Chapter 3 How Very Karen-y of You
How Very Karen-y of You
The next morning, like every morning, Lainey had woken up surveying her body for that intangible “off” feeling that told her whether it was worth swallowing one of her precious migraine pills.
She was supposed to be taking them daily—it was the only reliable way to prevent her symptoms—but at twenty-nine dollars a pill, she had to stretch them as far as she possibly could.
She couldn’t afford not to. Her pain was a sleep-paralysis demon, always hovering above her.
Some days, she could will it away with a dark room and powerful medication, but other days, it overtook her.
On this particular morning—while lying in her bed, in the house that blessedly was still hers—she’d found no immediate signs of looming pain.
No increased sensitivity to light. No aura.
No reason to waste a pill. A pill brought with it the pressure to make the most of every expensive pain-free moment.
She couldn’t be creative under those conditions, even though she’d never been good at coordinating her good days with moments of artistic inspiration.
Case in point, the fact that she was at present sitting on her heels atop a metal stool with no clue of what to do with the dead tree in front of her.
She had an order for one of her side hustles—selling live-edge carpentry on Facebook Marketplace—and while Lainey definitely lacked a passion for making bougie-ass tables, her experience sculpting had made her pretty good with an orbital sander and strangers seemed willing to pay a small fortune for something that took her less than an afternoon to complete.
But today, instead of producing yet another coffee table for Jessica from Ironwood or an end table for Lisa in Spooner, Lainey wanted to make something for herself.
Lainey’s current artistic fixation was sculpting tree snags.
She turned stumps into tiny wooden creatures and transformed dead oak trees into sculptures of witchy women rooted to the earth.
Bree described Lainey’s work as “beautiful but terrifying,” which delighted Lainey, as that was almost exactly what she was going for.
Lainey’s work was an exercise in reanimating the dead. It provided nature with new life through hacking away at it, giving trees the appearance of something otherworldly.
Trees were interdependent organisms, sharing water and nutrients, but her snags were alone, cut off from their support system. Lainey saw what she did as more than art. It was care. She cared for the dead trees in a way the surrounding ecosystem no longer would.
Also, she liked sculpting with chainsaws.
Wind whistled through the branches as her eyes pleaded with her unfinished subject to tell her something.
The half-carved trunk stared back with indifference.
The figure in her head was without details, an animal trapped under a sheet of bark.
Sculpting was noisy work, so she typically enjoyed the silence of the planning process, but when she had no vision for a piece, the quiet sounded a bit like a smug little asshole.
Today, she tried a new strategy. Snapping her safety goggles to her face, Lainey cranked up the music on her noise-canceling headphones, raised her chainsaw to waist height, and let herself get lost.
Minutes or hours later, a tap at her shoulder.
Her core muscles absorbed the full-body jerk that was a natural, reflexive response to the reckless act of abruptly touching a person holding a chainsaw.
She immediately powered the thing down and ripped off her safety goggles before turning to yell at whoever stood behind her with the apparent desire to leave her backyard with fewer limbs than they arrived with.
That’s when she saw who it was. The man from the other day.
Olive Rain Jacket Guy. Elliot. He was dry this time, in a navy sweater that stretched across his broad shoulders.
His glasses were no longer rain dappled, but his hair still had a gentle wave to it, like it was perpetually tousled in a light breeze directed only at him in a full-fledged conspiracy of irrepressible charm and casual sex appeal.
The sight of him—here, behind her house—snatched the words right out of her throat.
She set the chainsaw on the ground and lowered her headphones to her neck like a scarf.
She smiled. She couldn’t help herself. “You,” she said.
“You,” he repeated. But his “you” held none of the giddy excitement hers had. His “you” was surprised. Maybe even a little hurt.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, tucking the flyaways escaping her ponytail behind her ears. Nerves lit up in the tips of her fingers like lightning bugs. He didn’t seem happy to see her again. Unease and dread replaced her joy.
“I was about to ask you the same question, Elaine Davis. What are you doing at my house?”
Fragmented bits of information fell into place all at once.
The attractive newcomer in the offseason and the mysterious nephew who was trying to remove her from her home were one and the same.
Her Elliot from Ridr was Gil Hodges’s nephew.
He had to be. Which made some sort of sense.
Attractive people never came to Timber Creek in March without a reason.
That tiny, hopeful flame that’d flickered in her chest ever since their rain-soaked encounter blew out like a birthday candle.
“Your house?” she scoffed. “So, you think because your uncle died, you’re entitled to a place you’ve never even been before?
Wow.” She stretched out the single syllable, hoping a more cogent—or at least more cutting—argument would surface, but it seemed the Wisconsin public school system had failed her in this highly specific area.
“Yes, I thought when my uncle transferred the title to a resort to me that I would be, in fact, entitled to it. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that some two-bit con woman was claiming squatters’ rights on my property.”
“Two-bit?” Lainey’s laugh sliced at her insides, her eyes squinting into the sun glaring over his shoulder. The thin veil between peace and pain was lifting. She could already feel her body starting to turn on her.
“That’s the part you take issue with?” His head swung behind him as if searching for witnesses to this conversation.
His dark brows folded inward, and his long limbs paced her yard like an angry, hulking scribble.
Each time their eyes caught, his face twisted like he might be sick.
He pulled his glasses off his face and rubbed the lenses on his shirt.
“Fine. You’re a very sophisticated scam artist—are you happy?
” He put his glasses back on and eyed the piece she’d been working on. “What am I looking at here?”
“It’s…” She removed her work gloves and considered how best to explain that she wasn’t sure what he was looking at either.
She shook her head. “It’s not finished.” They were getting off topic. She folded her arms across her chest. “What did you come here for?” Did he think he could just show up here, flash a smile, and ask her nicely to leave her own house?
“I thought I should meet the trespasser who was trying to steal my house out from under me before I challenge your ludicrous claim on it in court.”
“I’m not stealing your house. I’ve lived here for twenty years. You never even knew this place existed until a week ago.”
“Nobody did!” He practically vibrated with each syllable.
“Do you even know what Forest’s Bridge is?
Do you appreciate its artistic significance or the years I’ve spent studying Vincent Groff’s work?
I wrote a dissertation on the man whose carport you’ve decided to store an open bonfire pit under, next to a bucket of oil-based stain. ”
“I should’ve known you were an architect,” she said, like his field of study was a curse word. “Your elbow patches have ‘Groff fanboy’ embroidered all over them.”
He folded his arms, ignoring her comment. “I’m shocked the place has lasted this long.”
A gray sedan rumbled down her drive. Lainey squinted at the familiar county emblem on the side door.
“Good. He’s here,” Elliot said, referring to the vehicle kicking up dirt and rocks in the distance.
“Who’s here?” The car pulled closer, and the driver came into view. Brad Bauer of Bauer Mart—a family-owned gas and convenience store that sold all the ordinary mini-mart fare, and also live lobster for some inexplicable reason—stepped out of the car and onto her driveway.
“My lawyer tipped me off on some potential safety hazards in the carport.” He waved his hand in the direction of the workshop she’d built up over the years, admittedly with no regard for building codes.
Her stomach knotted. “As the rightful property owner, I took it upon myself to notify the local inspector. I still own the land surrounding the house, you know,” Elliot reminded her, his voice much too casual while delivering such obvious threats.
“I’m aware,” she replied through gritted teeth. Along with his criminally high bill for attorney’s fees, Mark had emailed Lainey something to that effect, adding that—without a deal with Elliot regarding the surrounding property—selling the house on its own would be “tricky.”
Lainey breathed in and out through her nose, hoping to release some of the pressure rapping against her skull. Elliot looked at her with assessing eyes. It unsettled her.
“Hmm,” Lainey responded flatly. “How very Karen-y of you.”
“I’m not sure I formally introduced myself. Elliot Hodges,” he told her as his bureaucratic thug sidled up beside him.
Lainey battled an eye roll. “I gathered as much from context clues.”