Chapter 5
THE (HOUSEMATE) PROPOSAL
Cricket
When I was born, my parents named me Constance Gwendolyn Garland.
They started calling me Cricket because my oldest sister said I chirped like a cricket when I was crying or eating or hiccuping or something, and the name stuck.
It just feels like me now, even if my mother regularly reminds me that it’s time for me to go by a more grown-up name.
If I were to name myself today, I’d call myself Cricket Chaos Garland, because that apparently fits better.
The urn thing?
That was tame compared to what happened with the fajita salad at lunch and the round of Yahtzee with Olivia this afternoon, and that’s all I intend to ever say about that.
This isn’t who I am.
I’m not a klutz. I’m not an embarrassment.
I’m a strong, confident career woman making the most of the opportunities I’ve had to carve out a life full of fascinating experiences.
Except for this past week.
This past week, I have not been her.
And the urn thing means I have to dash back to the little house to change for the second time today.
I pretend I don’t see the disaster in the kitchen and head for the bedroom, where I pull my luggage out of the closet.
But as I dig and dig in my suitcase, I find two pairs of jeans, pajama shorts, two skirts, a distinct lack of enough socks and underwear, and only one shirt.
Unfortunately, it’s a shirt I wore to a friend’s bachelorette party a few years ago.
It’s hot pink with black rhinestones spelling out I’m the trouble with an outline of a penis beneath the words.
This is what I get for not caring when I was packing.
And for not actually showering any of my days on the road.
Hopefully there’s a shop in the nearby town that can deliver something new.
Also, I need to do laundry, which is basically the story of my life.
Since it’s the dick shirt or continuing to look like I’ve been rolling around at a crime scene, I pick up the dick shirt.
Heath was taking Lavender back to their house for dinner, so it’s not like I’ll be an immediate bad—worse—influence.
But when I finally leave the cottage with my dirty laundry in hand after giving myself some time to breathe, the first thing I see is Heath and Lavender, along with a surprisingly large calico cat on a leash, lingering on the other side of the wildly overgrown garden.
I didn’t know calico cats came that big.
“March, Fluffy,” Lavender says. “You need your exercise.”
The cat’s having none of it.
She’s splayed out in the grass with her back legs behind her, similar to the way my parents’ and sisters’ French bulldogs lie.
One more way I’m the oddball in my family.
I don’t have French bulldogs.
“Meow?” she says to the cat.
Nothing.
“Meow purr?”
Still nothing.
“Roar!”
I introduced her to my imaginary pet dragon when I started getting the impression Ginny was at the end of her rope with Lavender’s meowing this afternoon, and she’s added roars to her repertoire.
Which I won’t be mentioning to her father.
That definitely wasn’t my fault. Nope, nope, nope.
“Daddy, she needs a treat to walk,” Lavender says.
“Too many treats is why she has to exercise,” Heath replies.
“Exercise is stupid.”
“Exercise can make you feel good if you find the right kind that you like.”
“Nuh-uh.”
The good news? They’re mostly angled away from me, so I should be able to sneak past them undetected, especially if I skirt this side of the garden and go into the back door.
The bad news?
I need to stay neutral in this debate, but in my head, I’m Team Lavender.
Exercise is stupid.
At least the kind that requires the fancy gym memberships that my family gets me for my birthday every year or the weightlifting that my last stupid ex insisted I needed to do with him that made me strain my ass muscles because he refused to listen when I told him I couldn’t squat that much.
That kind of exercise is stupid to me.
So is that kind of ex.
I’d just started getting back to exercising my way—and dating my way—when—
Well.
When the incident happened.
Heath shifts his stance, and I realize he’s holding what looks like a kid’s fishing rod. “Let’s try the catnip again,” he says.
“Fluffy hates catnip,” Lavender says.
“It’s a new kind from the farmer’s market.”
“Is it organic?”
“Yes.”
He dangles whatever’s on the end of the string in front of the cat, who lifts her head and sniffs, but doesn’t move.
“C’mon, Fluffy,” he says softly. “Fish for dinner if you chase the catnip.”
He’s so patient.
No yelling.
No frustration.
Just a quiet persistence in trying to get the cat to move.
Much like he had a quiet persistence when checking out my injuries in the bathroom this morning, even though I’m pretty sure he wanted to yell at me.
And I need to quit admiring anything about him.
Single dads are on my no-no list.
Everyone, in fact, is on my no-no list.
And I’m only here for a week.
Two, tops. Just long enough to find a new job and get over myself.
I creep around the garden while listening to Lavender and Heath attempt to talk the cat into moving, then dash the last little way to the main house’s back door.
I’m starting my laundry in the mudroom off the kitchen when Mabel and Ginny join me.
The looks on their faces—especially as they notice my dick shirt—crap, crap, crap.
My heart sinks.
I’m being kicked out.
I’ve caused too much chaos even when I’ve been trying to be good today, and now I’m being asked to leave, just like I was asked to leave last Thanksgiving at my sister Aurora’s house when I caused too much chaos with my nieces and nephews.
I thought it would take at least a few days, but here we are.
“I swear, I can be quieter and calmer,” I blurt.
If I start the washing machine right this second, I can buy myself at least two hours.
Surely they won’t kick me out while my clothes are getting cleaned?
“And I’ll order new shirts. I—I didn’t pack well, but my whole wardrobe is better than this, I swear.
I just—the thing—it happened when I was due to do laundry, and I only thought I’d need a few days here, and so all of my good clothes are at home. Dirty.”
They both squint at me as I randomly hit various buttons and knobs, trying to get the machine to start.
Ginny’s eyes go round first. “Oh my stars, Cricket, no. We’re not sending you away.”
“Not at all,” Mabel agrees. “We don’t do that. But we are a little fuller than normal right now, and with the mother-in-law cottage out of commission for a few days—”
“Oh, I don’t need plumbing. I’m not showering again for probably a week. Maybe ever. Honestly, I don’t know how Aunt Pip does it with walking around mostly naked. I can’t stand being naked right now, even in private, you know?”
“You still need to pee sometimes,” Ginny says.
“Or get a glass of water, or wash your hands,” Mabel adds.
Ginny nods. “We’ve tried living without plumbing on occasion, and it’s a lot more complicated than you think it is.”
“Unfortunately true,” Mabel agrees.
“The main house is right here,” I say. “That’s close enough. And you said come and go at all hours, right?”
Ginny cringes. “I’d agree with you, except this isn’t the first time we’ve been in this situation, and experience tells us it’s still not the best spot for you—for anyone to be.”
“And the floor in the kitchen is a little hazardous right now too,” Mabel says. “But we do have a solution that’ll give you a bed and plumbing.”
My heart sinks lower and lower, and my chin starts to wobble.
I wonder how far I’ll be from these ladies. Does one of the neighbors run a bed-and-breakfast? Or are they talking about a hotel in town?
I wasn’t paying close-close attention on the final stretch of my drive here last night, but I know Foxwood isn’t the short, walkable distance from the main house here that my current accommodations are.
Shake it off, Cricket. It’s just a few days. “Sure. Of course. Whatever you—whatever you need to do with me.”
“It’s actually the nicest bedroom on the property,” Ginny tells me.
My heart thumps hard in relief.
It’s on the property.
There are acres and acres of grapevines here, so I could still be some distance away, but at least it’s still on the property.
Mabel pulls my red-stained shirt out of the washer, sprays it with a stain remover I hadn’t spotted on the shelf above the two machines, then tosses it back in and starts the cycle.
“Come,” she says. “Let’s talk in the sitting room.”
They steer me through the kitchen and down the hallway, past the wall of pictures that I was studying before the urn incident.
“You’ll have a private bathroom without windows and a kitchenette, just like in the mother-in-law house,” Mabel says as we walk through the house.
“You actually might not want to leave even when the mother-in-law house is fixed up.” Ginny smiles at me, but it’s a guarded smile, and I suddenly need to know the catch.
“Where is it?” I ask. “That big stone building? It has bedrooms?” I think I heard Olivia call it the banquet hall, but I could be mistaken.
I’m still getting my bearings.
They share a look.
Ginny winces.
Mabel’s expression stays neutral as she points me through the wide doorway into the sitting room, where the rug has been rolled away and the urn of ashes returned to the mantle over the marble fireplace, though a drawing of a uterus now accompanies the walrus drawings on the coffee table.
“It’s a full apartment in the basement of the caretaker’s cottage,” Mabel tells me. “The basement is a walk-out, so you have your own private entrance. Not much different from the mother-in-law house, honestly. Just a little further away.”
The caretaker’s cottage.
The—oh fuck.
I keep my smile plastered on my face even as I freeze in the doorway of the sitting room. Years in broadcasting trained me well, even if it wasn’t anything my family considered serious work.
“Heath’s house.”
“Like I said, private entrance, full apartment, windowless bathroom, and there’s a door at both the top and bottom of the stairs, and they each lock,” Mabel says.