“No! I’m just saying, you’re a fount of knowledge about this place, about the Waybill family. I doubt there’s anyone around who knows more than you, really.” Gretchen has noticed over the last week that Lori is a sucker for a well-placed compliment, and indeed, the gruff woman almost preens.
“Probably true,” Lori concedes, trying not to show how much she appreciates being recognized for her experience. “Though I bet the ghost around here knows a good bit too.”
Gretchen freezes mid-motion. “The ghost?”
“Yeah, this farm is haunted as shit.” Gretchen doesn’t even need to ask Lori to elaborate. She throws her rubber-gloved hand in the air dismissively. “I don’t like to make a big deal about it, especially ’cause I know Charlie thinks it’s a bunch of nonsense, but I’m kinda sensitive to that type of stuff. And this place definitely has a ghost.”
“Really?”
Lori glances at her expression, mistaking her shock for incredulity. “Great. Now you think I’m a kook too.”
“No! I... definitely believe you.” She pauses. “I, um...” The truth is on Gretchen’s tongue—that she knows the ghost exists because she herself can actually see and talk to him, and also, by the way, there’s a family curse that might result in Charlie’s death. But she stops herself. Because she sees that Lori is a True Believer, and she will accept what Gretchen tells her without too much of a fight. On one hand, she sure could use an ally in convincing Charlie. On the other, she’s seen the way Charlie and Lori interact, the way they care for each other like they’re related by more than shared memories of this place. How, on the days Lori works, Charlie greets her with a kiss on the cheek. How Lori ruffles Charlie’s hair like he’s still a little boy and not a grown man the same height as her. Gretchen couldn’t bear it if she strained their connection, seemingly one of the few that Charlie still has here. And that’s exactly what would happen if Lori tried to get Charlie to believe in Everett and the curse. Not to mention the way it would slice right through the silk-thin thread of trust she’s managed to build with him.
She settles on, “I’m kinda sensitive to it too.”
“I knew there was a reason I liked you,” Lori says, whichabsolutely blows Gretchen’s mind. She kind of assumed the older woman tolerated her at best. “So what was it you wanted to ask me about?”
“Oh, right. How did Ellen and Charles make this all work? Charlie told me they were a great team, but there’s more to running a business than that. So what’s different now that’s making it such a struggle for Gilded Creek to turn a profit?”
“Why do you wanna know?” Her hesitance makes sense. Lori might get paid for cheesemaking and light farmwork, but it’s unlikely that she’s worked here for thirty years and not developed some sense of loyalty and affection toward the Waybills. Gretchen respects that, especially since what she feels for Charlie and his family is starting to be something close to the same.
“I’m trying to figure out how to boost the business side of things, to help Charlie out so maybe he won’t have to sell after all. But I sense there are parts of it he doesn’t want to talk about.”
Lori sighs. “If he doesn’t want to talk about it, then it’s not really my place...” But by the way she trails off, Gretchen knows the older woman is thinking that if there’s even a remote chance of keeping Gilded Creek under Waybill ownership, it increases the likelihood of her continuing to have a job here. So she’s pleased but unsurprised when Lori begins again a moment later. “About five years back, Charles’s memory started to go. Small stuff, here and there, easy to write off as regular forgetfulness. But it got a lot worse after Ellen died. Charlie came to help out, figured he’d stay for a week or two to get things back in order, but he realized pretty early on that Charles couldn’t run the place on his own anymore. Then he took a look at the books and found a complete mess. A bunch of discrepancies. Turned out Charles got scammed by some guy posing as a handyman who was supposed to dorepairs to the house and barn. Fifteen thousand dollars, gone, with no way to get it back. And it’s not like the farm was making beaucoup bucks at that point anyway. Retail and wholesale had mostly fallen to the wayside, what with Ellen being sick for a while before she passed. So, you see, Charlie inherited this place in the red. He’s done his best, started up the farmers market again, cut the herd down to a third of its original size. But he’s drained his savings trying to take care of his grandfather without selling the farm. Then, of course, guess that’s what it’s come down to anyway.”
“I had no idea the situation was that bad,” Gretchen says.
“Charlie isn’t exactly going around screaming it from the rooftops. The man’s absolutely sick over it all. Blames himself for not being able to keep the family business going.”
“He shouldn’t.”
Lori huffs. “You don’t gotta tell me. A miracle he’s kept everything afloat this long, really.”
They store the wrapped cheese in the fridge and do a deep clean of everything. Once that’s taken care of, they close up and head back into the large empty space on the barn’s second floor. Lori leans against the stair railing. “You know, Ellen and Charles used to have barn dances up here.”
Gretchen isn’t exactly sure what a barn dance is. Just a dance in a barn? Some sort of ritual? But she says, “Oh, really? Cool.”
“Yeah. Gilded Creek was really part of the community, back in the day. Dances, seasonal tours, even hosted a few small weddings in the early 2010s when everyone was nuts for ‘shabby-chic.’ It was a fun place. Always lots of people around.” Lori lets out ahmphthat sounds to Gretchen like,not so much nowadays. Then Lori slaps her on the back, just a little too hard. She has to grab the banister to save herself from face-planting, but it’s somehow thewarmest gesture she could imagine from this woman. “Welp, gotta run. Daughter’s coming home for spring break. Flying into Dulles right at rush hour, Lord help me.”
Other than a snoozing cat spread out atop a tower of grain sacks, Gretchen is soon alone. She sits on a dusty wooden bench shoved up against a wall and takes in the space. Now that she knows to look for it, it’s almost as if she can see the imprint of couples slow-dancing, wallflowers leaning in corners with little plastic cups of punch, children playing an impromptu game of tag weaving in and out of the crowd. It feels a bit haunted. Which, speaking of...
“I’ve got it,” Gretchen says, startling Everett out of hisFrasiertrance when she comes back in from outside. She’s spent the hour since her conversation with Lori coming up with more concrete ideas for making money—almost all of them completely on the up-and-up, even. She is inordinately proud of herself. Who knew there were so many transferable skills between conning people and doing legitimate business?
“Ah! Don’t sneak up on me like that. God.” Everett clutches at his chest, as if his heart is racing. She’s pretty sure he doesn’t even have a functioning one of those anymore, so it’s rather overly dramatic. “Now, what is it that you’ve got, exactly?”
“How to win Charlie over.”
“You’re going to make him fall in love with you?”
“No. I told you that wouldn’t work.”
“And I told you that it would one thousand percent work.”
She rolls her eyes. “No. I’m going to help him make more money.”
Everett frowns. “And that will convince him to stay?”
“I... I don’t know, to be honest. The farm’s financial issuesseem to only be part of what’s making him want to sell at this point. But if I do manage to show him how to turn a profit, I think he’ll have to recognize that I’m truly trying to help and he’ll be more receptive to what I have to say.”
