Page 45 of My Favorite Lost Cause
Charlie’s smile spreads to both sides of his face. Dimples emerge. The bartender would piss herself if she could see it. “Well, that presents us with an interesting predicament.”
I laugh. “I don’t think it does.”
But for just a moment, his gaze catches mine, and neither of us are laughing.
It’s sort of a joke.
But also sort of not one.
“I guess that means you’re going home with the bartender,” I say, forcing myself to smile. It takes way too much effort.
His tongue glides over his upper lip before he casually glances over his shoulder toward the bar. “Nah. You can’t wavetop-shelf whiskey in my face and ask me to settle for light beer instead.”
I could argue that I wasn’t waving it in his face and that I don’t love being compared to something known for its age, but I don’t. I’m too damn happy he’s coming back home with me.
23
MAREN
Elijah enters the kitchen on Monday looking grimmer than normal. He takes a seat at the table and waves me off when I hold up the coffee pot.
“I’ve got some potentially bad news,” he announces. “They moved the inspection up—it’s now happening Wednesday.”
Charlie’s jaw drops. “That’s two days from now. How is that possibly legal?”
Elijah shrugs. “I doubt that it is, but in the time it would take to get our complaint heard by anyone, the inspection will already have been done. I’m still assuming the whole thing’s a formality—I mean, they know we’re in the middle of a renovation—but I’ve contracted with a roofing crew out of Beaufort to start repairing the joists and then the roof. As long as we can prove that we’ve got it all in process, we’ll be fine.”
Charlie pinches the bridge of his nose, stressed out even though Elijah’s telling him not to be. It’s a surprising side to a guy who gives the impression, at home, of always being slightly too relaxed. “So you want me back in the basement?” he asks.
Elijah tips back in his chair. “I think we’ve got to spread out so by the time this inspector arrives, he can see that everyhazard is in the process of being repaired. I’ve got an electrician coming in to look at the wiring, so you can help me redo the porch and I’ll leave a small team finishing up in the basement. And Maren…wallpaper?”
I nod, laughing at my uselessness.Can’t pass inspection without wallpaper removal. Everyone knows that.
I clean up breakfast, then grab the wallpaper steamer, with the puppies at my feet. I’ve barely got one foot on the steps to the second floor before Echo and Narcy both start crying. They follow me to the third step before Echo turns and races back to the first floor with Narcy in her wake.
“What’s going on?” Charlie asks.
“They’re scared to go up,” I tell him. I’m trying not to be freaked out by this. They’re scared of lots of things they shouldn’t be—the robotic vacuum was so distressing to them that I finally gave it away. “But, you know, we don’t have stairs at the condo, so they’re not used to them.”
Charlie gives me a side-eye. “They ran up the porch stairs just fine.”
“I hate when you apply logic.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed,” he says. “So are we in agreement that the house is haunted, and we should be getting the hell out?”
I grin. “You don’t want that any more than I do. You like it here. Admit it.”
His smile matches my own. “It’s okay. Not crazy about theAmityville Horrorsituation currently unfolding, however.”
I shake my head. “If there’s a ghost, it’s a good ghost.”
“You know who says that? The first person to die in a horror film.” He lifts Echo and Narcy, one under each arm. “Your mother is about to be possessed by spirits of the undead, so I guess it’s gonna be the three of us from now on.”
I’m smiling as I watch him walk outside, still talking to them. He’s already come around to them, and he doesn’t even realize it.
I start upstairs again, a little more unsettled than I was before. And though I’m determined to avoid Margaret’s room for the time being, when I reach the landing, it’s as if…my feet are accustomed to turning in that direction, like one of those paths you’ve taken so many times that you can arrive at its end with no memory of how you got there.
I walk in, and nothing happens. No giddiness, no grief. But just as I’m leaving the room, I catch a glance of myself in the mirror, and it’s as if…I see her, and I see me too. Both of us young and hopeful. It’s gone before I’m even sure it was there, and what am I supposed to make of it if it was? I keep waiting for Margaret to write me some big message, telling me clearly what I’m meant to do with myself, and it doesn’t happen.
