Lean into the truth whenever you can.She looks Charlie in the eye in hopes he’ll see how honest she’s being as she says, “It’s my favorite thing about him.”
Mr. Waybill reaches for Gretchen’s hand again and gives it a light squeeze. Charlie stares at the floor, as if he can’t bear to look at her. It’s all becoming too much, this poorly thought-out plan having snowballed into something for which she wasn’t prepared. Charlie’s soft heart that she needs to break and mend at the same time. Her own heart is decidedly harder, but it feels erratic, as if its beats are syncopated. She searches the room for an excuse to escape and finds it in an empty plastic water jug sitting on the nightstand.
“Let me get you more water. I’ll be right back.” Gretchen grabs the pitcher and hurries into the hallway, avoiding eye contact with Charlie on her way out. Wendy, still at the nurses’ station, pointsher to a small kitchenette and invites her to help herself. After the pitcher is full and she’s nabbed a cup of ice cream from the freezer, she steadies herself and walks back to Mr. Waybill’s room.
“I brought you a treat,” she says, balancing the spoon on the ice cream cup in one hand and the pitcher in the other. “Would you like some ice cream?”
“Oh boy! The answer to that is always yes,” Mr. Waybill says. “Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome.” Gretchen tears the top off the ice cream cup and stabs the plastic spoon into the middle where the chocolate and vanilla meet.
“Forgive me, but... do you work here, darlin’? I don’t remember your name.”
She looks to Charlie, who pauses in refilling his grandfather’s cup with some of the replenished water to say, “It happens.” He meets her eyes for a moment to emphasize the message hidden in his nonchalant response.He sometimes forgets from one moment to the next, he means. He doesn’t think you’re Ellen anymore.
“Oh, sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Gretchen. I’m a friend of Charlie’s.” It feels like quite a stretch to call herself afriendof Charlie’s. Probably more accurate would be “the current bane of his existence,” but there’s no point in explaining everything going on with Everett and the curse.
“Only a friend, eh?” Mr. Waybill asks as he digs into the ice cream. “Thought my grandson was smarter than that.”
“Grandpa,” Charlie warns, but his voice is light.
“Come on, boy, she’s very pretty.”
To Gretchen’s immense surprise, Charlie replies, “So I’ve noticed.” Her cheeks heat at the words. Charlie thinks she’s pretty? No, not just pretty.Verypretty. And there’s that telltale blush ofhis, the one she can’t get enough of inciting.Gotcha.The euphoria spreads through her fingers, into her toes.
“I’m just saying...” Mr. Waybill pauses. “It might be nice to have a great-grandchild.”
Charlie claps his hands together. “And on that note, I think we better get going. You’re feeling all right?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be? I’ve got ice cream.”
Charlie plants a kiss on the top of Mr. Waybill’s snowy hair. “Have a good night. Listen to the nurses.”
“Will do,” Mr. Waybill says, saluting with his spoon. “Now, you gonna take that girl out on the town or what?”
Charlie gives Gretchen a quick sideways glance. “Something like that. Night, Grandpa.”
Mr. Waybill takes another big bite of ice cream, then flashes a smile and nods in dismissal.
They walk from the room to the elevator in silence. Charlie’s fists are clenched at his sides, and any remaining pleasant tingling promptly vacates Gretchen’s extremities. Is he going to yell at her when they get to the truck? He’s never yelled at her before, no matter how angry he’s been. No, Charlie has always held his anger close to his chest, letting Gretchen see just enough to communicate that he’s choosing to spare her from something darker and punishing. That his benevolence is limited and she shouldn’t push. Maybe this time, though, it won’t be just a warning. Maybe she already dashed way past the point of his patience with this stunt. So much for convincing him of the curse; she assumes she’ll be in a car back to DC within the hour.
Everett is going to be so disappointed in her. Hell, she’s disappointed in herself.
The moment they’re on the pavement outside the building’sautomatic front doors, Gretchen takes a deep breath, stops, and turns to Charlie. “I overstepped.”
“Yes,” he says, refusing to fully face her. “You did.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know he would—I thought I could be useful.”
Charlie nods, then stares up at the sky. It’s a cool, cloudless night, and the stars are as vivid as glow-in-the-dark plastic cutouts pressed onto a child’s bedroom ceiling. Is he biding his time, building up to the yelling? Gretchen wrings her hands as she waits to discover her fate.
He turns to her at last, lips pressed together in a stiff line before they part. “I don’t know how you know things like that,” he says quietly. The anger she was expecting isn’t anywhere to be found. “Like that they used to call me Chick when I was a kid.”
“Everett told—”
But Charlie holds up a hand. “I don’t want to— It doesn’t matter, okay? Not tonight.”
“Okay,” she says, unsure if the word is even audible with how softly it comes out. They continue to the truck. Charlie unlocks the doors, and Gretchen does her best to climb into the cab without exposing herself to anyone who might happen to walk out of the building and glance this way. Her dress is shorter than she remembers it being, probably thanks to shrinkage after the mud puddle incident, and the truck is really quite high off the ground.