Cole knew what his parents were like, but now he's alone
and facing the family home, it seems too much to cope with.
Compulsive hoarders, they've filled every room and shed
with junk. Before he can sell his inheritance he'll have to
make it habitable, and he's right out of money. Then
handsome antique dealer Jeremy arrives, and straight away
picks out a bike frame worth a hundred dollars. He's had
his eye on quite a few bits and pieces and offers to help
Cole sell them on commission. Maybe this is the answer.
In the background of Cole's mind however looms a guy he met
in college and really does not want to see again, a former
boyfriend and control freak who has been stalking him.
Jeremy explains how to contact collectors and dealers, hold
an auction or a yard sale, and how donating clean clothes
can get a tax write-off. Embarrassed by the state of his
home, Cole doesn't want a lot of people around, but this
does seem expedient. But what if it enables the stalker to
find his location? And does that copy of 'Out' magazine in
Jeremy's apartment mean what Cole thinks it does?
For anyone who finds hoarding TV shows compulsive viewing,
or who has been in a similar situation, UNEARTHING COLE
hooks from the start. The sheer physical hard work, the
piles of trash and unopened purchases, make us wonder how
we would cope. Cole has come out of a violent situation,
and finds it hard to trust anyone. AM Arthur has carefully
described Cole's nervous reactions and panic attacks, so we
feel outrage at his former partner's behaviour. This adult
romance between two decent young men has something for
everyone.
Cole Alston swore he’d never return to his childhood home in
rural North Carolina, but when his mother dies, he inherits
her hoarded property. He hopes to sell everything and use
the money to start over in Canada, far away from his abusive
ex-boyfriend. It’s a daunting task, and Cole has no idea
where to start. Luckily for him, the local antique store
owner, Jeremy Collins, volunteers his services in sorting
the hoard. Their professional relationship soon evolves into
a personal one, but Cole must overcome his past and his
anxiety before he can accept a new man in his life or the
possibility of a happy future.
Excerpt
NO ONE ever expects to spend their thirtieth birthday in a
crematorium, writing a check for their last eight hundred
dollars, so that the people who took your mother's dead body
will hand it back to you in a little cardboard box.
Happy birthday to me.
It wasn't quite the last of my money that purchased my
mother back. My account still had a paltry eighty–six
dollars and twelve cents, plus the four hundred in cash
tucked into the zippered pouch in my suitcase. The money
should let me rent a room in town long enough to clean up my
mother's property. So to speak. I just wanted the house and
surrounding sheds clean enough for a local realtor to be
able to put the whole sorry parcel of land on the market.
There was no way, I'd been told over the phone
yesterday, it could be sold in its present condition. I
hadn't asked the woman from Connor Realty to elaborate. I
had my own memories of my mother's house to go on, plus the
immense deterioration of the last two years since I'd been
here. Two years since Dad died of a heart attack. Epic
didn't have enough letters to carry the weight of the fight
I had with my mother after his death.
I left, hadn't spoken to her since, and then she was
dead. Her final "fuck you, Cole" came in the form of her
will—she gave me ownership of her house and the
undeveloped farmland it sat on. It might have been the
solution to my own financial woes, if I hadn't already known
the disaster I'd find. Dad had been a mechanic and a
collector; my mother was a housewife and a hoarder. Their
house, barn, garage, two sheds, and surrounding woodsy
property was the result of thirty–four years of
accumulation.
I hadn't driven out to see it yet, and my stomach was
already in knots.
The box of ashes went on the backseat of my car, between
my two suitcases and a box of cleaning products. I couldn't
think of anywhere else to put my mother. She wasn't going up
front with me, and the trunk was out of the question.
Besides the weirdness of it, the trunk was already full of
heavy–duty trash bags, packing tape, cardboard packing
boxes, a shovel, and a box of books.
Franklin hadn't changed much as a town, I noted as I
drove through it. Same homes and offices and small shops.
Same churches and Christmas decorations as I remembered
growing up. Same restaurants dotted with cars in that odd,
less busy time between breakfast and lunch. An antique store
had popped up in the bottom floor of someone's house, and
the hardware store was shut down. A handmade sign hung in
the window with Damned Chain Stores scrawled in black paint.
It made me smile.
I turned west out of town, toward the hillier, woodsy
area and winding road that eventually led to my old
homestead. As a child, I'd loved being out in the woods,
miles from town, able to have adventures far from the chaos
of my house. As a teen, I'd hated having to ride my bike
into town just to hang with the few friends I'd cobbled
together. They hadn't minded my secondhand clothes or my odd
mother who wore big straw hats all year long, or that I
never invited them back to my house. Friends I'd lost touch
with when I went six states away to college, where I
discovered acceptance for the first time as a gay man. Then,
during my sophomore year, I met Martin and began an
eight–year–long nightmare I'd only just surfaced
from.
The road curled like an S, and I slowed to negotiate the
two turns. A familiar, barn–shaped mailbox came into
view a hundred feet farther down. I turned on my blinker,
even though the road was clear, and made a left onto a
crushed–shell driveway I'd treaded a thousand times,
both on rubber and on foot.
A wild lawn sprung up on both sides of the driveway,
more closely resembling a wheat field than a yard. Grass,
weeds, and wild bushes dotted the landscape between
skeletal, leafless trees. It was all at least
hip–height and probably hadn't been cut in years. The
lawn jungle hid the worst of the house from the casual
passerby. I got a good look at my childhood home when the
grass finally parted. Angry, helpless tears sprang up and
stung my eyes.
The house was a Craftsman bungalow, two stories, with
lots of front windows and a brick fireplace. I used to think
it was one of the nicest houses in Franklin, even nicer than
some of the homes built in town—until the hoard
spilled from the inside of the house to the outside and
maintenance stopped occurring with any regularity.
The next thing I saw was a VW bus parked beside the
house, without wheels and mounted on cinderblocks, its
interior packed with junk. The front porch was listing and
the roof collapsing. A blue tarp had been erected over the
front door to protect it from leaks, and more boxes and
plastic containers stood beneath that, sentries to the front
door. All the windows were blocked, either with curtains or
boxes. Beyond the house, scattered in piles, were parts and
appliances and bicycles and things I just didn't recognize
for the rust and weeds.
It was both better and worse than I'd expected.
The structure seemed sound, but I hadn't seen the
interior of the house yet and I dreaded it. I pinched my
nose and dispelled the tears, unwilling to cry over this
mess anymore than I already had, and got out of the car. It
was warm for December, but I zipped up my coat
anyway—for mental protection as much as physical. I
already had on a pair of boots, jeans tucked in, and three
pairs of rubber gloves stuffed into my coat pockets. I
snapped a pair on as I trudged up to the front door.
I had a key, but it wasn't necessary. The police had
broken the front door down to get at my mother's body. The
door leaned in its frame, barely held up by strips of police
caution tape.
My mother hadn't died of any particular illness or
malady, beyond her own mental disease. She'd tripped one
day, hit some boxes, and they fell over on her. Trapped both
her legs, and being both sixty–two and overweight, she
hadn't been able to get up or get them off. She died of
dehydration twenty–four hours before the mailman
noticed she hadn't collected in a few days and called the
sheriff.
Her cause of death had been my worst nightmare come
true. Even worse than discovering, at this critical time in
my own personal life, that she'd willed her entire mess to
me. And why everything I owned was in two suitcases in my
car next to my mother's ashes.
The smell hit me when I reached the tarp. Pungent,
sweet, cloying—the odors of death and decay and of
rotting things. My rational brain knew the stink had existed
long before my mother died on the floor, but it didn't stop
a flicker show of images from assaulting my mind. Images of
Debbie Alston, my mother, dead and bloated, lying in her own
waste in the same sea of rot she'd lived in for more than
three decades.
That wasn't quite right. The rot didn't really happen
until I went away to college, escaping their hoarding
problem by disappearing into something else—something
that became much, much worse. Then the dishes stopped
getting washed, the refrigerator stopped being cleaned out,
and no one could be bothered to haul trash bags to the town
dump. The first time I returned to visit during Christmas
break at college, freshman year, I cleaned and hauled trash.
Then again during spring break. Between freshman and
sophomore year, I stayed in Michigan for the summer, working
and taking classes, so I didn't see them again until the
following Christmas. It was the last visit before I met Martin.
After that I didn't go back until Dad's funeral two
years ago. I just couldn't stand the memories, even if I'd
thought it was safe to come to a place Martin could track me
to. Home was gone. A disaster had taken its place.
I couldn't walk under the tarp. And I really didn't want
to go inside that house.
Tires crunched up the seashell driveway, and I spun
around, heart pounding. I wasn't expecting anyone. The only
people who knew I was in town were Penny Connor, the
realtor, and the very grumpy woman at the crematorium.
"Oh God," I said to no one. Martin had found
me—he'd been trying for six months. He knew where I
grew up. If he'd seen the obituary somewhere, he'd put two
and two together, and he'd know where I was. My guts clenched.
Over the sea of grass, I spotted a blue work van heading
toward me, growing larger by the second. I dashed back to my
car on shaky legs and grabbed the keys out of the ignition.
The keychain had a small can of mace attached, and I tucked
that end carefully into the palm of my hand. Instinct told
me to hide. I had plenty of places to burrow into and
disappear, but I couldn't seem to move.
The van parked perpendicular to my car. A door opened
and shut, and a man came around the front. It wasn't Martin
Palone. My entire body felt lighter, like someone had lifted
a wet blanket off me and let me breathe again. But this man
was still a stranger on my land, and I didn't let my guard
down. He was in the neighborhood of my age, a little taller
than me, with a shock of dark–brown hair and wide,
thickly lashed eyes. He wasn't handsome, exactly, but had a
boyish charm to him, especially when he smiled. It released
a pair of dimples that were incredibly appealing.
"You must be Cole Alston," he said. His voice was
lightly accented but not local to this part of North
Carolina. It was more northern and hard to pinpoint on only
five words.
"Yes, I am," I said.
"Jeremy Collins. I own Lost Treasures Antiques in town."
I shook his outstretched hand, tempted to relax a bit
under that beguiling smile. Tempted, but I didn't. He seemed
like someone perfectly at ease in his own skin, which made
me all the more self–conscious of the mess in and
around me. "Nice to meet you."
"I'm sorry about your mother. She came into the store
sometimes. She was... a nice lady."
His hesitation made my lips twitch. "She was definitely
interesting, and thank you for your condolences, but I'm
sure you didn't drive out here just to offer them."
"No, you're right. I wasn't sure how long you'd be in
town, and I wanted to talk to you."
"About?"
"This." He waved his hand at the hoard, and his eyes lit
up. He didn't see the tragedy in it, or the horror.
"What about it?" I waited for the insults, for the
inevitable slew of "how could you let this happen?" tirades
I knew were waiting for me. I've heard variations on them my
entire life.
"Like I said, I own an antique store, and I've come out
here a few times trying to buy things from your mother."
I burst into laughter, unable to help myself. Trying to
buy something from my mother, whether it was a diamond tiara
or a bag of rotten apples from the Big Bag grocery, was like
trying to pan for gold in the Atlantic—pointless.
At least Jeremy seemed to see the humor in it, because
he never stopped smiling. "Yeah, exactly. But folks in town
still talk about your father and what a keen eye he had.
There are treasures on this property, some things that could
make you a decent pot of money, and I want to help you sell
them. For a commission, of course."
"I was just going to have a yard sale or something."
"You could do that, but I've got connections to dealers
in three states. Depending on what we find, you could get a
lot more money for the antiques by going through me." He
cocked his head to the side like we were buds sharing a
joke. "You can still yard sale the other stuff."
I studied him; he seemed sincere in his loose jeans and
cowboy boots and brown cotton coat. The solution to one of
my biggest problems had just driven up in a big blue van.
All I had to do was ask the Wizard for my courage and trust
Jeremy not to screw with me.
Not an easy task, considering I'd spent eight years
being screwed with on a daily basis by someone who was
supposed to love me.
"What kind of money are we talking about?" I asked.
"I'll show you."
We walked through the weeds to a pile of machinery near
the barn, twisted and rusted, and I didn't see much to be
saved. Jeremy tugged on a pair of work gloves, reached in,
and spent a few minutes wrestling something out of the mess.
He produced a bicycle frame, missing its seat and chain and
tires, but otherwise intact.
"Do you know what this is?" he asked.
"Enlighten me."
"It's a Columbia from the 1950s. Intact, it would be
worth a lot more, but some collectors will shine up parts
and restore them. This frame alone could get you a hundred
dollars."
I stared at him. "For that?"
"For that. And this is only the first thing I saw. Who
knows what else we could uncover in that barn, or those sheds?"
I saw the hunger in his eyes, the desire to go hunting
for other treasures. It made him seem almost boyish, a kid
on the verge of a trip to his very favorite amusement park.
I just saw the dollar signs and an extra pair of hands
getting me out from under this hoard.
"Okay."
He blinked. "Really?"
"Yes, okay. We'll need to arrange some sort of contract,
though. I don't want any confusion over your commissions or
labor or whatever."
"That's fair. Why don't we hammer it out over dinner at
the Sow's Ear."
"Dinner?"
This was my first dinner offer in years, and I had no
clue how to take it. No one in this town knew I was gay. I
hadn't come out before I left for college, and I hadn't told
anyone on my occasional visits since. Not even my parents.
Martin had been a "friend from school" and then "my
roommate." And Jeremy didn't strike me as being particularly
queer.
Then again, I'd spent the last decade perfecting the art
of not looking, so my own personal gaydar was pretty damn
inaccurate.
"You do eat dinner, don't you?" Jeremy asked.
"When I can afford it" very nearly slipped out. Instead,
I said, "Yes."
"Good. It'll give you time to decide what you need me
for, and I can make some phone calls. I know a few guys in
Ohio who'd love to come down and pick through—"
Panic set my heart fluttering. "Wait, no."
His eyebrows arched. "What?"
"Look, I don't... this is all, um—"
"Overwhelming?"
"Shameful."
I couldn't believe I'd just said that. Out loud. To a
stranger.
Jeremy nodded, more thoughtful than anything else. At
least he wasn't blatantly judging me for my family's awful
secret. "You don't want a lot of strangers poking into your
personal life."
I didn't know if he was really that observant, or if
he'd seen hoarding shows on television. All that mattered
was he got it—even if he didn't know the comment
extended far beyond the hoard in front of us. "Right, I don't."
"This is a lot of stuff for one person to haul out on
their own."
"Welcome to my world." I jacked my thumb at the house
and the countless hours of work waiting for me inside.
He slipped his hands into his rear jeans pockets and
rocked back on his heels, head tilted to the sky. "How are
you going to haul all of this to the dump on your own?"
"I hadn't really thought about it." Truth—and
something I didn't know how to solve without more money in
my pocket. Some of those bags would be filled with rotten
food, and they weren't going anywhere near my car.
"Then meet me for dinner at the Sow's Ear, at six
o'clock, and I'll have a proposal for you."
"Jeremy—"
"If you don't like my ideas, you won't hurt my feelings.
Promise. Just give me a chance to make this work for both of
us."
Something in his manner made me want to trust him. He
seemed completely genuine, open, and reassuring. I didn't
trust him, but I wanted to. And it was just a proposal over
a working dinner at the best barbecue place in town.
A little voice in the back of my mind said it was only
fair to tell him his dinner companion wouldn't be joining
him in ogling the waitresses. I told that voice to shut the
hell up, because it wasn't really any of Jeremy's business.
"Okay, dinner at six."
"Excellent." He stood straighter, hands coming out of
his pockets. "See you then."
"Hey, wait," I said as he turned to go. "Don't forget
your bike frame. If dinner doesn't work out, it's yours to
keep."
With a dimpled grin worthy of any movie star, he hefted
the rusty frame and stowed it in his van. I stood by my car
until he'd driven away. Even if Jeremy only found half a
dozen valuables in that sea of junk, his help would be worth
it. Worth it to help buy me out of the financial noose
slowly tightening around my neck and get me far, far away
from Martin Palone.
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