The Rainy Season by James P. Blaylock Read Free Book Online

plugged the coffee machine in, then pulled two mugs down from the rack. It occurred to him that she didn’t seem in the least sort of a hurry, and after looking at the car for another moment, she turned away from it without touching it and looked closely at the two dozen souvenir spoons in the spoon rack. She held her hands behind her back still.
    “What’s that one there?” she asked, pointing at a small spoon that was oddly misshapen, as if it had been run over in the road. There was an alligator etched into the top of the handle, with the word “Everglades” stamped beneath it.
    “Trip to Florida,” he said. “I think I was about five years old.”
    “Really? You remember buying this spoon?”
    “My mother bought the spoon. But I vaguely remember the Everglades. I also remember when I was playing with it and dropped it into the garbage disposal. That’s why it’s all nicked up.” The smell of coffee filled the air now, and Phil heard the patter of raindrops against the porch roof.
    “Can I see it?” She stepped away from the rack, giving him room to take the spoon out of its little slot. Either she was oddly polite or else was used to being waited on. He handed her the spoon, and she smiled at him, took it from him, glanced at it, and put it back into the rack as if she’d suddenly lost interest in it. “Mind if I snoop around?” she asked. “You’ve got some great old stuff.”
    She wandered out onto the service porch and glanced around. “What’s through here?” she asked.
    “Pantry,” Phil said. “There’s an old icebox and a ventilated fruit and vegetable cupboard, lots of food storage from back in the days when people actually canned food themselves.”
    Elizabeth pushed on the pantry door, which swung open and then shut again on double-action hinges. She pushed it open again and looked inside. “Some nice china,” she said. “If you ever want to sell it …”
    “It was my mother’s,” Phil said. “I can’t imagine selling it.”
    “That’s funny,” Elizabeth said. “I can’t imagine
keeping
it. I’d rather have the money and let someone else dust it. What’s through here?” She nodded into the pantry, indicating the door at the far side.
    “My darkroom. Also an old guest bedroom. Hasn’t been used in years.”
    “Haven’t had any old guests?” She stepped back into the kitchen now, smiling at him and standing up on tiptoe to examine the knickknacks on top of the refrigerator—a few sets of ceramic salt and pepper shakers, which, as was true of almost everything else in the house, had belonged to his mother. She picked one up—a frog smoking a pipe. “Occupied Japan,” she said. “These are worth something.”
    “I kind of like them just because,” he said.
    “Nostalgia. Everyone wants to hold onto the past.”
    “I guess so.”
    “I know a man who goes out looking for old things,” she said, “out behind farmhouses and places. You wouldn’t believe what he finds just digging around in the dirt. People used to dump stuff right on their property in the old days, before they had trash pickup or anything. He finds old perfume bottles and metal toys and marbles and all kinds of things. He’d
love
this place. What do you have here, a couple of acres?”
    “About six. Five acres of avocados and an acre of loose change.”
    “And you’re a photographer?”
    “More or less.”
    She nodded, then looked at the kitchen window. Her face fell. “It’s raining pretty hard,” she said. “Heck.”
    “Maybe we should rescue your car before the weather really gets going.”
    “I know the rain’s going to wreck this dress.”
    “Stay here, then. You get started on the coffee and I’ll run up the road and put gas in your car. I’ll drive it back down.”
    She opened her purse and took out the car keys, handing them over to him. “You’re so gallant,” she said. “I promise I won’t drink all the coffee.”
    He grabbed his jacket off its peg in the service