House Lights by Leah Hager Cohen

Author:Leah Hager Cohen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2007-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

THREE

The Farm

QUITTING MY JOB at the Homestead was an undeniable pleasure. Saying goodbye to Ezra was harder. When I went down the steps into the crypt I found him not reclining on the couch, brooding over a book, nor nursing his cold in bleak fashion over a mug of herb tea, but on his feet, cheerful, healthy, and trading quips with two other guides: Meg, looking uncharacteristically lit from within, and Vivica, a relatively new hire who was now flashing bewitching dimples. When he saw me in my street clothes, Ezra tossed me a casual nod and a hello, as if I were just another worker, and went on charming the pair of girls in their hooped skirts. So I had to stand there waiting patiently, and then, when it became clear Ezra had no plans to acknowledge me any further, I had to say, “Excuse me,” and then, “Sorry, but Ezra, can I see you for a minute outside?”

He followed me woodenly up out of the crypt and through the back door into the kitchen yard. I’d never been with him before when one of us was in costume and the other in street clothes, and it was displacing. Normally we were almost equal in height, but with me in sneakers and Ezra in boots, he stood a trifle taller, and I had to squint a bit, looking up at his face with the sunlight behind him. I told him I was leaving town, and why, and he nodded with dead eyes and said, “Fine.”

“Ezra. You’re the best friend I’ve had all year. I would’ve been totally lonely without you. Don’t be an idiot.”

“You’re the idiot, Con.”

“Why am I the idiot?”

A tour spilled out through the back door, a half dozen white people wearing shorts, cameras dangling around their necks. Ramona, their guide, followed and began describing the sort of work that would have been done in the various outbuildings. Ezra grabbed my wrist and steered us swiftly toward the privacy of the icehouse; rough as he was, I was grateful, because it seemed an important concession. Once inside, he shut the heavy wooden door, immediately plunging us into cool and pungent semidarkness.

“You’re an idiot,” he explained flatly, “for expecting me not to feel hurt.”

That was fair, I thought. But my crime was one of thoughtlessness, not malice; I wanted that established, at least. “I never conned you, though. Nicknames aside. I didn’t, Ezra.”

“It feels like you did.”

“I never, never meant—”

“I didn’t say you meant to,” he spat. “It doesn’t matter what you meant. It feels like you did.”

I scowled. I was glad we were in the icehouse, in the dark and the cool. No ice got stored here anymore, of course, but there was still the large pit dug out in the center of the structure, filled with insulating hay, which gave the air its sweet and homely odor. What Ezra said worried me beyond the scope of him and me—the whole idea of injury not requiring intent.

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