Chapter Three. Riley, Present Day
CHAPTER THREE
RILEY, PRESENT DAY
A rush of relief softens the hard knot that has taken up permanent residence in my chest as Betty shows me the bedroom where I’ll be staying.
The walls are painted pink and the simple room holds a plain bed, wooden dresser, and nightstand. Paradise compared to sleeping in my car.
“When can you move in?” Betty asks.
I look down at my feet. “Um, anytime really. Even today if you like.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Betty claps her hands together. “The sooner the better.”
It almost seems too good to be true.
“It won’t take me long,” I tell her. “My belongings are already in my car.”
Betty tilts her head and a sharpness fills her pale blue eyes. My cheeks burn as I realize I’ve revealed too much. But all she says is, “It’s almost as if you knew you were going to get this job.”
“Well, I hoped.” I’m too ashamed to tell Betty my belongings are always in my car. Creditors claimed everything of value from our home, including the furniture.
“Come find me in the kitchen when you’re ready,” Betty says.
“Thank you, Mrs. Sadler.”
“Oh, please, you must call me Betty,” she says. “Especially since we’re going to be housemates!”
It takes me a half dozen trips to empty my Toyota. When I bring in the last bin of clothes, I see Betty has left a set of daisy-patterned sheets on my twin bed. I pick up the soft old plastic package, reading the copy: Penn-Prest means you never iron!
The design and fonts on the mattress label look as retro as the ones on the sheets, and the mattress is just as pristine. Betty sure knows how to take care of her belongings, I think as I wander into the kitchen, stopping short in the doorway.
The cabinets and counters are low. That I expected; Betty needs an accessible space. It’s the colors that surprise me: turquoise counters and a matching stove with oversized round dials. A black-and-white checkerboard floor. Burnt orange paint coating the walls.
A designer would call it retro. But this isn’t like a kitschy throwback diner. The worn spots on the floor and edges of the counters reveal the kitchen is old enough to have gone out of fashion, then—more than half a century later—edged back in.
Betty is at the sink filling an ice cube tray.
“Can I help you with that?” I offer.
“It’s no trouble.” Betty expertly maneuvers to slide the tray into the freezer. “Surely you haven’t finished unpacking already?”
“No, I just brought in my things—and I found the sheets. Thank you … I was wondering, is there a daily schedule you’d like me to follow?”
“Oh, we’ll figure it out as we go along,” Betty replies. “But there is one thing I do need help with today. My refrigerator is nearly bare. I was hoping you could run to the grocery store.”
“Absolutely,” I tell her. “I can go right now if you like.”
“I have a list on my desk. Let me fetch it for you.”
I follow Betty back into the living room, taking in more details of my new home.
There’s a record player built into a wood console along with albums by Bobby Vinton, Elvis, The Beach Boys, and The Supremes.
A brass sunburst wall clock. Bookshelves full of thick volumes with worn edges—mostly psychology, history, and classics by Steinbeck, Faulkner, and Hemingway.
This house has the feel of my grandparents’ place, the one they lived in for fifty years, but they had incorporated modern touches like a flat-panel TV, microwave, and cell phone.
There’s nothing like that here. Every single thing I’ve seen in this house could come from the past century—including the string of pearls around Betty’s neck.
“My husband shopped at a store called the Food Lion.” Betty hands me a folded slip of paper. “I’ll give you one of his maps so you can find your way.”
I reach into my pocket and pull out my cell phone. “I can just google it. Could I get your Wi-Fi password?”
Betty is staring at me like I’m speaking a foreign language. “Password?”
“For the Internet,” I clarify.
“Oh, we don’t have one,” she says vaguely, like she’s trying to pretend she knows what I’m talking about.
She wheels closer to me and peers at my iPhone. “Isn’t that a marvel?” she breathes.
My gaze falls on the telephone on Betty’s rolltop desk with the rotary dial and long curly cord attaching the receiver to the base. Is it possible she has never seen a cell phone? The way she’s staring at mine tells me it is.
My eyes widen as the realization slams into me: It isn’t just the décor that’s frozen in time. The music Betty listens to, the books she reads, her innocence about electronics, even her clothing and beehive hairstyle.
Betty is still living in the 1960s, too.