Prompt #4: Reimagining

Earlier that evening, Homer Barron had stepped across the threshold to the Grierson house, choking a bouquet of pink roses in one tight and clammy hand. Miss Emily did not appear to mind their crushed stems. When he’d presented the bouquet to her in the parlor, she had clutched them to her chest for just a moment too long before handing them to her butler, with instructions to have them arranged in a crystal vase and taken upstairs. 

“They’ll go beautifully with our curtains, dear,” she had said.

“Our curtains?” 

She smiled at him, then; a soft and innocent smile that made Homer Barron almost regret how much he had not wanted to come here tonight. 

Now he was seated in the parlor, and Miss Emily was standing across the room, her back to him as she poured them each a cup of tea. They had exchanged polite conversation, but he had not felt up to his usual standard of jokes and banter tonight. A few quips with the Southerners had been all good and well most days, so long as he knew he would be leaving this place soon. Homer Barron knew how much a town like this loved a story. It was fun for him to make an impression, to wink at the swarms of kids who hooted and waved at him when he passed, to watch the women whisper as he drove by with the Grierson lady.  

But he had never wanted to marry her. On their Sunday drives, she leaned into him and told him secrets from her past; he stored these in mind and recounted them later, drunkenly, to impress the starry-eyed young men at the Elks’ Club. He spun her stories into jokes, and they marveled. 

But Homer’s plans to leave the South dissolved once the letter arrived from the bank at home. He had overspent his assets and overstayed his time, and if he could not repay the debts he owed within the next month, he would find himself with nowhere to go. He had, however, one escape route readily available: life in the Grierson house, with their family legacy to protect him. Just as he’d told the townsmen already, he had never thought to pursue the life of a married man before, but he had little choice now. It was Miss Emily’s hand or starvation. And so, here he was, with a ring in his pocket and the watchful eye of the late Mr. Grierson’s portrait upon him. 

“I saw one of the church girls in town this morning, by the station,” Homer said to Miss Emily’s back. 

She didn’t look up, and her only reply was the muted clinking of metal spoons on fine china. 

Homer Barron cleared his throat. “She told me something about you.” 

“I’m sorry,” she said in a measured tone. “I’m just fixing the sugar for your tea.”

“She said the Baptist minister made a call here.”

“Of course. He told me it was improper for a lady to run about with a man before they are married. It was all a misunderstanding, really.” At last, she whirled around to face him. “You do want to marry me, don’t you, Homer?”

His stomach dropped. She tipped her head like a puppy, her gaze clinging desperately to his.

“Yes,” he said. 

Miss Emily beamed again, giddy and breathless as a little girl. She nearly floated as she brought the two cups of tea to the parlor table, then stretched out her hands and stood him up. Homer fought the urge to shrink away at her touch.

“I’ve prepared something for you,” she whispered. “Come and see.” 

So he followed her upstairs, as if he were in a dream. He was on the verge of telling her about the ring he’d brought when she flung open the door to a bedroom, furnished all in pink. The roses he had given her were arranged, as promised, in crystal, and placed on the vanity. Once luminous and full, they now bowed demurely to the ground. A man’s silken nightshirt had been carefully laid out atop the right side of the bed, and the air was hot and sickly-sweet. 

There it was again: her rarely beatific smile. “But your tea’s gone cold,” she said, resting a hand on Homer’s chest. “Come back downstairs with me.” 

His gaze was frozen to the bed. Miss Emily Grierson threaded her arm through his and pulled him gently away from the upstairs room, her long and skeletal fingers stroking the fabric of his suit jacket.