Bentley Little: The Association

Barry shook his head, baffled. "I don't know."

"I don't think it was meant for us. It's obviously been sitting up there for a long time."

"Maybe kids left it. You know, when we were little, my sister and I

buried a fake treasure map before we left Napa, hoping that whoever dug it up later would think it was real and try to search for the treasure.

Maybe this is something like that. A prank."

"Maybe," she said doubtfully.

"Well, what do you think it is?"

"I have no idea. But it seems totally serious to me. I don't mean that we should take it seriously, but it seems like whoever wrote it was dead serious and was trying to get across what he thought was important information."

Barry took the note from her, glanced over it again. "What do you think we should do with it?"

"Throw it away," Maureen told him. She knew it was stupid, knew it was superstitious, but the idea of having that scribbled warning sitting in their house spooked her a little. "It's old, and it's not even ours.

There's no reason to keep it."

Barry nodded. "Yeah. You're right." He wadded up the envelope and note and tossed them both into the plastic garbage sack in the middle of the floor.

"Weird," he said, walking back to the closet. "Very weird."

Other than that, the remodeling proceeded smoothly. The combination of high altitude and manual labor tired them out and led them to bed each night well before their usual time of eleven, but their days were full, they got a lot of work done, and gradually the house began to take shape.

Outside, they cleared brush, trimmed dead branches off the trees, and planted flowers and shrubs that Maureen bought at Corban's only nursery, a mom-and-pop operation adjacent to the Shell station. Under the lower deck, Barry found not only a working wheelbarrow but part of an antique plow, which Maureen strategically placed in the patch of dirt next to the driveway in order to give the front of the house a more rustic look.

It was their third Friday in their new home, and they'd been working on the sloping section of the lot on the north side of the house and were returning from one of their numerous trips to the dump when Ray Dyson flagged them down. The old man was walking down the hill as part of his afternoon constitutional, and Barry slowed the Suburban, rolling down his window. "Hey, Ray."

The old man nodded. "Barry. Maureen. I was wondering if you two would like to come by for dinner tonight. Liz and I would love to have you."

Barry looked over at Maureen, who glanced down at her filthy clothes, at the work gloves she'd tossed on the floor. She shook her head.

Barry smiled. "I don't think so. Some other time maybe."

"Come on. It's not anything formal. Hell, come as you are and wash your hands in our sink if you want. There's no standing on ceremony with us. It's just that Liz is making a batch of her spaghetti sauce, and we thought it'd be nice to have you guys over." He looked at Maureen through the open space between Barry and the steering wheel.

"Save you from having to cook tonight. No work, no dirty dishes afterward. Come on. It'll be fun."

That did sound tempting, she had to admit, and when Barry looked back at her once again, she nodded. "All right."

"Great! What time can we expect you?"

"What time do you want us?"

"Six?"

Barry nodded. "Sounds good."

"You know which house is ours, right? The redwood one you can see from your driveway. Twelve-twelve Ridge Road. Number's on the mailbox."

"We'll find it."

"See you at six, then." Ray nodded to them, waved, and continued his walk down the hill.

Barry had been planning to start on a stump that needed to be dug out, but the afternoon was getting late and they were both tired, so they went inside to clean up. Maureen took a bath in the downstairs bathroom while he took a shower upstairs. He finished well before she did, and when Maureen emerged dressed and refreshed, she found him lying on the couch dead asleep, CNN blaring loudly on the television.

She quietly grabbed a few magazines from the coffee table and went upstairs to read on the deck, letting him rest.

They left the house at quarter to six. Barry had wanted to drive, but there was the beginning of a beautiful sunset, and Ray's house was close, less than a block away. "You have to get out of that California mind-set," she told him. "There's no reason to drive everywhere. Especially on a gorgeous day like today." She motioned west, toward pink clouds that ringed the setting sun.

"You're right," Barry admitted. "Habit."

Even after all of their yard work the past week, both she and Barry were pitifully out of shape, and they were huffing and puffing as they walked up the hill to Ray's house. They slowed the pace for the last couple of yards, trying to catch their breath, and finally stopped to rest at the edge of the Dysons’ gravel driveway.

"Jesus," Barry said. "This altitude's a killer."

Maureen took his hand, pulled him forward. "Come on. My throat's dried out. The sooner we get in there, the sooner we can get something to drink."

Ray had stopped by a couple of times to chat while they were working in the yard, but this was the first opportunity for either of them to meet his wife. Liz Dyson was a petite elderly woman with a sophisticated demeanor who seemed an odd fit with the earthier Ray, but after only a few minutes with the couple, Maureen could see how the two complemented each other, and she thought them a good match.

After some obligatory introductory chitchat, Liz brought glasses of wine, and Ray led them all on a tour of the house.

Which was spectacular.

The Dysons’ place was like something out of a home decorating magazine.

Maureen thought their house had quite a view, but it was nothing compared to their hosts'. The sun had still not set completely, and the fire-red sky illuminated hundreds of miles of forests and canyons, little opalescent glints in the landscape marking tin-roofed ranch houses, miner's shacks, and windmills. Below them, the town of Corban was shrouded in shadow from the surrounding hills and mountains, and lights were blinking on in downtown buildings. It was a breathtaking panorama that put to shame any postcard shot she'd ever seen, and the line of windows that made up the south-facing wall of the Dysons’ living room and overlooked this magnificent vista curved gracefully in an almost perfect half-circle. The room itself was furnished rustically with lodgepole-pine tables and chairs, a southwestern print couch, and a glass-topped coffee table with a tree stump base.

They went from there to the kitchen. It was huge, with an indoor grill built into the Mexican-tiled island between the refrigerator and sink.

A greenhouse window faced the side of the property and a terraced garden. There was a gigantic pot of spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove, and the entire room smelled deliciously of garlic and onion and spices.

The master bedroom, guest bedroom, and den were sparsely and tastefully furnished, and Maureen found herself wondering where Ray and Liz kept all their... stuff. Where were the photographs of friends and family, the collected knicknacks , the tangible personal effects that represented their past? Had the two of them simply thrown out the accumulations of their East Coast life when they moved out here? It didn't make any sense, but it seemed so. She and Barry had more junk in one room than the Dysons seemed to have in then- entire house, and it was hard to believe that two such homey old people were so completely unsentimental.

But it was not her place to wonder, and as they walked back out to the living room, she complimented their hosts on having such a beautiful house.

Liz smiled graciously. "Thank you."

Ray grinned. "Sure beats Hackensack." He patted Maureen's arm, motioned for Barry to come and look at his new wide screen TV, and as the two men started talking electronics, Maureen followed Liz into the kitchen.