The CHAPEL Next Door — Part 1

I remember the apples.

I asked what it was next door that odd little building at its odd little angle and the real estate agent said a small place of worship and I said what, did it go out of business? and she said with a sudden flat in her voice you could say that so that’s what I said, I said it was an out of business chapel.

But they sure kept it spruced up. 

Somebody mowed the lawn every week in the summer, swept the steps and washed all those pretty little windows, and in the winter – and let me tell you I’ve never known winters like those ones right in the middle of Canada where latitude and longitude intersect – somebody came and shoveled the steps and the driveway, and once in a while the roof. It was given a fresh coat of paint every spring, the letters on the sign reinforced, including the gentle blue banner that read temporarily closed. It was called Desmond’s Chapel but everybody knew it as The Apple Chapel because of its situation at the skirt of the gigantic apple orchard for which the town of Desmond was known and the farmer, no idiot, packaged some of his cull into three sweet rows of four, called them Chapel Apples, and sold them for three, maybe four times more than those he tumbled into brown paper bags.

I worked from home as a writer for a health and wellness magazine. I was nothing more, really, than a professional googler who could easily translate facts and statistics into columns of words, there was no talent involved, only a propensity for not exactly bullshit but stretching the truth, a solid respect for word count, and due deadline diligence. I made a good living but my apartment was about to be renovated and I was officially to be evicted, I was single, and I decided on Desmond late one night in an eenie meenie miney mo kind of way, alcohol was involved, the frantic real estate agent Madge called me back seven times before I answered at 9:10 the next morning. She said she had the perfect place, it had only been on the market a short time and could I come the following day to which I said where exactly is Desmond? and she told me, it was an eight hour drive north by northwest, and I said yes.

I bought the place on the spot.

That was seven years ago so I have not one of those cells I had back then – I just wrote an article about how we shed completely like the bad luck from a smashed mirror every seven years – and it’s an interesting piece but not as interesting as what’s going on in The Chapel Next Door which is surrounded by autumn orchard colours and glistening like the most beautiful thing just now: Its doors have taken in a visitor three days running, just a normal-looking guy he might even be the guy who’s been mowing and shoveling it’s hard to tell without the pickup truck and overalls, this guy dresses normal, for Desmond anyway, and drives a Subaru like everybody else smacked here in the middle, some say the heart, of Canada.

I spy into The Chapel Next Door like Gladys Cravitz from my front window, a little of Jimmy Stewart’s suspicious precision, sometimes Arte Johnson from between the boxwoods outside, a swift Doris Day eye twizzle, but through the pretty windows I see only tinted shadows like watching deep sea television.

When I was downtown somebody in the grocery store said hey Kate what’s going on in the Apple? Is Victor really back? and for a minute it seemed like they were talking to someone else or maybe about an afternoon soap opera I’d given up until it dawned on me they meant The Chapel Next Door and I said who’s Victor? 

You don’t know Victor of the Golden Tower? 

I didn’t.

Usually after seven years I get the itch and move, but when my seven years in Desmond was up and I was looking for the old shake-up, I quit my job instead, alcohol was involved, I read my resignation email the following day from my sent folder and after going through it a few times I got the bing of a response, it went straight through my aching head, I squinted at the words of acknowledgment, the invitation for a final drink any time I was in town, and when I read their vigorous encouragement regarding my new career as a novelist I shut my laptop and eyes simultaneously. Oh brother.

And in an unrelated chain of events, if such things occur, the blue banner on the sign next door was removed and replaced with the tilted words HELP WANTED INQUIRE WITHIN which I took personally and it wasn’t until I was on the sidewalk I gave the matter any thought, I looked over at my house fully expecting to see Gladys killing herself laughing as if my journey to The Chapel Next Door were a dare but it was Jimmy Stewart who was looking down at me with such acute surprise.