I had been to the basement with the garbage and recyclables before I picked up yesterday’s mail and a few packages. As I stuffed four envelopes, a Gramophone magazine, and three packages into my walker’s tote bag, I ran into Diana, my favorite first floor neighbor., We gossiped about things in the building, and she mentioned that Chris and Andrea on four had adopted a kitten.
Well, finally! I exclaimed, I’ve got some gossip that will interest my cats!
This was sadly true; concerns about mail theft, the dreadful child who set fire to the basement, the horrible wife-beater, none of this interested Annabelle, Thatch, or Stella. The only gossip that interested Annabelle was the fact that Ricky Martin lived in the building while hje was performing in Les Miserables. He was very pleasant, but that was over thirty years ago and I really remembered nothing about him.
I hurried into the apartment, removed my envelopes and packages from the walker and set them on the teacart, took my cane from yjr edge of the stove and walked into the living area. I looked around. Thatch and Stella were chasing a ball around the bed, but Annabelle was nowhere in sight.
Annabelle! I called. Missy! Where are you? I ave some gossip you might like.
At the word “gossip,” Thatch and Stella stopped playing. They sat up and looked at me intently.
Gossip? Thatch asked.
A little. I saw Diana in the lobby.
Will you tell us?
I will tell all of you. Where’s Annabelle? Do you know?
She’s in our office, Thatch said, watching your ballet.
The one she called lousy?
Actually, Daddy, she really likes it. She’s been watching it every day since it went online. She was just mad that you wouldn’t let her dance the lead.
Thatch! How many times do I have to tell you? She isn’t a student in the Indiana University ballet program! I had no say in the matter. Besides, she’s a cat.
A talented cat, Thatch answered, you know Annabelle; she’s gotta have the leading role.
Well, she was good in that Irish Rep show, remember?
Daddy, she played an Irish housecat.
I just wish someone would produce CATS, I muttered as I sat down to open my Gramophone; it’s my favorite magazine.
Someone’s producing CATS? Annabelle asked. Her head peeked out of the linen closet where she, Stella, and Thatch have their office.
There you are, Missy! I exclaimed. I was just wishing someone would produce CATS for you.
So do I, Daddy! So do I.
So, what are you up to, Missy? I asked.
Annabelle left the closet and ambled over to the computer table. She leaped onto it and turned to face me.
I was watching Star on the Rise on the computer in our office. I would have been so good in the lead –
Don’t start! I snapped, I’m tired of hearing this.
Do you know this young man who plays the lead?
Fletcher Barr? No, not really. We’re Facebook and Instagram friends, but I can’t say we’re friends by any stretch of the imagination. Why?
Well, I’ve decided to add a ballet number to my one-kitty show, Annabelle with an A. I will need a partner.
My blood ran cold. Annabelle with an A was back in her thoughts? Her last attempt to gain cabaret stardom in 2019 had been a disaster, unmitigated disaster. Mt friend Rob Berman had agreed to be her musical director. Every rehearsal was terrifying. Rob would begin a song, and after two bars she stopped him to ask, Is that the right intro? Annabelle, he replied, that’s the same intro I played for the last five rehearsals. Well, let me hear it again, she answered.
I had never seen Rob cry before.
So, Annabelle with an A was postponed while Annabelle looked for another musical director.
Days passed quietly – well, relatively quietly – which is rare at 202 West 82. We celebrated Stella’s fifth Gotcha Day with a gathering of friends and animals in the building, Annabelle and Thatch worked on her cabaret act “Annabelle with an A,” Rob Berman refused to be her music director again, and Annabelle usurped all my ballet DVDs and dragged them off to the linen closet where she and Thatch could watch them in their office.
Why are you taking them? I asked.
I want to decide what the best pas de deux will be for me and Fletcher Barr.
Really? Has he responded to your Facebook messages?
No, but how could he refuse my wonderful offer?
Annabelle! You don’t have a music director, a cabaret venue-
Can you book 54 Below for me, please, Daddy?
Do you have a performance date?
Oh, stop it! she yelled, I’m an artiste! I cannot do this all by myself. C’mon, Thatch. Let’s watch some ballet.
And with that. she and Thatch took my DVDs into the linene closet. I’ll probably never see them again. Now I need to call 54 Below and inquire if they seat cats, dogs, pigeons, and whatever livestock Annabelle thinks will show up for her act
I remain amazed I am not a drunk.
So, this morning, as I was cleaning the litter box, Annabelle and Thatch watched me work. I gave them some sad gossip: our 80+ year-old neighbor Johnny finally died. In 2020, he caught Covid and vanished from the building for months. I thought I’d never see him again, but he finally returned. Within weeks, he had fallen, and an ER crew carried him off. Again, I told the neighbors that I worried we would never see him. This game of in and out went open through early 2024, when I heard he was once again taken back to a hospital where he eventually died. He was a good neighbor for more than forty years, and I will miss him.
Oh, that’s so sad, Annabelle told us. I remember when we used to patrol the building on mornings, and we occasionally saw him in the lobby.
Did I ever see him? Thatch asked.
I don’t think so, Thatch, I told him. You hardly ever leave the apartment –
And stranger scare you! Annabelle added with a laugh.
Annabelle, be nice to the baby, okay?
Ignoring me, she added, Stella might have seen him! When she came here, she ran all over the building.
Yes, Johnny caught Stella cruising the halls.
Do you know who will move into the apartment? Thatch asked.
They haven’t started redoing it. I heard helived there for sixty years and I betcha there’s a lot of cleaning and painting to be done before it’s rented. You know, Johnny and I never agreed politically, but he was a good man and a good neighbor. I will miss him.
Do you worry about death, Daddy? Annabelle asked.
Every day, Annabelle. I know that I’m older than I ever thought I’d be, and I might be living on borrowed time.
She laughed, Borrowed time? That is so funny, Thatch! You can’t go next door and borrow time like a cup of sugar!
Annabelle, I said as I re-assembled the clean litter box, it’s an expression, a turn of phrase. I know my time here is dwindling. I just want to live long enough to get you, Thatch, and Stella through school.
But you have to be around for my opening nights when I’m a star!
I’ll try, Missy! I stood up, brushed my knees, took the garbage bag of dirty litter off the doorknob, took my cane, and turned to them. C’mon, kids. Let’s blow this popsicle stand.
I hobbled into the kitchen and tossed the garbage bag into my tote bag for the basement. Annabelle and Thatch ran ahead of me into the living area. I followed them and sat down in the computer chair. As I scrolled through my emails, Annabelle leaped onto the computer table.
Hello, Missy! I said. Can you believe this? thirty-two emails and I only care about four or five of them.
I deleted emails while Annabelle watched. She said nothing, and soon Thatch and Stella jumped onto the table to join her.
Hey, babies, I said. What’s up?
Go one, Annabelle, Thatch said. You started this.
What? I asked. Annabelle?
Are you dying? she asked me.
I laughed, I hope not!
We don’t want you to! Thatch added.
Well, I don’t know. We’ve lived through my two rounds of cancer treatments, and I’m still here. Does that help?
Are you afraid of dying? she asked.
I am! Thatch stated.
I don’t know, Missy, I replied. I do know I’m afraid of becoming a ghost haunting this building. I’d rather end up at the rainbow bridge and wait for you all to join me.
Thatch added, If we die first, we’ll wait for you there!
To my surprise, I began to weep. I don’t want to think about any of this! I told them, I can’t, I just can’t.
See what you started, Thatch! Annabelle snapped.
I started?
C’mon, babies, don’t fight, please.
Stella smacked her tambourine.
You never answered my question, Annabelle turned to me. Are you afraid of dying?
I am afraid that the day I die, I will open the door, and she will be standing there.
She? Thatch asked. Who’s she?
Yes! Who is this she? Annabelle asked.
The most frightening thing I’ve ever encountered.
Ha! Annabelle laughed You’re afraid of some woman? Do we know her?
This wasn’t a woman, Annabelle; it was a ghost, an apparition, a specter, a nightmare, only I was awake. I encountered it at midnight on a country road in June 1969, when I was in grad school.
Ooh, Thatch shivered. Really?
You don’t seem to be afraid of the ghosts in this building, Annabelle told me.
He’s afraid of the ones in the basement, Annabelle, Thatch stated. I am, too.
Well, we all are! Annabelle stated. You know you are.
Stella isn’t, Thatch told us, are you, Stella?
Stella smacked her tambourine, then settled on my lap.
When did Stella become a lap cat? Annabelle asked.
This is a new development, I told them. She started this a couple of months ago.
She loves you, Daddy; that’s why, Thatch said.
Annabelle looked at Stella for a long minute before she turned back to me. Okay, she said, tell us about this thing that scared you.
Will this frighten you, Thatch? I asked.
I’m not afraid of ghosts. Tell us your story.
Well, it was during Miami University Summer Theatre –
Where? Annabelle asked.
Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio, Missy. It’s a small town, maybe a village, about twenty-five miles from my parents’ home in Middletown.
A summer theater! Annabelle exclaimed. Could I be in a show there?
N, baby, I’m sorry. The summer theatre folded years ago. I worked on the first six seasons. It was great training. That summer, I was running the costume department and mostly living at home and driving back and forth daily. I’d leave home around 8:00, do whatever shopping I needed for whatever I was working on, drive to Oxford, work with the costume crew, run the show, and then drive back home to Middletown around 11:00 that night.
You did that every day? Annabelle asked.
Yep. Well, most of the time, and the first show was a rather poor production of Bye Bye Birdie.
Oh! Annabelle stated, I love this show! I’d be a good Kim. How lovely to be a woman, she crooned.
Thatch rolled his eyes. I wanna hear the story!
I laughed. It really wasn’t a very good production; there were so many better shows during the years I worked the summer theater. There were many wonderful people working on it, but . . . My voice trailed off.
But what? Annabelle asked.
I was just thinking about so many friends who have either died or disappeared from my life.
Don’t start crying again! Annabelle ordered. Tell us about the spook!
Charles Irvine, my roommate during the school year, was one of the leads, and he was staying in a large apartment with several of the performers and some of the tech crew, and some nights I’d stay over and crash on the sofa in the apartment.
I really miss that Irish Rep show, Annabelle told us. I loved hanging out with the cast and crew. Isn’t the theater fun?
I wanna hear Daddy’s story, Annabelle!
All right, okay, continue!
Thank you, Missy, I said. I laughed, now I have to get back in the mood. Because Charles was my roommate during the school term, he’d been to my parents’ home several times, and my mother really liked him. Unlike me, he would listen to her and spend hours smoking and laughing with her.
Unlike you? Annabelle asked, What does that mean?
I generally ignored her when I could. My mother and I had a prickly relationship. So, one night after the show, Charles asked if he could ride back to Middletown with me.
Why? Thatch asked.
We were best friends, and I think he liked the chance to get away from an apartment filled with people and spend time hanging out at my house. He thought my mother was funny; I thought she was crazy. You know, I’ve told you before trhat our house was haunted, and we used to play with the ouija board to contact spirits. So . . . after the show, we asked Earl Bush, who was playing Birdie, if he wanted to come with us. “You might see a ghost,” Charles told him.
And you did! Thatch enthused.
Well, yes and no. Route 73 is the road that runs from Oxford to Trenton to Middletown; it’s about a 30 minute drive to my house. Between Middletown and Trenton and Trenton and Oxford the road mostly runs through miles of farmland. There’s this section of road after Route 73 breaks from Route 127, between Collinsville and Trenton, with all these treacherous turns and curves where several bridges cross the same winding stream at various turns. As we approached the first curve – it had to be just about midnight – my headlights picked up a young woman walking into the road from the far side of the other lane –
A young woman? Annabelle asked. How young?
I couldn’t tell, Annabelle. I guessed she was young, but she could have been older . . . I just don’t know.
Go on, Thatch urged.
Well, she tottered like a drunk as she walked. she was stiff-legged as though her knees were locked, and she swayed from side to side. She was terrifying: she was wet and she wore a white nightgown with a red and black plaid blanket about her shoulders. Her long wet black hair was unkempt and falling into a face frozen in a screaming grimace. Her eyes were wide open and staring straight ahead. The worst [part was, she was walking directly into my car!
Really? Annabelle asked.
I’m not making this up, Annabelle. As my car neared the curve at the bridge, she had lurched into the middle of the road. She wasn’t more than a foot away from my left front headlight. I swear now that those eyes were dead . . . I had to swerve off the road to my right to avoid hitting her. If this had happened closer to the bridge, we might have crashed. Charles and I both screamed, and I got the car back onto the road. We crossed the bridge and drove about half a mile. I stopped the car and asked Charles, “did you see what I saw?” He had, and we decided to go back. Perhaps it was some high school kids playing a prank in the middle of nowhere at midnight. I drove back to the Golden Key Tavern, then turned around and drove back over the bridge; there was no one.
That’s as scary as that awful ghost we saw in the laundry room! Annabelle told us. Spoo-oo-oo-ky, huh, Thatch?
Don’t scare me, Annabelle! That ghost in the laundry room was really bad. Remember?
So, what happened then, Daddy? Annabelle asked me.
Charles and I drove home, told my mother our story about the ghost, I went to bed, and Charles and my mother stayed up all night smoking and gossiping. The next day I told my dad about it, and he asked if we were on drugs. I assured him we were not.
Why did he ask that? Thatch asked me.
Because, Thatcher, he was worried that one of my brothers had an alcohol and drug problem.
Did he?
I think so.
So, is that the end of your ghost story? Annabelle asked.
Just a little bit more. Several years later, I was at a party one night when the subject of local ghosts came up. I knew about some of the legends. My brother Tom and I had tried to find the ghost that supposedly haunts the Trenton cemetery and I remember a search once for the man who is said to appear in some cemetery near Dayton and wail over his mother’s grave. Everyone knew of one legend or another. And then, someone said, “there’s supposed to be the ghost of a girl who died in a car crash that haunts a bridge on Route 73.”
And you saw her, Thatch declared.
Well, yes, I guess. I saw something, and it was terrifying. My biggest fear is that one day I will open the door, and she will be standing there. And I will die.
She’s coming to get you, Barbara! Annabelle laughed. Can we watch The Night of the Living Dead tonight?
No! Thatch and I both said.
All right, fine. I’m going back to my office to watch more ballet. And I’m sending Mr. Fletcher Barr another email. I just know he’s dying to dance with me! Why, I could make him a star!
©2024, Larry Moore
Annabelle & Thatch 