It just sounded and felt like a closet to me.

I gave up and perched on the end of the bed, thinking of all the pots and pans, towels and sheets, magazines and books, sewing kits and Christmas ornaments, bobby pins and hair nets, handkerchiefs, that were now mine and my responsibility to do something with. Just thinking of it was tiring. I listened idly to the voices of the couple working in the back bedroom. You would have thought that since they lived together twenty-four hours a day they would’ve said all they could think of to say, but I could hear one offer the other a comment every now and then. This calm, intermittent dialogue seemed companionable, and I went into kind of a trance sitting on the end of that bed.

I had to be at work that afternoon for three hours, from one to four. I’d have just time to get home and get ready for my date with Aubrey Scott… did I really need to shower and change before we went to the movies? After going up in the attic, it would be a good idea. Today was much hotter than yesterday. Cartons…where to get some sturdy ones? Maybe the Dumpster behind Wal-Mart? The liquor store had good cartons, but they were too small for clothes packing. Would Jane’s bookshelves look okay standing by my bookshelves? Should I move my books here? I could make the guest bedroom into a study. The only person I’d ever had as an overnight guest who didn’t actually sleep with me, my half brother Phillip, lived out in California now.

“We’re through, Miss Teagarden,” called the husband half of the team.

I shook myself out of my stupor.

“Send the bill to Bubba Sewell in the Jasper Building. Here’s the address,” and I ripped a piece of paper off a tablet Jane had left by the telephone. The telephone! Was it hooked up? No, I found after the repair team had left. Sewell had deemed it an unnecessary expense. Should I have it hooked back up? Under what name? Would I have two phone numbers, one here and one at the town house?