Where There's a Will

by Virginia Hale

  Beth suddenly felt too warm beneath her scarf. She tore it off and slinked it over a chair as she crossed the kitchen to the microwave. So, Dylan knew. Well, she’d known for a while, Beth assumed, but now she definitely knew. They’d skirted around the unspoken acknowledgement for weeks, not venturing any deeper into the subject of their sexuality than little comments littered here and there. Dylan wasn’t exactly an open book. “Oh. I never open that.”

  Dylan winked. “Sure.”

  “I haven’t opened it since I got here,” she said adamantly, fossicking through the bakery bag in the microwave for her own pie. “I’ve had more important things to focus on.”

  A wide grin broke out across Dylan’s face. “Of course. Sorry, I forgot that you’re now officially the Margaret Thatcher of the Jembala Lakes tourism industry.” She winked.

  Beth rolled her eyes as she squirted sauce onto her own pie. It was the first jab Dylan had made about her horrible first try at leading her own tour. “Too soon,” she said.

  “No, it’s not. That was May. We’re in July. I held off for two months.”

  Over the whistle of the kettle one morning back in May, Beth had announced that she was ready to start taking her own tour groups. She’d observed Dylan for an entire week. She could handle it. Fine, go forth and conquer, Dylan had joked. And Beth had thought she was ready. She really, truly had.

  At nine a.m. the gathering was small. But after ten minutes, her group of three had doubled. She hadn’t missed the way a satisfied smile had quirked the corners of Dylan’s lips, her dimples obvious as she watched Beth’s group grow and grow.

  Beth had escaped to the guest bathroom to calm down. She wasn’t cut out for this. How had she forgotten how much she hated having an audience? She was a librarian, for god’s sake. You can’t do this, she’d told her reflection in the guest bathroom mirror. You have to tell Dylan. You have to go out there and tell her right now. Seconds later, there was a gentle knock at the bathroom door. “Beth?” Dylan had whispered through the door. “We might have to take this one together. There’s an elderly couple and they might need a bit of help going up and down the stairs. Maybe we should do a double act so that one of us can help them?”

  When Beth returned to the group, she found that the couple were barely pushing seventy and they were more mobile than Beth was at thirty-seven. It had been obvious what Dylan was doing, and Beth had half-expected her to rub it in later that day. But she hadn’t. That evening, as Beth had counted the gift shop till, she’d found a single Post-it note hidden beneath the two-dollar coins: Stress less. You’ll get the hang of it. And she had. Now, two months later, Beth had led over fifty groups all by herself, mostly individual visitors and foreign bus tours. She willingly allowed Dylan to take the school groups—sticky-fingered children were a headache.

  “So, I’ve been thinking,” she started. Dylan tilted her head. “I want to update my research.”

  “Your thesis?” Dylan licked her lips. Why?”

  “Because everything that’s been discovered or theorised about in the past few years leaves some of my major arguments redundant and—”

  “And it bugs you?” Dylan jumped down from the counter.

  She sighed. “My doctorate was the best work I’ve ever produced. I was so proud of it. Now it just seems…outdated and ill-informed.”

  Dylan balled up the paper bag and tossed it in the bin under the sink. “Just let it go, Beth.”

  “I’ve been trying to. But I don’t think I can.” She looked out the kitchen window, watching as a car pulled in and a family of five climbed out.

  “Sure you can.”

  “I want to revise, maybe develop my thesis into a manuscript and submit it to a publisher. I feel like I owe it to Elma.”

  Dylan pushed the back door open slightly. The cold winter wind seized its chance, whirling into the warm kitchen. “Would it bring in more tourists?” Dylan asked.

  “Possibly, but that’s not why I’m doing it.” She hadn’t published for years but becoming reacquainted with the house had sparked her thirst for historical research. Deep down, she knew the desire to revise her thesis lay in wanting to find out if she still had it in her.

  Dylan shrugged. “Up to you.” Her gaze was focused outside on the family putting on their coats and heading for the shop. “Why don’t you just try relaxing for a while?” Dylan suggested. “You’re always trying to fix stuff. You do know how to just chill out, right?”

  She shot Dylan a playful glare. “Yes.”

  Dylan tilted her head. “Really? Because I worry that you don’t.”

  Her eyes locked on Dylan’s and held her gaze.

  Beth sliced through her pie and brought a forkful of pastry to her lips. “Well, don’t lose sleep over me,” she mumbled before taking a bite.

  Dylan laughed as she pushed her way outside. “Oh, but I do.”

  It was after ten p.m. when Beth pulled into the Woolworth’s car park, the reflection of her headlights flashing in the supermarket windows as she manoeuvred her way into a parallel parking space.

  Outside the store, she looked between the baskets and the trolleys. Trolley it is, she thought grudgingly. Her kitchen cupboards were embarrassingly empty, and she couldn’t live off Nutri-Grain any longer. Since day one in the Lakes, she’d neglected her own place, choosing to spend every waking hour at the homestead with Dylan. She wasn’t avoiding Rose’s apartment—she enjoyed her own space at the end of a busy day—but the apartment just seemed so quiet after the homestead. Even when she wasn’t with Dylan, the other woman’s dramatic spiel was muffled through the walls of the homestead, reminding her that she wasn’t alone.

  The automatic glass doors parted like the gates of grocery purgatory. The greatest perk of late-night shopping—other than being so exhausted from a day’s work that she would succumb to her sweet tooth by aisle seven—was that the store was practically empty.

  After purchasing sliced ham and a fresh selection of cheese from the deli section, Beth started in the bread aisle. She reached for a packet of six croissants. She’d made a habit of cooking breakfast at the homestead each morning as a way to assuage her guilt about collecting half of the daily profits. Regardless of the fact that they were sharing the workload, she still felt apologetic about showing up out of the blue and swiping half of Dylan’s income. “You don’t have to keep buying me with food,” Dylan had said as she’d drenched the French toast in Worcestershire sauce. “You do know Elma paid me a flat rate of twenty bucks an hour, right? Even going halfsies with you, I’m still making a hell of a lot more than I was when Elma was around.”

  Beth was standing in the centre of the aisle deciding between a wholemeal and wholegrain loaf when a familiar voice rang out. “Well, I’ll be! If it isn’t Miss Lizzie Borden…”

  She looked up. Dylan was making her way up the aisle, a vitamin water and a packet of chips in hand.

  Beth lowered a wholegrain loaf into the trolley and grinned. “I haven’t heard that one for a good three days. I thought you’d outgrown it,” she joked. There was something exciting about seeing Dylan outside of the homestead for the first time.

  “What? You don’t like it?”

  Beth rolled her eyes.

  “You’re out late,” Dylan said.

  “It’s only ten.”

  The packet of chips crinkled as Dylan lifted her arm to read her watch. “Ten twenty-seven. That’s late for around here.”

  “I’m not from around here.”

  “Don’t I know it.” Dylan dropped her water and chips into the trolley. She grasped the handle and started to push.

  “What are you doing?” Beth asked.

  “I’m walking with you.”

  She followed. “This isn’t one of those quick, ten-minute shopping trips.”

  “I’m heading to the freezer aisle anyway. I need mini cheesecakes.”

  “I just got here. And I’m indecisive.”

  “You think I don’t know that? It took you twenty m
inutes to decide between ordering spring rolls and dim sims the other night. I thought I was going to starve to death before you picked up the phone to order.”

  “I can push my own trolley.”

  “Just let me push it, it’s got a bung wheel.”

  “Haven’t you got a better way to spend your Friday night other than following me around Woolies?”

  “Oh, I’ve had my fair share of adventure for the night.”

  Beth blinked. What was that supposed to mean?

  “Why so much shopping?” Dylan asked.

  “I’ve been living on takeaway and sponging off of your hospitality since I arrived. I need staples. You know, flour, spices, stuff you need when you actually live somewhere.”

  Dylan twisted to look at her as she pushed on. “Truly setting up camp here?”

  “For now.”

  In the fresh produce section, she tore a small plastic bag from the roller. She was usually fussy about the colour of mandarins, but as she blindly dropped them into the bag, she only had eyes for Dylan. She watched as the younger woman wandered over to the large wicker basket full of fruit beside a cardboard cartoon character. Dylan seemed to think over the basket’s free offerings for a moment before she swiped an apple from the top. Beth’s eyes grew wide as Dylan traipsed back over and leaned against the pear stand at the end of the trolley. She took a bite out of the apple.

  “That fruit is for children,” Beth admonished. “To encourage them to eat healthily.”

  Dylan looked around the supermarket. “Empty house,” she said with a mouthful of apple.

  “There could be cameras!”

  “Sue me.”

  Beth tried to fight a smile. “If you want an apple, I’ll buy you an apple.”

  “What are you, my mother? I can buy my own apple.”

  She sighed, a laugh escaping her without her consent. Dylan grinned as she took another bite. “So what did you get up to tonight?”

  “Not much.”

  Dylan licked apple juice from her pouty bottom lip. “What’s much?”

  “I unpacked stuff.”

  She attempted to move the trolley, but Dylan stopped her, taking the reins. Beth led them to the dairy fridges. “So you just unpacked?” Dylan asked. “What else?”

  Beth was distracted, trying to choose between vanilla and strawberry yogurt. “I played on Facebook for too long.”

  Dylan swiped the strawberry yogurt from Beth’s hands and dropped it into the trolley. She pushed on toward the dessert freezers. “Are you ever going to friend me on Facebook?”

  “Depends,” Beth countered. “Are you ever going to let me call that locksmith for the gift shop door?”

  Dylan groaned. “Fine,” she said after a moment. “Deal. Only because I really want to go through your Hawaii bikini pics.”

  Beth raised an eyebrow as she watched Dylan open a freezer door. “You’re going to be disappointed.”

  Dylan winked as she tossed the box of cheesecakes on top of the loaf of bread. Beth didn’t miss her quick glance at her chest. She lifted her gaze back to Beth’s, her eyes dancing with humour. “I doubt that…”

  Beth felt her cheeks burn. “I mean that there aren’t any bikini pics.”

  As she opened the freezer door she could feel Dylan’s careful eyes watching her. Dylan smiled. “What a shame,” she joked. “So did your friends decide to make an appearance this morning?”

  Her brow furrowed. “No. It’s been three days.”

  Dylan scoffed playfully. “Unbelievable. So disrespectful. Somebody ought to tell those roos that poor Dr Hordern has been waking up at the crack of dawn just to get a glimpse of them, and they don’t even have the courtesy to show up.”

  Beth smiled. “They’ll be back.”

  “I don’t know, Beth. Kangaroos have a bad attitude. That’s if they are roos.”

  “They are.”

  “You sure they’re not wallabies? I’ve only ever seen a handful of roos the whole time I’ve lived there.”

  “We’ve been through this—I know the difference between a kangaroo and a wallaby.”

  “Okay, baby, don’t get your knickers in a twist. Take a photo next time.”

  “No,” Beth said playfully. “I don’t need to prove it to you. You want to see if I’m right, then you wake up early tomorrow and see them for yourself.”

  Dylan chuckled. “Wake up early—me? We both know that’s not going to happen.”

  When they came to the personal care aisle, Beth weighed two body washes in each hand. She opened the lid of the first and sniffed it before doing the same with the next. She waved the pink bottle under Dylan’s nose. “Rose and honey?” She offered the other bottle for Dylan’s opinion. “Or milk and honey?”

  “Tough choice.”

  Beth flipped the caps back on. “I like roses,” Beth said decidedly. She tossed the pink bottle into the trolley.

  They moved on. “Do you like your new place?” Dylan asked.

  “It’s fine.”

  “Just fine?”

  “I don’t really like Rose,” Beth muttered lowly.

  Dylan folded her arms over the handle of the trolley and steepled her chin on her fingertips. “Really? Do tell!” she said dramatically, as though gossip was the most entertaining thing in the world to her. In two months of knowing Dylan, Beth had never heard her say a negative thing about anybody.

  “I don’t know,” she sighed. “She just gives me a weird vibe. I don’t think she likes me.”

  Dylan quirked an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t Rose like you? Everybody likes you. I like you.”

  “We see each other almost every night when I pull into the driveway and she never asks about my day, or anything about the homestead for that matter.”

  “Don’t take it personally, Beth. It’s not you—it’s the homestead. I think Rose is just…I mean, from what I’ve heard in town, Rose isn’t too fussed about the fact that we’re still making money off of the murders.”

  “Because she thinks it’s macabre?”

  “Because she thinks it’s distasteful.”

  Beth lowered a bottle of shampoo into the trolley. “She does go a bit weird when I mention it…”

  “Some people around here are really not into the fact that the homestead is the town’s primary tourist attraction. It’s a bit of a sore subject. Speaking of the tourism industry, have you decided if you’re coming to the slumber party at the end of the month?” After a moment, Dylan added, “You should.”

  She met Dylan’s stare. “I hadn’t really given it much thought.”

  “Well, start thinking. I like to draw up a map of sleeping arrangements a few weeks in advance and it’s imperative that I know whether you’ll be sharing my sleeping bag. There is a waitlist, you know.”

  Beth laughed. “Do I have competition?” she dared.

  The question seemed to take Dylan by surprise for a moment before she winked. “Oh, yeah. Fierce competition. And lots of it.”

  Dylan’s blatant enthusiasm was endearing. When was the last time someone had shown such an interest in her? With Rachel, invitations hadn’t been so eager, more along the lines of I’m going to the Courthouse with Bec and Leigh tonight. Come after work if you want, or I’ll see you at home. When Beth had accepted an invitation, Rachel hadn’t made an effort to hide her disappointment. Beth was known as the “fun police” because she wasn’t a heavy drinker and didn’t encourage round after round like the rest of them.

  Beth wondered how many “this round’s on me” her gambling ex had tacked onto her credit card without her knowledge. The thought twisted her stomach into knots, so she buried it deeply. She’d been up since five a.m.—going down the Rachel rabbit hole was the last thing she felt like doing.

  “So who am I competing with for the number one spot?” she asked Dylan.

  “I’d say the retired grandmother from Sydney who practices Wicca. You know what the gothic ones are like—absolutely wild.”

  “Wiccan? So she’s a w
itch?”

  “I guess.” Dylan halted the trolley as they turned the corner. “Hey,” she said, her eyes raking over the stand of family-sized Cadbury chocolate bars at the end of the aisle. “These are two-for-one. You should buy two for yourself and bring them by tomorrow and then accidentally leave both in the kitchen for me.”

  Beth laughed and added two of the jumbo-sized, purple-wrapped bars to her trolley.

  Dylan grinned. “God love you, Lizzie Borden.”

  In six months’ time, Beth would come to regret reaching out to Brian Lester, her former mentor. She’d regret sitting up in bed with her laptop later that night, her kitchen cupboards stocked, the fireplace roaring, and emailing to find out if Brian knew of any publishers accepting unsolicited academic submissions. She would regret even more that after receiving his reply, she had answered his question: Why do you want to turn your thesis into a book? Why the homestead again? She would rue the night she’d gone into so much detail about her inheritance, her predicament.

  But her deepest regret would be sharing with Brian—the director of Sydney Historic Preservation Association—that she had entertained the idea of selling.

  That night, she went to bed guilt-ridden that she’d shared too much—and guilt-ridden that she was glad of it.

  Chapter Seven

  “Can I ask you something silly?”

  Dylan looked up from the cash register. In the doorway, Beth was working on installing the lock she’d purchased at the hardware—a compromise. She’d been at it for the entire Saturday afternoon, her knees straddling the opened door, determined to fit the complicated system herself. Dylan admired her patience and perseverance, and as she cast her gaze over the doctor, angelic in the late afternoon sun, longing tightened in her chest. She swallowed. “Sure, go ahead.”

  Beth was fixated on the screwdriver as she tightened a screw. “Do you ever get the feeling you’re being watched inside the house?” she murmured. Her brows furrowed. “I never used to when I lived here…but I do now. I’m not scared or anything, but I just have this feeling. It’s new.”