Pictures of Hollis Wood: List 2

“The movie is closed. My cousin Beatrice comes on Mondays.” She smiled. “I forgot. You don’t know that. Remember, Beatrice had a lingering cold?”

I finished my drawing and propped it up on the counter to see what I thought about it. And then I heard the back door, Beatrice bustling in, her arms laden with bags, and the smell...
“Chinese food,” I told Josie.

I finished my drawing and propped it up on the counter to see what I thought about it. And then I heard the back door, Beatrice bustling in, her arms laden with bags, and the smell...
“Chinese food,” I told Josie.

“We worked with all those kids who didn’t have any concept of perspective, or even if they had that, the composition was all wrong. If only you’d been in one of those classes, Hollis.” She shook her head, then smiled at Josie. “Never mind, she’s here’s now.”

“We worked with all those kids who didn’t have any concept of perspective, or even if they had that, the composition was all wrong. If only you’d been in one of those classes, Hollis.” She shook her head, then smiled at Josie. “Never mind, she’s here’s now.”

Josie nodded then. “Yes. Adobe houses, desert, flat rocks everywhere.”
“I’ll paint them all,” Beatrice said.

It was winter, bleak, but the houses were pretty.

She wiggled herself down and down until I thought she’d go over; then at last she reached into the mass of foam that had settled around the stanchions of the pier.

As I had maneuvered my way back to the steps, Josie had called up.

He dangled the keys in front of my nose. “Anyone who can keep her things disinfected can drive a truck.”

We’d sail up and down the aisles of DeMattia’s Food Store, picking and choosing: ravioli, and a pink can of shredded tuna for Henry. Maybe some marmalade, too, to have with the English muffins we had left.

Henry heard them too. He scampered back outside to sit on the bench, an irritable look on his skinny face.

In the picture Izzy is laughing, the turner in one hand, just under the cross-stitched motto on the wall: LOVE THE COOK.

Down the hill I could hear the Old Man bellow at Steven. “Do they always fight?” I asked.

We were frenzied that last week in August.

We’d cross the bridge and the house would be there, nestled in the trees opposite the Old Man’s mountain.

I made one last trip to the car, carrying her knives, the small drill, pieces of wood, and then I was back, hoisting Henry onto my shoulder.

I looked up as I heard the blare of a horn, and then a car swerved past us, its lights sweeping over the road.

There’d be no time to buy anything, not even enough time to rummage through the back to find the bags of food.

At first it was hard to see, but little by little silhouettes appeared against the sky: the curve of a tree trunk, the dark square of the grocery store ahead, and above us, the Old Man’s mountain, raising its head to the sky.

Henry scratched his claws along the car window, wanting to get out. I gave his ear a tweak, opened the door, and watched him belly through the snow away from the car.

I knelt there, crumpling the yellowed newspapers to tuck in between some logs, and read last summer’s news as I struck a match against the stones of the hearth: Someone had caught a huge trout near Byron’s Falls; a sidewalk sale was planned for Main Street; there were canoes for rent in Shadyside.

I settled Josie on the couch and found an old towel to dry her feet. They were mottled from the cold.

But the cold didn’t bother Henry. He pranced through the snow, chasing twigs and a few crumpled leaves as if he were a kitten.

It was quiet, with only the soft whoosh of wind and the muffled sound of icy snow as it blew against the roof.