Short Story: Unfamiliar
Thunder growled angrily overhead followed by flashes of lightening that illuminated the outside landscape for a brief second. The weather was brewing quickly making the air thick with moisture. Another rumble sounded as Nicole paused and glanced out a nearby window. Mentally she began to count, “one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three”. A bolt raced across the sky and through the ominous low clouds. The storm was closer. What a night for the weather to be tempestuous, she thought. Nicole knew this night was going to be a long sleepless one, which was fine with her since she had a lot to keep her busy.
Moving was always such a tedious chore. Nicole hated leaving her previous home, but the landlord raised the rent…again. The owner knew she couldn’t pay the higher amount; and when a tenant can’t pay rent what do they do? The only thing Nicole could do…move. This new place wasn’t so bad though. It actually had great potential, and with a little hard work, this place could become as nice as her last place and maybe even better.
Nicole had a knack for fixing things. She had a creative talent that could change an ugly trash heap into a stylish and elegant home. That was usually how she acquired cheap rent; with the promise to fix up a run down house and turn it into a classy dwelling. She sighed, maybe this time I won’t put as much effort into fixing it up though. She knew that was the reason why the landlord raised the rent on the last place, and why all her other landlords had raised the rent in the past. Her ability to turn the most decrepit homes into very elegant and livable places seemed to be a double edge sword. The owners saw the improvements that were made on the rent houses and realized they could make more money by renting the renovated place to another tenant. Next thing she knew, Nicole was boxing up her life again and moving out. But before she started packing to move, she would go through each room and take pictures for her portfolio. Adding along with the pictures were the cloth swatches and paint samples she used for each redecorated room. Every house had its own book. This last house made book number five.
While preparing to leave, Nicole would go out and find another house; one that was a real fixer upper. After finding her gem in the rough, she would make a deal with the landlord that she would fix the place up for a large break on the rent. It wasn’t hard to convince them of her ability after looking through the portfolio books that showcased her previous remodels. The landlord, of course, agreed to supply the material but Nicole would provide all of the labor. Although in Nicole’s eyes, it really didn’t feel like work because she loved fixing up the houses. It was sort of a hobby that formed out of necessity. She was surprised how many landlords were willing to take half off of the rent in exchange for house repairs and some sprucing up. Nicole’s main problem was she couldn’t just stop at fixing the broken plaster, repainting a room or stopping a leaky faucet. Once all the necessary repairs were made, she would continue to paint, then landscape, change lighting fixtures, put in new flooring, etc. After the fix ups were completed the houses, inside and out, looked like something you would see in Southern Living or Martha Stewart magazine. It wasn’t long before the landlords realized they were not getting enough rent and next thing Nicole knew…she was looking for a new place to live.
Nicole would pay the higher rent if she could, but the salary for a secretary wasn’t very much these days. She knew she worked harder than the other office personnel, but without a college degree, she just didn’t make the big bucks. Nicole’s family could not afford to send her to college. Instead she went straight into the workforce as an office assistant, and after a few years of doing nothing but filing and data entry, Nicole finally worked her way to secretary thanks to her boss, Elizabeth, who was a kind person and she was the one who originally hired Nicole straight out of high school. Elizabeth started her own interior design business after she finished college with a master’s degree in interior design. Not only was Elizabeth very business smart, she also has an eye for new talent. She encouraged Nicole to enroll in college so she could get a degree in design. She would say all the time, “Nicole, you have as much opportunity as talent, just as long as you are willing to work for it.” Elizabeth felt a common bond with Nicole because she too came from poor beginnings, which meant she also put herself through college. Nicole could not have asked for a better role model and she admired Elizabeth both as a mentor and a friend. After a few years of working with Elizabeth, and the other designers, Nicole started picking up a few tricks of the trade that helped her in fixing up the houses that she rented. Along with going to college for her degree, Nicole was also getting great hands on experience. Her talent and skill at transforming plain ugly places into works of beauty had become very impressive. The only downside to all of this was the fact that Nicole felt she was constantly moving from place to place. It seemed like a never ending vicious cycle.
Nicole was still deep in thought as she unpacked a box of kitchen dishes. One by one, she took out each dish, wiped them off and put them into the cupboard. A sharp clap of thunder startled her and she almost dropped the dish she had just taken out of the box. Again she mentally counted, “one one-thousand, two one-thousand”. It was getting closer. Now she wished she would have brought the television in, but Nicole left it out in the garage surrounded by other boxes. It probably wouldn’t pick up any news anyway because the cable service was not going to be installed until tomorrow or the next day, which was why she wasn’t too concerned about getting it hooked up earlier. The radio was turned on but the DJ only mentioned the weather every thirty minutes and when he did talk about the weather, he don’t give many details about the storm.
The window next to Nicole was opened to let the breeze cool the room. Today had been a breezy spring day. The wind whipped around in different directions all day, which told her that a storm was possibly going to blow in sometime this evening. The thick humid air even smelled like rain but she was too busy unloading boxes to care. Besides she loved spring storms, especially at night. As a kid, Nicole would sit by her window all night to watch the lightening as it lit up the night and feel the heavy rumble of thunder roll through the countryside. She would open her window to let the cooled stormy air and clean smell of the rain engulf my room. Many times she would wake up in the morning and find herself sitting by the window with her head resting on the window seal and her back aching from sleeping in such an awkward position all night. Most young children were frightened of the angry sound of clouds crashing into each other displaying their violence with flashes of light streaking through the sky. Nicole reveled in the awesome display of Mother Nature, as her majestic power rolled through cleansing the earth with her showers and waking up the spring flowers with her loud growling storms. It was like an awakening of the earth.
The box that had been full of dishes was now empty. Nicole threw it on the floor behind her then picked up the next one and set it on the counter. This one was full of pots and pans. Another thing she had become a pro at was moving. She told herself that if the interior decorating didn’t work out, she could always fall back on being a repair person or a mover, but both jobs seemed like too much work for being an everyday job. Nicole loathed packing boxes and unpacking boxes, so the idea of being a mover was almost sickening to her. That job option would be a last resort and only if she was actually about to become homeless. A repair person was also most likely out of the question because she felt certain a person needed some kind of certificate or degree to show they actually knew what they were doing before someone would allow them to do work around their house. Nicole’s experience in repair work came from watching her dad fix things. He was a repair guy who could fix just about anything, from a leak in the plumbing to a broken down refrigerator. When it came to fixing up her rent houses, if Nicole didn’t know how to fix something, she would call her dad and he tackled the job for her. He was proud of the work that she did on the houses and was willing to help her whenever she needed. He knew that even though he fixed the problem, Nicole was right there learning how to fix it for the next time that need of repair came up again in the future.
This house seemed to be in fairly good shape, but sometimes problems don’t come about until after new tenants have already moved in. Nicole knew the door going into the hall bath had a broken door handle and all of the rooms need a new coat of paint. The flooring was always bad in rent houses so she would put that first on her list of things to do. Previous tenants usually left the carpets so dirty it was useless to try and clean them, especially if they had indoor pets.
Outside the flashes of lightening mingled with the thunder now and rain began pouring down in heavy sheets. Nicole walked through the house to see if she could spot any leaks in the roof. Going through her mental checklist of each room, the house had three bedrooms, two baths, and a kitchen with a breakfast nook. There was also a formal dining room with French doors, a den and living room; then off towards the garage was a utility room. As she walked into each room, she examined the ceiling for tell tale water spots of a leaky roof. To her relief, there were no leaks in the roof. She had to admit she was surprised because older houses were notorious for leaky roofs. This aging house had been built back in the 1940’s. It was a cute cottage style house, which when it was built would have been for the upper class of society. Now days it was a more modest house for someone of lower income, like Nicole. She really liked the house and looked forward to seeing what she could do with the place. Most of the rent houses she lived in before were not so old, but they were in far worse shape than this one.
Nicole made her way back to the kitchen to continue unpacking. She grabbed the box that had her candles inside, just in case the electricity went out. She hoped she would not need the candles because the first night in a new house was creepy enough without having to stay in the dark. She opened the box and pulled out a few large candles then lit them. Nicole could did not set the on the windowsill because it was too windy, so instead she set them to the side of the window away from anything that could ignite. A flashlight was found in the same box so she pulled it out and checked the batteries. The flashlight worked so she set it on the counter beside where she was working.
Going back to unpacking the rest of the pots and pans, Nicole reached for the towel that she had used to wipe the pans. A crash of thunder sounded in timing with a bright flash of lightening. They both rattled the windows and lit up the yard outside. Nicole thought to herself, maybe I should get a pet. That way I wouldn’t feel so alone in a new place.
Seconds later another loud boom of thunder and bright light filled the room and the lights in the house went out. Nicole stood frozen and prayed that they would come back on, but after several seconds, she gave in to the notion that they may be off for a while. She was glad she lit the candles when she did. She wasn’t completely in the dark, but it was close enough. The flicker of light cast off by the candles threw eerie shadows that dance around the kitchen. Wide eyed she looked around the kitchen and watched them. Then she remembered the flashlight was nearby and she reached over to turn it on. Nicole held onto the flashlight like it was her only lifeline. She wondered if the power outage was just her house or if it was the whole block was affected. Gathering up her courage she walked towards the front of the house to look out the window. Weaving her way around boxes and dodging unseen obstacles on the floor that tried to trip her, she made it to the front of the house unscathed. As she peered out the window, she knew it wasn’t just her house that was in the dark but also the row of houses across the street had no lights on.
Just wonderful! Nicole thought sarcastically. Putting her packing on hold, she turned around and went to the couch. She sat there and thought in silence about her options in unpacking when it dawned on me…the radio was off. She had forgotten to put batteries in the radio, and so when the power went off so did the radio. She looked around the dark room and tried to read the markings on the boxes hoping to remember which one had the batteries packed in it. To her disappointment Nicole couldn’t remember which box they were in, so she sat there trying to decide if she wanted to call it a night and go to bed or wait it out and keep packing. The dark would make it difficult to unpack, but not impossible. Besides, what else was she going to do? Nicole knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep, so she might as well get back to work.
She stood up and meandered her way back to the kitchen. She had just rounded the corner when a door somewhere in the house slammed shut. The loud bang startled Nicole, who just about jumped out of her skin. She swung around with the flashlight in hand pointing it in the direction of the earsplitting sound. She shined it around the room trying to determine which door had caused the loud noise, but all the doors in the area were still opened. Scared, Nicole knew she needed to investigate and make sure everything was okay in the rest of the house, but she was too frightened to look around. Chiding herself for being such a chicken, she decided that she didn’t want to know which door it was until after the lights came back on. The dark house was too spooky to go inspect at the moment. She knew she was being silly. The only reason she felt scared was because of the houses unfamiliarity. Usually Nicole wasn’t easily scared but this house, being so old, it added to the daunting feeling of the unknown. The thunderstorm outside didn’t help the situation either. She turned around and ignored the slammed door for the time being and went back to unpacking the box.
The box was empty about five minutes later and she tossed it in the corner with the other empty ones, then picked up the next box that had the cookbooks she inherited from her grandmother. Her Grandmother Gracie (GeeGee for short) was a great cook and Nicole could spend hours looking through them. GeeGee had made notes about each recipe on just about every page, either adding a little something or taking out an ingredient and sometimes just marking out the whole thing with a big X.
As Nicole stood trying to decide which cupboard would be best to put them in, she heard another loud noise. She jerked her head towards the deep thud sound and shined the flashlight towards it to light the area. The noise sounded like it came from the living room. She moved the light beam around the room trying to determine what could have made the noise but just like before, she didn’t see anything that could have been the culprit. This noise wasn’t as loud as the slammed door but it was just as disturbing to her frazzled nerves. She decided that this time she wouldn’t ignore the noise. This time she went into the living room to investigate. Nicole walked over to the couch that sat in the middle of the mess of boxes. She spotted a box in the far corner that appeared to have fallen over onto its side. “Oh man!” Nicole cringed hoping that it did not have anything breakable in it. To justify why the box fell over, she told herself that apparently she was careless and had not set it securely on top of the box below. She climbed over the arm of the couch and then stepped over another small box on the floor to get to the box that had fallen. She shined the light on the words written on the side of the box. “Pictures”
Disappointed, Nicole said out loud, “Dang! I hope nothing broke!”
She turned the box back over and opened the lid. It was loaded with the pictures she hung on the wall, and every single one had glass that covered each pictures. Nicole pulled out each picture one by one while holding the flashlight under her chin. With relief, she let out a huge sigh. It seemed that all the pictures survived the fall without even a scratch. She gently laid them all back into the box and left the box on the floor this time, then turned and made her way back to the kitchen again. On her way there she shined the light on a box here and there to see if she could remember which one had the batteries inside. The storm still raged on outside and Nicole jumped at another loud clap of thunder followed by a streak of lightening. Almost to the kitchen she spotted a box that said “miscellaneous”. That’s it! Nicole stepped widely over a large box and bent down to open the miscellaneous one. She shuffled through the contents and found four large D batteries for the radio. Thank you Lord!
With the batteries in one hand and the flashlight in the other, Nicole stepped awkwardly over boxes and went to the radio. She pulled the cord out of the wall and turned the radio upside down. The battery cover came off easily and Nicole inserted the batteries. With the cover back on, she turned the radio upright again. She flipped the switch and the lights that illuminated the radio dial came on but the station she had listened to earlier now was nothing but static. Still happy that she had the radio was working again; Nicole turned the knob to tune in a radio station. She moved the tuner as slow as she could, she hoped to find some news or weather playing on one of the channels. There were static and screeches as the needle moved across the numbers painted on the face of the radio, then a faint voice came out of the speakers and she stopped to turn up the volume. An announcer was talking about the storms moving over the area and that “we should be out of the woods in about thirty to forty-five minutes depending on where you lived”. Nicole didn’t catch what area he was talking about, but she assumed that it had to be somewhere around her area since the storm were still overhead. She set the radio back down on the counter next to where she was working in the kitchen and turned back to the box of cookbooks. The announcer finished his up selling of the best furniture store in town and said “now back to the music”. Nicole wasn’t sure what station she had set the dial to, but she quickly figured out it was an oldies station when Elvis began to sing about his Blue Suede Shoes. Oldies were not her favorite choice of music, but for some reason in this old house it seemed like an appropriate station to have on the radio. Nicole hummed to the song since she didn’t know all the words, as she started stacking the books on the counter top. The song seemed to lighten the mood and helped her relax from her frightful mood.
While tossing the now empty box onto the others, a sudden inspiration came over her. Why not fix this house up in the retro style that was starting to take hold in the interior design world? Nicole had not tried to do anything retro and this house was perfect for something like that. A new challenge and a real learning experience too, plus another fabulous style to add to her portfolio. She was excited and wished she could get started right then, but she knew she needed to unpack everything first. Besides, her fabric swatches and design books were still packed out in the garage and there was no room to spread out to work either, but as soon as I had everything unpacked and put away she would get started on her idea. For now, Nicole would just jot down notes onto a scratch piece of paper, if any ideas came to mind.
The next song on the radio was obviously another song from the 1950’s, but she had never heard it before. She tried to listen to it for a minute but then decided that she had enough of going back into the past for now and turned the knob again. Nicole found the next radio station was soft rock and she decided that it would do for the time being. The song playing was one she remembered from when she was a teenager, but she couldn’t remember the name of the song. It was enough that she knew the song and could tolerate the genre of music on this channel. She liked fifties music, but at the moment she needed something familiar to help her feel more at home.
Nicole started on the next box that was full of cooking utensils. Picking a drawer, she unceremoniously dumped the entire contents in the drawer that she had lined earlier with contact paper. As she began to open the next box all the lights suddenly came back on. She sighed with relief and stopped unpacking for the moment. She still wanted to see which door had slammed shut and hopefully find out why it did so. Nicole figured that maybe since she had some of the windows opened that it was probably just a gust of wind that had blew the door shut. She walked around all the boxes and towards the hallway that led to the spare bedrooms and the hall bathroom. Around the corner and saw that the door to the room at the end of the hall was the one that slammed shut. She told herself she should have known that was the door because that was one of the windows she cracked opened to allow the breeze to travel all through the house. Nicole walked over and turned the handle on the shut door. The knob wouldn’t turn either way. She stepped back and looked at the handle again. There was no lock on the door because the only interior doors with locks were the bathrooms and the master bedroom. The only explanation for the knob not turning is that it was broken. I will have to add that to my list of fixes, she thought to herself. Standing there contemplating about how to get the door opened, she wasn’t sure what to do next. The hinges are on the inside, hmmm, she scratched her head trying to think of another way inside the room. Nicole reached out to jiggle the handle, but it was still stuck. Maybe the door was just jammed. She decided to try and use force to open the door, so she took a step back while still holding the door handle. With a strong shove forward at the same time she twisted the handle and the door flew open without any resistance. Nicole fell forward and onto the floor. Surprised that she ended up on the floor, she looked back at the door that stood there wide opened almost like it was mocking her. Unfazed Nicole stood up and walked up to the doorframe. As she looked it over she couldn’t see the signs of wood scrapping against wood, like what you’d see from a door rubbing against the doorframe. She tested the door by shutting it to see if it dragged anywhere on the frame, but to her amazement the door closed easily and opened easily without any sticking at all. Now Nicole was really stumped by why it was stuck when she first tried the door.
Not wanting to spend too much time contemplating about the door that was no longer having trouble, she looked around the room. The window was closed. Huh? I could have sworn I opened the window. If it was shut then why did the door slam shut? Nicole pondered. She walked over to the window and saw that the latch was locked. Now she was beginning to feel a little spooked. Knowing that psyching herself out on the first night in a new place was not a good thing, she forced herself to not dwell on the door and window anymore. So with a shrug of her shoulders, Nicole went back to the kitchen to unpack some more and get her mind off of what just happened.
She walked back into the kitchen and picked up the box that lay on the floor, then set the box on the counter and opened it. This box had glasses and mugs in it. She picked the cupboard next to the dish cupboard and began to wipe the glasses with a towel as she put each one on the shelf. Thunder sounded overhead again, but this one was a little quieter. Nicole hadn’t thought about the storm for a few minutes so she looked out the window and noticed that the rain had reduced to just a steady light rain. After the small rumble of thunder she did not see the lightening that usually followed. It looked like the area was on the backside of the storm now, and the weather had begun to calm down again. As Nicole grabbed the next glass out of the box, she stopped suddenly and turned towards the radio. The music that played loudly on the radio was ‘Rock Around the Clock’ by Bill Haley and His Comets. She looked at the dial and realized that it had moved back to the oldies radio station again.
Slowly Nicole set the glass back down and leaned over to the radio to make sure her eyes were not playing tricks on her. Sure enough, the dial marker had moved back to the previous station. Dang, am I imagining things? Maybe I was just getting tired or something. She turned the dial again to the soft rock station again, and stood there staring at the radio. She watched and waited for a few minutes to see if it moved back again. It did not budge at all. Nicole thought to herself, I must be going crazy or something. Maybe I should call it a night.
Nicole looked at her watch and realized that it was midnight. It had been a long day and she felt exhausted from the day of moving boxes and unpacking. She decided to call it a night and start fresh in the morning. She turned over the radio and took the batteries out so they wouldn’t wear out then carried the radio to the living room and set it on a box near the couch. She found an outlet on the wall nearby and plugged in the radio. The music playing on the radio was still the soft rock music station. Nicole hadn’t set her bed up yet, so tonight the couch would be her bed. No big deal, she was used to sleeping on the couch the first night anyway. She didn’t know why but it seemed like she was just more comfortable being in the living room on her first night in a different house. Maybe she was waiting for something to happen and by being on the couch she would be ready for it, or maybe in some unconscious way she needed to feel comfortable with the house before she actually settled in all the way. If she didn’t set up all the furniture or put my bed up, it would be easier to move again in the morning if she ended up not liking the house during the first night. Nicole knew this sounded strange, but it had sort of become a habit for her since she seemed to be moving so often.
A folded a blanket sat on the arm of the couch along with her pillow. Nicole knew where her pajamas were, but decided against changing into them. She was already wearing a pair of sweats and a large t-shirt, which was comfortable enough to sleep in. She spread the blanket out and stationed her pillow at the end of the couch. Nicole also set her cell phone next to the radio that was playing another song she recognized but couldn’t remember the name of from her teenage years. Once again she felt a little more at home and was settling in nicely to her new surroundings. The lights were still on throughout the house, so before lying down Nicole went around and turned them off one by one. As she walked back to the couch she made a path through a few boxes just in case she needed to find her way to the bathroom during the night. She went to the couch and snuggled under the covers then reached up and turned out the lamp that was next to the couch. As she lay back on her pillow she didn’t close her eyes right away. Looking around the dark room, that was still somewhat visible from the one streetlight outside, Nicole lay there thinking. She really did like this house, but the more time she spent here the more it felt…odd. She looked forward to getting started on decorating and fixing up the place. The elderly gentleman who rented her the house was the son of the original owner. He didn’t give her too much history on the place yet, but he promised to tell her more about the house once she was settled in. She looked forward to talking with him. Maybe she could ask if he had a few pictures of what it looked like back then. They could give her ideas to work with when she started remodeling. While deep in thought, Nicole didn’t realize that her eyes had begun to close...she never realized when she drifted off to sleep.
To be continued…
Moving was always such a tedious chore. Nicole hated leaving her previous home, but the landlord raised the rent…again. The owner knew she couldn’t pay the higher amount; and when a tenant can’t pay rent what do they do? The only thing Nicole could do…move. This new place wasn’t so bad though. It actually had great potential, and with a little hard work, this place could become as nice as her last place and maybe even better.
Nicole had a knack for fixing things. She had a creative talent that could change an ugly trash heap into a stylish and elegant home. That was usually how she acquired cheap rent; with the promise to fix up a run down house and turn it into a classy dwelling. She sighed, maybe this time I won’t put as much effort into fixing it up though. She knew that was the reason why the landlord raised the rent on the last place, and why all her other landlords had raised the rent in the past. Her ability to turn the most decrepit homes into very elegant and livable places seemed to be a double edge sword. The owners saw the improvements that were made on the rent houses and realized they could make more money by renting the renovated place to another tenant. Next thing she knew, Nicole was boxing up her life again and moving out. But before she started packing to move, she would go through each room and take pictures for her portfolio. Adding along with the pictures were the cloth swatches and paint samples she used for each redecorated room. Every house had its own book. This last house made book number five.
While preparing to leave, Nicole would go out and find another house; one that was a real fixer upper. After finding her gem in the rough, she would make a deal with the landlord that she would fix the place up for a large break on the rent. It wasn’t hard to convince them of her ability after looking through the portfolio books that showcased her previous remodels. The landlord, of course, agreed to supply the material but Nicole would provide all of the labor. Although in Nicole’s eyes, it really didn’t feel like work because she loved fixing up the houses. It was sort of a hobby that formed out of necessity. She was surprised how many landlords were willing to take half off of the rent in exchange for house repairs and some sprucing up. Nicole’s main problem was she couldn’t just stop at fixing the broken plaster, repainting a room or stopping a leaky faucet. Once all the necessary repairs were made, she would continue to paint, then landscape, change lighting fixtures, put in new flooring, etc. After the fix ups were completed the houses, inside and out, looked like something you would see in Southern Living or Martha Stewart magazine. It wasn’t long before the landlords realized they were not getting enough rent and next thing Nicole knew…she was looking for a new place to live.
Nicole would pay the higher rent if she could, but the salary for a secretary wasn’t very much these days. She knew she worked harder than the other office personnel, but without a college degree, she just didn’t make the big bucks. Nicole’s family could not afford to send her to college. Instead she went straight into the workforce as an office assistant, and after a few years of doing nothing but filing and data entry, Nicole finally worked her way to secretary thanks to her boss, Elizabeth, who was a kind person and she was the one who originally hired Nicole straight out of high school. Elizabeth started her own interior design business after she finished college with a master’s degree in interior design. Not only was Elizabeth very business smart, she also has an eye for new talent. She encouraged Nicole to enroll in college so she could get a degree in design. She would say all the time, “Nicole, you have as much opportunity as talent, just as long as you are willing to work for it.” Elizabeth felt a common bond with Nicole because she too came from poor beginnings, which meant she also put herself through college. Nicole could not have asked for a better role model and she admired Elizabeth both as a mentor and a friend. After a few years of working with Elizabeth, and the other designers, Nicole started picking up a few tricks of the trade that helped her in fixing up the houses that she rented. Along with going to college for her degree, Nicole was also getting great hands on experience. Her talent and skill at transforming plain ugly places into works of beauty had become very impressive. The only downside to all of this was the fact that Nicole felt she was constantly moving from place to place. It seemed like a never ending vicious cycle.
Nicole was still deep in thought as she unpacked a box of kitchen dishes. One by one, she took out each dish, wiped them off and put them into the cupboard. A sharp clap of thunder startled her and she almost dropped the dish she had just taken out of the box. Again she mentally counted, “one one-thousand, two one-thousand”. It was getting closer. Now she wished she would have brought the television in, but Nicole left it out in the garage surrounded by other boxes. It probably wouldn’t pick up any news anyway because the cable service was not going to be installed until tomorrow or the next day, which was why she wasn’t too concerned about getting it hooked up earlier. The radio was turned on but the DJ only mentioned the weather every thirty minutes and when he did talk about the weather, he don’t give many details about the storm.
The window next to Nicole was opened to let the breeze cool the room. Today had been a breezy spring day. The wind whipped around in different directions all day, which told her that a storm was possibly going to blow in sometime this evening. The thick humid air even smelled like rain but she was too busy unloading boxes to care. Besides she loved spring storms, especially at night. As a kid, Nicole would sit by her window all night to watch the lightening as it lit up the night and feel the heavy rumble of thunder roll through the countryside. She would open her window to let the cooled stormy air and clean smell of the rain engulf my room. Many times she would wake up in the morning and find herself sitting by the window with her head resting on the window seal and her back aching from sleeping in such an awkward position all night. Most young children were frightened of the angry sound of clouds crashing into each other displaying their violence with flashes of light streaking through the sky. Nicole reveled in the awesome display of Mother Nature, as her majestic power rolled through cleansing the earth with her showers and waking up the spring flowers with her loud growling storms. It was like an awakening of the earth.
The box that had been full of dishes was now empty. Nicole threw it on the floor behind her then picked up the next one and set it on the counter. This one was full of pots and pans. Another thing she had become a pro at was moving. She told herself that if the interior decorating didn’t work out, she could always fall back on being a repair person or a mover, but both jobs seemed like too much work for being an everyday job. Nicole loathed packing boxes and unpacking boxes, so the idea of being a mover was almost sickening to her. That job option would be a last resort and only if she was actually about to become homeless. A repair person was also most likely out of the question because she felt certain a person needed some kind of certificate or degree to show they actually knew what they were doing before someone would allow them to do work around their house. Nicole’s experience in repair work came from watching her dad fix things. He was a repair guy who could fix just about anything, from a leak in the plumbing to a broken down refrigerator. When it came to fixing up her rent houses, if Nicole didn’t know how to fix something, she would call her dad and he tackled the job for her. He was proud of the work that she did on the houses and was willing to help her whenever she needed. He knew that even though he fixed the problem, Nicole was right there learning how to fix it for the next time that need of repair came up again in the future.
This house seemed to be in fairly good shape, but sometimes problems don’t come about until after new tenants have already moved in. Nicole knew the door going into the hall bath had a broken door handle and all of the rooms need a new coat of paint. The flooring was always bad in rent houses so she would put that first on her list of things to do. Previous tenants usually left the carpets so dirty it was useless to try and clean them, especially if they had indoor pets.
Outside the flashes of lightening mingled with the thunder now and rain began pouring down in heavy sheets. Nicole walked through the house to see if she could spot any leaks in the roof. Going through her mental checklist of each room, the house had three bedrooms, two baths, and a kitchen with a breakfast nook. There was also a formal dining room with French doors, a den and living room; then off towards the garage was a utility room. As she walked into each room, she examined the ceiling for tell tale water spots of a leaky roof. To her relief, there were no leaks in the roof. She had to admit she was surprised because older houses were notorious for leaky roofs. This aging house had been built back in the 1940’s. It was a cute cottage style house, which when it was built would have been for the upper class of society. Now days it was a more modest house for someone of lower income, like Nicole. She really liked the house and looked forward to seeing what she could do with the place. Most of the rent houses she lived in before were not so old, but they were in far worse shape than this one.
Nicole made her way back to the kitchen to continue unpacking. She grabbed the box that had her candles inside, just in case the electricity went out. She hoped she would not need the candles because the first night in a new house was creepy enough without having to stay in the dark. She opened the box and pulled out a few large candles then lit them. Nicole could did not set the on the windowsill because it was too windy, so instead she set them to the side of the window away from anything that could ignite. A flashlight was found in the same box so she pulled it out and checked the batteries. The flashlight worked so she set it on the counter beside where she was working.
Going back to unpacking the rest of the pots and pans, Nicole reached for the towel that she had used to wipe the pans. A crash of thunder sounded in timing with a bright flash of lightening. They both rattled the windows and lit up the yard outside. Nicole thought to herself, maybe I should get a pet. That way I wouldn’t feel so alone in a new place.
Seconds later another loud boom of thunder and bright light filled the room and the lights in the house went out. Nicole stood frozen and prayed that they would come back on, but after several seconds, she gave in to the notion that they may be off for a while. She was glad she lit the candles when she did. She wasn’t completely in the dark, but it was close enough. The flicker of light cast off by the candles threw eerie shadows that dance around the kitchen. Wide eyed she looked around the kitchen and watched them. Then she remembered the flashlight was nearby and she reached over to turn it on. Nicole held onto the flashlight like it was her only lifeline. She wondered if the power outage was just her house or if it was the whole block was affected. Gathering up her courage she walked towards the front of the house to look out the window. Weaving her way around boxes and dodging unseen obstacles on the floor that tried to trip her, she made it to the front of the house unscathed. As she peered out the window, she knew it wasn’t just her house that was in the dark but also the row of houses across the street had no lights on.
Just wonderful! Nicole thought sarcastically. Putting her packing on hold, she turned around and went to the couch. She sat there and thought in silence about her options in unpacking when it dawned on me…the radio was off. She had forgotten to put batteries in the radio, and so when the power went off so did the radio. She looked around the dark room and tried to read the markings on the boxes hoping to remember which one had the batteries packed in it. To her disappointment Nicole couldn’t remember which box they were in, so she sat there trying to decide if she wanted to call it a night and go to bed or wait it out and keep packing. The dark would make it difficult to unpack, but not impossible. Besides, what else was she going to do? Nicole knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep, so she might as well get back to work.
She stood up and meandered her way back to the kitchen. She had just rounded the corner when a door somewhere in the house slammed shut. The loud bang startled Nicole, who just about jumped out of her skin. She swung around with the flashlight in hand pointing it in the direction of the earsplitting sound. She shined it around the room trying to determine which door had caused the loud noise, but all the doors in the area were still opened. Scared, Nicole knew she needed to investigate and make sure everything was okay in the rest of the house, but she was too frightened to look around. Chiding herself for being such a chicken, she decided that she didn’t want to know which door it was until after the lights came back on. The dark house was too spooky to go inspect at the moment. She knew she was being silly. The only reason she felt scared was because of the houses unfamiliarity. Usually Nicole wasn’t easily scared but this house, being so old, it added to the daunting feeling of the unknown. The thunderstorm outside didn’t help the situation either. She turned around and ignored the slammed door for the time being and went back to unpacking the box.
The box was empty about five minutes later and she tossed it in the corner with the other empty ones, then picked up the next box that had the cookbooks she inherited from her grandmother. Her Grandmother Gracie (GeeGee for short) was a great cook and Nicole could spend hours looking through them. GeeGee had made notes about each recipe on just about every page, either adding a little something or taking out an ingredient and sometimes just marking out the whole thing with a big X.
As Nicole stood trying to decide which cupboard would be best to put them in, she heard another loud noise. She jerked her head towards the deep thud sound and shined the flashlight towards it to light the area. The noise sounded like it came from the living room. She moved the light beam around the room trying to determine what could have made the noise but just like before, she didn’t see anything that could have been the culprit. This noise wasn’t as loud as the slammed door but it was just as disturbing to her frazzled nerves. She decided that this time she wouldn’t ignore the noise. This time she went into the living room to investigate. Nicole walked over to the couch that sat in the middle of the mess of boxes. She spotted a box in the far corner that appeared to have fallen over onto its side. “Oh man!” Nicole cringed hoping that it did not have anything breakable in it. To justify why the box fell over, she told herself that apparently she was careless and had not set it securely on top of the box below. She climbed over the arm of the couch and then stepped over another small box on the floor to get to the box that had fallen. She shined the light on the words written on the side of the box. “Pictures”
Disappointed, Nicole said out loud, “Dang! I hope nothing broke!”
She turned the box back over and opened the lid. It was loaded with the pictures she hung on the wall, and every single one had glass that covered each pictures. Nicole pulled out each picture one by one while holding the flashlight under her chin. With relief, she let out a huge sigh. It seemed that all the pictures survived the fall without even a scratch. She gently laid them all back into the box and left the box on the floor this time, then turned and made her way back to the kitchen again. On her way there she shined the light on a box here and there to see if she could remember which one had the batteries inside. The storm still raged on outside and Nicole jumped at another loud clap of thunder followed by a streak of lightening. Almost to the kitchen she spotted a box that said “miscellaneous”. That’s it! Nicole stepped widely over a large box and bent down to open the miscellaneous one. She shuffled through the contents and found four large D batteries for the radio. Thank you Lord!
With the batteries in one hand and the flashlight in the other, Nicole stepped awkwardly over boxes and went to the radio. She pulled the cord out of the wall and turned the radio upside down. The battery cover came off easily and Nicole inserted the batteries. With the cover back on, she turned the radio upright again. She flipped the switch and the lights that illuminated the radio dial came on but the station she had listened to earlier now was nothing but static. Still happy that she had the radio was working again; Nicole turned the knob to tune in a radio station. She moved the tuner as slow as she could, she hoped to find some news or weather playing on one of the channels. There were static and screeches as the needle moved across the numbers painted on the face of the radio, then a faint voice came out of the speakers and she stopped to turn up the volume. An announcer was talking about the storms moving over the area and that “we should be out of the woods in about thirty to forty-five minutes depending on where you lived”. Nicole didn’t catch what area he was talking about, but she assumed that it had to be somewhere around her area since the storm were still overhead. She set the radio back down on the counter next to where she was working in the kitchen and turned back to the box of cookbooks. The announcer finished his up selling of the best furniture store in town and said “now back to the music”. Nicole wasn’t sure what station she had set the dial to, but she quickly figured out it was an oldies station when Elvis began to sing about his Blue Suede Shoes. Oldies were not her favorite choice of music, but for some reason in this old house it seemed like an appropriate station to have on the radio. Nicole hummed to the song since she didn’t know all the words, as she started stacking the books on the counter top. The song seemed to lighten the mood and helped her relax from her frightful mood.
While tossing the now empty box onto the others, a sudden inspiration came over her. Why not fix this house up in the retro style that was starting to take hold in the interior design world? Nicole had not tried to do anything retro and this house was perfect for something like that. A new challenge and a real learning experience too, plus another fabulous style to add to her portfolio. She was excited and wished she could get started right then, but she knew she needed to unpack everything first. Besides, her fabric swatches and design books were still packed out in the garage and there was no room to spread out to work either, but as soon as I had everything unpacked and put away she would get started on her idea. For now, Nicole would just jot down notes onto a scratch piece of paper, if any ideas came to mind.
The next song on the radio was obviously another song from the 1950’s, but she had never heard it before. She tried to listen to it for a minute but then decided that she had enough of going back into the past for now and turned the knob again. Nicole found the next radio station was soft rock and she decided that it would do for the time being. The song playing was one she remembered from when she was a teenager, but she couldn’t remember the name of the song. It was enough that she knew the song and could tolerate the genre of music on this channel. She liked fifties music, but at the moment she needed something familiar to help her feel more at home.
Nicole started on the next box that was full of cooking utensils. Picking a drawer, she unceremoniously dumped the entire contents in the drawer that she had lined earlier with contact paper. As she began to open the next box all the lights suddenly came back on. She sighed with relief and stopped unpacking for the moment. She still wanted to see which door had slammed shut and hopefully find out why it did so. Nicole figured that maybe since she had some of the windows opened that it was probably just a gust of wind that had blew the door shut. She walked around all the boxes and towards the hallway that led to the spare bedrooms and the hall bathroom. Around the corner and saw that the door to the room at the end of the hall was the one that slammed shut. She told herself she should have known that was the door because that was one of the windows she cracked opened to allow the breeze to travel all through the house. Nicole walked over and turned the handle on the shut door. The knob wouldn’t turn either way. She stepped back and looked at the handle again. There was no lock on the door because the only interior doors with locks were the bathrooms and the master bedroom. The only explanation for the knob not turning is that it was broken. I will have to add that to my list of fixes, she thought to herself. Standing there contemplating about how to get the door opened, she wasn’t sure what to do next. The hinges are on the inside, hmmm, she scratched her head trying to think of another way inside the room. Nicole reached out to jiggle the handle, but it was still stuck. Maybe the door was just jammed. She decided to try and use force to open the door, so she took a step back while still holding the door handle. With a strong shove forward at the same time she twisted the handle and the door flew open without any resistance. Nicole fell forward and onto the floor. Surprised that she ended up on the floor, she looked back at the door that stood there wide opened almost like it was mocking her. Unfazed Nicole stood up and walked up to the doorframe. As she looked it over she couldn’t see the signs of wood scrapping against wood, like what you’d see from a door rubbing against the doorframe. She tested the door by shutting it to see if it dragged anywhere on the frame, but to her amazement the door closed easily and opened easily without any sticking at all. Now Nicole was really stumped by why it was stuck when she first tried the door.
Not wanting to spend too much time contemplating about the door that was no longer having trouble, she looked around the room. The window was closed. Huh? I could have sworn I opened the window. If it was shut then why did the door slam shut? Nicole pondered. She walked over to the window and saw that the latch was locked. Now she was beginning to feel a little spooked. Knowing that psyching herself out on the first night in a new place was not a good thing, she forced herself to not dwell on the door and window anymore. So with a shrug of her shoulders, Nicole went back to the kitchen to unpack some more and get her mind off of what just happened.
She walked back into the kitchen and picked up the box that lay on the floor, then set the box on the counter and opened it. This box had glasses and mugs in it. She picked the cupboard next to the dish cupboard and began to wipe the glasses with a towel as she put each one on the shelf. Thunder sounded overhead again, but this one was a little quieter. Nicole hadn’t thought about the storm for a few minutes so she looked out the window and noticed that the rain had reduced to just a steady light rain. After the small rumble of thunder she did not see the lightening that usually followed. It looked like the area was on the backside of the storm now, and the weather had begun to calm down again. As Nicole grabbed the next glass out of the box, she stopped suddenly and turned towards the radio. The music that played loudly on the radio was ‘Rock Around the Clock’ by Bill Haley and His Comets. She looked at the dial and realized that it had moved back to the oldies radio station again.
Slowly Nicole set the glass back down and leaned over to the radio to make sure her eyes were not playing tricks on her. Sure enough, the dial marker had moved back to the previous station. Dang, am I imagining things? Maybe I was just getting tired or something. She turned the dial again to the soft rock station again, and stood there staring at the radio. She watched and waited for a few minutes to see if it moved back again. It did not budge at all. Nicole thought to herself, I must be going crazy or something. Maybe I should call it a night.
Nicole looked at her watch and realized that it was midnight. It had been a long day and she felt exhausted from the day of moving boxes and unpacking. She decided to call it a night and start fresh in the morning. She turned over the radio and took the batteries out so they wouldn’t wear out then carried the radio to the living room and set it on a box near the couch. She found an outlet on the wall nearby and plugged in the radio. The music playing on the radio was still the soft rock music station. Nicole hadn’t set her bed up yet, so tonight the couch would be her bed. No big deal, she was used to sleeping on the couch the first night anyway. She didn’t know why but it seemed like she was just more comfortable being in the living room on her first night in a different house. Maybe she was waiting for something to happen and by being on the couch she would be ready for it, or maybe in some unconscious way she needed to feel comfortable with the house before she actually settled in all the way. If she didn’t set up all the furniture or put my bed up, it would be easier to move again in the morning if she ended up not liking the house during the first night. Nicole knew this sounded strange, but it had sort of become a habit for her since she seemed to be moving so often.
A folded a blanket sat on the arm of the couch along with her pillow. Nicole knew where her pajamas were, but decided against changing into them. She was already wearing a pair of sweats and a large t-shirt, which was comfortable enough to sleep in. She spread the blanket out and stationed her pillow at the end of the couch. Nicole also set her cell phone next to the radio that was playing another song she recognized but couldn’t remember the name of from her teenage years. Once again she felt a little more at home and was settling in nicely to her new surroundings. The lights were still on throughout the house, so before lying down Nicole went around and turned them off one by one. As she walked back to the couch she made a path through a few boxes just in case she needed to find her way to the bathroom during the night. She went to the couch and snuggled under the covers then reached up and turned out the lamp that was next to the couch. As she lay back on her pillow she didn’t close her eyes right away. Looking around the dark room, that was still somewhat visible from the one streetlight outside, Nicole lay there thinking. She really did like this house, but the more time she spent here the more it felt…odd. She looked forward to getting started on decorating and fixing up the place. The elderly gentleman who rented her the house was the son of the original owner. He didn’t give her too much history on the place yet, but he promised to tell her more about the house once she was settled in. She looked forward to talking with him. Maybe she could ask if he had a few pictures of what it looked like back then. They could give her ideas to work with when she started remodeling. While deep in thought, Nicole didn’t realize that her eyes had begun to close...she never realized when she drifted off to sleep.
To be continued…
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