The bad news? My boot is still stuck in the mud, and I’m sailing backward.
Shrieking, I land on my butt with a splat, mud flying everywhere. It’s in my hair, covering my skin, soaking through my jeans and my T-shirt and my sock.
Double-damnit.
Charlie barks his concern.
I scramble onto my knees and try to push myself to my feet. But they slip out from under me and I fall face-forward into the mud.
Giving up the goal of getting to my feet, I crawl through the mud to dry land.
This time when I attempt to stand, my feet stay planted firmly on the ground. I pull my phone from my pocket. Just like the rest of me, it’s covered in mud.
“That can’t be good.” I rub the screen against Charlotte’s T-shirt. All I succeed in doing is smearing the mud and making things worse.
I let out a hard breath. “I really miss Beverly Hills, Charlie.”
He barks a more upbeat sound.
“You’re right. I just need to make some apple strudel and everything will be better.”
Do I know how to make strudel?
Not at all.
But how hard can it be?
6
Kate
As soon asI return to the house, I head upstairs to shower. The bathroom is thick with steam by the time I’m finished, but not a molecule of mud remains.
On me anyway.
The same can’t be said about the pink tile floor or Charlotte’s clothes.
“I guess before I can start making the strudel, I need to do some laundry and clean the bathroom,” I tell Charlie.
I change into a light-pink sundress, and then with the muddy clothes held well in front of me, I carry them downstairs to the laundry room and dump them into the washing machine.
Studying the control panel, I frown. “Any idea what I’m supposed to do now?” I ask my trusted sidekick.
The advantage of living in one of my parents’ guesthouses is that housekeeping does my laundry.
But how hard can it be?
I scan the array of laundry supplies, select a bottle of bright-pink liquid soap, and dump a healthy dose into the machine.
Then dump in some more.
You can never have too much soap—especially when it smells like apple blossoms.
Next, I grab a bottle of bleach. Who knows what disgusting germs were lurking in the mud? Since I don’t want to catch any equally disgusting diseases while I’m here, I unscrew the lid and pour some of the contents into the washing machine.
My nose is instantly assaulted by a nasty smell, and I quickly shut the lid. “That should do it,” I tell Charlie.
And that’s when I spot a bottle of fabric softener with a cute teddy bear on the front. According to the label, it will make my clothes smell like lilacs. It certainly couldn’t hurt. I add it to the load, select the hot water setting and the heavy-duty wash cycle, and hit start. “That seems easy enough.”
