Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 97073 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97073 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
“I can make more.”
Her cheeks redden again. “I should tell you no, but actually, I would love more. Thank you.”
In a weird way, it feels good to help her. Living on my own for so long, being wholly independent has made me forget the value of doing things for other people.
I go back into the kitchen to prepare more of my weird “girl dinner” as she calls it and steal surreptitious glances at Summer while I do it. She’s from InkWell and I can’t forget that, but also, curled up like that, in my sweatshirt, she doesn’t look like the enemy anymore. The tabby cat has followed her downstairs, and when she thinks I’m not watching, she feeds it a little of her food.
“If you feed them, they’ll never leave,” I taunt, keeping my attention on the jam.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, covering her tracks. “Though I thought I saw some cat food in a bowl near the door…”
I clear my throat, choosing not to discuss that.
“Do you have a name for this cat that’s not yours?” she asks, leaning down to rub under his chin.
“Cat.”
I say it like it’s dumb she even had to ask. That’s Cat, and the others were Chicken and Sheep and Dog. They don’t get names—that’s a step too far. And if she asks me if I let Cat curl up at the end of my bed more nights than not, I’ll plead the fifth.
“And where is Mrs. Foster tonight?” Summer asks, stealing her attention away from Cat long enough to look up at me with raised brows.
I furrow mine. “My mom?”
She laughs. “No…sorry. I was trying to pry gently, but I guess I should just flat-out ask if you live with a woman.”
What part about me feeding her cheese, slightly stale crackers, and pickles for dinner made her believe there is a woman in the house? I only had one towel upstairs for crying out loud.
“No woman.”
“Oh.” She rears back, actually taken aback by this. Then she looks over the space with newfound interest.
Ah. So that’s why she asked.
“I bought this place from a widow who wanted to move to London to be closer to her children. She originally bought it from a couple a decade before that, and so on. I don’t think anyone ever purges before they leave. One person owns the cottage and fills it with their things, they pass it on, and the next person does the same.”
She smiles and nods her head toward the window. “I’m a little sad you didn’t have a hand in these floral drapes.”
I raise a taunting eyebrow. “Who says I didn’t?”
She laughs out loud, and the sound of it could lift me off the ground. Laughter like that—light and melodic—doesn’t happen often around here. At the pub where I spend a few nights a week, there are a lot of grunts and snorts, y’know, your standard guffaws and chuffs from the old-timers who come in for supper and a pint.
“You didn’t want to get rid of anything when the last person left?” she asks.
“I didn’t even think about it. Take that armoire for instance. It seems like it belongs there, no? More a part of the house than I am.”
She nods in agreement. “And the books? Were those left here too?”
I smile, proud. “Those are mine.”
I finish up in the kitchen and bring her a second helping. I’m being nicer to her than I have been to the other editors from InkWell, but I’ve never been able to turn away a stray, and now here she is, eating my food and wrapped in my clothes, curled up in my chair. In some ways, she’s no different than Cat or Dog or Chicken. I should call her Girl.
Tomorrow, I’ll figure out some way to get rid of her, but tonight I can be pleasant, right? I haven’t forgotten how to make polite conversation. I take my glass of wine and sit on the loveseat across from her. It’s not as comfortable as the chair, which is why I don’t ever sit here.
“I like your soap,” she tells me, a little timid as she points up. “The bar you had in the shower.”
I can smell traces of it in the air. “A farmer’s wife makes it for me out of honey and orange blossom. Maybe some vanilla, too.” I can’t remember exactly what she said the last combination was. “She switches her recipe up and every few months she’ll leave me a couple of bars if I leave out some books for her to borrow.”
Summer smiles at this simple arrangement as I take a long sip of wine. I don’t mean to keep looking at her, and I shouldn’t be studying her so intently. It’s just, she’s the nicest thing I’ve had to look at in a long time. It’s been cold and drizzly here for a while, and now with the holidays over and the decorations all put away, we’ve entered the bleak part of winter, the rough bone-chilling months that eat away at you until you throw your hands up one day in mid-March and declare that you will never, ever, over-your-dead-body spend another winter here. You hover your mouse over one-way flights to Bora Bora or Cancun just as spring finally appears and you forget all about how much you hate it.