Read Online A Broom With a View by Rebecca Patrick-Howard - Free Book Online Page B

be.”
    “You’d be the youngest one with us, but I don’t think that would bother someone like you,” Effie hedged, eyes drilling into Liza’s. “And the sad fact of the matter is, if we don’t start getting some of these young folks involved then when my generation goes there won’t be anyone to carry it on.”
    Liza nodded her head and tried not to wince as the other woman’s long fingernails dug into her skin.
    “Young people today, they don’t care like they used to. You can’t get these teenagers to do things in the community anymore. They want to be playing on their computers, talking to people in California or Japan when they don’t even know the person who lives next door,” Effie declared, her voice full of emotion. “Just breaks my heart, it does. Soon we’re not going to be a community anymore at all.”
    Whether she’d finally caved in from the guilt trip or the pain, Liza finally found herself agreeing to participate in everything Effie threw at her. She’d signed some forms, diligently copied meeting times into her tablet’s calendar app, and exchanged phone numbers.
    And by the time the little woman sailed regally through her door, Liza even found herself chair of a committee.
    She still wasn’t sure how that had happened.
     

***
    Liza Jane stood back and admired her new floors and the beautiful cherry shelves that lined the walls. She was itching to get started on the unpacking part but it was getting dark. She’d need to return the next day. So far she’d been doing treatments, but hadn’t yet unpacked her products and started pushing those yet.
    “I own a business, I own a business,” she sang as she danced around, her boots echoing on the floor and filling the empty room. Outside, the cars whizzed by, windows rolled down and speakers blaring everything from Hank Williams Sr. to Kanye West and Bill Monroe.
    Liza walked over to the one of the windows and placed her palm on the cool glass, careful not to leave any fingerprints or smudges; she’d just cleaned them. The streetlights were on and they cast a warm, rosy glow over the sidewalks. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine what downtown Kudzu looked like back in the 1960s and ‘70s, when the shops were full and the sidewalks busy. She was astute enough to know that those days were never coming back, but she hoped she could do her part to bring a little something to the town again.
    Her own brand of magic.
    “Careful Lizzie.”
    The voice, gruff and melodic, swept through the room.
    Liza could feel the hairs on the back of her arms stand at attention. The voice, laced with cigarettes and the occasional shot of rum, was deep enough it could’ve been a man’s. But it wasn’t.
    “Nana Bud?” Liza whispered and turned, expecting to see her grandmother standing a few feet from her.
    The room was empty and still, but the light streaking in through the windows shimmered just a little in the middle of the floor. She knew she wasn’t alone.
    “Watch,” came the voice again.
    Liza strained her eyes and focused them on the point in the floor where the light beams gathered and became something nearly solid. A thick wisp of smoke rose from the newly-laid floorboards and drifted upward, fanning out like a flower as it gathered in strength and opacity. Liza took several steps towards it, unafraid, and watched curiously as her heart pounded in her chest.
    Though she couldn’t see her grandmother, she could feel her sweet, steely strength. The vision that eventually formed was startling, to say the least: the blood seeping into the ground, the screaming, her own face…But now there was a woman as well, a woman she’d never seen before. The woman lay on the floor, her face red and puffy and streaked with tears. Black lines ran from her eyes where her mascara had bled. Her blood-red lipstick was smeared across her mouth. Her ratty old coat was torn and stained with something dark. It was hitched up above her legs and pooled