I Will Wait For You by Dennis Friend
West Coast Eisteddfod Online Short Story Competition 2017
The price was right. Actually, he thought he heard wrong when the property manager told him what the monthly rent would be. It’s too low, he thought, and asked the manager again, only to get the same answer.
“What’s wrong with the house?” Daniel asked.
“Nothing,” the agent replied, but it was difficult to get and keep good tenants willing and able to maintain an older, larger home like this. That’s why the home had been sitting vacant for almost a year, catching Daniel’s eye each time he drove past.
Daniel was intrigued by the two-story wood-frame house with its wrap-around porch, stained-glass windows and gingerbread decorative trim. The only thing that appeared dilapidated was the “for rent” sign in the front yard, and the only evidence of neglect was the mix of weeds and grass surrounding the house, just begging to be mowed.
Daniel did not need a two-story turn-of-the-century home. He was single. On the other hand, he needed to move. His apartment complex had been sold and the new owners were doubling everyone’s rent. Besides, there was something about this house that attracted him, drew him in, a feeling that he really could not describe. The house exudes warmth and a sense of mystery, he thought.
The entryway, when the house was built, was meant to be a “piano room,” the rental agent said. That’s why the long and narrow window was placed so high off the floor. French doors led into the living room, which boasted bay windows. The original built-in cabinetry remained unmolested and intact in the dining room. Every room retained its original woodwork and trim. The curved staircase leading to the second-floor bedrooms was lit by a huge stained-glass window.
“What do you think?” the agent asked. She was obviously pleased and relieved when Daniel told her he was very interested.
“We can forego the security deposit. You seem like someone who will take care of the property,” she said, sweetening the offer, keenly aware that he was the only individual in months who had expressed an interest in renting the old house
He had never wanted to move into a place this badly. Walking through each room felt like coming home. He didn’t want to leave and when he did, he felt real regret.
“I need to be here,” he thought. “This house wants me as much as I want the house.”
He signed the rental agreement immediately and decided to move in the next day.
=======
“Are you nuts?” Jeri, his fiancée, asked. “I can’t for the life of me understand why you decided to move into a huge, drafty old house. Are you going to clean and dust all those rooms by yourself?
“No, I thought I could ask you nicely and you would take care of all that,” Daniel teased. “Seriously, though, this is a steal.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Jeri agreed, “but this is a lot of house for a single guy used to living in three rooms.”
The two were touring Daniel’s new home and Jeri had to concede the place was not as drafty and run-down as she had imagined it would be. Better yet, the previous tenants left a nearly-new recliner and a few other nice furniture items behind. Daniel told her he was “enchanted” by the place, but Jeri admitted to herself that she was “a little creeped out.” She felt as if the house disliked her. The idea seemed stupid and illogical, but it hadn’t helped matters when she tugged the pull chain on the hallway’s ceiling fixture and the entire fixture pulled loose from the ceiling and came crashing down.
“I can fix that,” Daniel said. A do-it-yourselfer obviously decided years ago to install the fixture simply by pounding a couple of nails through the holes in the fixture and into the ceiling plaster. “There was nothing holding it up but sheer luck,” Daniel told Jeri.
“Let’s hope the rest of the house is in better shape,” Jeri said as she left for work.
Daniel was ready to explore his new residence. He had noticed a small door neatly concealed in the knotty pine wall in one second-floor bedroom. He was glad when Jeri left. He could not explain why, but it felt to him as if she didn’t belong in the house, like she was intruding, like the house itself didn’t like her. He waited until she left to try the door.
He liked the idea of a mysterious hidden room, but found only a cramped and dusty crawl space created by the house’s sloped roof. The room was maybe five feet deep and six feet wide and was far too small to allow anyone to stand upright. The space housed a couple of broken picture frames, an old wooden chair missing all four legs, a small gray metal container, some empty gift boxes, a stack of old, yellowed newspapers, a mildewed canvas bag and evidence the room had previously been occupied by a mouse or two.
The small metal container held his attention. Daniel knelt to avoid hitting his head on the sloping roof line and retrieved the old metal box. It wasn’t locked. Daniel let his imagination take hold. It could contain old coins, rare stamps, an early first draft of the Constitution, or… he lifted the lid… a bunch of old letters.
He was a little disappointed, but decided this small but sturdy strongbox might be useful for filing bills or important papers, so he carried it down to the living room.
When he reopened the box and pulled out a handful of letters, he detected a faint scent reminiscent of flowers and baby powder, which dissipated almost immediately.
These are love letters written by two people, Daniel realized. Someone saved them, filed them away and forgot about them. The graceful, spidery handwriting was the work of a woman named Evelyn. The other letters, written in a hybrid mix of cursive and printed words and sentences, were penned by a guy named Ed. Apparently written in the 1960s, they were mementos of a love affair.
Ed had been overseas serving a stint in the military and Evelyn, nicknamed “Evie” ended almost all her letters to him with “I will wait for you.”
Daniel spent the rest of the day and much of the evening reading and re-reading the letters, intrigued in spite of himself. He found Evelyn fascinating, witty and charming, a free spirit in her early 20s, who had lived in the house he now rented. He was less impressed with Ed, who came across as dull and a bit boorish. Daniel wondered how the letters to Ed wound up back in Evelyn’s possession.
“Maybe they got married. Maybe he moved in with her,” Daniel speculated out loud that evening. He was tired and he was still getting an occasional whiff of perfume. He assumed Evelyn had sprinkled the fragrance on her letters to Ed.
“I’d be a sucker for a perfumed letter, too,” Daniel said out loud, laughing. Almost immediately, the floral, powdery scent became stronger.
It was late and he sheepishly had to admit that he was a little spooked, but he asked out loud, “Evelyn, what do you want?”
The scent disappeared immediately and Daniel stopped laughing.
“What’s up with that? Where’s the smell of perfume coming from?” he wondered.
He went through the pile of correspondence again but the only scent was that of old letters that had been stored in a metal box for a half-century. Furthermore, he questioned whether perfumed letters written more than 50 years ago would still retain a fragrance of any kind.
.
======================
He poked around in the confined storage space again, wondering if the rubbish might include an old perfume bottle that would explain the transient fragrance. His instinct was correct. He found an old shoebox in the pile of newspapers with a lid that had once been taped down. That tape had gone brittle and yellow and no longer secured anything.
There was an empty bottle of Heaven Sent perfume which may be where the scent originated; a bunch of dried and brittle flower petals, possible the remnants of old corsages; notes in Evie’s handwriting suggesting dates, times and places to meet; and a couple of ribbons.
The smell of perfume returned about the same time Daniel saw Evelyn’s photo tucked away at the bottom of the shoe box under the dead flower petals, love notes and empty perfume bottle. He knew the woman in the photo was Evie, even before he read the inscription on the back:
“I want you to have this picture of me because I love you, I miss you and I don’t want you to forget me. Remember always that I’m here, I’m yours and I will wait for you,
Evie”
Daniel stared at her image for a very long time, barely noticing the now-pervasive scent of perfume. “She’s really beautiful,” he thought. The wallet-sized color photo showed a young women with shoulder-length brown hair, startling blue eyes and a coy half-smile. It could be her college graduation photo, he thought. He just knew she was witty, smart and sensitive and he inexplicably felt a pang of jealousy that Ed was her man. “Oh, c’mon, what’s wrong with you?” Daniel chided himself at the notion that he might be jealous. “This photo is 50 years old. Evie could by dead by now, or she’s married with kids and grand kids. She’s not real for you.”
The perfume scent disappeared and Daniel felt a chill settle in the room. “I’m tired and it’s late,” he thought, opting to spend the night at the house. He decided he could sleep well enough in the overstuffed recliner and fell asleep almost immediately
===================================
In the dream, the street is gray and covered with rippling wave-like sheets of ice. It matches the sky. Everything is gray, Daniel thought, and he’s puzzled. It seems he has returned to his home town but to a time long past, yet somehow in the present.
It’s dusk. The street looks familiar. A blue Dodge, circa 1960, pulls up next to him and stops. He can’t see the driver, but Jeri is in the car. So is Evelyn. They have been chatting, but he can’t hear what they’re saying. Jeri gets out and Evie waits for Daniel to join her in the back seat. He’s not sure but, as he understands it, they are supposed to go to a reunion. Daniel stands outside the car, slipping on the ice and grabbing for the car door as the car begins to pull away without him.
“I will wait for you,” Evie calls out to him.
Daniel woke up sweating even though the room was chilly. The smell of perfume lingered.
===============================
Daniel had to admit he had been neglecting a lot of things in his life. He had made a comfortable living as a free-lance writer, but in the months that had passed since he moved into the old house, he had been turning down assignments. His editor’s last email peevishly suggested Daniel contact them when he was ready to work again.
Daniel had started out maintaining the house, mowing the lawn, doing the normal maintenance. He even replaced the ceiling fixture that came down his first day there, but almost nothing had been done in the subsequent months.
He and Jeri broke up. She told him during their last conversation – argument, really – that she was tired of being the only person trying to sustain, support and nurture the relationship.
“I don’t really know how you feel any more, not that I ever did. You never have been inclined to share your feelings, but in the last few months you’ve become even more distant. If I ask how you’re doing or how you’re feeling, you’re always, ‘I’m fine, just fine, thanks.’ Honestly, Daniel, I’m tired of being the only one here who makes any effort.”
He knew she was right. He felt a pang of guilt, he knew guilt as an old friend, and he knew this relationship was going nowhere.
The sad part, he thought, is that he didn’t care. Ever since he moved into the house, he had been obsessed with finding out more about the elusive Evie. He felt close to her and she felt more real to him than Jeri ever did. Worse, Jeri had been increasingly uncomfortable in the house and he was increasingly resistant to leaving the comforting confines of his home. He had even arranged for a grocery store to make deliveries so he didn’t have to go anywhere and he didn’t want to go anywhere.
Daniel had a daily routine now, an important routine that rarely varied. Jeri didn’t understand and in fact tended to get in his way.
Daniel was searching for Evie. He knew she was in the house. She had never left. Every day he would walk through the house, methodically moving from room to room, carefully looking for evidence she might have left behind for him to find -- a clue, a sign, even the tell-tale scent of perfume.
He had figured out Evie was trying to get his attention with the fragrance that periodically infused the atmosphere in the house. He knew it was Evie. The perfume smell was the once-popular, powdery, floral-tinged Heaven Sent, and he knew it was specifically the old Helena Rubinstein version. Evie had tipped him off with one of her letters to Eddie when she mentioned the perfume and jokingly insisted the Heaven Sent commercial jingle popular in the 1960s was written for her because she was “an imp wearing angel’s wings.”
Jeri had stopped talking and was watching Daniel intently, waiting for his answer to something she had said. He had stopped listening and wasn’t sure what he was expected to say, so he offered an automatic response he had practiced through years of benign girlfriend neglect.
“You could be right,” he offered, smiling apologetically as though he had heard every word, had listened intently and now would sincerely consider it all.
Jeri didn’t buy it. She lost her composure.
“That’s it. Tell you what. You call me if you ever decide to include me in your life, you passive-aggressive scumbag.” She began to cry. “Until then, don’t bother me. Ever. And by the way, you don’t even have a life any more. You’re so hung up on this damn house…”
Jeri, too upset to even complete the sentence, got up and left.
Daniel let her leave without objecting or offering a response. He was sorry Jeri was unhappy, sure, but he was glad to see her go. Evie didn’t like Jeri and would not come around when Jeri was present. Now Jeri stormed out and the ensuing smell of perfume was nearly overpowering
“Evie’s happy,” Daniel thought, and said out loud, “Hello, sweetheart.”
====================================
Moving through the house was getting to be a lot more difficult, Daniel thought as he maneuvered around the garbage bags. He knew he should take the trash out, but dreaded the thought of going outside, even for a moment.
He mostly camped out in the living room nowadays. He never went outside and he ventured into the other rooms only on his daily searches for Evie. The only piece of furniture in the living room was the recliner on which he slept, so he had plenty of room for the garbage bags. He mailed the rent check on time every month, so no one bothered him. Jeri no longer called to see how he was doing and he never called anyone. He unplugged his telephone. He had so far been unsuccessful in his quest to find Evelyn. He had no last name for her, no last name for Eddie, no former addresses for either person. Several months after he moved in, Daniel even tried calling the rental agent.
She initially was very nervous about the call, admitting later she had assumed he wanted to move out. Usually, when other tenants of that house called her, it was to give notice, to claim the house was haunted and “to complain about the weird things that would happen.” He assured her things were fine. He casually asked about previous tenants. She had no information on anyone who lived in the house prior to 1975, and she knew nothing about anyone named Evelyn or Evie.
All Daniel knew at this point was that Evie lived there, still lives there and that she did not marry Eddie. During one of his searches through the house, while probing every nook and cranny for clues, he found a few more letters that never made it into the box but instead slipped under a loose board on the crawl space floor. One from Eddie ended the relationship with Evie in no uncertain terms. In another, Evie’s reply, she entreated him to change his mind and come back to her, begging for one more chance and swearing, “No matter what happens, no matter what you do, I will wait for you.”
Eddie returned her letter. Daniel guessed Eddie returned all her letters and that’s how she wound up with all the letters she had written to him. He clearly wanted a clean break.
“Eddie was an idiot,” Daniel told Evie one evening as he sat in the living room inhaling her scent. “He didn’t love you. I love you.” Daniel surprised himself when he admitted out loud that he loved her, but he suddenly realized he had never said it out loud before. He wondered if that was why she never revealed herself to him.
“Evie, did you hear me? I love you. I’ll never leave you. Show yourself. I’ll wait. I will wait for you.” The unmistakable fragrance of Heaven Sent perfume became almost overpowering as Daniel fell asleep.
=====================================
She wasn’t crying this time, not like she did when he first told her goodbye. She simply stood there, looking grieved, waiting. He approached Jeri, aware in his dream periphery that Evie was nearby and watching silently. Both Jeri and Evie seemed to be quizzical, expectant, waiting for something.
“I wanted to tell you this ever since we ended things…” he began. Jeri said nothing. He began again. “I never wanted to hurt you. I just thought it was for the best. Do you understand why?”
Jeri nodded. Evie said nothing. Both women moved closer.
“I know you hate me for what I did. No way around that. I just hope someday you will understand that I didn’t do it out of malice. It was a badly-handled and amateurish attempt to avoid being cruel. But it was cruel of me.”
Jeri agreed. Yes, it was cruel. Evie said nothing. They both appeared to understand.
Daniel awakened in a sweat.
====================================
The rent was due again. Daniel knew that. He had been very careful to conserve his money. He had been in this house for almost two years and he didn’t want to leave the house or abandon Evie. He knew she would never leave so he explained his plan to her again.
“I save money by eating once a day,” he told her, a diet he devised last year when his bank account showed the results of one year without an income. He also economized by eliminating his telephone service, cable TV and internet service. He began using electricity, gas and water only when absolutely necessary.
He thought Evie approved. She still had not shown herself but he could smell her perfume every day. Now that he was certain she would stay with him, he stopped his daily investigations of the rooms upstairs, especially since he found it increasingly difficult to walk and to climb stairs. He even saved a few bucks here and there by closing the heating ducts to the second floor. He knew Evie didn’t mind.
“You never spent much time on the second floor anyway,’ he told her. It was obvious she didn’t like the atmosphere up there. She spent all her time with him. He just knew it.
“I wish you knew how to cut hair,” he told Evie. Since he stopped leaving the house, his hair had grown and was now an unkempt, shoulder length mess in need of washing. He let the beard grow.
His biggest concern over the last several months had been maintaining a supply of checks, postage stamps, envelopes and groceries. Going outside was too risky, too frightening, so he had arranged months ago for regular deliveries to the house. Supplies were to be left on the porch, where he would leave a check as payment.
It meant he had to walk onto the porch to bring deliveries inside, which terrified him, but that was better than allowing someone to come inside. He didn’t want anyone to see the mess the interior had become.
“Evie, I promise I’ll clean the house when I feel better. Right now, I’m just too tired,’ he said. He also admitted he was a little concerned about his weight loss, since his clothing now hung loosely on his frame. Most people would describe his emaciated state as “alarming.”
“I’m just not hungry,” he told Evie. “Besides, I needed to drop a few pounds.”
The perfume smell that greeted his comments proved to him once again that Evie heard him, loved him and was still with him.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to stay with you, Evie,” he promised.
===============================
When the deliveries began to stack up on the porch and the delivery guys stopped getting checks, the authorities started receiving calls to check the well-being of the house’s occupant.
Investigators described arriving at an older home. The exterior looked well maintained, although the yard was overgrown with weeds and unmowed grass.
Conditions in the house were much, much worse. They entered the home to be greeted by a stench that was almost unbearable.
The resident, a man named Daniel, had been dead for a few weeks. He was seated in a recliner, surrounded by rotting food and piles of trash bags. The midsummer’s heat made conditions even worse in the house, since the lack of electricity and air conditioning meant the overheated house hastened the decomposition of both the body and the stacks of garbage.
The medical examiner’s report said the man may have had a stroke, a seizure or some similar medical incident, a circumstance that could explain his condition before his death. It was evident he had neglected his physical health and hygiene. His hair and beard, unkempt and dirty, appeared to have gone without trimming or washing for months. An autopsy suggested his death was a result of both malnutrition and dehydration. According to his driver’s license, he weighed 175 pounds, but he weighed closer to 90 pounds at the time of death.
Investigators speculated severe depression also could have been a factor, but they had little information so it remained speculation.
The dead man had been out of work a long time and was nearly broke. He had both a girlfriend and a job a couple of years prior to his death, but those who knew him said he stopped working, broke up with his girlfriend, and cut all ties with the world.
He owned very little. He was found with a box of 50-year-old letters and a photo of a young woman. The dead man had written a note and attached it to the photo.
“Evie, you once wrote ‘I love you’ and ‘I don’t want you to forget me.’ Know that I love you too. Remember that I’m here, I’m yours and I will always wait for you. Daniel.”
=======================
A member of the cleaning crew picked up the box with the letters and the photo, but could not bring himself to throw away the contents. He could not explain why he felt this way, but he just knew the letters and the photo belonged in the house. He also felt a strong attraction to the house itself. It had a piano room, French doors leading into the living room, built-in cabinetry original to the dining room, original woodwork and trim, a curved staircase to the second floor and a huge stained-glass window at the stairway’s landing. This house attracted him, drew him in, created within him a feeling he could not describe. The house exudes warmth and a sense of mystery, he thought.
He decided to call the property manager. It was going to be rented soon and he wanted it.
A faint scent of perfume seemed to linger in the air as he picked up the box and left the old house.
====The end=====
updated by @dennis-friend: 11/24/19 06:16:51PM
