Grizzly Manor: Two

A modern take on Wuthering Heights taking place outside of New Orleans.

Upon closer inspection, the fact that Grizz Lee owned this place should have surprised me exactly as much as it did, regardless of my pop culture awareness, or lack there of.  The siding had probably been white once, but now it was the grey color of a drowned corpse.  There were splotches of brown mildew here and there, and the windows couldn’t possibly have served their purpose through the grime and build-up.  Wishing I’d chosen to stay at the Hilton in the French Quarter, I twisted the rusted doorknob; half afraid it would fall off in my hand.

The inside of Grizzly Manor was scarcely better-maintained than the outside.  The floral wallpaper was yellowed and peeling.  The floor-to-ceiling, heavy velvet curtains were in need of a good dusting.  The maroon carpet was worn thin.  In front of a staircase that I wasn’t sure could hold my weight, was a small desk to check-in, clearly made by the owner rather than a carpenter.  In the back of the house was a kitchen, which probably got about as much use as the dining room, and judging by the two retirees splitting the early bird special (the only patrons in the restaurant), that wasn’t a lot.

Behind the homemade check-in counter sat a woman who could have been seventeen just as easily as she could have been thirty.  Her thick, shining curls that grazed her shoulders looked like oozing chocolate.  She squinted into a copy of Anna Karenina from behind a pair of tortoise-shell glasses.  The cover was as weather-beaten as the house, so it seemed like it was hardly her first time working towards Anna’s tragic demise.  Her skin was untouched by any age lines and would have looked youthful if not for its pale, waxen pigment.  She didn’t look up when I opened the door, or when I closed it, or when I somewhat roughly dropped my bag to the floor.  Slowly reaching over the counter, I gave her a long grace period during which to acknowledge my entry.  Sympathetic to the habit of being so engrossed in a book to the oblivion of the rest of the world, I gave the bell the softest of dings.

Even as gently as I tried to do this, it still sounded like a very high-pitched gunshot.

The woman looked up with a deep breath, like being awoken from a dream.  With a once over that made it clear that she resented my interruption, she asked, “Can I help you?”

“Yes, I’m checking in.”

Bored, the girl looked down to a leather-bound guestbook.  There wasn’t a computer in sight.  “Name?”

“Lockwood.  My last name is Lockwood.”

The girl scanned down the page with her index finger, before landing on my name and dragging it across the page to see which room I’d be staying in.  Eventually, one eyebrow slowly rose and she let out a, “Hm.”  I was about to inquire as to her apparent confusion, but she turned around to dial a phone that may have actually been installed when the house was built.  “It’s me,” she told the person on the other end.  “The guest stayin’ in the White Room is here.”  She pronounced it, he-uh.  After a beat, she responded, “Well I don’t have the key.  Yeah,” and she hung up.  It was very clear, even from that small exchange that whomever she was speaking to was not someone whom she held in very high regard.  Addressing me again, she told me, “He’ll be down in a minute to give you the key.”

“Key?” I asked in wonder.  She may as well have told me I could access my room with a fossil. 

The woman looked at me like I’d grown a third eye.  “Yeah, a key,” she slowly confirmed.  “You know, what you use to lock and unlock doors?”  With one hand, she mimed locking and unlocking a doorknob. 

Chuckling, I assured her that I did, in fact, know what a key was.  “Most places you go to now have access cards.  I can’t remember the last time I had an actual key to a room.”

The woman scoffed.  “I think you’d have a hard time finding anyone in the Bayou who’s even heard the term ‘access card.’”

I was wondering whether or not she was exaggerating when the stairs creaked under someone’s heavy weight.  At the bottom appeared a black man, probably in his late thirties or early forties, who towered over the girl behind the counter.  I imagined that he towered over most people in general.  His almond-shaped eyes were a light green color I couldn’t quite place, maybe like grass after a night of frost.  He looked familiar, and I should have recognized him then, but I’m ashamed to say I didn’t.  After giving me the same somewhat disapproving look as the woman had, he handed her a key on a piece of white ribbon.  I marveled at the ancient metal.  The man spoke up, gruffly asking the woman, “Where’s Lance?”

She raised her eyebrows and gave him a flippant shrug.  “I don’t know.”  She may as well have added, “and I don’t care,” out loud, because I was certain that she did in her head.

The man had no tolerance for this poor attitude.  “Well get him in here!” he half-snapped, half-growled.  Then, gesturing to me, he pointed out, “She’s got bags!”

“Oh, it’s just the one, I can manage,” I assured him, trying not to wince and hoping against hope that I could spare this girl, and whoever Lance was, any verbal lashings.   

The man was unconvinced.  “She’s supposed to carry her own bags?  Are you that unprofessional now?  Do you have no standards?”

Clearing my throat, I tried to intervene.  “Sir?  Uh…sir?” 

The man stopped berating the girl (who, to her credit, didn’t seem like she cared at all), and turned to look at me.  After a minute of waiting for me to continue, he grew impatient and barked, “Yeah?”

At that moment, a blonde boy who I could only assume was Lance entered the lobby.  The black man had his back to him, and by the way Lance was looking down and leaning against the wall, I had a feeling he’d like to remain undetected.

I didn’t want to give him up, so I quickly looked back up at the man.  “Sorry to interrupt but…you look so familiar to me.  Do I know you from somewhere?”

The man gave me a blank stare.  His green eyes suddenly faded, like a favorite sweater after too many rinse cycles.  The ghost of a smile pulled at the corners of his mouth, but it wasn’t a smile of any sort of pleasure.  It was awful.  It felt like the Grim Reaper was trailing one skeletal finger down my spine.  I was chilled by the smile, but not so much that I missed the look Lance shot the woman.  She looked from the man, then met Lance’s gaze, but as soon as she did, Lance blushed and looked away.  Ah, young love.  It seemed a strange setting for it, but it wasn’t hard to believe, since these two seemed to be in the Grizzly Manor trench together.

Finally, the man answered, “You?  Know me?  I doubt it.”  Somehow catching on to Lance’s presence, he whipped around.  “Lance.  Bag.”

Lance sprang into action, picking up my duffel and holding his hand out to the woman, palm up, for the key.  She dropped it into his hand, not bothering to meet his eye.  In fact, she turned her head in the opposite direction, with a look of near disgust.  I figured it was a lover’s quarrel and followed Lance up the stairs.  As I climbed the narrow staircase, I could hear the man I didn’t know continuing his verbal assault on the girl.  I cringed, feeling somehow responsible.

We passed three other doors before reaching the one to the White Room.  Lance placed my bag down and unlocked the door to reveal a room that could have been transported from the Cape.  The walls were white with obvious water damage from the Deep South humidity.  They were bare, with only a pencil sketch of a swamp on one wall.  There was also a tiny bookshelf and I recognized the spines of the classics just as easily as I’d be able to recognize my own children from a distance.  There was a rocking chair facing the bed, over the head of which was a small window.  The branches of a magnolia tree clacked against the foggy, smudged glass pains, and I found that I wasn’t even surprised at the creepy cliché.  Everything about Louisiana had made me uneasy since I left the airport, why not this?  The rocking chair was swaying slightly, and the room smelled faintly of cologne, as if someone had only just recently left.  “Was there someone staying in this room last night?”

“No, ma’am,” Lance automatically answered, shaking his head. 

I winced at the formal way of calling me an old lady.  “Oh.  Well…thank you.” 

I reached for my wallet to tip him, but Lance had already mumbled, “Yes, ma’am,” and started to back away.  He had gotten halfway out the door, pulling it shut behind him when he turned back around and timidly asked, “Ma’am?”

“Please, call me Emily.”
            “Yes, ma’am.”  Okay, I wasn’t sure Lance fully understood the concept of my last request.  Continuing his original line of thought, he asked, “Did you really not recognize him?”

Shaking my head, I honestly replied, “No, I didn’t.  Why?  Should I have?”

Lance smiled the same ghost of a smile as the man downstairs, before clearing his throat and answering, “No, you shouldn’t have, ma’am.”  And he left, clicking the door closed behind him.

Author's Note

This is a modern re-telling of Wuthering Heights that takes place in various places around Louisiana. It was hard to work out because Wuthering Heights actually has a really odd narrative structure. Any and all comments are appreciated, and if you have questions or anything is unclear please don't be afraid to say so.