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The Odyssey Tree(continued) The man moved in that September, the September after Amelia installed the Odyssey Tree in her living room. She watched him, covertly, from her kitchen window, the biggest one in her apartment, the one that overlooked the back of the house and the door that he was using to go to and fro with his furniture. Mr. Trumbull had lived in that apartment, downstairs from Amelia, until just that summer, when someone in his family had died and left him a house up in Newburyport: it was strange, thought Amelia, that the deaths of people one had never known could affect one's life so. And then, after Mr. Trumbull left, she fretted over it: who knew who might move in, downstairs? What if Mr. Phillips made a bad judgment? The house held only the two apartments, one directly over the other: one had to be particular about who lived together in such a small space. Her first thought, as she stood hidden behind the mesh curtains and watched the young man and his companions bringing in very modern furniture - Danish, she had read somewhere that it was called - was, oh, dear, I do hope that he isn't too loud. Her second thought, once she sorted through the people moving furniture and decided which of them was the new tenant was, oh, dear, he is rather sweet looking. She gave a great deal of thought to what she ought to do. A potted plant would be a nice welcoming gift, but that would mean going all the way over to the florist's, and then choosing one for someone she didn't know would be terribly difficult. One had to be so careful, with young men, not to insult them. Besides, he hadn't moved any potted plants into the apartment with him: perhaps he disliked them, or had allergies. Amelia could sympathize with that: she had all sorts of allergies, particularly in the springtime. No, she decided: a potted plant wouldn't strike quite the right note. What she really ought to do, thought Amelia, was bake something. But what? A tureen of soup would be nice, but difficult to carry down the front stairs. What if she tripped on the faded rug which covered the stairway, and fell? She might scald herself badly. Cake, then, or cookies; but what if he didn't like sweets? She had never known a man of his age, not really; when her younger brother Edward had been in his twenties or thirties - for that must be this new tenant's age, someplace between twenty or forty, it grew so hard to tell, these days - well, Edward had liked everything; but Edward had always been easy-going. Amelia struggled with the dilemma for several days, and on Sunday, after the early Eucharist at Saint John's, she pulled the Rector's wife aside and asked her, for surely in matters of etiquette the clergy was unequalled; but it seemed to her that young Mrs. Wilkins really didn't give the matter the proper attention that it deserved. She smiled brightly and said, "Oh, Miss Ford, I'm sure that he would appreciate whatever you brought," and then she moved on to the next person, leaving Amelia unsatisfied. In the end, she brought cookies, creeping down the stairs after supper and leaving them by his door with a short note, and then hurrying back up the stairs in case he opened the door and found her there, which would be most awkward, even though she had dressed carefully and combed her hair just in case such an untoward event occurred. Back in her own apartment, she stood for several minutes breathing rather heavily, and then spent the rest of the evening polishing the treasures of the Odyssey Tree to calm her nerves. The next afternoon, just as she was beginning to think about tea, there was a knock on her door. No one ever knocked at the door except Mr. Phillips, and Amelia froze
at once, her stomach knotting with dread. Her fingers plucked at her
flowered housedress: could she really answer the door in such attire?
And her hair; her eyes searched the room, a little wildly, for a mirror,
even though she knew very well that the only mirror in her apartment
was the gilt one over her bedroom dresser.
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