On the way out of the building, they run into the landlord, Mr. Smolak. Gretchen might not recognize him, having met him only twice in person previously, except that it’s hard to forget a man who looks like if John Waters had a mortician twin brother.
“Mr. Smolak,” she says, flashing one of her sweetest smiles at the pencil mustache resting on his upper lip. “So good to see you.”
“Likewise,” he says without even a hint of sincerity. He looks at his watch. “You’re moved out?”
“We are. Other than the furniture, which my roommate will be taking care of over the next few days, everything’s cleared.”
“Excellent, excellent.”
“Have you found a new tenant?” she asks, part of her simply wanting to make conversation and another genuinely interested in the fate of the place where she lived and worked for so long.
“Not yet, but there’s a lot of demand. One gentleman’s called nearly every day to see if the space is available to show yet.”
“Oh?” Gretchen asks. “He wants to rent the basement?” She swallows her growing suspicion.
“Basement and apartment, like you. Seems really interested in how you had everything set up. Even asked for your contact info so he could ask some questions.”
“Did you give it to him?” She can’t hide the panic in her voice, and Charlie notices. His brows narrow and his mouth goes tight, concern clear on his face.
Mr. Smolak shakes his head. “Nah. I’ve got plenty of other interest, people practically begging me for the spaces. Felt like the guy was asking me to jump through hoops to get him to rent, and I didn’t appreciate it. I don’t have time for high-maintenance tenants.” He looks at the watch on his wrist as if it’s meant to emphasize the point.
“We need to be getting on the road,” Gretchen says, managing to keep her smile in place despite the little butterfly wings of panic flitting around her chest. “I’ll send you my new address for the security deposit refund.”
She continues toward the building’s back door, pulse pounding in her head. Her father. Her father was trying to find out where she’d gone. Weasel his way back into her life with more than just a letter. A deep breath reminds her she doesn’t have anything to worry about; everything she has now—this new life she’s building—she earned with honesty and hard work. She’s made herself not only useful, but essential. The only person whocould take that away is looking at her with such concern that she wants to throw herself into his arms and weep.
“Acorn?” Charlie asks. He moves to put his hand on her arm, then stops himself and tucks it into his pocket.
She smiles and shakes her head. “Let’s just go home.”
36
That night, Gretchen sits at the kitchen table and sorts through the boxes, organizing the contents into things she wants to keep, things she’ll probably donate eventually, and things to store in the attic. The letter sits right at the top of the next box she opens. After learning that Ned was so desperate to find her that he tried to get her information from Mr. Smolak, her initial panic has eased into something more like curiosity. If Gretchen’s changed so much in the last month, how much could her father have possibly changed over several years? What if the letter isn’t another rebuke but an apology? She picks it up and slides her fingernail under the corner of the envelope’s flap once again, then loses her courage and tosses it back on the table in front of her.
“What’s that?”
Her head shoots up at Charlie’s voice. “Nothing,” she says reflexively, covering the envelope with both hands. As if that’s not the most suspicious thing she could possibly do.
He studies her for a moment, even though it must be extremely obvious to him that she’s lying, and shakes his head. “I guess it doesn’t matter anymore,” he says quietly as he turns in the doorway to leave.
The unspoken part of that sentence, Gretchen is certain, is:if you tell me the truth. Over the last few days, she thought she couldn’t feel any worse. And yet! More air gusts out of her, deflating her further.
“Charlie, wait.” Her chair skids out behind her as Gretchen leaps up and goes to him. She grabs his hand. They both stare at her fingers wrapped around his palm as if equally startled by the texture of skin on skin. “It’s a letter from my father. It arrived the day before I left.” She replaces her hand with the envelope.
He looks it over, as if searching it for clues. “You haven’t opened it.”
“I thought there wasn’t a point, that I already knew what it said. But now I’m wondering if maybe it could say something different.” She stares at him until he meets her eyes. Something tells her that this is her last chance to show Charlie she can be real with him, and she wants more than anything to do that for him. And for her. “I don’t know. I don’t know which would be harder.”
“Well, would it change anything?” he asks, his voice soft. “Whatever that letter says, would you want your dad in your life again?”
“No.” The one good thing that will come of losing Charlie is the opportunity for her to stay at Gilded Creek, to have a fresh start here. Her father, no matter how much potentially reformed, is part of her past. A past she’s more than ready to leave behind.
Charlie takes a step forward and hands the envelope back toher, their hands brushing gratuitously in the process, as if Gretchen’s touch opened the floodgates to these little bursts of microcontact. She turns away, clutching the letter, staring at the handwriting that spells out the name she now goes by. It feels like it was written with sarcasm instead of ink.Oh, too good to be an Eichorn now, hm?
And yeah, maybe she is too good for the Eichorn name if it represents what her father stands for (or, at least, stood for)—lying, cheating, getting his no matter the cost. She became Gretchen Acorn in order to create distance during the drama of the trial, but the alias also allowed her to be her own person. To draw her own lines, ones she could feel good about. Now she’s going to become a Waybill. Another opportunity to remake herself into the person shewantsto be, instead of the one her father molded her into.
Gretchen goes back to the table and the pile of things she plans to keep. A lighter sits beside a box of incense from her studio. She takes it and the envelope over to the big farmhouse sink. But she can’t seem to get the lighter to light, her thumb fumbling over the mechanism with each attempt. Then Charlie is there, behind her. He gently takes it from her hand and clicks the flame alive.
“Wait!” she hears herself say.
