Chapter Sixteen
Edie pulled off her work gloves and waved at the man whose truck had just lifted the full skip onto its bed. He waved back, hopped into the truck, and drove away.
Morag had gone to visit a sister she’d heretofore never mentioned.
This had happened almost the moment Edie and Cosima returned from Rouen in the wee hours of the morning the day after they found the letter at the café.
She’d stuck around just long enough to give Edie a list of where she had accounts and to warn her not to break her Aga, and then she was gone, leaving only a number to call and let her know when “the dust had settled.”
Edie wasn’t sure what dust Morag meant. The dust from the hundreds of square feet of mauve carpet that Edie had pulled up tack by tack? Or the dust between Edie and Cosima that had kicked up in the aftermath of reading Agatha’s letter to the mysterious Minnie?
“Wow.” Cosima emerged through a temporary plastic flap that Edie had hung on the landing, then minced down the stairs on the protective paper Edie had taped down in order to cover the wool runner that didn’t need replacing because it was actually quite nice. “Who would have thought?”
Edie looked over the lounge—the only room Morag’s deal gave her dominion over.
Its furniture now sat beneath a cheap yard shelter on the lawn next to the garden gate.
She had put furniture broken beyond repair in the skip and saved the rest, most of which needed only polishing or reupholstering. “How old do you think this floor is?”
Cosima tipped her head at the foot-wide, buttery-smooth planks of the wood floor Edie had revealed by pulling up the carpet, removing tacks, and running a rented buffer for several hours. “If it’s not original, it’s nearly.”
“That would make it almost three hundred years old.”
“I think this must be Victorian, though.” Cosima walked across the empty room to the fireplace Edie had found under a more modern box and a mantle made from drywall and pine.
The elaborate cast iron fireplace beneath had survived Edie’s inexpert attention with steel wool and beeswax to take on a dark glow.
Under the carpet, a glossy tile hearth was hiding, with handmade tiles in a relief pattern that matched the one on the fireplace—oak leaves and ivy.
“I called someone on Morag’s list to come have a look at the chimney.”
Cosima nodded. “Did you call someone for the plaster?”
Edie had stripped the mauve-and-brown flocked wallpaper to reveal lime plaster that needed some repair.
The reception had never been wallpapered, its plaster kept up with a creamy mineral paint Edie had found a few cans of in the inn’s shed, and she thought the best plan would be to make them match. “I did. I’m hoping it’s mostly sound.”
Cosima shoved her hands into the pockets of the green coveralls she’d been wearing in the garden. Her hair was schooled into a tight braid, and she wore socks, ready to step into her wellies by the kitchen door.
Ready to avoid Edie some more.
It was the third day of this. Seven left before Cosima would have to leave. Then Edie would be here another week with only Morag to cry on before she scraped herself into a plane. On the other side, her mother would be waiting in her Dodge Ram in the pickup line at the Green Bay airport.
“Do you think we could have tea before you went into the garden?” She tried to make her voice sound casual and not like she was pleading for her life.
Cosima shook her head. “Okay.”
“No? Or okay?”
Cosima looked at her pink socks. “Okay. I will have tea.”
“I won’t poison it.” Edie made her way to the kitchen, glancing back at Cosima to make sure she was following.
“I know that.” The other woman sighed and then disappeared into the pantry.
She emerged with Edie’s bourbon creams and her own Jammie Dodgers.
“But I’ve been assiduously avoiding you, and your offer of tea is an affront to my project.
” She smiled, barely, sitting down on a stool around the work table.
“Why, though?” Edie started the kettle. When Cosima opened her mouth to speak, she lifted her hand. “No, I know. The letter spooked you. Clearly, my kisses pledged your heart to mine forever, they were that good—”
“Don’t joke.”
Edie’s stomach sank at the deserved reprimand.
She had paused by Cosima’s door and by the garden gate so many times, desperate to talk to her.
To figure this out. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair.
But why do we have to avoid each other? What is it that you think I want?
” Edie leaned on the table, looking into Cosima’s sky-blue eyes for the first time in hours and hours.
“If we avoid each other, we can pretend like our kissing is without consequences. If we go to Barcelona, find out who Minnie is, and learn just how bad the ending to this story is, we’ll be piling sad onto sad.”
“We don’t know it’s bad!” Edie yanked a stool under her butt, annoyed.
This was the same argument they’d had several times now, whenever they tried to talk, eating their meals or having tea.
Even when they pledged to keep things light and not talk about it.
It was the argument that had started right after Edie read the letter and continued the whole way home on the train.
“Maybe Minnie didn’t follow Agatha’s clues in the guest book, but that doesn’t mean we can be sure they didn’t end up together.
There’s lots and lots of ways two people can end up together.
” Edie knew her voice had gone husky, but she had finally captured Cosima out of the garden, and they had to find a way to resolve this.
Her heart felt like she’d spent three days ripping carpet tacks out of it.
Cosima studied the biscuit packets. “I know that.”
“You do?”
“Obviously, I do. Obviously, I’ve been trying to think of any way that we can just …
not go back to California and Wisconsin.
” Cosima had deftly switched from Minnie and Agatha to her and Edie.
That was how their argument went. “But, as I explained, I am on a do-or-die timeline right now that is going to turn into a black hole of obligation and work the moment—”
“Yes, you told me all of that.”
“And you told me that you have a job waiting.” Cosima put both of her palms flat on the table.
“That you have to rebound, at least financially. That you’re not sure what your new goals are, and, to be honest, I don’t know what mine are either.
Have I known for some time, for many years, that I’m not interested in the life of a studio mogul?
Yes. Again, obviously, because when my mother offered me that life, I turned it down.
You’ve not met my mother, so you cannot know what a difficult thing that was to do.
But how do I make a decision about my whole future when the only things I can think about are the David Austin Roses catalog and the freckles on your thighs? ”
Cosima near-shouted this last part, just as the kettle whistled. The air whooshed out of Edie’s lungs.
Every muscle she possessed was ruined from the physical work she had been throwing herself at for the last seventy-two hours.
Her hands smelled like buffing wax. At night, when she sank her body into hot water in the enormous tub in the bathroom, she hissed as the water stung new blisters.
But none of this in any way impeded her response to Cosima.
The way her heart wobbled. How every nerve filled with horny longing.
She pulled the kettle off the hob with a clumsy clatter.
“Don’t come over to my side of the table,” Cosima warned.
Edie hadn’t been headed toward Cosima. Now she wanted to. “I am coming over to your side of the table.” Edie did.
Cosima stood up and started moving around the table, away from Edie. “You can’t. We have an agreement.”
“We don’t. If we’d come to an agreement of any kind since Rouen, I would definitely remember.
” Edie made it to Cosima’s side just as Cosima slid in her socks to the end.
“We haven’t even agreed to disagree. What I want is you, no matter how bad an idea it is.
I don’t really see that we have a choice.
We decided that on the balcony in Rouen.
Nothing has changed except that now I also want to go to Barcelona, because I can’t leave this story the way it was left in France. ”
Cosima held on to the edge of the table, her knuckles white and her eyes huge. “Edie.”
Suddenly, she felt bad. What was she doing, chasing Cosima around an enormous table, talking about wanting her?
“I’m sorry. Please.” Edie didn’t know what she was asking for.
“It’s just, I’ve thought a lot about this, too.
I’ve tried to talk myself out of it, to tell myself that it’s just a proximity thing.
Isolation. But I don’t think that even I could fall for just anyone who I found myself holed up with in an end-of-the-world English inn.
I wasn’t counting on you. I can’t believe how brave you are.
I can’t believe how we’re neck and neck in the worst game about who has the worst life, and your chin still points that high into the air. ”
I can’t believe how much I love you. That was what she was trying to say without taking the risk of saying it. I can’t believe how much I want you.
“Stay there. Don’t chase me.” Cosima made her way to Edie until she stood directly in front of her, pink-cheeked and tall.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I have no idea what I’m doing.” Cosima stepped even closer, until the canvas of their coveralls was nearly touching. “I should think that would be obvious.”
“What do you want?” Edie raised her eyebrows, desperate to tease Cosima into giving her one of her smile kisses, but also afraid she would scare her off like a bird she held out a cupped palm full of seed to.
“Sit on the table.” Cosima’s blush was so red-hot, Edie was afraid she’d set her curly hair on fire.