“That sounds wonderful,” Gretchen says, surprised that she genuinely means it.
“It was. Growing up here was wonderful and... fantastic. In the true sense of the word. Like a fantasy.” He leans back,propping himself up on his hands, and crosses his legs. “Grandma used to plant a massive field of sunflowers every year, and come the end of summer, there were rows and rows of huge, gorgeous blooms.”
Gretchen recalls the sunflower tattoo, beneath the one of Stu, right over his pulse point on his wrist. She’s grateful when he continues, “People came from all around to see them, to take pictures. I spent hours sitting in the middle of that field, surrounded on all sides by massive flowers, pretending I’d been shrunk down to the size of an ant and that no one would be able to find me to make me go back to the city come September.” One side of Charlie’s mouth kicks up in sheepish amusement. “I’m going to miss this place,” he says. “When you got here, I was so eager to go, to wash my hands of it. But now I think... I think I’m going to miss a lot of things once I leave.”
“Charlie...”
“I know. Curse, ghost, haunting for eternity.” His tone is flippant, but his tensed jaw makes it come out stiff. Then his voice goes quieter, almost conciliatory, when he says, “You know that it would be a stretch for me to believe in all that even if I could trust you.”
Even if. “And you can’t trust me.”
“No, I can’t.”
“Well, what do I need to do to change that?” Gretchen asks. She thinks it manages to sound light enough, but it’s as if her desperation has become something tangible and lodged in her chest. Her time at the farm is running out, and she’s growing more and more anxious about Charlie’s fate. And her own.
“I think you know,” he says softly.
“No, I don’tknow, Charlie!” The intense irritation thatsuddenly overtakes Gretchen urges her to her feet. She flings her arms out. “I’ve been here for weeks now, trying to prove to you that I’m not out to screw you over. What will it take to convince you? What do you want from me? A fucking signed and notarized affidavit?”
He rises until he’s standing too. He moves slowly toward her. Not like he’s worried about startling her, but like the air between them is thick and requires some effort to get through. And then he’s there, close enough that when Gretchen’s hand twitches, it grazes his. “I just want the truth.” It comes out as a whisper.
“I’ve been telling you the truth. Everett is real, and there’s a—”
“That isn’t what I mean, and you know it. I wantyourtruth.” Charlie leans down, their lips as close together as the fingers that keep brushing against each other. And if their mouths follow suit, Gretchen isn’t sure she can survive it. Her desire is a rubber band pulled to its limits, ready to snap given the smallest encouragement. “What is your endgame, Acorn? Because I keep trying to figure it out, what you stand to gain from me not selling this place, and nothing makes sense. What do you hope to get out of this? What’s in it for you?”
“What’s in it for me?” she repeats, taking a step backward. “What’sin itforme? For fuck’s sake, Charlie. For someone who thinks he can see through me, you’re missing something really fucking huge here.”
He simply stares at her, his eyes a little too wide. Gretchen suspects he’s trying to reshuffle all of the pieces of the puzzle to see if he can work it out before she continues. But no, he doesn’t see it. And god, Gretchen has done her fair share of morally gray shit in her life, but the fact that her punishment so exactly fits the crime is too much. Just too much. Aunt Lucretia Thorne andEverett–level irony. She launches a strange laugh toward the slender leaves that break up the light gray sky above their heads.
“So, you took one look at me when I arrived on your doorstep and thought you had me all figured out, that you could see everything I am. But you don’t see anything, Charlie, if you can’t see what’s right in front of your stupid, handsome face.” She jabs a finger into his sternum, then lets her hand collapse on his chest until her palm is resting over his heart. “How do you not see what I can’t help but show you? How do you not see the way my heart is absolutelybreakingwith how much it needs to keep you safe?”
They stand there like that for what feels like hours. And then Charlie gently says, “I do. I do see it,” and brings his hand up to cover hers. “But with you, I just can’t risk believing everything I see.” His hand drops and he takes a step away, breaking the contact. He turns and walks toward the pasture without looking back.
28
Gretchen paces back and forth, back and forth in her bedroom, the sleeves of Charlie’s Frankenstein’s monster of a sweater hanging a good six inches past her fingertips and swaying with her movements. Everett is prone atop the bed, reading Agatha Christie.
“Page,” he says without looking up. After a few seconds of Gretchen failing to respond, he lifts his head and repeats louder, “Gretch. Page.”
“Sorry.” She stops pacing just long enough to flip over the paper in the large hardback collection they found in Charlie’s office.
He pitches his voice higher, a rudely accurate imitation of hers. “ ‘You watch too much TV, Everett,’ she said. ‘Why not read a book for a change,’ she said. ‘I’ll turn the pages for you,’ she said.”
Gretchen gives him a quelling look.
“What has you so distracted anyway?” he asks, not bothering to look up.
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that the only person whohas been a steady presence in my life in recent years is moving out and taking a large part of what makes my business successful with her? Or maybe that I have less than two weeks to figure out how to make this farm profitable while simultaneously convincing a man who still very much doesn’t trust me to change his life plans based solely on my word?”
“Page.”
Gretchen reaches over and slams the book closed.
“Hey!” Everett protests.
She resumes walking, absentmindedly flapping the sweater’s dangling sleeves like a baby bird trying to gain purchase in the air. “I knew Charlie didn’t trust me, but I’m not sure I comprehended the depth of it. I thought maybe if he saw that I care about him, he would believe me. But he doesn’t. He still doesn’t. He thinks I might be faking that too.”
Everett sighs and rolls onto his back.
