“Yeah, yeah, sure. Mark my words, give it a month and you’ll be moving into her bungalow and adopting a cat together.”
“And what makes you such an expert on how this is going to play out, Miss Hasn’t Been on a Date the Entire Three Years I’ve Lived Here?”
“That’s way too long of a nickname. And I don’t need to date to know what’s going to happen between you and Penny. I have a gift, remember?” Gretchen places her fingers to her temples and flutters her eyes closed. “It’ll be a long-haired calico. Name her Mitsy. That’s her soul’s true name.”
Yolanda laughs. “Yeah, yeah. Save it for the paying customers. Hopefully, soon to include Madame Dead Fox. You’re going to be doing the planet’s soft and fluffy animals a big favor, taking that woman’s money.”
“That’s my good deed for the year already sorted, then,” Gretchen mutters. The urge to go back over and wrap her redwood tree of a roommate in a tight hug strikes as she watches Yolanda gather up her fleece jacket and tuck it under her arm. That’s enough to shake Gretchen out of this easy banter, tohastily rebuild the walls around her heart and remind her of the reasons they’re there.
Yolanda is someone Gretchen knows could easily become a friend. That’s why it’s so important to keep her emotional distance. Because when their relationship eventually comes to its end—which it will, because business transactions are always finite—it’s going to be hard enough to figure out what to do without the cornerstone of her operation. For Yolanda, collecting information for Gretchen is just another of her streams of income. In exchange for reporting back everything she hears at the salon and the yoga studio—jobs that each give her incredible access to all of the most gossipy wealthy women in Georgetown, the Palisades, and Spring Valley—she lives in the apartment’s den for the extremely low price of $300 a month. But one day this arrangement will no longer serve her, and she’ll leave. So if Gretchen allows herself to indulge in things like affection and loyalty...
Well, that generally has not worked out super for her in the past.
Yolanda’s dark brown eyes dart to the oven’s digital clock. “Shit, I better get going. I told them I’d be in by one thirty.”
“See you tomorrow.” While waiting for her spreadsheets to load, Gretchen types “Gilded Creek Goat Farm” into Google, prompting her to remember she’s about to spend the weekend elsewhere. “Oh, actually, I probably won’t. Deborah Van Alst hired me to go exorcise her bridge partner’s historic farm in Maryland. She’s convinced it’s haunted.”
“Exorcise it? Don’t you need, like, an old priest and a young priest for that?” Yolanda jokes, attempting to swipe a strand of her long black hair from her face with her shoulder since her hands are still full.
“I don’t expect to find any possessed, barfy children on this farm. Sounds like it’s just an old guy and a bunch of goats.” An assumption supported by the fact that Gilded Creek has zero internet presence.
“And a ghost, don’t forget.” Yolanda smiles, lips pressed hard together to suppress her laughter.
“Allegedly.”
“So how long will you be gone? Do I need to take care of anything with the shop?”
“Probably until Sunday or Monday.” With Mrs. Van Alst’s ample funds and her father’s letter sitting in the back room like a placeholder for his imminent arrival, it seems like a good idea to make this surprise job into a mini vacation. Give her a few days to strategize. But she’s not about to unload her daddy issues on Yolanda, so she says, “Mrs. Van Alst is paying me ten thousand dollars ‘to cover my lost business and expenses,’ so I figured I’ll find a nice hotel somewhere nearby and make a couple trips out to the farm over the course of the weekend. Put on a real show. That way she feels like she got her money’s worth when she hears about it. Probably wouldn’t hurt to have extra time to build some trust with this guy anyway. Mrs. Van Alst seemed to think he might be resistant to the whole thing. The way she talked, I doubt he even knows she hired me.”
“Whoa, whoa. Back up a sec. Ten thousand dollars?” Yolanda’s mouth drops open so wide Gretchen hears her jaw click. “Girl. That’s... an insane amount of cash for a weekend of you fucking around with some sage in a farmhouse.”
“Yeah, I know. Absurd, right? But Mrs. Van Alst insisted. And it’s not like I can’t use the money, especially since I plan to cut her down to twice a month... soon. It doesn’t go against the Rule, so...”
Yolanda knows about Gretchen Acorn’s Singular Rule for Bullshitting, though nothing about its origins. In fact, the Rule’s existence was one of the reasons Yolanda agreed to become Gretchen’s informant in the first place—she appreciated that the gossip she gathered would be put to use helping people more than harming them. Well, that and the fact that she really needed a place to live when her extremely religious parents kicked her out of their house after discovering that she had both a girlfriend and an OnlyFans account.
Yolanda shrugs her shoulder toward her ear in an attempt to adjust the purse strap there. “Okay, well, you be careful out there in the boonies. Don’t fall in love with the farmer and move to the countryside or anything.”
Gretchen wrinkles her nose. “I think Mrs. Van Alst would have something to say about that. She referred to him as a ‘dearfriend,’ so there may be some history there. Besides, considering he’s her bridge partner, I’m pretty sure this guy has to be in his sixties at least.”
“So is Daniel Day-Lewis, though, and we both know how you feel about him.”
This time it’s Gretchen’s cheeks that turn pink—a rare occurrence, but one that never fails to happen whenever Yolanda brings this up. “How many times do I have to tell you, I wasn’t—”
“You were watchingThere Will Be Bloodwith your hand in your pants, Gretch. I know what I saw.”
“I wasscratchinganitchon my inner thigh,” Gretchen says, watching as Yolanda’s lips drain of color as she presses them even harder together. In these moments, teasing each other over crushes and (alleged) masturbatory habits, it’s so easy to see what it would be like to be friends instead of simply roommates and business associates.Tempting. Terrifying. “Also, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t in his sixties when that film was made.”
“Whatever. Just make sure you pack your vibrator. You know, in case the farmer’s got a big, bushy mustache and you can’t stop fantasizing about him drinking your milkshake...” After a burst of laughter, she adds, “Text me when you get there so I know you’re alive,” blows a kiss, then wiggles her fingers in farewell as she walks out the door.
The subsequent silence in the apartment brings Gretchen abruptly back to reality—that she’s alone. It’s almost reassuring, in a way. Because the other rule she lives by, the one that’s unwritten but perhaps more important, is that the beautiful, masterful pictures she paints are only for other people. Not for her.
3
Of course Gretchen expected her destination to be rural. It’s a farm after all. But as the scenery shifts from the suburban sprawl of gas stations and fast-casual restaurants to long expanses of gently rolling pastures dotted with cows, freshly tilled fields, and still-shuttered-for-the-season roadside produce stands, it registers just how far from the hustle and bustle of DC she’s headed. When she looked up Derring Heights, Maryland, last night—the town in the farm’s address—she found one of those places so diminutive that Google Maps doesn’t even deign to label it until zoomed in almost to the street level. There isn’t much more than a church, a post office, a 7-Eleven, and a string of impressive old Victorians along the main thoroughfare. Gilded Creek Goat Farm is located another fifteen minutes west. Even though Gretchen spent her childhood moving around thanks to her father’s own bullshit artist career, she’s never lived anywhere that could be classified as remote (not a lot of worthwhile marks in these sorts of places). Now, so accustomed to the conveniences of city living,she can’t imagine willingly settling anywhere that it takes half an hour round trip just to get a Slurpee.
When her Lyft driver, Sulayman, pulls off the main road and onto a long dirt-and-gravel driveway, he meets Gretchen’s eyes in the rearview mirror. At first, the look is one of inquiry: Is she certain this is where she wants to go? Perhaps her finger slipped when entering her destination into the app and mistakenly entered Gilded Creek Goat Farm instead of Trader Joe’s? But as his previously spotless white Toyota Corolla gets flecked with mud thanks to last night’s storm leaving large puddles along the tire-worn path, Sulayman’s look transforms into an overtly annoyed one that warns Gretchen she should plan to tip enough to cover the cost of a car wash.
She grabs hold of her trusty canvas backpack’s strap, ready to make her getaway. “Thanks. You can just let me out here.” No need to make him drive all the way up to the house and completely tank her passenger rating.
