by Alina Jacobs
"You just want a siesta after you eat that much." I yawned and stretched. "Ah, I forgot—"
"Your purse and your leftovers." Mace held out the bags to me. I took them sheepishly.
"Is this a regular occurrence? Your leaving stuff lying around?" Mace asked, a hint of a smile on his lips.
I stuck my tongue out at him. "My life is kind of a shitshow right now," I said as he opened the car door for me.
"Oh yeah? Why's that?"
"My boss is a nutcase."
"Really? Because I thought he just bought you lunch and let you eat all of his food."
I smiled and leaned against the window. "That fish was really good."
When we arrived back to the office, I transcribed my notes and wrote an email to the photographer. For the first time since Anke had disappeared, I felt actually relaxed and happy. Henry wasn't even running around. He sat quietly on the rug in my office and colored.
Don't get me wrong, Mace was still a weirdo who didn't like dessert and who was way too uptight, but I had to admit he was actually sort of fun to be around. It had been nice to spend the day with him. The tension in the office even felt like it had dissipated.
However, the knot in my shoulder set back in as soon as I returned to my tiny house. It took me three tries to start the old Ford truck, and I swear the house looked like it had shifted so much it could cameo in a Dr. Seuss movie.
As I drove back to Ida's General Store's parking lot, I wondered what I was going to do about Anke. I still hadn't responded to her text. I had almost given up on her paying me back the money like she had promised. To hear from her now, almost six months after the fact, I suspected it wasn't for anything that would benefit me.
Still, if she did have my money, it would be a huge help for me. PharmaTech wasn't issuing my first paycheck for another ten days, and I was down to my last few hundred dollars on my credit card.
I parked the tiny house at the far end of the small parking lot. Taking my leftovers, I had to shove my shoulder against the tiny house door to open it. It was muggy and smelly inside. I opened a window, called Marnie, and slumped on the couch.
"How's the job?" she asked when she answered.
"Slightly better."
"Good because apparently Mace wanted to fire you," my friend said.
I sighed and rifled through the takeout bag. Pulling out the container of pasta, I cursed again that I didn't have a microwave. Fine. I would eat it cold. "It was a rocky start."
"You burned down the office."
"Just a kitchen."
"Never change, Josie!" my friend said, laughing.
"Hey, so," I said around the pasta. "A weird thing happened—I heard from Anke."
"That seems suspicious," Marnie said. "I'm going to the FBI about her."
"The FBI!" I half-choked on the pasta. Coughing, I asked, "How is that going to help?"
Someone banged on the door.
"Sorry, let me call you back."
"This is the police," announced an authoritative female voice.
Hands shaking, I wrenched open the door and stepped outside.
"Ma'am." It was the same officer who had given me a ticket earlier in the week. "You can't park a tiny house on this property."
Ida came running out of the general store. "Susie, stop harassing my customers!"
"Ida," Susie said in exasperation. "It's a code violation. Tiny houses can only be parked on residential properties, not commercial, and certainly not in view of the street."
"Police brutality!" Ida announced loudly. "I'm going to be protesting in front of your office, young lady. Why, in my day—"
"In your day, Ida, the majority of these properties were vacant, and unemployment levels were some of the highest in the nation. We're trying to do better in Harrogate. We can't have RVs and campers just parked everywhere."
"This place has become so bougie," Ida complained. "It's those Svenssons. Though they are good-looking." The old woman looked thoughtful.
I slumped down on the steps of the tiny house, fighting back tears. "What am I going to do?" I groaned.
A sleek black car pulled into the parking lot and slowly crept toward us. We all peered at it. A window rolled down.
"Josie!" Henry called, waving at me.
The driver's door opened, and Mace stepped out. He was so tall he just unfolded from the car. He buttoned his suit jacket as he walked toward us.
"Is everything all right, Officer?"
"She cannot park the house here," Susie explained.
"I say she can! It's my property," Ida exclaimed.
"You and Meg just have it out for my family, don't you?" Mace asked, his face dark.
Susie didn't seem perturbed at all by his threatening expression as she looked between Mace and me. "Is she a Svensson sister? A Svensson cousin?"
"She's the future Mrs. Svensson," Ida said.
"Ida—"
Mace didn't look as upset at the idea as I thought he would. His face remained neutral. "She's my employee," he said finally.
Susie looked down her nose at Mace as much as she could since he was so much taller.
"She cannot park here. She needs to move in the next five minutes, or I'm having this tiny house impounded."
I started crying. I was not a cute crier; I was an ugly crier, and I preferred to do it in private, not in front of my attractive boss. "I don't have anywhere to go," I said, gasping through my sobs. "I'm going to be homeless and then kidnapped and eaten."
Mace sighed the sigh of a long-suffering man. He stared up at the sky, a pained look on his face. "I guess." He looked down at me. "I guess you can come stay at my place."
22
Mace
"I can't believe I'm doing this," I muttered. Taking Josie to lunch was one thing. Having her live at my house. Well.
"We're having a sleepover!" Henry sang.
"She's not sleeping in the house," I warned Henry. "She can park her tiny house monstrosity on the property. Temporarily."
I wondered what Hunter was going to say.
We made a strange caravan, Josie following me in her clanking historic truck towing the wobbly tiny house. Henry squirmed in his seat, trying to see out the back window. Using a remote, I opened the gate to the property, and Josie chugged in behind me. We parked in the roundabout.
"This is amazing," Josie said, standing in front of the large manor house.
"It was originally the Harrogates’ estate. They made millions in steel and manufacturing in this town and had this huge estate built."
"How did you buy it? Are you related to them?" she asked.
"No," I replied as I unbuckled Henry. "The Harrogates lost their fortune, and the property was in disrepair when Hunter bought it. He landed a good deal on it. There're hundreds of acres out back. We can put your house there for the time being."
She looked down at her feet then up at me. "Why are you helping me?"
Why was I helping her?
"You work for me. Plus, I can't have you parking in the Svensson PharmaTech parking lot anymore. That's not good marketing."
Henry raced up the wide front steps and banged rapidly on the door.
"I shouldn't have let him sleep in the car," I told Josie.
I heard the yelling of my dozen youngest brothers as soon as we walked inside the house. The teenagers were probably doing homework or still at after-school activities. The youngest ones were, as usual, running wild.
Henry ran off to join the fray.
"Wow!" Josie said. "Are all of these your brothers?"
"It's a small portion of them," I said, hoping she wouldn't ask any more questions.
"A small portion?" she asked, looking at me in shock.
"Who's that?" Nate asked, well yelled, really. He was climbing on the outside of the railing along the stairs.
"Get down from there!" I barked at him.
"This is Josie," Henry said. "She's my best friend."
"Where is Hunter?" I asked Nate. He shrugged. "
Don't shrug. It's rude," I scolded him.
"Hunter's out," he said and glared at me.
Of course he was. That was why the kids were out of control. I wondered if Josie thought it was weird to have so many brothers. Sometimes even I thought it was strange.
"Josie, come see my room!" Henry shouted.
"All of you, outside!" I ordered them. "Outside now!" I pulled Nate off the banister and shooed the kids outside.
"Sorry," I said to Josie, looking for signs of revulsion on her face. But her eyes sparkled in delight.
"This is so cool! You have a gigantic family! I always wanted a big family," she gushed as I led her through the house out to the sprawling backyard.
"Incoming!" I heard Remy call. I looked over to see two of the teenagers, Isaac and Bruno, walk by, guiding our oldest brother Remy, who was driving a tractor towing a full-sized school bus.
"Won it at a storage-unit auction," Remy said, flashing me a thumbs-up. "Just needs some elbow grease and new tires."
"You know how I feel about school buses," I told him.
"I'm gonna sell it," Remy assured me.
"You better."
Remy maneuvered the bus into the large carriage house and dusted off his hands.
"Hi," Josie said, holding out her hand.
Remy wrapped her in a hug. "Welcome," he greeted her.
"Remy, put her down," I said. But Josie just laughed.
"I like your beard," she said, petting it. "It's glorious." Remy beamed. "Maybe you're the most attractive Svensson!"
Remy went red through his beard, and I scowled at him.
"I'm growing a beard too," Isaac said.
"No, you aren't," I said. "You're going to look like a gutter-punk kid."
"I told her she could park her tiny house out back by the cottages," I informed Remy.
"You have cottages on the estate?" Josie asked.
"Yeah and a big garden and a castle!" Bruno said excitedly.
"It's a fake ruin that the Harrogates built. It was all the style back in the eighteen hundreds," I told Josie.
"It's like the royal family in Britain!" my assistant gushed. "They have the Windsor Estate and Sandringham."
"It would be a lot nicer with some goats," Remy said, rocking back on his heels.
I looked up at the ceiling. "We're not getting any goats."
Leaving Remy to help Josie unhitch the tiny house, I went back inside to answer emails and make a few phone calls. I knew my younger brothers always wanted me to play with them, but with the launch of the new gene therapy product, there was still a lot of work to do.
I watched through the window of the home office as Remy used a tractor to tow Josie's tiny house to a flat spot near the cottages. They had originally been built for guests or extended family. It was on the to-do list to renovate them. If they had been habitable, I would have just set that tiny house on fire and had Josie stay in a cottage.
My phone rang, and I picked it up.
"I just wanted to touch base with you," Tara said as soon as I answered. She sounded sort of breathless. "You know, we could meet at a bar. There's a great little place—"
"I'm at home," I said, cutting her off.
"Of course. I didn't mean to bother you."
"How is the marketing launch going?" I asked her.
"Great!" she chirped. "I think we're making real progress."
"You know," I said, thinking of Josie, "you might ask my new assistant for some of her thoughts. She seems to have a knack for marketing. We had a good discussion about it over lunch today."
That seemed like the wrong thing to say. I heard Tara take in a breath.
"Hello?" I couldn't tell if she'd hung up.
"I don't think your assistant needs to be on the marketing team, Mace," she said with a laugh. It sounded fake.
"Whatever you think is best," I told her.
I went back to stand at the window. Remy had put the house in position. It looked like Josie was pointing something out on the house while Isaac and Bruno wedged rocks under the wheels.
"Are we going to be ready for the conference?" I asked Tara. "You know, the presentation—actually no," I corrected, remembering what Josie had said. "The whole marketing package needs to tell the narrative about how we are a cutting-edge company and innovative. It can't just be about the product. It needs to be about the larger brand."
"We're already on that track," Tara assured me.
Henry ran into my office a few moments after I ended the call.
"Can we go visit Josie?" he asked.
"Sure," I said, picking him up.
Josie had changed into jeans and a T-shirt and was on the roof of the house with a giant container of Gorilla Glue and some duct tape.
"I'm not sure you're supposed to just glue a house back together," I called up to her. She yelped and almost fell off the roof. I ran to catch her, but she righted herself.
"You startled me," she said.
"At least make Remy do that. You can't break your neck on our property," I pleaded as she shimmied over to the ladder.
I would be lying if I said I didn't notice how nice her ass looked in the jeans as she stretched to climb down the ladder. I reached up to steady her, my hand on her waist.
Her foot slipped on the top rung, so I just picked her up and swung her to the ground.
"You're accident-prone."
"Yes, but you're always looking out for me," she said, smiling up at me. Then she tapped me on the nose with the bottle of glue.
Henry pushed past us.
"You need to ask before you go into her house," I chided him.
"Can I go inside?" Henry asked.
"What else are you forgetting?" I prompted.
"Please?"
"You're always welcome in my tiny house, Henry," Josie said, bending down to his level.
Henry sprinted inside yelling, "This is so cool!"
"Are your accommodations satisfactory?" I asked her.
"Er, Remy said there's no sewer hookup, so…" She fidgeted.
Henry stuck his head out of one of the tiny windows. "This house doesn't have a potty."
Josie looked a little red. "The ills of a tiny house."
"You can use ours," Henry said. "We have an indoor potty. And a shower. It's better than where I used to live. We only had a big hole. I almost fell in."
"You almost fell in a hole?" Josie asked. Henry nodded.
I felt sick. Josie looked shocked and horrified. The rush of shame at my upbringing flooded through me, and I grabbed Henry and dragged him back to the estate house before he could fill Josie in on what exactly all the Svensson brothers were running from.
23
Josie
I didn't know what was going on with Mace. One minute we were having a moment. The next, he just shut down and stalked off.
Josie: So I'm living with Mace now
Willow: Say what?!
Josie: Not in his house. He let me park my tiny house in his backyard
Willow: Oh well, thank God you’re just camping on his lawn. Because living in his house, well, that would be weird
Josie: It's not like camping. It's a big backyard. It's more of an estate
Willow: Geeze how loaded is this guy?
Josie: Pretty loaded
Willow: Maybe you should, you know, hitch up the boobies and actually wash your hair. You might land yourself a billionaire
Josie: No, thanks. I'm not going to be like my mother. Besides Mace is weird
Willow: He can't be that weird. I saw the free lunch you posted on Instagram
Josie: I can't go for a guy just because he buys me nice food
Willow: That seems like as good of a criterion as any
Josie: I'm not sure. Sometimes I think he's attracted to me but then he shuts down
Willow: Maybe Tara put him off of women. I don't know what happened. She was on a call with him, then when it was over, she just went off yelling about how assistants need to know their place and sho
uldn't be gold-diggers going after their bosses
That stung more than I cared to admit. I never liked the way my mother treated her boyfriends. She always seemed to go after decent guys because she could use them for money more easily. In her rare phone calls to Aunt Myrtle's, she would never ask me about school or friends or anything like that. She would just brag about how she had convinced this or that guy to buy her a car or take her on an expensive vacation. She would gleefully tell me about how she lied and made the poor guy think she was in love with him. Then, when she'd drained them of money, or if they got sick or just needed her to be there for them, she would dump them and leave, usually stealing something of value on the way out.
I didn't want Mace to think I was after him for his money. He seemed like a nice guy—he took care of his family, and he offered me a spot to park my tiny house. He also didn't fire me, which was worth quite a lot.
I needed to find some way of contributing to the Svennson household. Maybe a nice thank-you gift? But Mace could just buy anything he wanted. I'd need to think on it.
Though I didn't want Mace to think I was using him, I was stupidly excited to use his shower. The tiny house had a wet room, but it provided only the barest trickle of water. It smelled like moss, and I never really felt clean after using it.
It was dark outside already as I picked my way across the lawn, a canvas bag with toiletries and my pajamas slung over my shoulder.
"A shower! A shower! I'm going to have a shower!" I sang to myself. I was so looking forward to a real shower.
When I walked into the house, I realized just how huge it was. There were supposedly thirty-odd people living there, and I didn't see a soul. It was a little spooky.
"Don't eat me, ghosts," I whispered as I crept down a dark hallway and up what seemed to be an old servants' staircase.
"If I were a shower, where would I be?" I muttered as I wandered down a wider hallway. There were old portraits of people I assumed were the Harrogates. This hallway smelled cleaner than the back stair, as if it had recently been painted. My feet padded on the plush carpet runner covering the hardwood floors. Where were all the lights?