Harmony House - Nic Sheff Page 0,8

gas station, and a restaurant called the Double R Diner. The entire town spans the equivalent of two or three city blocks.

As of seven o’clock on a Wednesday night, the Double R Diner is the only establishment showing any signs of life. I walk there with my head down, doing my best to avoid my own darkened image in the reflection of a dull street lamp against the plate-glass windows. The engine of a large rusted pickup truck complains loudly as it drives slowly up the main road. A wiry, thin man with a reddish beard and hollowed-out features stares at me black-eyed and openmouthed.

I don’t look away.

I imagine the red-bearded man and the driver both falling dead and the truck running off the road—careening through the darkened window of the Beach Haven Pharmacy and Five & Dime.

The sky is black and starless, with the pale fingernail of a moon obscured by racing clouds.

The truck lumbers on up the road.

The neon sign for the Double R Diner blinks red and orange—on and off, on and off. I have a little money saved up from my job last summer working at the bookstore in Johnstown, so I figure I’ll go in and get a coffee and maybe something to eat.

The diner is relatively spacious with red vinyl booths set up along the walls, a few tables, a counter with built-in stools and a bright flashing jukebox in the corner playing twangy-sounding cowboy music. An elderly couple, both with skin like yellowed wax paper and heavy-lidded bloodshot eyes, turn to look up at me. So do the truck drivers at the counter and the old woman sitting by herself wearing a mass of thick sweaters and one of those long quilted barn coats. The gray-haired waitress behind the counter puts down her pot of coffee to look at me, too. No one smiles. I set my jaw tight. I wish I were back home. I imagine the diner on fire, all of them running out screaming as flames spread from floor to ceiling.

The cowboy song on the jukebox fades out. There is an interminable silence before the next song is queued up. I think about walking out. But I don’t. I go sit at the counter. The waitress comes over and offers me coffee from a deeply stained, chipped coffeepot.

“Thank you,” I tell her.

“You wanna see a menu?” she asks, her voice hoarse-sounding. “We have a meat loaf special.”

I shake my head.

“No, thank you.”

She pours the coffee. I add milk from the pitcher and two packs of sugar. It’s good coffee. Hot.

The door behind me dings open.

A girl, probably around my age, but with blond hair and a sickeningly cheery smile, comes bouncing over next to me.

She gives the waitress a hug, leaning her long, slender body over the counter.

“What are you doing here?” the old woman asks her. “Did you eat yet?”

The girl smiles even bigger.

“I wanted to come see you. And Dad said you baked a huckleberry pie. There any left?”

The waitress laughs.

“Thought that might be it.”

“Well, I wanted to see you, too,” the girl says.

“I know,” the old woman tells her. “Come sit down. I put a piece aside for you. You want it hot? With vanilla ice cream?”

“Yes, please.”

The girl sits down at the counter.

Then she turns to me.

“Oh, hello,” she says. “What’s your name?”

“Uh, I’m Jen,” I say.

“I’m Christy. Are you on vacation here?”

I take a sip of ice water, feeling a little flushed for some reason.

“Uh, no,” I say. “I . . . I just moved here. My dad’s gonna be the caretaker of that old Harmony House place.”

Christy gets even brighter and cheerier and her general positive whatever is kind of freaking me out, if you want to know the truth.

“Harmony House? Cool.”

She turns to the waitress again.

“Hey, Aunt Rose, did you hear that? This is the girl living with her dad up in Harmony House.”

“I heard,” says the waitress—her aunt—Rose—I guess.

She sets the pie and ice cream down in front of Christy and, I have to admit, the smell is pretty damn incredible.

She turns to me, studying my face like she’s trying to figure out . . . I don’t even know what.

“How’s it going up there so far?” she asks.

I try to smile.

“Fine,” I say. “We only just got in today.”

“And you’re staying here all through the winter?” she asks.

I nod, half watching Christy eating that pie with a look that must give away how hungry I am, because Rose laughs to herself