After dinner there was Greer’s cake. When it came time to leave, none of us wanted to. Deacon invited us all back that Saturday night for a bonfire, and Charlie quickly accepted on our behalf. Then she smacked her hand to her forehead and said, “I forgot about Liam.”
“What about him?” Deacon asked. Like the rest of us, he knew Liam from high school. They hadn’t run in the same crowd, but Deacon was friendly to everyone and Liam knew everyone, so there was some common ground there. I explained about the ribbon-cutting ceremony and how the front page of the Gazette was at stake. Deacon whistled.
“That’s serious,” he said. “If he wins and wants to celebrate here, he’s welcome. If he wants to do something else, just let us know.”
The “we” clearly referred to him and Jasper, and we three visitors agreed to do just that.
“I like how he didn’t even mention the possibility of Liam losing,” said Charlie as we all got back into the Beetle to head home.
I smiled in agreement, but Greer was uncharacteristically quiet for the whole ride. She had spent a fair amount of time at Deacon’s place over the past couple of years, and tonight she had looked happy in a way I hadn’t seen her look since she had beaten every boy in the ninth grade in an arm-wrestling contest.
We were winding up our twisting driveway when I caught a glimpse of a car through the trees.
“Who’s that?” I said.
Once we had a clear view, Charlie gave a cry. For a split second I thought it was Hansen Gregory, come to talk smack about yet another story they were competing over. Then I saw who was sitting on the porch and I froze.
Chapter Thirteen
“That’s Andy,” gasped Charlie. “What’s he doing here?”
Andy, unbeknownst to him, was surrounded by ghosts. They were all looking at him curiously except for Mr. Bone, who was standing threateningly behind him, and Paws, who was firmly planted in front of the front door. With guards like that, no one was ever breaking into my house, I thought with amusement.
Andy was the epitome of a wealthy nerd, good-looking in an “I know a lot about science” kind of way, fun in a “Let’s go to the museum” kind of way.
He would have been terribly shocked and confused to find a horde of ghosts surrounding him, looking curiously at his perfectly combed hair.
Andy and Charlie had made more sense in high school. He had gone to boarding school, so they really only had summers with each other. In the years that followed, Charlie had grown into a confident woman, still blisteringly smart but less obviously nerdy than she’d been in high school, while Andy, as Greer put it, continued not to like Charger.
Now he was on the farmhouse porch in his suit, complete with button down and tie, in other words, way overdressed for our farm. Didn’t the man know the place was falling down? Charlie, who at the best of times got out of the car faster than I was comfortable with, basically didn’t even allow the vehicle to stop before she was pelting toward him.
“What are you doing here!” she demanded.
Greer and I could hear her yelling even through the windshield. “How happy are you that she’s not yelling at us right now?” said Greer.
We both got out more slowly, not because we thought Charlie wanted space – if she had wanted space she wouldn’t be yelling – but because we were afraid she might explode.
“Do you think the porch can take Andy sitting on it?” Greer asked.
“The porch is just fine,” I muttered.
Charlie was still yelling when we got to the porch, while Andy was holding up his hands as if in self-defense and trying to explain himself. Charlie, however, wasn’t giving him a breath of space to do it in.
Mr. Bone and Paws, who had been primarily concerned with the defense of the house until we showed up, were now watching with delight and fascination.
“My wife used to talk to me like that,” said Mr. Bone.
“Clearly you have problems,” said Paws.
“Yeah, she yelled at me,” said Mr. Bone. “I never thought I did anything that bad, either. She didn’t yell often or anything. Just a couple of times. We worked it out.”
“I meant that you had a wife,” said Paws.
“The ghost conversation is almost as fun as Charlie and Andy’s,” said Greer. “It’s an embarrassment of riches here tonight.”
Andy still hadn’t been able to explain what he was doing there, and Charlie was making it crystal clear that there was no explanation for what he was doing there that she would accept.
“Charlie, let me talk,” said Andy, finally interrupting out of exasperation.
“Ruined that rant,” Greer muttered.
“Fine,” said Charlie. “Make it quick.”
He sighed and glanced between me and Greer. “I don’t suppose we can talk alone? No offense.”
“I’ve been offended by you for years,” said Greer. Then she turned to me and added, “I’ve always wanted to say that.”
“If you wanted to talk to me alone you shouldn’t have kicked me out of our apartment,” said Charlie, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring. “We had plenty of time and space to talk alone over there.”
Andy ran his fingers through his brown hair. He would have had to be a real dummy not to know that this encounter was going to be difficult, but I wondered if he had realized just how difficult. I had a feeling Andy had stopped paying close attention to Charlie a long time ago, and maybe didn’t realize, or had forgotten, that she came off as sweet most of the time, but when the girl was mad, duck and cover. “Anything you have to say to me you can say in front of them,” she told him.
“And the human conversation pulled ahead,” Greer narrated.
To be fair, by this time Mr. Bone and Paws had given up arguing about Mr. Bone’s wife (who by all accounts had been a lovely woman) in favor of watching Charlie trounce her former boyfriend.
Andy found Greer confusing at the best of times, which was exactly how she liked it. He was used to not understanding Charlie’s best friend, so he didn’t spend a lot of time trying anymore. In this situation, he just ignored her.
“You still have a lot of stuff at my house,” he began.
“Yes?” said Charlie.
“I was wondering when you might be planning on picking it up,” said Andy.
To hear the question, you would have thought it was a perfectly reasonable one. Unfortunately for Andy, in Charlie’s state nothing coming from him was perfectly reasonable. She made a sort of furious squeaking noise as her face got redder. Then she balled her fists at her sides. But still she said nothing.
Yet.
For my part, I was cold and shivering and looking longingly through Paws’ window at the wood stove. The sky was clear except for all the stars winking, stars that looked to be about the same color as a lot of the ghosts, a sort of shiny silver, except that the ghosts all had their own colors as well. For example, Mr. Bone’s hair had been red when he was young. It had gone only partially gray before he died, and the shimmering in his hair reflected that mix of red and silver.
I wanted Andy to leave so we could go inside and sit by the fire. Also, he was accomplishing nothing but upsetting Charlie.
“I’ve been busy here, Andy,” said Charlie. “I’ve been getting my new room together, while you’ve had the whole apartment to yourself. I’m still paying half the rent. I didn’t think there was any need for me to rush to get the boxes out.”
Greer and I exchanged glances; we hadn’t known that Charlie was still helping out with the rent. I suppose we shouldn’t have been surprised, since it really hadn’t been that long, and she’d been the one who moved out. But still.
Bottom line, Andy should have started paying for the place himself by now, especially if he was pushing Charlie to get her stuff out of there.
Andy’s family didn’t live in Mintwood, which Greer jokingly said was the other problem with him. Charlie had accused her of being townist, but Greer had said that wasn’t a thing. Andy had grown up a
couple of towns over, and he and Charlie had met at a water park in high school. She accidentally splashed him, and he was very polite about it, then politely asked for her number, and the rest is history.
The apartment building they lived in, one of Deacon’s, still wasn’t in Mintwood. Charlie had said that moving into my grandmother’s farmhouse was like coming home for her. “Hopefully home doesn’t collapse any time soon,” she’d added
“Right, well, I also figure I can start paying the rent,” said Andy. “With my job, I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to stay anyway.”
“So you just want me to come get my stuff because it’s annoying you?” Charlie was still trying to clarify why he was in such a rush that he’d show up unannounced on our doorstep.
“No, that’s not entirely it,” said Andy, now looking downright nervous.
I knew Andy had a reason for coming other than asking Charlie to get her boxes. My friend had been making steady progress on that front; the doorway from her room to the kitchen was ever more clogged with the fruits of her efforts. So there had to be something else, something important that he wanted to say to Charlie in person.
Unfortunately, none of the things he could want to say to Charlie in person were going to be good things, and all three of us knew it. Even the ghosts looked sad. I mean, not Paws, he was cleaning, but Mr. Bone and the tea ladies and even a couple of the birds. I was glad we hadn’t gone inside, because now we could stand beside Charlie when Andy said what it was he had really come for. Greer especially, with a glare that would scare a honey badger, was good to have around when things got tough.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you this but I couldn’t find the right time. I knew it needed to be done, so I thought I’d just come in person. I figure I owe you that much,” said Andy.
Charlie’s face, pale at the best of times, now went a shade whiter. “Are you seeing someone else?”
Andy flinched and looked down at his hands, twirling a twig nervously in his fingers. Paws had grown bored by the human drama and was now trying to grab the twig out of Andy’s fingers. He kept missing, and each time he ended up biting Andy’s fingers, but since he was a ghost, Andy didn’t even notice.
Meanwhile, Charlie was standing there with a look on her face that I had never seen before. Unsurprisingly, it seesawed madly between shock and anger, as if she couldn’t decide which emotion was most important.
After a few moments, having apparently decided she didn’t have to choose one or the other, she stomped up the porch steps without another word, swung the front door open, and slammed it shut behind her, leaving the three of us in stunned silence.
Andy turned after her as if to say something before she went out of reach, but Greer lifted her hand to stop him and said quietly, “I think next time you should call before you visit, so that one of us can tell you not to bother. Also, we’ll be by to get the rest of her things this weekend.”
Andy sighed and stood up, tossing the twig away. Paws went soaring through the air trying to grab at it and missing spectacularly. Andy, of course, continued not to know that Paws and the other ghosts were witnessing the scene, so he spoke only to us humans when he said, “I thought I was doing the right thing by coming here. I’m sorry.”
“You broke up less than a month ago,” said Greer, “and you’ve already moved on, and now you’ve told her that information to her face. You could already see how upset she was even before you made it clear that you were going to be bringing this girl to your apartment, because why else would Charlie need to get her stuff out so quickly?” She ended her recap of the night’s events with, “I’d say you’ve done enough for now.”
“Good night, both of you,” said Andy as he made his way to his car. All the ghosts followed him, continuing to look interested.
“Give me another twig!” Paws yelled angrily after the car.
We didn’t even wait for him to drive away before we bolted inside, afraid that Charlie had already gone to bed without talking to us. I knew that between Greer and me we would have gotten her to talk one way or another – there was no way we’d let her to go to bed on that sour note – but as it turned out, we didn’t have to chase her. She was waiting for us, and she had been busy.
She was sitting by the wood stove, having revived the fire that we had left banked earlier in the day. In front of her was steaming mug of tea, and there were two more mugs sitting in front of the sofa, waiting for us.
She held a box of mementoes and was picking pictures, pink notes, and other small tokens out one by one and dropping them into the fire.
When she saw us watching her she said, “My heart is telling me to savor the moment.”
“Good call,” I said.
“Doesn’t he know I’m friends with his landlord now?” She was referring to Deacon, of course.
“I’m sure it just slipped his mind,” I murmured.
“Yes, that’s real power,” said Greer.
“I made tea for all of us,” Charlie said quietly.
Greer and I sat down and picked up our tea. Holding my mug gingerly, I enjoyed the warmth that suffused my fingers and the soothing smell of lavender filling the room. The night had been going so well! Jasper and Deacon had both been great, and I found myself very much looking forward to hanging out with them again this weekend after the madness of Liam’s competition was over. Then we’d returned home to Andy, who had ruined everything, at least for Charlie.
“Have I mentioned you’re too good for him? Because you’re too good for him,” said Greer.
Charlie gave a sad smile. “It’s funny, I haven’t even really been missing him, I mean I have, but not like I wanted to get back together or anything. I knew that breaking up was for the best, but still it was hard to get used to. We’d been together for so long, and I haven’t been single for so long . . . I really didn’t know how to do any of it without checking in with him every night and telling him about my day. I didn’t realize how much of my life revolved around him, and then he was just gone. Now he shows up here and says I’ve been replaced and, well, I don’t know.”
“You aren’t replaceable,” I said. “Andy knows that. He was trying to do the right thing by telling you the way he did, but he’s a guy, and his version of the right thing is vastly different from ours.”
“You’re so nice,” said Greer, rolling her eyes.
“What do I do now?” said Charlie. She emptied the box and sat back.
“I think you do what you’ve been doing. You concentrate on work and your friends and on building a happy life,” I said. “With all that free time, maybe between you and me we can even start to get some of the house fixed up.” I had no idea where I was going to find the money for that little endeavor, but I had to try. The porch could lean sideways forever if I didn’t do something. Or more likely, it would eventually stop leaning and just fall down.
Charlie took a sip of tea and then gave a genuine smile. “I like that. We’ll work on projects, like Liam’s window display. I’ve been so caught up in helping him, the only other thing I’ve even thought about recently was Kayla’s murder.”
“That’s the spirit! And as for your stuff, there’s plenty of space here where you can store it. There are at least three more unoccupied bedrooms,” I said, “and there’s also some space out in the shed with the canoe.”
“There’s still space in my room, too,” said Charlie. “I just didn’t know there was any rush about picking up my stuff. It’s all just in boxes under the bed. Is he going to have some girl over and they’re going to look under the bed together?”
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” muttered Greer. “We also told him we were going to pick up the rest of your stuff this weekend. I figure we can borrow Deacon or Jasper’s truck and get the last of it.”
Charlie bit her lip, “I don’t know, that’s serious business. We’ll have to offer them something for their trouble.” Her eyes drifted to the ceiling and I could see that she was trying not to smile.
“Offer them something like what?” Greer growled.
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe have them over for dinner or something,” said Charlie. She said it as if she had never thought about it before, but clearly she had. “If you don’t like either of those ideas you could always offer your hand in marriage to Deacon.”
“Yeah, that sounds like a great idea,” said Greer. “Right up there with going to swim in the Babbling Brook Lake in the middle of fall.”
“Hey, it would have worked,” said Charlie. “Might’ve been better than rolling around in that sorry excuse for a canoe, anyhow.”
After that we changed the subject. Charlie steered the conversation back to our dinner with the guys, which had been a lot more fun than the rest of the night. I knew she was trying to get her mind off the fact that Andy was dating, and so soon. Charlie had always been a career woman, and I didn’t think she needed a boyfriend to feel validated, but it was tough for her that Andy had gone out and found somebody so quickly. Except for the one night we’d gone to the bar to talk to Jeff, Charlie hadn’t been out much since she moved into the farmhouse. We’d had a good time hanging out, but that didn’t mean she was meeting any guys.
We chatted for a little while longer, then stoked the fire and went to bed. I had nothing on the calendar for the next day except checking on Vertigo, and I was looking forward to staying inside by the fire. I didn’t have anything related to Kayla on the agenda, and Liam had gotten so discouraged with the window display competition that he had generously given us the next day off. He was going to take a drive in search of gorgeous gowns, even if they weren’t Holly’s, our very last hope for a winning display.
Otherwise, horror of all horrors, the Artist’s Art Gallery might win.
Chapter Fourteen
I woke up earlier than I had meant to the next morning, but since I felt well rested I got out of bed, showered, dressed myself in jeans and a black sweater, and went downstairs to grab the Mintwood Gazette. There wasn’t much in the way of news. Charlie hadn’t been able to find out anything from Detective Cutter about Kayla Caldwell. She did plan on calling Mary at some point that day, since Mary had promised her an exclusive interview if Charlie discovered what had happened to her sister. Charlie was hoping that the police were being more forthcoming with Mary than they were with the reporter, and maybe Mary would pass any news on to her.
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