LET’S JUST SAY, Part Two

Needless to say, Tree had me at Hello, he smokes a pipe. Mr. Pipe! We have a Mr. Pipe who sits on the woodpile and strokes his beard and means us no harm! This, I can live with! Yes! Ghost jackpot!

She had David at Hello, he smokes a pipe, too. He spun around in his desk chair, gaping. (Good old-fashioned don’t-let-the-flies-in gaping! It takes a lot to make David gape! He is not a gaper by nature! It’s impolite in Canada.)

“WHAT ELSE DID TREE SAY???”

I bet you are asking the same question. So I will tell you:

“I tried to figure out your February issues next: first, I saw an older woman in the kitchen. She spent a lot of time in the kitchen and made bread on a regular basis. She was a very big woman, and hard working. I was a bit confused about how she appeared to me…she was making bread and kneading the dough…Details were hard to get, but I felt that she is your connection to February. Valentine’s Day was especially hard; she suffered instead of being happy. I’m sorry; that’s all she showed me about what happened to her. She also showed me a little boy. I am unsure whether he lived in the house or was a friend, but she showed me that he fell through some ice…it was a big event in the town. Might be something to look into.”

Mrs. Kitchen! We have a Mrs. Kitchen and a Mr. Pipe! This feels right to me! I am feeling much better about things all of a sudden!

I just want Mrs. Kitchen to be happy. I wonder if there is anything I can do to make Valentine’s Day happier for her. I am lost in Mrs. Kitchen thoughts. I won’t make her bread because 1) I don’t know how to make bread and 2) I don’t want her to think I’m trying to steal her doughy thunder, because no doubt the little lady could bake like a dream. But maybe I can paint the pantry for her, if she’s spending so much time there. Mrs. Kitchen will find happiness, by God! She will never weep ghostly February tears again! Rainbows and white light and playful ghost puppies will spill out of the pantry once we make things right for Mrs. Kitchen!

I see that David is still gaping from his desk chair. It’s beginning to look like a Perma-Gape. It’s very endearing, really.

“Maybe you should paint a little oil painting of a loaf of bread and we can hang it up in the kitchen, in her honor,” I say.

“Uh, maybe,” says David. He uses his lips only to make the two words, then they snap back into the Gape.

Later, I ask Tree if Mrs. Kitchen and Mr. Pipe know each other. I ask her if she’s sure these aren’t mean ghosts who are going to retaliate now that I’ve ratted them out. I ask if H-Belle is safe in Mr. Pipe’s pipey old room. I ask if Mr. Pipe and Mrs. Kitchen are watching us during delicate moments. I already have to endure Victoria’s Secret dressing-room surveillance and children who want to sit on my lap when I am on the toilet.

I keep asking questions. I can’t stop.

Tree is very kind and patient with me:

“Your house is friendly! The most negative thing is that there is some sadness…but the vast majority of energy is wonderful, welcoming energy. These people LOVE people…love children and are happy for the company. I do believe the pipe-smoker is a quiet observer, just enjoying being around your lovely family. And yes, I think the woman knows him, but I’m not sure how. Husband? Father? I don’t know. But I know that when she was sick he grew distant…

Anyway, your house is a wonderful house. Nobody is going to bother you. Yeah, they could be around during your more private moments, but honestly, they don’t think of pooping or sex like we do…it’s just not funny or embarrassing anymore.

You have respect for your house and the energy in it and it (and they) appreciate that. You are doing exactly the right thing! You can say hi to them if you like, or not…it’s completely up to you! And yes, Hannah is fine in that room.

You said you wish the woman could be happy…she is! She’s mostly in the kitchen and that pantry room. I do feel like she thinks something’s in the wrong place, though. But I couldn’t begin to tell you what!”

I take a look at our kitchen. Everything is in the wrong place. The walls and cabinets are half-primed. The table is covered with boxes and buckets of paint and rollers and tarps and BIN primer and foam brushes and screwdrivers and rows of little seedlings that Sophie and I are hoping will make it into the garden. We have not eaten in the kitchen for over a month.

Oh my God! Mrs. Kitchen can’t bake her bread! She can’t roll out her ghostly dough on our kitchen table BECAUSE I AM SELFISH AND TAKING UP ALL OF HER GHOSTLY BAKING PREP AREA!

“What are you doing?” David asks.

“I’m cleaning up for Mrs. Kitchen,” I say. “So she has a place to work. I don’t want to be rude.”

“Huh,” he says. He has stopped gaping, and now he looks very amused.

I am spritzing, wiping, shoving, organizing, arranging. “And maybe we should buy some pipe tobacco and leave it out on the woodpile for Mr. Pipe.”

“We don’t have a woodpile. We don’t know where the woodpile would have been.”

“It’s the thought that counts,” I say. “We could get him some of that cherry-vanilla–scented pipe tobacco. Is there such a thing?”

Gape has transformed into a Full-On Smirk.

“I just want them to know we respect them.” Suddenly I am horrified, remembering. “Oh God, I yelled at the girls today!”

“Everyone yells sometimes,” he says. “It’s okay.”

But I am disturbed. “But what if Mr. Pipe and Mrs. Kitchen don’t like it? Now I’m going to worry that they’re assessing my parenting skills. I have to require more of myself now.”

David continues smirking. It dawns on me.

“I was a compulsive people-pleaser. Now I’m a compulsive ghost-pleaser,” I say. “Crap.”

“I think you’re going to need to write about that one,” he says.

27 comments April 12th, 2006