His hand slides out from her underwear, from the overalls pooled around her waist. He presses a soft kiss to her temple that lingers longer than she expects. It feels distressingly like a goodbye. As he shifts backward and stands, Charlie’s shelter is immediately replaced by the night’s chill. Gretchen knows she should also get up, go inside, but she’s too overwhelmed—by pleasure, by emotion—to move yet, even though she’s shivering.
As her brain begins to function fully again, she remembers Charlie’s words.The rest of your life. “So we’re... You’ve decided, then?”
“I’ll pick up the marriage license Thursday, and we can go to DC on Friday to pack up your stuff and deal with any other business you have there. An ordained friend is going to stop by Saturday morning to do a quick ceremony. You can file the name-change paperwork by next week.”
“Charlie—”
“Go inside before you freeze.” And he stomps down the stairs and heads in the direction of the barn. Gretchen watches as he disappears into the darkness.I did it. I convinced him. It’s done.
But the gotcha euphoria she expects never arrives. All she feels is empty.
35
While Charlie drives to Frederick to procure their marriage license on Thursday afternoon, Gretchen is busy wrapping and rewrapping bloomy rind cheese until it meets Lori’s exacting standards. At one point, she’s scolded for her use of excess plastic wrap and told her job was to package the stuff, not make it look like Kathy Bates inFried Green Tomatoes.
Has Charlie told Lori yet that he’ll be leaving and that Gretchen will be taking over Gilded Creek? Probably not. It’s unlikely Lori won’t have opinions on the changes, and she isn’t the type to keep them to herself. So this current, almost companionable silence points to her not knowing about their plan. Or, well, it’s silence to Lori. Everett followed them here and has been talking aboutThe X-Filesfor the past half hour, but Gretchen’s gotten pretty good at blocking him out.
Not that it doesn’t eventually get to her.
“Now, in the episode I watched before you got home, they almost kissed. Almost. But then it wasn’t actually Mulder! Youknow who it was? Guess. Gretchen. Guess.Guess. All right, fine. I’ll just tell you. It was a shape-shift—”
“Hey, so, what would you think about... me staying here awhile longer?” Gretchen tries, her voice a little too loud in order to drown out Everett. It’s as good a time as any, she decides, to take Lori’s pulse on the subject.
“Oh, so you’ll talk toher,” Everett says with a frown at the same time Lori shrugs and says, “Sure. Why not. You’re helpful enough, I suppose.”
Gretchen bows her head to hide her grin. That’s actually extremely high praise coming from Lori. She’s quite proud to have proven herselfhelpful enough.
“Besides,” the older woman continues, “you and Charlie are an item, ain’t ya? Figured you might wanna stick around.”
Gretchen tries to laugh, as if the notion is absurd, but instead chokes. “I— We— No. We’re not... we’re not an item.”
“Ha!” Everett barks.
Lori raises her eyebrows. “Does Charlie know that?” Her voice sounds a bit more foreboding than usual, like she’s completely ready to move Gretchen to her shit list if need be.
“Yes. He’s aware,” she responds quickly. “It was, uh, a mutual decision.”
“Hmm.” Lori’s hum overlaps with Everett’s scoffed, “Yeah, sure it was.”
“Now, what does that mean?” Gretchen asks both of them. She moves to put her hands on her hips but remembers she’s wearing plastic gloves that aren’t supposed to come into contact with her person. Instead, she stands with her arms awkwardly out to her sides, which isn’t quite as successful at demonstrating her annoyance, but it’s the best she can do.
Her defensiveness (or more likely her weird stance) gets a chuckle out of Lori. “Itmeansthat whatever is going on”—she catches the look Gretchen is shooting her way and placatingly adds—“ornotgoing on between you is far from settled, whatever you may think, hon. I have a gift, remember? Sensitive to energy and whatnot. And the energy around you two is crackling.”
Everett points to Lori. “Smart lady. I’ve always liked her.”
Gretchen waits until the older woman is looking away, then points to the door and mouths,Out. Everett blows a raspberry at her but complies, leaving instead through the wall and—if his subsequent yelp is any indication—plummeting from the second story to the ground only to never actually hit it.
Lori tosses the ladle she was using into the sink and crosses her arms. “Look, I don’t know what your deal is. You showed up one day dressed like some Stevie Nicks wannabe and suddenly Charlie’s introducing you as an intern. That’s, as my daughter would say, extremely sus. But whatever it is you’re really doing here, it’s clear that you and Charlie got it bad for each other. And take it from a grumpy ol’ gal like me: You two are complete knuckleheads if you don’t grab the opportunity to be happy when it’s standing right in front of you.” Before Gretchen responds, Lori holds up her hands. “I know, I know. None of my business. I’ll shut my trap.”
“No, I... I appreciate that you care enough to say something.” Having someone meddle in her personal life like this is a new experience, for the most part, and it’s weird how nice it feels to have someone insert themselves this way with her well-being in mind. Maybe this is what it would’ve been like to grow up with a mom.
Lori’s laugh is like an owl hooting—a sound Gretchen hasgrown quite acquainted with now that sleep has become somewhat elusive. “Oh, I don’tcare, hon. Not about you, at least.” Her smile tells Gretchen this isn’t entirely true. “Charlie, though, he’s a good boy. He deserves happiness.”
“Yes, he does,” Gretchen agrees. Even though it will come at the expense of hers. Her honesty with Charlie is contagious, she supposes, because it’s getting harder and harder to believe that they’re both getting what they need out of this arrangement. She wants to live at Gilded Creek. Of course she does. She’s spent the past few days imagining the life she’s going to build here, the quiet routine of work and rest she wants to fall into as she settles in for good. But the brushstrokes of the picture she’s painting are still too hard to ignore, distracting from the reality of it. As is the empty spot in the scene where her heart wants to add a farmer in a bright travesty of a sweater, and knows it can’t if they’re both going to walk away from this with what they each truly deserve.
—
The trip from the Maryland countryside into DC takes almost two hours, thanks to Friday morning rush hour, but it feels even longer. Ever since Charlie accepted Gretchen’s proposal of a marriage of convenience the other day, an almost funereal mood has seeped into their (increasingly sparse) interactions. Their only physical contact since he left her on the porch Monday night was an accidental brush of their hands yesterday morning when Gretchen gave Charlie a Post-it with her full legal name and social security number for the license, which prompted him to scowl and her to apologize.
