by Giselle Fox
“Three-ply, too. Guess he didn’t tell her about the composting toilet.”
Jane pulled a chair close to the window and sat down.
“She’s going to see you.”
“So what. I’ll be gone soon.”
“Yeah, but I won’t.”
“She’s cute.”
Keira had already noticed that. “She’s alright.”
Jane flashed her a glare. “She’s gorgeous, and she’s wearing hiking boots—go get her.”
“Stop.”
“She’s single.”
“How do you know?”
Jane waved her hand in the direction of the dock. “I didn’t see her unload a man—or a woman for that matter. She’s not wearing a ring.”
“How do you know?”
“These binoculars are really good. I can read the writing on that loaf of bread.” She pulled them away and blinked a few times before resuming her position. “She’s looking over here.”
“For God’s sake, put the glasses down, then.”
Jane held up her glass of wine in salute. “Still looking.”
Keira felt like shrinking behind the baby grand. “Please stop. This is incredibly embarrassing.”
“Good. Maybe you’ll come back to New York with me.”
“I can’t just leave my house.”
“Why not?”
Keira didn’t have a good answer. “The otters?”
Jane made a face. “You can’t fool me. I know a little about nature.” She lifted her glasses again. “Okay. She’s got reading material. Books. She reads books. She’s perfect.”
“She eats bread, defecates, and reads books, that hardly makes her perfect.” Keira chewed her nail and began to pace.
“Nice body, too,” Jane muttered.
Keira looked again. The new arrival had taken off her rain jacket and was standing on the dock in a tight black sweater and jeans.
“Who’s the guy?”
“That’s Kirby.”
“Hmm, he looks dirty. Not in the good way.”
“You’re right about that.”
“He’s leaving.”
“Already? He hasn’t even shown her around the place.”
Jane shot out of her seat and stepped even closer to the glass. “Oh my God, Keira!”
“What? What is it?”
“Look!”
Keira grabbed the glasses from Jane’s hands. “Let me see.” Sure enough, the woman had flipped her baseball hat around. “She still might be straight. I mean, straight women do that, too, right?”
Jane was waving to the new tenant again. The woman waved back. “Go talk to her.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“What am I going to say?”
“I don’t know. How about - hey, I see you like bread. Let’s make a sandwich.”
Keira gave her a look.
“Who cares what you say?” She pushed her toward the door.
“What are you doing?”
“Ask if she needs help. Introduce yourself. You’re her only neighbor. Be neighborly.”
It wasn’t the worst idea. Keira knew the next-door house well. Settling in could be tricky for someone who didn’t know the ins and outs. “Okay, but you’re coming with me.”
“Of course, I’m coming with you. I want to make sure you don’t screw up your own meet cute.”
They pulled on their boots and coats and stepped out onto the side deck. The drizzle had started again.
“Seems like an unnatural amount of rain for one location,” Jane said, closing her eyes. “What is that smell? It’s like... Christmas trees.”
“You’re standing under a pine, Jane.”
Jane’s eyes opened and slowly moved up the massive trunk in front of her. “Oh, my God! I never knew they grew that big.”
“Amazing, isn’t it?”
“Mmm,” Jane muttered and started walking.
The woman was out on the dock again, smiling at them as they approached.
“We’ve come to help,” Jane announced.
“Thank you. I could use it before everything gets soaking wet,” she called back.
“I’m just here on a quick getaway from my husband and two loud kids,” Jane said. “This is Keira, she lives here all by herself.” She thrust Keira forward. Keira groaned inside.
The woman in the backwards ball cap held out her hand. “Pleased to meet you, Keira. I’m Daisy.”
“Daisy. What a lovely name,” Jane cooed. “Makes me think of somewhere warm and dry that’s not… here.”
“You’re moving in?” Keira asked.
“Only for a week,” Daisy replied. “I saw the listing and had this crazy idea I might want to buy it. I plan to stare at the water and read for the next few days while I decide.”
“Reading. How interesting.” Jane gave Keira a theatrical wink.
Keira grabbed the few remaining grocery bags while Daisy and Jane grabbed the rest. They worked their way carefully up the long and slippery path. Once they were inside the cabin, Keira lifted the bags onto the counter. Daisy continued into the bedroom to drop off the last of her things. While she was gone, Jane gave Keira a sudden and unexpected shove.
“What?” Keira hissed.
Jane jabbed her finger toward a stack of books sitting in a bag on the kitchen table. On the top was a worn-out copy of Tipping the Velvet. Keira’s eyes widened. Jane smiled. Then, she cleared her throat. “You like Sarah Waters, I see.”
Daisy came back in from the bedroom and smiled. “Yes, actually. That’s my favorite. If I didn’t have so much to carry, I would have brought more.”
“Keira has loads of books if you run out,” Jane said, nudging Keira again. This time, it practically pushed her forward.
“Uh, yeah. You can borrow one anytime.”
Daisy gave Keira a smile. “Thank you! I love looking through other people’s collections. It tells me so much about them.” Her eyes focused in on Keira’s and she smiled again.
“Well, then why don’t you come over for dinner tonight. Keira is an excellent cook and we’ve already done all the catching up we need to,” Jane said.
Daisy looked back and forth between them. “Are you sure? I-I don’t want to impose.”
“It’s no imposition at all. It’ll be fun and you won’t have to cook,” Jane said brightly before shooting Keira another look.
Keira took the hint. “Yes, please, come over.”
“Okay,” Daisy said with a shy smile. “I would like that. Thank you.”
~~~
Daisy curled a lock of her damp hair around her ear for effect and smiled at Keira again. So far, Keira didn’t seem like a shut-in at all. In fact, she seemed very nice.
“So, are you… a friend of Kirby’s?” Keira asked.
“Oh, no. I just met him,” Daisy replied. “The property looked so beautiful in pictures.” That wasn’t a complete lie. Everything on Keira’s side of the cove was beautiful.
“So what do you think, now that you’re here?” Keira asked.
Daisy hesitated, then smiled. “Well, honestly, I wouldn’t say I’m all that impressed, but… it deserved a look. Kirby waved his usual vacation rate. I had nothing to lose.”
Keira glanced at Jane and shook her head.
“What?” Daisy asked.
“Kirby has never actually rented this place out to vacationers, despite what he likes to say.”
“I kinda wondered about that once I let myself in,” Daisy chuckled. “But really, never?”
Keira shook her head. “He’s tried but…” she shook her head again.
“Anyhoo,” Jane said, breezing back into the conversation. “If you’re looking for a beautiful house on Hummingbird Cove, Keira’s place will be up for sale soon.”
Daisy almost did a happy dance right then and there. “Oh? Are you thinking of selling?”
Keira frowned in Jane’s direction. “Jane would like me to, but I’m not. Not right now, anyway.”
&nb
sp; Jane stepped in again. “You should see her apartment.”
“Oh? In Vancouver?”
“No, it’s on the upper east side in New York. Her plants are lonely. I’ve been watering them for six years.”
Keira laughed. “I don’t have any plants.”
“Then whose apartment have I been breaking into?” Jane smiled over at Daisy. “I’m just kidding. I tell my husband that I’m going to run away and live there whenever he and the kids get on my nerves, which is daily.”
Keira chuckled. “Careful, they might want you to.”
Jane pretended to look insulted and then shifted her attention back to Daisy. “So what do you do?”
Daisy knew the question was coming and had her response ready. “I practice law.” The answer wasn’t entirely fiction. She had gone to law school.
“What type of law?” Keira asked.
“Estates, stratas, contracts.” Again, mostly true and vague enough not to ring any bells about her true vocation. Fortunately, Keira only seemed impressed. So did Jane.
“So this is a well-deserved vacation?”
“Yes, I suppose it is. I haven’t taken one in years.” Daisy smiled again. “We’ll see how long I last with the mice, though. A week might be too long.”
Jane glanced at Keira. Keira glanced back at Jane. There was some unspoken dialog going on between the two friends and Daisy was dying to know what it was. Perhaps dinner would provide more insight.
CHAPTER SIX
Daisy felt their absence as soon as they’d left. “Keira Maitland,” she said out loud. A transplant from New York with an empty apartment on the upper east side. That meant she had money—probably a lot more than Daisy had guessed. “She likes books, food, architecture, and has a distaste for men like Kirby Brock.” Daisy smiled. “We have a lot in common.”
She watched the two women walk down the brushy path back toward Keira’s big house. Keira took the steps up two at a time as Jane ambled slowly behind her. Keira was talking and smiling and when she looked back at Daisy’s cabin, Daisy waved. “You were spying on me. Now it’s my turn.” She felt a little shy about staring, despite Jane having watched her with binoculars. Keira waved back and then Jane turned and waved, too.
“Well, isn’t this all very friendly,” Daisy whispered. She watched them for as long as she could until they both disappeared around the side of the house. Then she turned and surveyed the dank cabin. “Ugh. Where do I start?”
She hauled her suitcase onto a chair and gave the bed a poke. “Please, no one be living under there.” She lifted the bedspread, expecting to see a nest of the bug or rodent variety hiding beneath, but there was nothing. She bent forward and gave the sheets a whiff. At least she’d brought her own.
Still, things were moving faster than she’d hoped, thanks to Jane, the friend. The Sarah Waters book turned out to be the perfect accessory. If that’s all it took for Keira to believe she was an ally, then great. “I’m not a lesbian, but I’ve played one on TV,” she joked, before realizing she was talking to herself. “Shit, it’s happening already.”
She thought of unpacking her clothes, but when she found mouse poop in one drawer and the wispy carcass of a dead spider in the next, she decided to hang what she could and leave the rest sealed tight in her suitcase. She looked around the cabin. It wasn’t completely lacking in charm. The view was outstanding, but the interior was cold, dark, and had a musty shed-like feel to it. She flicked the lights on but it didn’t make much difference. “This place needs to be put out of its misery.”
She looked over at the big house on the point. “Now that’s more like it.” The sun was low on the horizon and the red cedar home glowed even more brilliantly with hues of red and orange. Sunlight flooded in through the massive windows. It made Daisy feel warmer just looking at it. She looked back at her pile of groceries on the counter and then noticed the mousetrap in the corner. There was another by the couch.
She collected the stack from books the kitchen table and tucked them in a neat row on the bookshelf. After stowing every bit of food she’d bought in the fridge, she took another look around. The couch was old. The blanket covering it looked even older. Not that there was anything wrong with old; old could be nostalgic and quaint. Old could also be dingy and smelly, and it was. Kirby Brock was no decorator.
She looked back toward the big house again. That was far more her style. Light, open, and thoughtfully positioned in the landscape. Rustic in its use of materials but modern in its angles and proportions. That was the kind of place she could imagine herself living in.
~~~
“She seemed nice,” Jane said as they walked back along the muddy and overgrown path back to Keira’s side.
“She did.”
“Think she’s a lesbian?”
Keira wasn’t one to apply labels, but she did trust her intuition. “I don’t know.”
“What does your gaydar tell you?”
Keira looked back at Jane and smiled. “That she’s nice.”
“Hmph,” Jane said, not looking particularly satisfied with the answer. “Well, I thought it was interesting that of all books to bring to a secluded cabin, she brought Tipping the Velvet.”
Keira agreed. That was interesting. “Maybe she likes historical fiction.”
Jane gave her a smirk. “Or maybe she likes Victorian dildos.”
Keira laughed. “Think she brought one along?”
“Wouldn’t that be a treat? You could help her put it to good use.”
“Not with you around.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be out of your hair tomorrow.”
Keira had only been joking. “What? I thought you would stay for a few days.”
“I would if I didn’t think I’d be getting in the way of something here. I have work to do, anyway. Another author.”
Keira frowned. “What other author?”
“No one you need to worry about. You will always have my full attention.”
Keira grumbled. “I was really hoping you’d stay.”
“Tell you what, I’ll decide after tonight, okay? We’ll see how dinner goes. If you two appear to be… you know, then I’ll skedaddle and come back another time.”
“Liar. You’re never coming back.”
“Well, I might. Now that I’ve found fleece and rubber boots, I feel confident I can handle this nature stuff.”
“Look out behind you!” Keira shouted, grabbing Jane’s shoulders suddenly.
Jane crumpled into a screaming heap in her arms. “Don’t eat me!!”
Keira began to laugh.
Jane uncoiled. “You tricked me! I can’t believe you!”
Keira looked up and saw Daisy watching them through her window. She waved. Jane began to laugh. “I hope you’re satisfied. You almost gave me a heart attack!”
“She’s watching us again.”
Jane turned. “See? She likes you.”
“Maybe. We’ll see.”
“I have an idea,” Jane whispered.
“What?”
“I mean… if it turns out she does like you, like, you know, your gaydar starts tingling or whatever happens, you should just… go for it. She’ll be gone in a week, maybe less. Have wanton sex while you can.”
“Jane, jeez…”
“I’m serious, do it. It’s not like Daisy is going to get the raw end of the deal. You’re the perfect woman to have a torrid cabin in the woods affair with, for a woman that’s read Tipping the Velvet enough times that the pages are falling out.”
“Stop.”
“Maybe she can be one of your leading ladies.”
“I already have a leading lady; her name is Callie, she’s a flight attendant-”
Jane threw her a give me a break look.
“I mean, I guess Callie’s not really fleshed-out yet,” Keira mumbled. They’d reached the door and were standing under the awning outside.
“You know what’ll help get Callie fleshed-out?”
Keira grinned bac
k at Jane, already knowing the answer. “Wanton sex?”
“Precisely. Do you think Daisy is attractive?”
Easy answer. “I mean, sure. Yeah, she’s very pretty.” She pushed open the door of her house. “I wonder what time she eats dinner. Maybe I should have told her a time.”
“Go run back there and tell her,” Jane said, grinning.
“Come with me.”
“You don’t need me. You’re on your own. Do that thing you do.”
“What thing?”
“The thing that gets women besides me to want to sleep with you.”
“There’s no thing. I just…” Keira began to smile. “I just smile and listen.”
“Good, then go smile and listen some more.” She gave her a little nudge. “Go on. There’s no harm in telling her what time dinner will be ready.”
Keira reconsidered and then considered again. “Alright, I’ll go”
“I’ll go,” Jane mimicked, making it sound like drudgery. “Tousle your hair a bit.”
“Tousled. Got it.” Keira set off down the path again, except this time, she ran.
~~~
Daisy had been casually watching what was happening over Keira’s way from the obscured vantage of her duct taped window, and it now appeared that Keira was making a solo return. She took one look around and then shot into action, just to make it seem like she had done a few things since they left. By the time Keira was at the bottom of the balcony steps, calling her return with a cheery “Haloo,” Daisy had removed her sweater and plucked out Tipping the Velvet from the shelf as the perfect book to leave open on the table. Satisfied with the appearance of progress, she grabbed her phone and met Keira at the door.
“Hey,” she said. “It was already feeling lonely around here.”
Keira smiled back at her. “Sorry to drop in. I realized I didn’t give you a time for dinner.”
“That’s right, you didn’t,” Daisy replied, noting the freshly flipped front of Keira’s beachy brown hair. “What time do you want me?” Her choice of words were intentional.