If the curse was supposed to teach Everett Waybill a lesson, Gretchen isn’t sure he’s learned it yet. Well, he still has... the rest of eternity, she supposes. Maybe he’ll have a light bulb moment at some point.
“Based on his reactions so far, I don’t think any amount of information I shouldn’t know but do is going to be enough for Charlie. We’re going to need a different approach.”
“What about something like those Greek fellows did, hiding in that horse?”
Why is this happening to me?she thinks for the twentieth time over the last hour. “And how, exactly, do you conceive of that working in this particular situation, Everett?”
The ghost ponders this for a moment, starting and stopping a few sentences before throwing his hands in the air. “I don’t know! Why are you askingme? We’ve already established that you’re the brains of the operation.”
“You said a Waybill has to be here, but it doesn’t have to be Charlie, right? Is there someone else in the family who would be willing to take over? Then Charlie can leave and it wouldn’t even matter.”
“Nope. Charles’s sisters both passed, neither ever had children. Chuck’s the one pushing for the sale in the first place. So unless you’re volunteering to become a Waybill, or help make some new ones...” He winks.
“Hardpass, for so, so many reasons.”
Everett begins pacing again, more leisurely than he did in thekitchen. He stops abruptly and holds up a finger. “What if... you told Charlie the truth?” His eyebrows raise, waiting for Gretchen to applaud his genius.
“I’ve done that already. It didn’t work.”
“No, you tried telling him the truth about me and the curse. But not the truth aboutyou.”
Gretchen blinks a few times, letting this idea permeate her brain. It both terrifies and perversely excites her. What might it feel like for someone like Charlie to know her secrets? Would he recognize just how damn good she is at all of this? No. No, he would hate her more, and punish her for it. It would be Lawrence all over again. And if there’s one thing about Gretchen Acorn, it’s that she learns from her mistakes.
“Absolutely not,” she says at last. “That would ruin me. My business. My life. Charlie already thinks I’m a fraud, and if I confirm it, then... then... I’m done for. He’ll make sure of it. No. We need another way to convince him that doesn’t involve me admitting that you’re the first ghost with whom I’ve ever actually spoken.”
Everett stares blankly for a moment, opens his mouth to speak, then closes it again as if nixing his own idea. Then he apparently reconsiders. “Flash mob?”
“Okay, well, this has been completely unhelpful. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he replies cheerily. “So can we watch TV now?”
—
“Oh my god, just kiss already,” Gretchen groans at the television.
“This is getting painful,” Everett agrees from where he float-sits beside her on the beige-and-navy-striped living room sofa. “If I were James Herriot, I guarantee I would have had Helen rolling around with me in a haystack within a week.”
“Well, sheisdating someone else,” she points out.
Everett shrugs. “So?”
They’re on their fifth episode in a row ofAll Creatures Great and Small, which Everett originally chose because he liked the way the actors looked. Once he realized it was about a country vet and included lots of animals, he insisted it would be a good introduction to farm life for Gretchen. That it’s set in England and in the 1930s does not detract from its relevance, in his opinion.
“Animals are animals,” he said authoritatively. “That’s one thing that hasn’t changed in all the years I’ve been hanging around here.”
After watching James Herriot shove his hand up various creatures’ hoo-has over the last five hours, Gretchen can’t say she’s particularly eager to get out there and interact with the goats tomorrow. There seems to be a lot of dirt and fluids involved in animal husbandry even during the best of times, and despite the way she handled getting dunked in that mud puddle today like an absolute champ (RIP to her boots and maybe also her jacket depending on how it dries), she’s never really been a fan of getting her hands dirty. Especially not literally.
“Charles would love this show,” Everett says with a sigh as the episode’s end credits roll.
“He probably already knows about it, but I can ask him when he gets back in if you want.”
“No, not Charlie.Charles,” he repeats, enunciating thesat the end. “Charlie’s grandfather.”
Oh, right. The elder Charles Waybill—the septuagenarianVietnam vet she thought she’d be meeting today. “I meant to ask you about that. My research implied Charles Waybill is still alive, but clearly, he doesn’t live here anymore...”
“Yeah, Charlie moved him to a place a while back. Don’t ask me when, because—”
“Yes, time is confusing for you. So you’ve said. By ‘a place,’ you mean like a nursing home?”
