marcia first saw eleanor’s new house when she was helping her move into it.
eleanor had mentioned that the house was “in the middle of nowhere” but this had not really registered on marcia.
they had been driving for eighteen minutes - almost fourteen miles - without seeing another house or building when eleanor finally pulled the u-haul vehicle into a driveway.
this looks like it is in the middle of nowhere, said marcia, as soon they got out of the vehicle.
isn’t that what i said? eleanor asked, with a smile.
marcia looked around. she looked up and down the road they had driven up on. iis there anything in the other direction?
what?
if you keep driving on down the road is there a village or something? or a country store? or a gas station or a police station?
yes, about another sixteen miles down there is the town of helford or halford or somethin
or something? marcia asked. have you been there?
not yet. i might check it out tomorrow. eleanor laughed again. come on, let’s get this stuff inside. that is what we are here for.
marcia looked around again as eleanor unlocked the back of the vehicle.
she thought the most noticeable thing about the house was how close to the road it was. it was perfectly visible to anybody driving down the road in either direction.
if i was going to put a house all the way out here, thought marcia, i would at least have it off the road behind all these trees and halfway hidden from any lunatic or serial killer passing by. but she decided not to voice this thought to eleanor, at least not right away.
it took about two hours for the two women to get eleanor’s possessions into the house and placed to eleanor’s satisfaction.
eleanor had described the house as a dump but it looked all right to marcia - clean and with no holes in the walls or roof that she could see. the lights and plumbing worked.
marcia was also a little surprised by how much junk eleanor had brought with her. she supposed it had sentimental value.
eleanor had purchased the house to give herself solitude as she worked on her two memoirs. she was working on one memoir about addiction, and another one about emotional dependency.
marcia and eleanor had met in a memoir writing workshop. marcia was writing a memoir about being stalked, by a person whose identity she had never learned. she had changed her own name and identity and moved to a new state to finally (?) escape the stalker.
marcia had a job in an office - she told people it was an office although her employers referred to it as a campus - that she could not describe.
eleanor was supported by her parents. actually by her father, who lived in europe with his third wife and whom eleanor saw about once a year.
when they finished the unpacking they took a couple of starbucks coffee drinks out of the perfectly functioning refrigerator. the drinks had made the trip in a cooler and were quite cold. marcia would have preferred a beer or a real drink but of course knew that eleanor would not have such a thing.
let’s take a walk around, eleanor suggested when they finished the coffee drinks. unless you have suddenly decided you have had enough country?
oh, no no. marcia had indicated when she offered to help eleanor that she had “all day” and “wasn’t going anywhere”. despite’s eleanor’s offer, it would have been rude to ask her to drive her back to the city right away.
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