You have AC?
Jay
And pebble ice
I don’t even answer him on my way out to my car.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jay
Phoebe is comingto the cottage.
I hop up from the table and look around the living room to make sure it’s presentable. It is … ish.
I grab a stack of plates and crumpled paper towels from the coffee table where I eat my microwave meals and watch SportsCenter. I walk the mess fifteen feet to the kitchen, tossing the trash as I pass the garbage can before setting the plates in the sink. Not sure why I don’t just do that every time I eat, but maybe because it is such a small mess?
I work at the dining table, so I close my laptop and straighten the piles of books I’ve been using for my research.
Maybe I should take down the backdrop pinned to the curtains and put away the ring light? No on the backdrop because it took way too long to make it hang right, but I scoop up the ring light and put it in the spare room.
Back in the living room, I shove my fingers through my hair and scan for anything else that needs to be adjusted. “I should put you away, Sam. You don’t deserve to hang out with us.” When he sneers, I take his portrait off the mantel andlean it against the hearth, his face to the wall. “I keep telling you not to try me.”
Next up, a three-minute shower. Then I brush my teeth, hit my pits with some deodorant, and debate whether I should put shoes on for Phoebe. I never wear them in the house, so no.
All the rushing ends up leaving me with a bunch of time before Phoebe could conceivably get here, especially if she’s stopping to pick up tea. I can’t wait to see her. And the letter, of course. I’m invested now. I hope we’re able to learn how the story ends. I get Dear Heart. It sounds like Smitten Kitten’s assumptions about him were similar to Phoebe’s assumptions about me.
But all of that comes second to the letters giving me a chance to connect with Phoebe. Without them, I’d have to work way harder to invent excuses.
I’m trying to figure out what to do with my extra time while I wait. Write a couple more paragraphs? Sweep the porch? Do pushups until I look swole?
I do pushups.
She calls a few minutes later. “Hey, I’m at the big house.”
“Do you want me to come over there?”
“No. I had to stop because during the forty minutes I was gone, someone left another donation on the front doorstep, and now I need to deal with it.”
“Tea set?”
“I wish. Hang on.” She ends the call, then texts a picture.
I look at it for several seconds, but staring at it longer doesn’t make it make any more sense. I call her. “Is that a rhinoceros head?”
“Yes, Jay, that is a taxidermied rhino head hunting trophy, and I can assure you it is the real deal. It’s going to take a few minutes to drag this thing inside.”
“I’ll come help.”
“No, thank you. I’ve always wanted to wrestle a rhinoceros. See you in a few.”
She drives over several minutes later instead of walking from the big house. When I hear her pull in, I open the front door and wince at how warm it already is. We don’t have brutal summers, but it feels about ten degrees hotter than usual for mid-June.
“Hey,” I say, as she gets out of her car. She’s in a dress today, red with large white polka dots. It falls below her knees and has buttons and a collar, so kind of businesslike, but no sleeves, so kind of hot, because the girl has guns. She probably chose a dress today for the same reason desert nomads do—to fight the heat.
“Thank you for inviting me over. It’s too loud in the house and the barn is too hot.”
“Good thing you had the letter to bribe me with.”
