It was a beautiful day outside. The sun hung high in the air, but the temperature was moderate. A light breeze blew in from the west, carrying with it the scent of the ocean, which was, to Marissa, the scent of promises.
It smelled of promises made, promises kept, and even of promises lost. She liked thinking about all of them; she simply liked promises. They always made her feel better; she didn’t know why. She breathed deep, and imagined the salty ocean air filling her lungs and promising oxygen to her blood.
She turned and looked at her little hibachi, where a single hamburger patty lay sizzling, promising her a delicious burger in just a few more minutes, oh it was going to be so good! Her mouth watered a little, and her right hand found its way to the belt of her fuzzy pink robe, where her fingers began to obsessively fidget with a spot in the stitching of the belt that was slightly off-kilter. She always returned to this behavior when she felt uneasy, and although she thought in her active mind that she was really doing all right, she was peachy keen, she was fine-and-dandy, her subconscious mind knew better. It knew that there were always things to worry about, always stitching that was off-kilter, even in the fuzziest of robes, and it wouldn’t let her rest. Not really. Not for-realsies rest.
So, she hadn’t been sleeping very well as of late. She found herself dreaming frequently of her childhood, and time spent at the beach. In particular, she seemed to be longing for a stay at a particular house her parents had rented frequently throughout her childhood. It was the only place she could remember where her obsessive behavior really hadn’t been a problem. She could never figure out why, but each night that she slept in that house, she awoke a little less nervous, a little more at ease, a little more confident that the world was not going to end every five seconds.
She went to the little black notebook, the one that said “Contacts” on the front of it, that had been her father’s before he had passed, and flipped through it methodically, trying to find the phone number of the owner. She figured her father had coded it somehow; she had seen him do it before when adding new people to the leatherette notebook she had come to think of as The Contacts Book.
Finally, she found her finger working its way down the first page of the TUV section. Second from the top, there it was: “Terblist, Herman, BEACH HOUSE”. Would Mr. Terblist even be alive today, she wondered, and figured there was no harm in calling to find out if he was.
She dialed the number listed in The Contacts Book, and was about to give up after six rings when finally the phone had been answered.
“…’Lo?” A voice said lazily. A young voice. Teenager like, she thought.
“Uh, hello…I’m…uh…calling about a rental house that was owned by Herman Terblist. Have I called the right place?”
“Uh, jussasec,” the voice replied “lemme get my dad…DAD!”
She pulled the phone away from her ear a little too late, and stood there, wincing painfully, still trying to listen, but only tentatively holding the phone to her head. Finally, she heard the distinct sound of the receiver being passed and heard an adult male voice ask ‘who is it?’, the reply to which apparently was ‘idunno’.
“Hello?”
“Hi, uh, I was calling about a beach house my parents used to rent from Herman Terblist. Do you know anything about that?”
“Oh, yes, I’m Herman’s son, Nertrom…but I’m afraid the house isn’t around anymore…”
“Oh, oh, I see, that’s really too bad…”
“No, it’s really not too bad. My grandfather had painted the entire house with mood altering chemicals. HAZ-MAT had to come clean it up. Please, don’t feel bad that it’s not around anymore. I…gosh, I hope you didn’t stay in it too, often, miss…the people who cleaned it up said that anyone staying more than 2 days would have been high as a kite…I hope that didn’t happen to you…miss…? Are you there?”
She dropped the phone to the floor, and began to laugh.
“Well,” she giggled to herself, not noticing when Nertrom Terblist finally hung up, “fuck me!”
