6. Tess
Tess
T he phone number from the rental advertisement at Café Cloche sits folded up in my wallet for three whole days before I pull it out again.
I’ve just wrapped up my final farrier appointment of the day, and I find it while thumbing through my wallet to look for my loyalty card at the gas station. I run my fingertip over the printed numbers and smooth out the crease down the middle.
I keep staring at the phone number as I fill the tank, the scent of gasoline wrinkling my nose. I’m just outside La Cloche. It can’t be more than a fifteen minute drive to La Grange Rouge.
I wasn’t planning on working at all today.
It’s Saturday, and being my own boss means I can prioritize Shel’s schedule more than I could working for somebody else back home, but I got a voicemail at the crack of dawn from a panicking mother trying to tell me something about her daughter’s pony throwing a shoe just in time for an important horse show today.
I was already awake. The whole housing insecurity thing has made sleeping past six in the morning impossible. It took a few minutes on the phone to get the full story out amidst the mother’s hyperventilating, and by the time I ended the call, I knew I couldn’t leave her hanging.
My own mom arrived for a visit with us on Thursday to help me put an end to this housing search. After finding her also awake in her room and triple-checking that she didn’t mind doing the morning solo with Shel, I headed out.
The click of the gas pump cuts through my thoughts. I wince when I see the price on the screen. My loyalty card won’t make much of a dent in that.
Once I’ve paid and climbed back into the truck, I set the phone number on the dashboard like a parking pass. My eyes keep snapping from the road to the slip of paper as I pull out of the gas station’s lot.
I’ve talked the whole thing over with my mom at least three times since she arrived. Even if I hadn’t wanted to discuss it, Shel would have made that impossible. She’s been raving about all her décor ideas for the ‘aesthetic’ loft nonstop.
My mom has the same concerns I do, mainly that moving in with virtual strangers raises a few red flags.
There’s a lot I don’t know about the Gauthiers, and we’d be sharing a kitchen.
I’d sign the lease in a heartbeat if it was just for me, but I’m not about to take a leap of faith when it comes to Shel’s safety.
Then there’s the matter of Jacinthe.
Barring whatever weird moment happened when she grabbed my arm and her eyes seemed to swallow me whole, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m far from her favourite person in the world. All I’ve told my mom is that Jacinthe seems uncertain of me and I’m not sure how sharing a house would go.
Of course, my mom came up with an annoyingly simple solution for that problem: go talk to Jacinthe about it.
It would be the practical, adult thing to do, especially considering she’s one of my clients. I could tell Jacinthe I’m serious about the lease and ask to meet up to go over any concerns either of us might have.
Only I can’t stop thinking about that moment when she grabbed my arm.
I also can’t stop thinking about her eyes.
“It was nothing,” I say into the silence of the truck’s cab. “It was just a weird, dumb moment. I was totally out of it, and she surprised me. There’s no reason for me to chicken out on a perfect living situation just because of how nice I think a girl’s eyes are.”
The paper on my dashboard slides a couple inches closer as I hit a bend in the road.
“A girl who doesn’t even like me!” I add.
This is all so stupid. I swore off dating after the one and only relationship I’ve been in since Shel was born blew up in my face.
I haven’t even kissed a woman in three years. The few random hook-ups I tried to sprinkle into my schedule since calling it quits on dating were never worth it, so eventually, I just went cold turkey.
“Or cold pussy, maybe,” I mutter, indulging my own dumb joke with a laugh.
Maybe that’s why this whole ‘staring deep into Jacinthe’s eyes’ thing has been haunting my thoughts. Maybe it was the sheer physical proximity of another queer woman and nothing more.
The thought brightens my mood.
I can handle a fleeting moment of random horniness. I’m not going to fuck my life up and become a terrible parent over that.
I’m not going to lose sight of what matters: Shel, and giving her the best life possible now that we’re finally out on our own.
When the now-familiar turn-off for La Cloche comes into view up ahead, I don’t hesitate. I flick my turn signal on and follow the route almost all the way into town before relying on memory to get me over to La Grange Rouge.
The signature red roof glints like a ruby folded into the green satin of the pastures. A few horses are out grazing, tails flicking to keep away the last of the summer flies.
There’s only one car in the driveway when I pull up to the house: a rusting old Toyota hatchback, with no sign of the truck Jacinthe careened into the farmyard with during my first visit here last week.
I’m starting to wonder if I should have called when Gabrielle steps out the front door onto the porch. She doesn’t spot me at first, and it only takes a couple seconds of me watching her try to limp down the stairs with a grimace on her face before I’m sprinting over to ask her what’s wrong.
“Tess!” she says, her expression caught somewhere between shocked and pleased. “This is a nice surprise! What are you doing here, ma belle?”
“I, uh, was hoping to talk to Jacinthe,” I answer. My face gets hot as I realize what a long shot this was. “I’m sorry to bother you. Are you, um, okay?”
She looks confused for a moment before she bends forward to give her thighs a light slap.
“Oh, these old things? My legs are just extra stiff today. I have multiple sclerosis. Some days are good. Some days are bad, but that’s just life, hein ?”
“Oh,” I say, like a complete idiot.
I caught enough of her conversations with Jacinthe the day we met to figure she must have something going on with her health, but I’d forgotten all about it by the time I came back to see the rental unit.
“Sorry to hear today is a bad day,” I add.
“Ah, I’ve had worse.” She shrugs and grins at me, but her usually sun-kissed skin looks pale. “Now, you say you’re here to see Jacinthe?”
“Oh, uh, yeah.” I reach up to scratch the back of my neck. “We don’t have plans or anything. I was in the area and thought she might be around. I just wanted to go over some stuff about the rental unit with her.”
I wait for Gabrielle to question why I’m not here to talk to her, considering she’s the one whose name will be on the lease, but she just nods and then pulls her phone out to check the time.
“Ah, zute alors ,” she mutters. “I’m late already. Maudit legs.”
She stuffs her phone back in her purse and grins again, but I can see worry gathering in the crinkly lines around her eyes.
“I am very happy you’re still interested,” she says, “but Jacinthe isn’t here today. It’s the grand opening.”
I’m about to ask what she means when it hits me.
“Oh, the inn! That’s today?”
“Yes.” Gabrielle bobs her head. “And I am very late. I told Jacinthe I would drive myself over. I’m so sorry to be rude, Tess, but I have to go.”
She hefts her purse strap higher up on her shoulder and sucks in a deep breath.
“Right, right. Of course,” I babble.
She takes her first step and immediately gasps, then clenches her jaw into a tight line before she takes her second.
I didn’t notice much of a resemblance before, but the hard, stubborn expression makes her look just like her daughter.
She makes it another few steps before she pauses, panting.
“I could drive you,” I blurt.
I cringe as soon as the words leave my mouth. If she says she can drive, it’s not my place to tell her she can’t, but she doesn’t look like taking her own car would be a good idea.
“Of course, it’s totally up to you,” I tell her. “I just thought I’d offer. I?—”
“Tess, you are an angel!”
She beams at me, and all resemblance to her daughter vanishes. There’s no way I can imagine Jacinthe looking that happy to see me.
She claps her hands and switches course to head for my truck.
“Now, vite vite !” she orders. “We have to get there before they cut the ribbon!”
I don’t know what kind of crowd I was expecting, but I never would have guessed we’d have to park four blocks away from the inn.
I didn’t even know La Cloche had four blocks.
Gabrielle is groaning with more and more distress the farther we go without finding a gap big enough for the farrier rig in the never-ending cars lining the sidewalks.
“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “We’ll get something.”
“I should have left earlier,” she says, her hands digging into her hair. “I knew it would be like this.”
“How about I just drive as close to the inn as I can and let you hop out?”
I’d much prefer to make sure she gets there safely, but at this rate, we’ll be stuck hiking down from the mountains by the time I find a place to park.
“Oh, but you have to come too!” Gabrielle says, giving up on scanning the streets to stare at me with wide eyes. “You’re not going to miss it, are you? Everyone is here!”
Before I have a chance to answer, a minibus full of senior tourists swings out into the street up ahead of us, clearing a large stretch of pavement.
I hit the gas, Gabrielle cheering me on as I do the smoothest parallel park of my life. She’s already flinging her seatbelt off before I’ve even cut the engine, and by the time I’ve got my bearings and locked the truck, she’s hustled several meters up the sidewalk.
I jog to catch up with her and then slow my pace. She’s moving much faster than she was back at the house, her jaw set in that stubborn line again.