Off Season - Jack Ketchum [5]
One thing the room did have was those hand-hewn beams across the ceiling. According to the agent, the house was over a hundred years old, and it was in the beams that it really showed. They were massive, made out of some beautiful dark wood, really lovely. Made you want to carve your initials in them, so they’d be around another hundred years too, except you’d feel rotten if you spoiled them that way. They’d be nice to stare up at in the firelight, she thought, with a certain young actor on top of her. For a moment she could almost see and feel it. Log fantasy #620A, she thought, subsection Pioneer Spirit.
Very bawdy, Carla. All the same, she hoped the fireplace was in working order. Otherwise, Jim or no Jim it was going to get very cold in there. Of course she could leave the attic door open, and the heat that collected during the day would moderate the temperature somewhat. But she didn’t like to do that. There was something sort of spooky about an old attic, and she’d just as soon leave it closed. As soon as the place was clean, she’d try the fireplace.
By two o’clock the living room was clean enough, and Carla had most of its furniture back inside. She was tired. It had been a very good day’s work and she was glad she’d thought to leave the motel early enough to finish up today. Otherwise she’d probably still have been cleaning when her guests arrived.
In a way she wished they were already gone. She was beginning to have a sense that all this was really hers—now that she’d rescued it from its patina of dust and grime. She felt sure the editing would go well. The kitchen table was going to make a perfect desk. In fact, with both leaves open, it would be the biggest desk she’d ever had. Not like that tiny hunk of threequarter-inch plywood in her apartment in New York. Or the one crammed full of letters and contracts at the office. She could spread out here. And one month’s work in a place like this would be worth two back home. Plenty of quiet, plenty of time to think. No bars to distract her nights and no hangovers in the morning and no men around to complicate her life once Jim’s visit was over.
Though she just might miss getting laid now and then. She wondered what the guys around here were like. Farmers and fishermen, probably. That might be interesting. She wondered if there was a bar in town. If there was, she supposed she’d have to climb into the rented Pinto and check it out. But only once, she thought. And nothing involving. Please God, nothing even remotely involving. I’m here to haul my way through a book on fifties rock ‘n’ roll that I have signed and which is a good book and is going to make me a star, or at least a full editor. Good money and reasonable deadlines. And that’s all. That’s what it’s about.
In five days the company would be gone and she could get started. Long lonely walks by the sea and eight hours a day at the typer. Sounded like heaven. The book was solid, thoroughly professional and exciting. An editor’s dream. Her boss had given her two extra weeks added to her vacation time on the understanding that when she returned to the city the editing would be finished. It would be. But what he didn’t need to know was that she’d be finished in one week flat, working at a nice easy pace, and after that she could just relax and be alone awhile. It was cheating a little, she knew, but she’d been working very hard. She deserved the vacation and needed the extra time. Maybe she’d do a little writing of her own. Maybe just lay back and do nothing for a change. Whatever. And for this she was on full salary. The important