Bentley Little: The Burning

Angela strode purposefully down the corridor, her confidence bolstered by the authoritative click of her heels on the institutionally tiled floor. Man, woman, it didn't matter; she'd been promised a dorm room and she was going to give the housing administrator living hell until her problem was solved. Only she didn't.

Edna Wong, the elderly woman in office 1A, was friendly, apologetic and understanding, and of course Angela did not have the heart to jump down the old lady's throat as she'd planned. In fact, as always, she eventually found herself apologizing to the housing administrator for being such an inconvenience. She hated herself for backing off even as she did it, but he alternative was to blame this nice old woman for something that wasn't her fault. She was just a part of the machine, a cog in the system.

"I can't tell you how sorry I am that this happened," he administrator told her. "Rest assured, you will get top priority for housing next semester. But there are roughly twenty-five or twenty-six of you who have been displaced because of this mix-up, and despite our promise to you, I'm afraid we simply have no more room in our on-campus housing."

"I understand, Mrs. Wong."

"Call me Edna."

"-but I have no place to live. I assumed that I did because of the letter you sent me, and now I'm ... 'm homeless. I literally have nowhere to go. I don't know anyone in this state, I've never been here before, I don't have much money. I would have made other arrangements or figured something out if I'd been told ahead of time, but this was just sprung on me today, and ..." She had to stop, look away and bite her lip to keep from crying. Mrs. Wong- Edna -reached across the desk and took Angela's hand in hers. "Don't worry. Everything will turn out all right."

Angela didn't trust herself to respond.

"I want to help you," the housing administrator said kindly. She rummaged through her desk. "Since you got such a raw deal, and it is our fault ..." She handed Angela a three-by-five card. "Here. We have a bulletin board out front with students looking for roommates, but I haven't put this on the board yet. Why don't you take it?"

Angela read the card:

Wanted. Female roommate, no smoking, no drugs, to share furnished two-bedroom, one-bath apartment. $275 per month plus utilities. Call Chrissie Paige. 555-4532.

"In fact, let me call for you. I know Chrissie."

The old woman not only set up an appointment for Angela to meet Chrissie Paige and look at the apartment that afternoon; she also vouched for her, promising that Angela was reliable and trustworthy and would make a great roommate. Just the fact that she was willing to stick her neck out left Angela feeling so grateful that she almost started crying again.

"Don't do that, dear," Edna begged. She smiled brightly. "Everything's going to be fine. Despite the

problems computers cause us, people can always find a way to work things out. NAU's a terrific school, and Flagstaff's a wonderful town. You're going to have a great semester. And next term, if you still want it, you'll be at the top of the list for on-campus housing."

"Thank you," Angela said. "Thank you so much."

"You're welcome, dear."

State Street was located off what must have once been the downtown district, just across old Route 66 north of the railroad tracks, a series of blocks with closely packed buildings of faded brick or rough-hewn stone, several of them three or four stories tall-what passed for high-rises here in Flagstaff. All looked as though they'd seen better days, but at the same time the area seemed on the upswing. There was a small used bookstore, a health-food store and a couple of cafe-style restaurants. There was even a church with gargoyles lining its peaked roof, and Angela didn't think she'd ever seen gargoyles in real life before.

The apartment building itself was an old Victorian home that had been subdivided and converted. The Standout in an eclectic neighborhood that included a couple of California-style Craftsman cottages, a Tudor home, a log cabin and several homes that appeared to be made from chunks of lava, the apartment house boasted not only an incredibly ornate facade but a rolling lawn three to four times bigger than any other on the block.

Chrissie Paige was waiting on that lawn when Angela drove up. Tan and frizzy-haired, wearing a halter top and cutoff jeans, the girl, like a lot of the students she'd seen in Flagstaff, looked somewhat hippieish, which Angela found oddly comforting. That era had always seemed to her to have a greater sense of community than the fractured world in which she'd grown up. There'd always been a few neohippies back in Los Angeles, but as with everything else, that look was inevitably tied to some musical movement or other. Appearance and culture in California were always connected to entertainment. Here the lifestyle seemed somehow more real, more organic. She liked that.

The other girl stood, brushed grass off her cutoffs. "Are you Angela? I'm Chrissie."

"Hi," Angela said shyly. She felt slightly embarrassed, as though Mrs. Wong- Edna- had forced Chrissie to see her against her will, but that wore off almost instantly as the other girl led her up the lawn to the house, chatting happily.

"This place was originally built by one of the Babitts. The Babbitts practically owned northern Arizona. You know Bruce Babbitt, who used to be secretary of the Interior? His family. You'll see buildings up here named after them, department stores, almost everything. Anyway, one of the cousins or something built this place fifty, sixty years ago. I think it was empty for a while-no one could afford it-so eventually someone bought the house and subdivided it into apartments. I think that was in the sixties or seventies. And here we are."

Chrissie led her through the front door into an elaborate foyer. Straight ahead was a long wide hallway, to the right a curving staircase of dark wood that led to the second floor. Angela followed Chrissie upstairs, where a hallway identical to the one on the ground floor stretched toward the rear of the house. They stopped at the first doorway on the left. "My place," Chrissie said, opening the door. "I don't know if Edna told you or if you saw the ad, but it's a two-bedroom. We have a small kitchen, one bathroom and a sitting room. As you can see, it's pretty big, though. And the view from the bedroom windows is awesome. You have to look over the roof of the house next door, but you get a perfect view of the San Francisco Peaks. By next month, they'll be covered with yellow when the aspens change. It's pretty spectacular."

Angela peeked through the open doorways of the two bedrooms. Both were larger than her bedroom back home, and though hers was the smaller of the two, it had a full-sized four-poster bed rather than the headboardless twin she was used to, and an oversized dresser that could hold twice as many clothes as she owned.

"Of course, you can decorate it however you want, put up pictures, posters, whatever."

"Wow," Angela said, walking into the room and looking around. She glanced out the window, saw the mountains. "Only two hundred and seventy-five for his place?"

"It's haunted," Chrissie offered.

Angela looked over at the other girl to see if she was joking, but she didn't appear to be.

"It's true. I mean, that's the rumor. I've never actually seen anything. But Winston and Brock, downstairs, say that they've heard stuff. Moaning, mumbling, the usual."

"Here?"

"No. In the house. Not your room in particular. In fact, I haven't heard any stories about our apartment at all. They all seem to be downstairs. But supposedly,

that's the reason the rent's so cheap. I don't believe in ghosts or gods or anything supernatural myself, but in the interest of full disclosure I thought I'd better lay all the cards on the table in case you're the type of person who worries about that stuff."