Page 54 of The Treasure House

Jake seemed to be repressing a smile, judging by the way his mouth hooked up in the corner. “Well, I’ll have to go buy a needle for you. So that’s probably worth dinner. What’s for eating?” he asked Flo, throwing me a playful glance.

“Macaroni and cheese,” Flo told him.

“Since when?” I said sharply.

“She makes great macaroni and cheese. She never buys the packet stuff; she makes it from scratch. Which is sometimes a shame, because I like the packet stuff. Homemade is never as orange, have you noticed that?” Flo finished the last bite of her hot dog.

“Thanks for volunteering me to cook,” I scolded her as we walked home.

“I picked the macaroni and cheese because it’s your best,” Flo told me kindly. “You don’t want to scare him off.”

“I don’t want to… what?”

“Well, he’s the only guy in town who isn’t old or gay.” She gave me a knowing look. “And you like his muscles and his lobster rolls.”

“Florence! I’m not looking for a man.”

“How often do you meet a man who can also fix your front door? You don’t want to look a horse gift in the mouth.”

“Gift horse,” I corrected. “And where on earth do you get these ideas?” I muttered as I followed her up our front steps.

“Suni and Alison.”

I groaned. I’d have to remind them again to stop gossiping in front of Flo.

“I’m going to start sorting those records,” she said, heading happily for the back porch.

Still, at least she wasn’t anxious about school on Monday anymore.

While we’d made the kitchen livable over the last week, we hadn’t completely cleared it out—most of the drawers were still jammed with stuff. I needed a cheese grater to make dinner, but the drawers seemed to hold everything under the sun except a grater. If I didn’t find it soon, I’d have to hunt through my own stuff, which would be a pain, as I had no idea which box mine was in.

I swore under my breath, wishing Flo hadn’t asked Jake Abernathy to dinner.

I could hear Jake and Flo out on the porch, messing around with the record player he’d dug out from the parlor. It was a 1950s thing in an aged, yellowing case, with built-in speakers.

“You knew the lady that lived here, didn’t you?” I heard Flo saying as I hunted. Her voice carried through the open kitchen door. “The lady that lived here before us, I mean.”

“I did,” he said shortly.

I wondered if he knew where she kept her cheese grater. I’d found rubber bands, paper clips, a host of salt and pepper shakers, bundles of pens and pencils, and another cat. This cat was a pepper shaker, a smooth little porcelain tabby with three holes in the top of its head to shake the pepper out of. I put it aside for Flo to add to her collection.

“How did she live here with all this stuff everywhere?” Flo asked.

“With difficulty,” Jake grunted.

“She was a hoarder, right? I read about hoarders on Wikipedia. And there’s a whole TV show about hoarders. I watched some clips on YouTube. It’s sad. Was the lady who lived here sad?” Flo asked.

I eavesdropped, curious about Marly, the lady responsible for all this mess. I finally found the cheese grater in an old bread box. As well as an ancient calculator that was out of battery. Nothing surprised me in this house anymore.

“No one’s sad all the time.” Jake sounded philosophical. I peered out to the porch and saw he was bent over the vintage record player. “She just had trouble letting things go.”

“How come?”

“Well, I don’t know. Maybe all these things reminded her of times when she was happy. Or maybe they just made her feel safe. Or—” He made another grunting noise as he fiddled with something. “Maybe she just liked stuff, you know?”

“I don’t know,” Flo said firmly. “I’ve never had room for stuff before. I’ve never even had my own room.” And, to my horror, I heard her start to describe our life in a way that made it seem sad and small.

“All three of you always slept in the same room?” Jake asked, sounding surprised.