Chapter 5
Twenty minutes later he was at a yellow over-sized house. His truck looked out of place in the driveway, considering that the house appeared to be even more expensive and fancier than the ones he customarily built. But, he climbed out knocked on the front door. A few seconds later the giant wooden door with the perfect stained-glass windows swung open. In front of him was standing a young woman. “Hello?”
“Hi, I was coming about the table for my dollhouse?” Mark swallowed awkwardly, trying not to choke on the words ‘table for my dollhouse.’ He was getting tired of meeting beautiful young women, who judged him for his dollhouse. Not that he played with a dollhouse! He just had a splinter in his hand that he needed to get taken out so he could concentrate on other things. And in this case that splinter was the broken dollhouse table, and he needed to fix it so he could stop thinking about it, and be a great dad.
The girl stared at him with a blank, dumb expression. Finally she open the door much wider, and turned behind her and shouted. “Dad! Some guy is here.”
And then she walked away, not even caring to see if her father showed up. Mark uncomfortably waited, he tried not to stare the interior of the house. It was absolutely immaculate, as if it was a hotel, as opposed to home. Even the smell of jasmine flowers was filtered through the air, perhaps from actual healthy flowers freshly watered in the house. Mark felt immediately shabby, as if his bald head an old leather jacket and tired jeans belonged in a place this fancy.
A man who appeared to be about in his late fifties came to the door, “hello, Mark?”
Mark nodded. His face turning red again, he could just imagine the young girl answering the door earlier.
“Hello I’m Mr. Vladimir and I have sadly taken over for my father. Of course, the old storefront is closed. Will be opening a new one soon, downtown.”
“Okay.” Said Mark, not totally sure what else to say. The man turned and started walking away from the front door pausing maybe ten feet away, and then looking back at Mark. He waved his hand in Mark quickly followed. e felt like a cloud of dirt must be falling off of him just like pigpen.
“Sorry, I just came back from work.” He said, “I brought you the part that’s broken, I’m hoping that you just have a replacement piece.”
“I’m sure I do.” Said Mr. Vladimir, and he opened the door to a room that was filled to the brim’s with shelves and boxes. He calmly walked over and pulled a line of boxes off of the back shelf. The box was long and thin, almost long enough for gun. But when he carefully peeled the top off, inside were tiny little table leaves. There had to have been thousand of them in there.
He plucked one, as if it was a peach from a tree. And handed it over to Mark. “No charge. My dad made way too many of these anyways.”
Mark stuffed the table leaf in his pocket. “I heard he died?”
“Yes.” The older man looked down at his feet and then snapped his eyes back up at Mark. “He made a dollhouse that wasn’t like any of his other dollhouses. It was… Special. And unfortunately, it was the death of him.”
Mark let out an uncomfortable cough. “A dollhouse killed him?”
“I think it killed him. My mother was very superstitious, so perhaps she has rubbed off on me. But he just died suddenly and violently as soon as the last piece was placed.”
“Yeah.” Said Mark, uncomfortably. He was barely even paying attention to this crazy man ranting about a dollhouse. He was trying to think to himself a polite way to make his way out of here. But, he also wanted to be grateful for the tiny little table leaf. The free table leaf.
Mr. Vladimir and turned and looked at Mark. “I’m sure you don’t believe me. It’s just… I can’t stop thinking about it. I need to move on. But my father died so horrifically. And with my mother missing… And with that dollhouse being put with two separate families who all ended up dead. I just… I just can’t stop thinking about it.”
“Yeah.” Said Mark, getting more uncomfortable. “Well thank you very much for this table leaf. I’m sure my daughters will be very impressed.”
Mr. Vladimir nodded, and allowed Mark to leave. Mark’s final thought before he got into his big red truck was that all the money in the world could not save that man’s sanity.
