A Certain Scent and A Quiet Hum

Their new house was perfect. Well, as perfect as real-life perfect gets. The ride that Norm and Sheena took with the realtor was full of tales about how this home had been the perfect first home for many young couples. “It’s the bridge from newlywed-hood to loving eternity. I promise couples only move out of here when they’re moving into the next step of spending the rest of their lives together,” said Mr. Quack. “When they’re done having all the new-married fun.”

His mouth was one big, waxy veneer. He looked like an action figure, but not in an attractive way. He had this big, squared jaw, his mouth would give Mick Jagger’s an inferiority complex, and his forehead and hairline succeeded to complete the square. His voice was like a radio announcer's, a bit too loud and too rehearsed with everything that came out of it. Almost a sick kind of shiny, his hair was dark, and gelled hard enough a bullet couldn’t get through. The driver’s seat, which he kept swiveling around in to look at Sheena in the back between hyping up Norm in the front seat, was dwarfed by his massive shoulders.

Still, the word kept ringing around in Sheena’s mind. Perfect. She wasn’t one to wish for a picket fence. After all, she and Norm did elope. But, she figured, if somebody was going to throw you a chance at what everybody else wants pretty easy, you might as well get it. Besides, the house lay right between the border of the city and the suburbs. The houses were just big enough that they didn’t share walls with others, and some had proper yards, but you could still catch the train without walking too far, and no matter what time you came home, the 24 Hour market on the corner would still be glowing with life.

She wondered if Mr. Quack–she couldn’t believe that was his real name– was married or ever had been, as they passed brownstone after brownstone, autumn leafed-tree after orange-hued tree. She thought about how he had to be so many women’s idea of perfect, masculine in all the obvious ways. And yet, true to form, she just kept getting a good kind of nervous rush every time she looked at Norm in the passenger seat. He was long and thin, the bulky seat making him look even smaller.

For every sports reference thrown out by Mr. Quack, Norm nodded and laughed. He could bullshit with anybody, and like it even, he was that friendly, but he certainly didn’t watch sports. When Quack said something so obviously machismo, Norm would glance over his shoulder and throw a look at Sheena with laughing eyes. This drove her absolutely abnormal. She wanted to lay him back and kiss him all over right there in the passenger seat.

Perfect. The house, Quack had said, didn’t have a white picket fence, but they could put one in if they wanted. He laughed at his own joke. He did this a lot. He knew a guy. Something was so tempting about being handed somebody else’s dream just because you could. Perfect. Anything to make the feelings last, Sheena thought. Being married to Norm made her feel everything she wanted to feel. And, they were only just beginning.

“We’re here,” Mr. Quack announced. For all of his car salesman nature, Quack was no exaggerator. The only thing more stunning than the outside of the house was its inside. It had been painted yellow with precious white shutters on the windows and garden boxes underneath the window panes. The original chandeliers of the home were made of crystal and in perfect condition. A Tiffany stained glass window hidden away in the attic made for a pleasant surprise. And so cheap. “I already know what you’re going to say,” said Norm. He thought he had a pretty good handle on Quack by now.

“You’re gonna tell us that this house is the perfect size for when we’re ready to expand the family.” This was the first time Quack didn’t look amused. He was one of those people who always looked amused, so Norm and Sheena were a bit thrown.

“You know, this house is quite a nice one. The couples that have come through here, this isn’t really their baby home. This is their happy newlywed home. You know what I mean? This is the house where two people just get to enjoy each other. Baby can make three somewhere more suburban.”

Then, he said, “I’ll leave you two to discuss things,” leaving the couple in the attic before they could respond to his offer. There was nothing bad to say, and yet they still felt the need to speak in hushed tones. Quack was no memory, having left only a moment ago, bu in those hushed tones existed their private alliance.

“He wasn’t lying,” Sheena whispered, “its–”

“Perfect?” Norm interrupted her. “I know. And so cheap.”

“Any red flags?” Sheena said.

“Only one.”

“Me too.”

“On three?” They nodded in agreement.

“One, two…”

“The smell,” Norm said at the same time that Sheena whispered, “that sound,”

“Quite a view from the attic, huh?” Mr. Quack rejoined them so soundlessly before he spoke that they both jumped.

“Doesn’t matter if you can’t see out if its a Tiffany window. Stained glass, eh?” When he got gum, they didn’t know, but suddenly the couple seemed to be aware of nothing else but the chewy white mass moving through teeth that equated its color.

“Are we signing some papers?” He stood there, wide-eyed and mouthed.

Norm broke the silence. “Mr. Quack–,”

“Please,” the salesman cut him off. “Call me Quack. Hell, in my football days, they called me the Quackerback,” he said. “The ol’ Quackdown.”

“Quack,” Norm began again, “we really love this house, we just have some..small hesitations.”

“I promise you I can address any of them at all, I want you to know that I can handle anything for my clients. Go on, son.”

“Well, I’m concerned about…there’s a certain scent.”

“Old houses can have a certain original scent about them,” Quack said. “Especially when they haven’t been lived in for awhile. Trust me, once you two get your warmth in here,” he said with a suggestive raise of the eyebrows, “it’ll just smell like home.”

“I don’t smell anything,” Sheena said. “I mean it’s a little stale. I get what you mean. But, my concern is that…sound. There’s this hum that happens here, do you hear that?”

“Funny enough,” Norm said, “ I don’t hear that,” he said. “Can you believe it?”

“There’s a window,” Quack said, “in the basement. The screen’s broken, I told my people to have it fixed. But the wind just blows right through it, and it makes this whistle. I-Is that all? Just the smell and the whistle and otherwise it's the house of your dreams?”

The couple looked at each other, searching for deeper concerns in each other’s eyes to no avail. Finally, Norm said, “Yes, those are our primary concerns.”

Quack grinned. He knew a certain scent and a quiet hum weren’t enough to keep him from making a sale. He was, after all, the Quackerback.

_______

Tuesday at dawn, everything was perfect. Yet, Norm lay wide awake. He wasn’t anxious or sad. Well, no more or less than the usual day. Existence. He and Sheena, who lay next to him sleeping like the angel she was, her sleep having draped her in the light blue sheets she picked out for their bedroom, had lived in their new home for a month now. The move had gone smoothly, they were adjusting to the neighborhood like regular suburbanites, there was a place for everything and everything had its place.

Everything was perfect, except for that scent. Norm had washed the whole house with lemon soap just yesterday while Sheena was in for work for a few hours. The sweetness of the soap remained, but only under the lingering of that lurid, cloying scent that followed him everywhere. It was something like rotting, garbage-alley meatpies doused with smoke, loitering wherever he went. Sometimes, Norm felt like he could smell it even when he wasn’t in the house. Any time he so much as inhaled, there was the scent.

He lay in bed with Sheena, switching his breathing from his nose to his mouth, when there was a faint, hurried knock on the door. He was sure it was only in his imagination until, just as silence settled again, another knock followed.

It was Mrs. Vanderbeek, from across the street. The small, stout woman wore an all-blue church suit and a silk scarf tied over her immaculate hair like a housewife. Norm had never met her, only seen her in the comings and goings of daily life. Because she said, “I’m Mrs. Vanderbeek, from across the street,” before he could properly get the door open, the mystery didn’t last for long.

“Hello,” he said. “Norm. Is everything alright?” He couldn’t be sure he was fully awake, though it seemed like he’d been staring at the ceiling for hours.

“Well, I made these cookies,” (Norm swore she wasn’t holding that plate the whole time) “and I wanted to stop by and give them to you.”

“That’s very kind of you.” Norm could tell Vanderbeek was holding out on him. No way she was coming over at an intimate hour only for cookies. “Is anything else the matter?”

Mrs. Vanderbeek began to tear up, “You know, I’m just so lonely over there. The kids never come to visit, and Mr. Vanderbeek hides behind his work trips. And the house is so damn big, my goodness, I just don’t know what to do.”

While she talked, she kept peeking behind Norm to see what was beyond him. She wanted to see inside the home.

“Mrs. Vanderbeek, I would let you in, but there’s this scent about the house I’ve been trying to get rid of.”

“Well,” Mrs. Vanderbeek said, “I’ve got a pretty active schnoz and I don’t smell a thing.”

“Hmm. Well, my wife doesn’t either.”

“Listen young man, I’m not trying to come in between you and your wife.”

Norm was taken aback by the suggestion. Now she’d really done it. “Thanks for the cookies, Mrs. Vanderbeek.”

He closed the door and she retired back to her hole across the street.

Soft thudding was heard from upstairs in the house. As soon as Norm turned around, he dropped the plate of billowy chocolate chip cookies. It shattered on impact. The scent was suddenly so strong. He bent down to pick the cookies up, and gave one a strong sniff. All he could smell was the strong, sweet, rotting meat and smoke smell that had never left his nose since their first time in the house. He picked up a shard of the glass, still having cookie crumbs on it, and jammed its sharpness as hard as he could up his nostril.

Sheena had just woken up. Her sleep hadn’t been great for a month; that faint hum kept her up night, day, it didn’t matter. She noticed that Norm was gone. The hum screamed over the silence of the morning. She even thought she heard a knock in her dream. One thing she had discovered over the last month was that she could make the humming stop by banging her head against something. She took to tapping it against the bathroom surfaces, they were the hardest, the coolest to the touch.

It reminded her of when she was a little girl, and she was mad at herself, her mother never let her be angry, she always just said “God will punish you for being a mean, bad little girl.” So, all that anger would pile up. In her prettiest little immaculate dresses, she would hit her head against things until it hurt.

The hum, though, was different. It seemed it went away while she banged her head against the walls, but it would return louder and stronger when the banging stopped. It was challenging her.

Her migraine meds didn’t seem to touch the sound. Meditation didn’t either. Just that certain hum screaming over silence. She hit her head one time against the counter. An interruption in the hum. Then she hit it again, harder. She looked at her face in the mirror. Everything was perfect except for the hum. Perfect. The only word that stung more than the hum.

She hit her head harder this time and her nose began to bleed, pupils differing in size. She swore the hum stopped for a whole 10 seconds this time. Then, it started again.

From the outside of the house, Mrs. Vanderbeek could hear thumps. She was never one to let any riff raff go on right under her nose. She let herself into the yard. She figured after meeting norm, he wouldn’t mind too much. She saw Norm, laying facedown on the floor, cookies and broken glass splayed everywhere, a dark puddle pooling beneath him.

She grumbled to herself. Mrs. Vanderbeek went around to the window on the other side, the one where the thudding was happening. The window offered a view that led into the bathroom. She saw the lovely, dark-haired Sheena, shame she didn’t get to meet her, banging her head harder each time on the bloodied bathroom counter.

Mrs. Vanderbeek was all grumbles and groans to herself. “Again?” She said in disappointment. “And only a month.”

_______

Mr. Quack was showing a young couple the house. He asked if they had any concerns. They were fresher and happier than any couple he had ever shown the perfect house before.

“Well,” the young man of the couple said, “I noticed some of the surfaces in the house are a bit warm to the touch.”

“I haven’t felt that,” said the young woman, “but I notice that, no matter the color of the walls inside, it looks a bit yellow.”

“That’s all?” Quack asked. “Just a warm touch and some faded paper, and otherwise its the house of your dreams?”

______