Bloodstone by Nate Kenyon

dim basement, thinking that only rich Beverly Hills people had “a dinner for friends,” and that maybe the Friedmans should move there and get the hell out of Maine. The old wooden stepladder was on its side against the stonefoundation down at the end of the first chamber, between a bunch of boxes and old paint cans and storm windows. On the way over he was aware of Mrs. Friedman close behind him, the smell of her shampoo hanging in the air.
    “Just take one end,” she said, “and I’ll take the other, if I can manage it.” They lifted it awkwardly, Jeb fumbling around for a place to put his feet amid the clutter. His head kept brushing the light cord that hung down in his face, sending it flapping around. The basement was musty and smelled of varnish. It was a big basement, the kind that felt like a crypt, with exposed brick and stone, low ceilings, and interconnecting rooms that doubled back on themselves. He didn’t like confined spaces. He felt trapped, like the walls were trying to close in on him.
    They got the ladder to the basement steps, and it took another minute of maneuvering to work it around the support beams and up the narrow space. Jeb took the bottom end and pushed. His head throbbed, his hangover made worse by the varnish smell.
    “Phew,” Mrs. Friedman said when they finally had the ladder propped up against the dining room wall. She wiped her brow with a shirtsleeve. “Thank you, honey. I think you lifted most of that yourself. That would have been too much for me.”
    “Welcome, Mrs. Friedman.”
    “Please, you’ve been working here for weeks now. Call me Julie, okay? I’d like that much better.” She brushed his bare arm with a hand. “I don’t act like a Mrs., do I? I always think of little old ladies when I hear that.”
    Jeb, who had thought of her as a Mrs. from the first moment he met her, said nothing.
    “I don’t know if I’ve told you what a good job you’ve been doing around here. Pat doesn’t have the time to help out anymore, with the law practice becoming so busy. Would you like a cool drink? I think I have a soda in the kitchen…” She walked through an archway, and he heard arefrigerator door opening and closing, and the pop of a soda can. A moment later she returned with a glass of Coke. “There. That should help with the heat. I don’t know how you stand it out there in the sun all day.”
    “It’s only April. Wait till July.” He took a long drink of the soda. It felt good on the back of his throat.
    “I was wondering,” Mrs. Friedman interrupted, smiling, “it’s a little embarrassing really. I’m sort of afraid of heights. The ladder—if you’d help me with the bulbs…Please, it would only take a minute. I know, I’m just a silly old woman. Older than you, anyway.” She was still smiling at him, the corners of her mouth curling up. For a crazy moment he almost believed she was going to keep smiling, her mouth getting wider and wider until she swallowed him up.
    “I’m almost nineteen.” As soon as he said it, he wanted to pull it back in.
    “Nineteen? My, I wouldn’t have guessed that. You look more like twenty-five to me. You remind me of the way Pat used to be, a long time ago.”
    Control was slipping away from him. Something was going on here, but it was like he had been invited to a party and not given directions. The anger welled up in him again.
    “Just those two on the right side of the chandelier,” she was saying as she went into the other room again. He thought she was going to leave him there to do it himself, but in a moment she swept back in carrying two boxes of light bulbs. “What do you think, sixty or hundred watt?”
    “I—I don’t know.”
    “Sixty, then. A little less light makes things so much more romantic, don’t you think?”
    She’s making fun of you, just like all the rest, can’t you see her laughing? Don’t let her laugh at you. Do something .
    “I don’t know,” he repeated. Stupid. Why couldn’t