Christmas Consort

New Boss

Silas showed Kylie to a closet in the hall immediately outside the kitchen, the kind of place one might find brooms, mops, and other assorted cleaning equipment resting. Inside was a narrow bench seat and a small niche with an actual corded telephone attached to the wall. The story she gave her mom included taking an extra day to arrive, true sort of, and then resting a lot to gear up for work. I do need rest after losing so much blood, she thought, no matter what it was for.

The numbers for the realtor and her boss's office were on her mobile, probably lying in the woods with a dead battery. What had happened with her 9-1-1 call? Had they thought it a prank? Not been able to pin the position? She explained her lack of numbers dilemma and Silas produced a thin paper yellow pages, the kind she last saw when she was ten, except theirs had been a couple inches thick and was kept around to boost the youngest child at the dinner table or on the piano bench. These yellow pages gave new meaning to the realtor's description of "rural" living.

"That's all the business listings in Richardson?"

"Yes," said Silas, "as well as for the other four nearest towns. What was the name of your boss's business?"

"I think he said Tannenbom Incorporated. Does that ring a bell?"

"Cody Tannenbom is your new employer?"

"Yes. He said to call him Cody."

"He probably owns a quarter of all the ventures listed in these pages. Guess you know how to pick 'em. What exactly will you be doing and which place are you working? Not at one of his county dives, I hope." Silas flipped to a page and pointed to a listing.

"I think it's for Tannenbom Corp itself. I've got a position as managing book keeper with financial oversight. So it must be at his main office."

"His main office? I know exactly where that is."

She picked up the phone. "I don't know what to say. I was supposed to call him yesterday."

"Tell him the truth. You were involved in a car accident, and your car is still being worked on but you have a friend who will bring you to his main office this evening sometime after 5pm."

"You're going with me?"

"Lara insisted."

The call was fairly short since Tannenbom wasn't available anyway. The person taking the message said anytime after five fit Mr. Tannenbom's schedule perfectly as long as she came to his large office at "Drovers" which was where all the files and records were kept as well.

The next call was a simple matter as well. The realtor was a friendly lady, so sorry to hear about the accident, anxious to walk her through her rental agreement with the tenants. Would tomorrow morning early be acceptable? Everything was nicely arranged, without effort, in a manner suited to Silas's schedule.

When he announced his impending rest, he closed the telephone door, locked it and apologized for closing up the shutters again.

"Let me guess. Lara insisted."

"She did. Though in all honesty, I think I'm as keen as she is to keep you close." He touched the side of her face with the back of his hand, apologized, and then told her to make herself at home. She glanced around the hallway and discovered energy for a new day. Beginning in the kitchen, it was time to explore.

***

The mysterious cabinet half filled with honey had other mostly unfamiliar equipment. All of it was shiny stainless. She poked through the rest of the downstairs and found two more locked doors, one of which was similar to the telephone room in that it was narrow and paneled. She figured the other was possibly the bedroom Lara and Silas shared. She listened at the door and heard no hint of life.

What do I expect? They are vampires. She imagined them tangled together in an unearthly rest. Her lip snarled at the idea. What was this she felt? Dislike bordering on hatred was not fueling the simmering pot of her emotions. No, she admitted with the release of pent up air that she was jealous. She shook her head and faced the living room next.

Not as bad as I thought it would be. Fresh pine boughs lay across the mantel, red berried wood featured prominently, and there were a few poinsettias. Ribbons featured more than lights, as well as pinecones and clove dotted oranges, and antique tree decorations appeared between winding levels of a chain made from popcorn and cranberries. A string with some sort of cookies with a hole in the middle was also tied with small ribbon and dangling from the tree. None of the recently added and sparsely interspersed lights were colored which caused Kylie to sigh with relief.

The upstairs bedrooms were packed to the gills with furniture, boxes, odds and ends. She realized as she poked around that many of these objects were excess from downstairs. In one room she found three boxes marked "kitchen" and dug through them pulling out utensils and returning them to the kitchen cabinet of her choosing.

She paused. What am I doing? It's not like I'm moving in here. I am just waiting for the Man in Black. But it might take a week or more for him to arrive and Silas did say to make myself at home. Kylie continued exploring.

One room was set up as a sitting room, and it was layered in dust though otherwise straight. Old black and white photos, mostly of the kind on heavy cream carding lined a set of built in shelves. These drew her over and she wondered if she would find Silas or Lara among the people with their fancy old clothes. One portrait looked familiar and she picked it up to inspect. It was of a man with rigid posture, an impressive mustache, and one hand resting on the back of an ornate chair. Kylie thought perhaps it was a common pose that thrummed her memory and returned his frame to the shelf.

She considered cleaning the room and wanted to air it out. The shutters upstairs were all as tight as the ones down. Exploring the place made her feel like a kid at great-grandma's house again. Grandmother Barnes was a packrat who lived in the same home most of her life. Pretending with her cousins that they were adventurers discovering never before seen things was a highlight of visits.

Kylie smiled as she returned to the Chesterfield room, found a book, and went to russell up some lunch for herself. Ages seemed to have passed since she went without her phone, the TV, or other electronic entertainment. Candy Crush, Flow, and Starfall were beyond her reach. The afternoon was spent sorting the contents of her suitcase and reading obscure works of literature from the dusty shelves such as "The Scarecrow of Oz" and "Anne of the Island."

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