The manor lives on the edge of a line of tall moss covered mangroves and a singular
pussy willow to the left of the entrance that arcs up high enough for a man
with even smaller arms to reach out and pluck a handful of furry ends. Three
stories, thirty rooms, six bedrooms, six bathrooms, two kitchens, a maids
quarters, a mud room, sun room, library, antechamber, and a basement with a
world war two howister sitting in its center. All under the name LaFountain.
There is a young
woman with a traveling case in her right hand and a smoke between her ring and
middle finger in the left, and she holds the cherry side up and away from her
eyes as she fixes the brim of her hat and stares at the way the clay shingles
all seem to sag downwards to the eastern side of the house. She wonders why
there are more vines on the side of the house that gets less sun, and if its
obvious that there isn’t anything inside of the suitcase besides a voice
recorder, a carton of cigarettes, and two changes of clothes, and no changes of
socks. She walked from the middle of town, turned down to offers for a ride
because she didn’t want the rest of the town to know her name before he did.
She wasn’t sure how to greet him. So she walks up the six steps to the porch
and sets her bag at her feet. She twists at the waist and flicks the butt of
the cigarette out of sight, letting the wispy contrail fade before she turns
back, stares at her hands, smells the smoke on them, decides she doesn’t care
to do anything about it and finally raises her hands to the large red door and
flies her fingers, looking for a buzzer or a heavy brass knocker, something a
bit more cliché for everything that she has stared at for a half hour walking
up the drive, and finds a greyed rope. It leads to a bell the shape of a
upturned brass planter the size of a kitchen sink. With a feeble tug the hammer
warbles out a note like how Diana imagines whale’s sound to other whales, low
and hard and heavy, and there for a very, very long time. Diana watches the
bell, she can see its edges warble with noise, and as the moment passes and
everything becomes silent again, she turns back to the door, which is now open.
There is a man standing there without a spec of hair on his head. He looks at
her, tired, but smiling, perhaps thankful, she thinks, that something has
happened.
She waits for him to
speak, to at least drop the smile and ask something, but he doesn’t, he takes a
step back from the door and gestures to her to follow with both arms, beckoning
towards his chest with hands Diana realize have white gloves that clash so hard
against his dark brown, so brown its orange and purple, like a gem stone, and
she watches him go deeper inside and the light hit him from the window to his
right and rolls over him as he spins on his heels and heads for a center
staircase. Diana watches him get to the foot of the stairs before she walks
inside.
