Chapter 26
26
Eleanor
Tatum arrives home around midnight. It’s not unlike my own arrival a week ago. How much has changed since I took that key out from under the garden gnome? Sometimes it feels insignificant, and other times I think if I showed my old coworkers that picture Aunt Fran took at the picnic, no one would recognize me.
“Eleanor,” Tatum says, scanning from my head to my shoes and back again.
“Tatum,” I reply, taking her in much the same. She’s shorter than I imagined, maybe because of the fact that her absence has been felt in such a large capacity I expected her to touch the ceiling. And she’s scrappier too. Not tall like Carson or Ben. More similar to Laney, with a distinct energy of her own. She postures now, feet wide. A fighter’s stance.
“Sorry about my apartment,” I tell her. “I left it a mess.”
“It was definitely a mess,” she says. “I cleaned it, though. If I did too much, I’m sorry. It’s just…There was a smell.”
“Was there really?” I ask, embarrassed. “I was going through a bit of a tough time before I left. Thank you for cleaning. What do I owe you for that?” I pull out my phone. It’s been a long while since I had a cleaning service, but I try to remember how much I paid then. “Is five hundred dollars enough?”
Tatum steps back, putting her hands up like she’s blocking me. “I don’t need your money. You let us stay there for free.”
“And I stayed here,” I say. “But I did not so much as wash a dish.”
Tatum looks past the living room into the small glimpse of the kitchen visible from here, where the sink is in plain view. There are no dishes to be found.
“Carson washed them,” I say. “What’s your Venmo? I want to pay you for the cleaning.” I search her name, finding a picture that looks like her—a brunette with two messy buns and a friendly smile. “This is you, right? I’m sending five hundred.” Her phone pings after I deliver the money, confirming I’m right. “I should be getting out of here now that you’re back. I can get a hotel in Chicago for the next few days.”
“No,” she says, insistent. “Stay.” There’s a curious pleading to her voice. “Carson wouldn’t want you to leave.”
This sends heat straight to my cheeks.
It never occurred to me that Carson might be talking about me when I’m not around. Maybe because I have no one to talk about them with, and I assumed that was a two-way street. Their sister knows enough to know that Carson and I are at the very least friends. That Carson might miss me.
“Are you sure?” I ask.
“You paid me five hundred dollars unprompted. Consider it payment for your stay, if that helps you. But yes, I’m very sure. The couch has a pullout bed inside it.”
“How could you ever think Eleanor is the type of person who sleeps on a pullout bed?” Carson says, sauntering down the stairs to greet their sister.
The siblings don’t hug. Instead Tatum wheels her suitcase inside, like Carson’s presence is the permission she’s needed to enter the space.
Carson leans up against the bookcase, observing her. “What’s up? Have a good time in New York?”
“It was fine,” Tatum says. Either she’s more upset about Laney than anyone could’ve anticipated, or something happened while she was there. “How’s the reunion stuff been?”
“Ben is like if Dad got put into a time machine and merged with, I don’t know, somebody less awkward than Dad,” Carson tells her.
“He’s very nice,” I offer, not sure what prompts me to add my assessment.
This sends Tatum’s attention back my way. “How’d you get roped into the reunion stuff?”
So Carson hasn’t told her about me. Has she deduced something based only on what I said to her on the phone? I was very cut-and-dry about the accident. What could she have gleaned from that?
“It wasn’t intentional,” I say. “I just ended up filling in for you.”
“Got it,” she says. “You’re not Ben’s stepsister, you’re Ben’s sister who stepped up.”
“Exactly.” I laugh. “Well, I better go get all my stuff out of your room.” I walk up the stairs, leaving the siblings to catch up without me.
“You can stay with me,” Carson calls out when I reach the top step.
I halt, my back still turned to them, one hand gripping tight to the stair rail. Our entire situationship has been built around me staying in this cottage. Even though Carson has slept over here more than once, going to their place feels like an admission—this is more serious than either of us planned for.
“All my stuff is here,” I say weakly, unable to turn around and face them.
“You’re right. Cars definitely aren’t built to carry anything at that level,” they respond. “Your forty-pound luggage would send my Kia Soul scraping the pavement.”
“I want to get to know Eleanor better, so she should stay here,” Tatum says, rescuing the moment. “She’s been representing me at several family events. It’s important I make sure it’s been an honest depiction.”
“I’d like to get to know you too,” I say, sincere, taking this opportunity to finally look down the stairs.
She’s smiling up at me the way I imagine a sister would, her eyes sparkling with some kind of unspoken mischief we’re going to spend late-night hours unpacking. “We have much to discuss,” she says.
Carson’s not visible from my vantage point. So when they say, “Works for me,” with their usual calm, I can’t tell how much they mean it. I can only hope whatever damage I’ve caused by not staying with them is mild.
In Tatum’s bedroom, I make quick work of stuffing my clothes and skin-care items into my bag and carrying everything downstairs.
By the time I return, Carson is gone. I do my best to keep my interest low, offering Tatum a simple, “Oh,” when she tells me Carson had to go feed their gecko. Still, Tatum lets the moment linger, waiting for me to reveal what she clearly already knows to be true. She wants details. An admission. Something.
I can’t bring myself to give it to her. Opening up to Carson was one thing. Letting in yet another Ward would be another.
We make small talk instead as Tatum helps me turn the couch into a bed. She tells me about her time staying in my building, confirming that Dawn is the woman who lives on my floor.
“In all our years of being neighbors, Dawn has never done anything but scowl at me,” I say. “One time she complained to our building manager that my visitors were coming over too late and being disruptive in our hall.”
“That sounds like Dawn,” Tatum says, smiling fondly.
I tell her about my time at Rita’s Diner, and the apple crumble versus banana cream pie debacle.
“Well,” she says expectantly, “which one did you like better?”
“The crumble,” I say, much to her disappointment. This is as close to any real admission as she’s going to get from me. I fake a yawn, feeling like she might press anyway. “Well, I should be getting to bed.”
“Me too,” she says.
I expected much more resistance. Perhaps she’s had an experience like mine. Something she’s not yet ready to discuss.
“Good night, Eleanor.”
“Good night, Tatum.”
She jogs up the stairs, into the room that’s no longer mine.
Alone in the quiet dark of the cottage’s living room, I open my laptop up to my email drafts. The words flow fast out of my fingers. It’s easy now, to be sincere. Every warm sentiment I feel for Trove Hills I pretend to feel for Broadway publicity instead.
Position Inquiry—Eleanor Chapman , I type into the subject line.
My cursor hovers over the send button. Pressing this does not guarantee the position is mine, so I don’t know why I’m treating it like it does. It still has the weight of something monumental.
Get home okay? I text Carson, using it as one last test. This email is my crossroads, and I need a sign about which way I should go.
Carson sends back a thumbs-up.
Are you mad at me? I want to write. Did I screw up?
I’m too afraid of what the answer might be.
Instead, I send my email to Atlas Theatrical.