Chapter One
After weeks of paperwork and waiting for the title to clear, Jillian Levy was now the new owner of the Belmar Inn.
The Inn was all that was left of an old plantation.
She found several historical facts very interesting about the place, one of them being that it had been a stop on the Underground Railroad for runaway slaves.
As close as the plantation was to the Mississippi River the slaves would board the ships taking wheat up to the northern states.
From there they would travel overland to their final destinations.
Jillian turned off the highway onto a private road and continued up the driveway. She had driven for a couple of days to arrive here.
At first glance, the Inn looked a little lonely and out of place. She could see that someone had started restoration of it but it hadn’t been finished yet.
The front facade of the building had been restored to the original specs but she knew from the realtor that the work hadn’t been completed.
Belmar Inn had been owned and operated as a rooming house in the 1980’s by a pair of sisters Claire and Matilda Belmar.
They were spinsters and the property had been left to them by their father, Thomas Belmar.
Thomas had inherited the property from his father’s family.
Several generations owned and operated the property since its days but only one other person operated it since the tragedy of 1989 and they hadn’t lasted very long.
Tragedy to the Inn and the sisters came in the form of a man named Matthew Nixen.
One of the rumors floating around Branden told about how Matilda fell in love with Matthew but he fell in love with Claire.
So, in a jealous rage Matilda burned the Inn down, trapping all three inside.
Another said Matthew was in love with Matilda and it was Claire who started the fire.
But when the fire died down there were only two bodies found.
What happened to the third body was anyone’s guess.
Since that time the Inn had been haunted by the pair of lovers and the jealous, vengeful sister.
Jillian was drawn to the Inn by a letter she had found in her late Mother’s possessions.
It was a letter from Matilda aka Tilly, written in 1989 before the fire that consumed the Inn and its occupants.
The letter wasn’t the jealous ramblings of a woman possessed, but a plea for help.
However, before help could arrive the fire burned the Inn and three souls were trapped forever.
She also found a letter her mother had started to write to her friend but she never finished the letter.
Now Jillian was determined to discover the truth.
The last thing her mother had asked her to do before she died was to find the truth about what happened that fateful day.
Her mother Chloe had always been bothered by the fact she hadn’t responded to Tilly’s letter.
She knew she couldn’t do anything for Tilly now but her mother wanted to justify Tilly’s death.
She always told Jillian it wouldn’t have been Tilly’s way to hurt someone else, not even her own sister.
She and Matilda had once been close friends and Jillian listened with awe when her mother had told her tales of their escapades as young women in the 70s and the early eighties.
She described the 1980’s woman having a fresh faced ‘all American girl’ look with a wholesome figure.
The aerobics obsession of the 80’s continued to emphasize fitness for women, and the female body was expected to maintain a certain weight, but still appear toned, all without being too muscular.
Between cropped football player shirts and shiny spandex leggings which her mother, Chloe said were just a few of the typical trends considered to be sexy, they did have their bodies very much on display.
At this point in history, being sexy was an acceptable and expected thing for most young people.
The shirts they wore were oversized, high-waisted, cropped and cut off.
With lots of floral patterns, neon and pastel colors, puffy sleeves and skirts, also shoulder pads.
When my mom described that Chloe asked her why pads?
She had shrugged and said, ‘It was the fashion, though I didn’t like it much.
’ She went on to tell how they really like ripped sweatshirts, fanny packs, stone-washed straight legged jeans Then big earrings, lace and pearls, were hot commodities.
Oversized gold jewelry was used by both men and women, and tracksuits were worn even when not exercising.
The beauty ideal was somewhere between overdone and unkempt, and natural makeup was uncommon.
The ideal woman had bold ‘virgin’ eyebrows and they wore blue eyeshadow or eyeliner and matched that with shiny pink lips.
Nose jobs had been the thing and the beauty spots like some of the models had been the ‘it’ thing to have.
Jillian asked her mom what a beauty spot was.
She laughed and said, ‘like the one Marylin Monroe had. Like a mole really.’ Jillian was a teen at the time her mom told these stories and she laughed so hard at this explanation that she fell off her chair.
Many styles from the late 70’s remained fashionable in the early 80s, but by then both men and women began wearing looser shirts and tight, close-fitting trousers. Somewhat like today’s style.
In the mid 80’s though, Madonna and Cyndi Lauper became fashion icons for young women with their ‘street urchin’ look, as her mom had put it which popularized the heavy makeup with vibrant neon colors with intentionally messed-up and off-colored hair.
They liked short skirts worn over leggings, brassieres worn as outer clothing, crucifix jewelry, and fishnet gloves.
A Madonna look. Then Michael Jackson sported the ‘jheri curl’ (a sparkling wet-looking, heavily processed version of the Afro), and some middle-class teenagers adapted the punk-influenced spiked hairstyle.
Androgyny was also an important look of the 80’s.
Chloe had asked her what androgyny meant.
She laughed and said, ‘it meant Boy George with his light colored dreadlocks and sweet face, or Sinead O’Connor with her shaved head, to Glam Rock.
’ Before Jillian could ask what Glam Rock was she told her it was Goth fashion and Heavy Metal bands, with their makeup and wild, long, dyed hair.
Like Kiss and Twisted Sister. In essence, there were only two words to describe 80’s hair: big and bigger, with multiple cans of aerosol hairspray in it.
The choices were wild, crimped, permed, dyed or sun bleached.
It was the beginning of hip hop, the golden age of ‘the mullet’ and ‘the rat tail.
Jillian told her that she was glad those hair styles were gone as they were a horrible sin against humanity.
The both of them and a nurse that had been in the room, had laughed hard at that.
In opposition to these trends, a new romantic or neoconservative ‘preppy’ look was also in, popularizing traditional short hairstyles for men and women, and not to forget the New Romantic, Yuppie or The Miami Vice style.
‘Miami Vice?’ Jillian repeated at her as she again fell back laughing.
Chloe laughed with her. During these times, she told her about the shopping malls where teens and families spent their weekends walking around the mall, shopping at department stores, and eating at the food court.
They existed today but they were a popular trendsetting thing anymore.
In the 80’s and even the 90’s it was considered to be where the popular kids would be.
Then the nerds and wallflowers would follow them around the mall.
Video Arcades were big too for the young teens mostly, where kids dropped quarters into classic cabinet games like Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and Donkey Kong.
Roller skating rinks were also a popular thing where people gathered under disco balls to skate to pop and rock hits while socializing with friends.
That had been for high school and even college kids.
For older women and men in their 20’s there were disco clubs and dance clubs then they invented the Karaoke trend too.
Jillian loved and cherished these stories and mostly, they were told to her by her mom over the months she had been ill before she...passed away.
During her last week on earth, she told Jillian of her only regret.
And that was about Tilly and her death. Now Jillian swiped a tear from her cheek while driving down the road.
Her mom told her not to cry at the time and she could hear her voice even now, ‘Do not weep for me. I lived a life of fun and I lived it well. I had a rare love with your father. We did it all I think?’ She then smiled at Jillian.
‘So, when you think of us. Smile...don’t cry. You promise?’
Jillian had promised and she tried not to mourn so hard. But she and her mom had been super close. Now she drove along the freeway and made her pit stops while remembering these stories fondly. She really missed her.