Chapter 7
The man had absolutely no business making a soup this delicious. It made Thora legitimately mad. Like a stereotypical New
Yorker, she rarely cooked. Bryony kept her writing awards in her oven, save for a select few on the mantel, and her fridge
stocked only with Diet Coke and her favorite Sauvignon Blanc. She didn’t believe in leftovers.
Well, she knew they were real, but they had no place in her kitchen.
Whoever was cleaning her kitchen at night, usually an older woman who went by Bitty, took leftovers home, probably feeding
her entire apartment building. Sometimes Thora managed to snag a little something for the minifridge in the guest room she
slept in. She never held much stock in a concept like “cooking from the heart,” but that was what Lee had done. This is what
he had wanted to cook for George, and he’d cooked it for her instead. Was she worthy of that level of care? Could she get
used to it?
“How’s the writing going? Am I allowed to ask that, or is that a taboo thing to say to a writer?”
He called her a writer, and it sent a little flutter through her. Then she smacked that flutter down like a horse fly. He
always saw her as a writer. He was one of extremely few people who knew she was the anonymous gossip columnist for their college
newspaper, The Townsend Times. He wasn’t trying to make her feel special.
“It’s early days,” she replied.
“Can I ask what you’re writing about?”
“I’m writing about Juniper.”
His eyes danced at that news. She believed everyone who visited Juniper could be touched by its magic. It cast a love spell
on anyone who ever saw its elegant timber frame that looked like forest spirits compelled it to grow out of the earth.
“It’s fiction, though,” she continued. “I want to write scary adventure books for kids. Inspired by the fun I had here, and
hopefully some other stories I can make up from whole cloth.”
“That’s amazing,” he said. “Will there be a character inspired by George?”
“I’m trying to figure that out,” Thora said. “I think he’s the exact kind of adult who has a good role in a kid’s story. Because
he’s trustworthy but not a parent.”
“I bet he listened to kids as well as he listened to adults.”
A flash of jealousy burned through her. How dare Lee know George well enough to categorize him accurately?
She had witnessed how George and Lee interacted during Lee’s first visit.
Both quiet souls, they spent a lot of time sitting together on the porch in silence.
Somehow they communicated on a frequency Thora was not capable of hearing, like how elephants conduct conversations through the earth itself.
Then Lee spent an entire summer here without her.
He had memories of George she was not privy to.
Regret followed in the wake of jealousy. She should have been here more. That was on her. It wasn’t Lee’s fault she didn’t
see George as much as she could have near the end of his life. She had to accept some responsibility, much as it pained her.
“Yes. He was a great listener.”
Lee smiled. He had those big puppy dog eyes, and it made his smiles seem smaller somehow. They matched his quiet voice, these
small smiles.
“It’s what he liked about trees. That they were the perfect listeners. It was like he was striving to be a tree himself.”
More than Lee knew, it seemed. Maybe she could make him a tree in her book. Some kind of magical talking tree who only kids
know about. That would be a fitting tribute. Talking with Lee about her ideas was already making them richer. His observations
strengthened hers.
Before she could ask him about the quote from the tree story, he opened a new line of questions. “Have you always wanted to
be an author? Or was being a gossip columnist plan A?”
Thora loved gossip, but it certainly wasn’t her original plan for making an impact on her college campus. After rejection
by the campus literary magazine, the gossip column idea came to her while she was staring at the tabloids near the register
at the pharmacy where she got her tampons.
“Yes, I’ve always wanted to write fiction. I picked Folklore as a major in college thinking that would be a good foundation.
Like, if I deeply understood this human urge to tell stories, I would be able to parlay that into anything.”
“Including gossip.”
“Definitely including gossip.”
“Be honest. Did Cody never know you were the author of ‘Talk of the Townsend’?”
Thora kept her anonymity for her gossip column for all four years of college. It took a coordinated effort, requiring as few
people to know the truth as possible. Cody was not among them.
“I told him on graduation day.”
“He must have been shocked. Some of the blind items were about him.”
Thora pretended to dust off her shoulder. “They certainly were. He was one of my best sources, big man on campus that he was.”
Lee shook his head. He looked uncharacteristically cocky, like he was proud to be in that inner circle.
“And you never blew my cover,” Thora added.
Lee made the motion of zipping his lips shut. “I keep my word.”
It was smart to entrust her secret to a man of few words. But these little sentences of his—I can do more than paint, I keep my word—created a resonance somewhere in her body. She didn’t like it.
“It never bothered you to write a comic strip that I got all the credit for?” she asked.
To obscure Thora’s job as gossip columnist, she needed something credited to her in the paper. Otherwise, the rest of the staff, or anyone seeing who came and went from the office, could
suss out her role. To explain her presence, the editors and Lee struck a deal. He already had one comic in the paper, an absurdist
single-panel work that was essentially a rip-off of The Far Side.
He would add another, but put Thora’s name on it.
This second comic, called Overheard, was a strip inspired by actual quotes heard while walking around campus.
Readers could submit their own suggestions, and it became a big honor to have your quote made into a cartoon.
The only thing she ever did for it was provide the soundbite for the first installment.
Girl 1: Did you end up hooking up with that guy last night?
Girl 2: No, I need a man who can at least hide his Ayn Rand books before he goes out for the night.
Lee produced the comics quickly using clip art and rudimentary digital art skills, which gave them a charm and a distinct
difference from his other, skillfully rendered work.
“Didn’t you win an award for my comic?” Lee asked.
“Campus Humorist of the Year,” she said. “Beat everyone at the comedy magazine, the improv troupe, the sketch comedy group,
and . . . oh yeah, you. Cody was proud of me.”
“I bet he was.” He smiled wickedly.
“I still put it on my resume,” she teased.
“Maybe I should start putting it on mine. Who would fact-check it?”
“I’m a scrupulous fact-checker,” she said haughtily. “You have to be a semiprofessional gossipmonger.”
“I’ll take you off my list of references then.”
She was about to apologize if her reference didn’t get him that job at the Frank Gehry Center for Hifalutin Architects, but
she stopped herself.
What was she doing, flirting with Lee? It came so easily to her that she didn’t immediately see how wrong it was. Couldn’t
he see how wrong he was? The ink was barely dry on her divorce, and here was this guy flirting with his best friend’s ex? Not on her watch. Especially not when she was dangerously close to enjoying it.
She let the fizzy energy dissipate as she focused on her soup and bread.
It wasn’t hard to do. She only had to look at the kitchen she was eating in. A kitchen that was supposed to look like a log
cabin but, at this moment, felt like a cheap rental property updated with the landlord’s special.
“What if instead of working on the Wood Room, you undid whatever you did in here?”
She expected a fight. Not even a man as relaxed as Lee could take such a clear trashing of his handiwork.
“Sure,” he said between mouthfuls of soup. “It’ll be a hell of a lot colder in here, though. We’ll have to be vigilant about
keeping the fire going.”
Wait.
That was all?
“And you can take out everything in the Great Room?”
“No sweat.”
He wasn’t going to be easily baited into a fight. She couldn’t relate. She needed to be a little less subtle.
“To be honest, I’m a little nervous about letting you touch the Wood Room. The work in here is a little . . .” She gestured
around the kitchen, searching for the word.
“Cheap? Ugly? Slapdash?” Lee offered.
Those words stunned her into silence.
“I know it looks like shit, Thora. I was trying to keep George warm. I never built anything to be permanent. Except for the
bathroom in the pantry. That would be a pain in the ass to tear out, and a house this big should have two bathrooms anyway.”
“Oh.” All her assumptions were coming back to bite her in the ass. Lee’s levelheadedness was humbling. It was also, unexpectedly, sexy.
“What are your plans here, long term? If you want to try to winterize it for real without compromising the look, it can be
done. I didn’t have the time and money to do it before.”
“I’m not sure what my plans are, long term. As of now, this is my only place of residence.”
“You planning to stay with Mack in the winter?”
Thora remembered Lee’s lock screen, from Mack’s dock. Sometime he was up here, he must have been at her house. Why hadn’t
Mack told her anything about that? Because she’d successfully convinced Mack that she didn’t want to hear about Lee. Apparently,
that was a lie. Mack could usually see through those things, but Thora was hiding the truth from herself all this time. She
was afraid of how Lee made her feel, and Juniper was the place where she always had to face her fears.
“Haven’t gotten that far. Like I said, I am taking some time to myself, working on my writing.”
“You can close off the hallway and live in the Great Room and kitchen for the winter if you want. If you think that’s a possibility,
then we shouldn’t mess with it for now,” he suggested.
Thora felt ashamed for trying to anger him. If he acted like an asshole, raised his voice or lost his patience, it would be
easier to maintain her own ire. As it was, he was fucking flirting with her and cooking her food, and it was a disaster. He
was caring for her, interested in her, and it was creating the urge in her to reciprocate.
“Then it makes more sense for you to do some restoration in the Wood Room.”
“Yes,” he agreed.
Thora took the last spoonful of her soup.
“This soup is delicious, by the way. Thank you.”
“I was planning on making it for George. It freezes well,” he said.
Another pang of guilt stabbed her. She should have been the one stocking George’s freezer. Instead, she did exorbitant shit
like going on a Rhine River cruise with Bryony Brooks to see what a serial killer might realistically be able to accomplish
aboard such a vessel. And also to locate the best places for a rich widow with scandalous secrets to get railed by the ruggedly
handsome but mysterious captain.
That was a hell of a trip. How could she have passed it up? If she ever decided to transition from children’s adventure novels
to gossipy potboilers, she would be ready. But that was never the goal. As with Cody, Thora had fallen under Bryony’s charismatic
thrall, and she followed her anywhere. Sure, Thora was young and na?ve, but she could have stood firm. She could have kept
her relationship with George at the fore. She hoped she’d learned her fucking lesson.
Lee cleared the dishes from the table unprompted. This unassuming gesture was the cherry on the care sundae for this evening,
and she was about ready to take her top off in gratitude.
Make it another memorable trip to Juniper for Lee.
No, make nothing of it, she told herself.
He’s a guy cleaning up after himself. It’s not actually impressive.
You’re just a little hard up after being married to a guy who was never especially demonstrative.
“Can we have a look at the Wood Room together before you turn in for the night?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said, and followed him through the Great Room and down the main corridor of the house, turning into the first
room on the right.
A green banker’s lamp on the desk and a stained glass lamp by the velvet settee George used as a bed projected weak light around the room.
She’d incorporate some better task lighting as she transformed this space into her writer’s retreat.
And probably an ergonomic chair, even if it did clash with the Victorian abundance of the space.
Lee pointed to the stack of notebooks on the desk. “Isn’t this George’s writing?”
“Yes,” Thora said. “I meant to ask you before. Does the phrase ‘there is beauty in letting go’ mean anything to you? It sounds
familiar.”
Lee pulled up the sleeve of his shirt. A vibrant red maple leaf tattoo adorned his bicep. The leaf was slightly curled so
the paler underside showed, as if it were floating in midair. The text under it read There is beauty in letting go.
“It’s from Tree he just forgot on occasion.”
Thora smiled wistfully. “I thought it was his cute little nickname for you. Because you two like the outdoors so much.”
Thora picked up one of the notebooks, brushing her hand over George’s elegant handwriting. This text connected George and
Lee, and apparently lots of readers, even though George had never spoken of it publicly. There was something cosmic happening,
in the way this house, its objects, its inhabitants, brought people together. It was happening with her and Lee.
“So what’s up with the notebooks?” Lee asked.
“Either George also loved Tree & Leaf, enough to transcribe it,” Thora said, “or he wrote it himself.”