Gretchen shrugs, as if the outcome of this makes no difference to her. She isn’t quite sure why itdoesmake a difference to her, except that the thought of the man in front of her coming to harm makes her feel a little panicky. Though she would feel that way about anyone coming to harm, she reminds herself. Because,like Everett said, she wants to help people. Even when it bites her in the ass. Like with Lawrence Biller, back in Chicago. And right now, with Charlie.
“Then I’ll keep all of Mrs. Van Alst’s money and my future appointments with her. Plus you’ll still be short-handed around here, not to mention you’ll probably wind up dooming yourself to an eternity as a spirit who can’t go any farther than the end of the driveway, which Everett assures me gets old pretty quick.”
A strand of Charlie’s hair falls over his forehead, and she has to resist a bizarre impulse to tuck it back. Instead, she flashes the smile she’s spent hours practicing since she was twelve, hertrust me, I’m harmlessone. It’s been the downfall of much greater men than Charlie Waybill. (There was this one time, with a Yankees shortstop... and well, anyway...)
“The better question is: What do you have to lose by letting me stick around?” she asks.
“My valuables?” he grumbles.
The flippant accusation reheats her temper, and her smile drops as quickly as she put it on. This has never been her button before, but it apparently is now, with this man. With Charlie. And boy, does he keep pushing it andpushingit.
“Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money, isn’t it? Then again, Mrs. Van Alst is a very rich woman...” She lets the statement trail off for effect. “If she gave me that much to come out here for a weekend to rid you of a ghost, imagine how much she’ll give me when I tell her there’s a whole dang family curse. And it will take me sometimeto convince you, since you’re such a stubborn ass...” See, the thing is, Gretchen knows Charlie’s button too. And if she needs to hold it down steadily in order to get him to agree to her staying, so be it. He doesn’t need to know she would never ina million years actually follow through on her threat; despite what he thinks of her, she really isn’t out to take advantage of anyone. Especially not Deborah Van Alst, who has been nothing but generous and kind to her.
“Are you... threatening to blackmail me?”
“Blackmail involves the threat of revealing information, and that’s not what this is at all. So no, not technically.”
“Then what is it?”
Gretchen plops into the chair Charlie previously vacated and crosses her legs, fully aware that the position shifts the hem of her borrowed shirt upward, revealing more bare thigh. “Just another facet of the situation for you to consider. Mrs. Van Alst really cares about you, for whatever reason. She said your happiness is worth, and I quote, ‘anything.’ I highly doubt she’s going to give up trying to help you out because you sent me away. Especially once she knows how dire the situation actually is. And you know that even if you don’t believe me about any of this, she absolutely will. So how about you make it easier on all of us and let me stay? Then we won’t have to get her involved at all. She can enjoy her vacation without worrying about any of it. Won’t need to trouble her.”
Charlie lets out a frustrated growl that sounds a little too close to his big fluffy dog for Gretchen’s comfort. Her shoulders tense.
“Room and board. For a month. That’s all I need from you,” she says. “And, well, for you to keep your mind slightly open to the possibility that I’m not trying to screw you over.”
He’s silent again, head bowed as he considers the situation. At last, he looks her in the eye. “Fine. Room and board. But I’m going to work you so hard, every single day, sunup to sundown.” Charlie pauses as Gretchen’s eyebrows raise and a suggestive smile spreads over her face. He swallows hard and quickly adds,“If you insist on nagging me about family curses, you better be useful as hell while doing it. Not that I have any expectations that you’ll even be able to do all that much.” His quick inspection of Gretchen’s body is that of someone evaluating livestock, which is certainly enough to throw cold water over his inadvertent innuendo. “You don’t get any more money from me or Mrs. Van Alst under any circumstances. And you’re giving her everything back at the end of the month when you haven’t convinced me. Every single penny she’s paid you since the beginning of the year—”
“Hey, I said one month. You can’t just—”
“January through April, or no deal,” he emphasizes. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Crystal,” she says through gritted teeth. How sure he is that she’s going to fail! Well, she won’t. She can’t. Neither her pride nor her bank account can afford it, especially since he’s insisting on an extra three months of repayment. The ten thousand Mrs. Van Alst gave her will cover all of her April expenses and then some, but if she has to give it (and oh god, another six grand) back, she’ll be absolutely fucked. It’s not going to be a problem, she tells herself. Because if Gretchen is so good at making people buy into her lies, surely, convincing them of the truth shouldn’t be much harder.
Right?
8
The walls of the small bedroom upstairs are covered in a red floral paper that’s curling in a few spots, and the ceiling’s gentle slope creates a cozy nook that’s a perfect fit for the full-size bed and its wrought iron headboard. Charlie pulls linens from an antique steamer chest in the corner—including a golden-yellow, lime-green, brown, and cobalt afghan that’s even more distressing to Gretchen’s eyes than his sweater. It looks like one of those Magic Eye images, but in blanket form. He waves off Gretchen’s half-hearted attempt to help make the bed, which frees her to slip away and check out the hallway. She gestures for Everett to follow.
On the way upstairs, she noticed some photos hanging here—including an odd space to the right where one clearly used to hang but no longer does. “Tell me who’s in these,” she says quietly so Charlie doesn’t overhear. Everett’s eyes bounce from side to side, prompting Gretchen to roll hers. “You can talk.”
He lets out a gasp, as if his brief stint of silence since they left the kitchen required him to hold his (nonexistent) breath. “Oh, thank god. I wasdying. Get it? Dying? But I’m already dead?” Gretchen does not laugh, so he continues. “Okay. So, um...” He gestures to the one in the middle. It’s an older photo that’s been colorized, so it has a strange, otherworldly quality to it. “That’s Charles and Ellen on their honeymoon. They went to Niagara Falls.” Everett looks from the picture to Gretchen. “Hey, you look a little like her, don’t you? The brown hair and the brown eyes.”
“They aren’t exactly rare attributes,” Gretchen says. She’s always been grateful for her generic prettiness. Most people would be hard-pressed to pick her out of a crowd. Or a lineup. A real asset for someone in her family’s line of work.
“Anyway, Charles and Ellen. And then this one beside them is my cousin George Waybill and his wife Enid, along with baby Charles there, and his twin older sisters.” Everett clears his throat, which Gretchen assumes is for effect considering she’s pretty sure he can’t generate phlegm. “And the old ghoul lurking off to the side is Aunt Lucretia Thorne. She lived to be a hundred and three, the mean ol’ bat.”
“Why didn’t you sell the farm to George in the first place?” Gretchen asks. “It sounds like he was happy to take it over after you died.”
Everett shrugs. “The mac from the railroad was going to pay me more.”
Gretchen wonders if the irony of this all was intentional. She kind of wishes Aunt Lucretia were haunting this farm too so she could find out more about how she managed it. A chill shoots down her spine when she takes another glance at the desiccated StregaNona look-alike at the edge of the photo. On second thought, it’s probably for the best she isn’t hanging around.
“Room’s ready.” Gretchen turns, startled, at the sound of Charlie’s voice. His eyes do a quick sweep over her body, so fast that she would’ve missed it if she hadn’t been watching him. Then they narrow again, remembering they should be suspicious of the stranger in his house—even if she does have nice legs. “What are you doing?” he asks.
“Everett was telling me about your family.” He might have dismissed everything she said in the kitchen earlier, but surely this level of detail will convince him. “Your grandparents, Charles and Ellen, and your great-grandparents, George and Enid. Aunt Lucretia Thorne, who lived to a hundred and three.” She gestures to the photos in their simple gold frames. “And... the missing one is...?”
Everett takes a moment to realize she’s asking him. “Oh, that was a picture of Charlie with his mom and dad. But he, uh... knocked that one off the wall after he had a pretty heated telephone call with Chuck.”
