would she sleep here. It was the woman with the braid’s room. At the beginning, after the other kids had left and Stilt had moved to Vermont or B.C. — wherever it was hippies retired — she’d kept the door closed. She’d never even looked inside. The pigeons and squirrels could have been having a party. For her, the house didn’t exist in that corner of the hallway. She’d rented out the other upstairs room, and after a year that tenant asked if her cousin, who was moving to Montreal to study at Concordia, could have the empty room next to hers. They would fix it up themselves.

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