Conversation Piece

         The Goodwill truck drove off, taking with it the first bedroom furniture I’d bought for myself.  All my previous beds had been inherited from parents or a grandmother, and when I’d bought my own place I decided I need a bedroom that was my own, too.  And the day I’d bought the set was a memorable one.  Two places wouldn’t sell to me unless I brought my “husband” along.  I finally explained that since it was my money doing the buying if he didn’t like it, he could sleep on the couch.  A female salesperson in her 50’s stepped forward and took the transaction over, murmuring the 1980’s equivalent of “you go, girl” to me.
         Now the relationship with the man who slept in the bed and the bed were over.  Out with the old; in with the new.  Besides, if I ever had another man after 22 years with the same one, it would just be creepy to do “it” in the same bed.
         And a re-arrangement of the room was due, as well.  I stood in the doorway to the bedroom and plotted the placing of the new furniture, arriving later this afternoon.  Yes, the brass bed on the opposite of where the previous bed had sat for who knows how many years.  The dresser across the room from the usual spot.  That would mean moving the painting of the Irish countryside my grandmother gave me.  That painting had been in every bedroom I occupied except my dorm room since I was 10 and she downsized into a two-bedroom apartment.  So, over the bed or on the wall opposite?
         My eyes strayed to the painting, supposedly done by a distant relative who knows when.
         “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!”
         I backed out of the room, flattened myself against a wall and tried to calm the thumping of my heart.
         “Eejit,” I muttered.  “You looked at it wrong.  Don’t be stupid.  Just look again.”
         I peered around the corner into the empty bedroom and looked at the picture.  I was back in the hallway so fast I didn’t even know I moved.  The picture of a bucolic thatched roof hut amid the green, rolling country side was upside down.  Not hung upside down.  Upside down in the frame. 
         Who had removed the picture and replaced it in the frame upside down?  The ex?  No, he hadn’t set foot in the house in three years.  The maids?  No, they were always good about ‘fessing up with they botched something.  When?  Unfortunately, when something has been part of your life for about four decades you take it for granted.  No, I look at that painting everyday as a way of saying “Good Morning” to that long dead grandmother.  It was perfectly normal this morning when I woke up the last time in the departed bed.  The Goodwill guys?  No, at their insistence I’d stayed in the room with them as they broke down the bed and carried the set out—so I couldn't accuse them later of dinging the wall or scraping the floor.
         Had I done it? 
         I sometimes get into these deep funks around the time of a significant anniversary of anything from my failed relationship.  One morning I woke up three states away in a hotel, which, I discovered when I immediately checked out, cost me $500 a night.  Thank Heaven for a Gold American Express.  I wish I could attribute it to something unique like multiple personalities or even typical, like booze, but, no, I just “escape” reality for a while.  But unless I’d zoned out sometime between waking up and the arrival of Goodwill some 20 minutes after, I was reasonably certain I hadn’t played a joke on myself.
         Well, damn.  That left what?  A ghost?  Get Jason and Grant and the team from TAPS down here for EVPs and EMFs. 
         But what else could it be?
         I giggled.  OMG.  I had a ghost.  Maybe I would call TAPS, be on TV, have a moment of excitement in an otherwise dull and nondescript life.  I would no longer be the person who couldn’t keep her man; I’d be the person with a ghost that rearranges artwork.  How cool is that?
         How do you suppose you get in touch with Jason and Grant?  I mean, does TAPS have a listed phone number?  Should I take a picture of the picture and send it to them to convince them that they should bring the SyFy camera crew down here?  Yes, that’s it.  A picture.
         I dashed into my office and dug in the bottom of the closet for my Nikon, checked the charge, and dashed back into the bedroom.  Just as I zoomed in on the upside down painting, the doorbell interrupted.
         “Damn it,” I said, putting the camera down.
         I opened the door to the large man who had been the driver of the Goodwill truck and who had supervised a crew of young men who called him “Mr. Daddy.”  One of those young men stood beside him fidgeting, eyes on his shoes.
         “Yes, ma’am,” said Mr. Daddy.  “Sorry to bother you, but this one has an apology to make to you.”
         “For what?”
         Mr. Daddy nudged him roughly, and the young man said, “Your picture, ma’am.  I accidentally knocked it off the wall and it popped outta the frame, so I put it back and hung it up again.  I’m sorry.”
         “It was when you walked downstairs with us to make certain we didn’t hit the wall.  He shoulda spoke up when it happened,” said Mr. Daddy.  “Is it damaged?”
         “No,” I murmured.  “It’s fine.  No damage.  Apology accepted.”
         Mr. Daddy nudged the young man again.  “Thank you, ma’am,” he said.  Mr. Daddy nodded to me and urged the young man down my front steps toward the idling Goodwill truck.  I watched it drive away again before I shut the door.  I sat on the stairs leading up to the bedroom and cried.  No TAPS.  No ghost.  Just a teenaged boy trying to cover up a mistake.
         I dragged myself back up the stairs, wiping the silly tears away.  For a moment, something positive had presented itself as a possibility, but now I was back staring at the empty bedroom where I’d spent happy hours making love, being loved, and losing everything.  The disturbed painting mocked me.  I put the Nikon away and went back to fix the painting.  This time it wasn’t so scary or exciting.  It was just a mistake.
         But maybe in my now upside down life, it was really right side up, so why change?
         I smiled.  The next man who came into this bedroom would have a great conversation piece.