He was hurt. She readily saw that. And she couldn’t blame him. She felt horrible for not simply exclaiming, Yes, do come live with me! We’ll make it work somehow. She wanted to take away the disappointment etched across his face. But she felt some inner muzzle keeping her impulsive, eager-to-please self from self-sabotaging.
Still… why was she being selfish? Gordon was her boyfriend. He was coming all the way to America to see her, at last. Naturally he wanted to stay with her. And wasn’t that the legacy of the beach house? To offer safe haven?
“Of course you can stay here. We’ll make it work somehow.”
His expression shifted and his smile brightened his eyes.
“I was beginning to think you didn’t want me to come.”
“I do. I’m just… well, scared.” She felt herself stumbling. “My visiting your place is one thing. You moving into mine… is a big step.”
“I understand. You should know, I’m ready for that step.”
Linnea sucked in her breath.
“If it doesn’t work, if you want your space, I’ll find something else. No pressure. I don’t want you to feel rushed.”
“Okay.” Her voice was a whisper.
“Are you okay? Really?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Then I’m coming to your place?” he confirmed.
“Yes.”
There was a pause, each giving the other a moment to say something.
Linnea broke the impasse. “I think we need to sleep. You must be exhausted. It’s past midnight there. I know I’m tired.” She sighed. “A bit dazed and confused, actually.”
Gordon’s brow furrowed. “I hope this fellow hasn’t got you confused.”
She hesitated too long. She saw his face change; a muscle twitched in his cheek.
“He is in your head, isn’t he? I can see it. Amazing thing about all this technology. I can see your face.”
“Jealous?”
“Absolutely. I’d better get there quick and challenge him to a duel. Paper airplanes at dawn.”
She laughed, grateful for his humor. “I don’t think that will be necessary. Just come as soon as you can. I miss you.”
“Good. I’m glad.” His smile now was genuine. “I miss you too. Bye, love.”
She hung up the phone and let her hand rest on it for a while, feeling the reverberations rocking through her like aftershocks. What had she done? She fell back on her pillows and stared at the ceiling, her mind rewinding the conversation with Gordon, what she had said. What she had not said.
She had tried to back away from him moving in with her. Linnea counted the reasons she’d offered: a roommate; quarantine problems; the need for Cara’s permission. She closed her eyes tight and clenched her fists. She’d told him everything but the one salient truth: she did not want him to move in.
But she’d said yes.
Linnea turned on her side, pulled her covers up over her chilled shoulders, and tucked her knees up, but sleep did not come. In her mind, she wrestled with the unanswered question—why?
chapter eight
If a dark cloud is hovering inside the house, get outdoors.
WHAT WAS UP with Anna?
Linnea stood at the kitchen sink, washing dishes with quick agitated movements. Anna was being a real downer. She stayed in her room, cooked her own food. Rarely spoke. She was more a ghost than a roommate. When she walked into the kitchen, there was a cloud of gloom over her head.
Linnea called out a cheery “Good morning!”
Anna returned a mumbled reply.
Linnea joined her at the table with a piece of paper and a pen, eager to break the ice and begin sharing the house as roommates.
Anna was hunched over her bowl of granola, eating in wolfish gulps. She was still in her navy cotton pajamas and her auburn hair flowed down her shoulders in disarray.
“Now that Hope is gone, it’s just you and me.”
Anna nodded, but didn’t look at her.
Annoyance flared but Linnea pushed on. “I was thinking. Let’s make up some menus for next week and a grocery list. You can cook your favorite dishes, and I’ll cook mine. It’ll be fun. We’ll split the cost right down the middle. What would you like to make?”
Anna looked up from her bowl of granola and finished chewing. She swallowed, then her brows furrowed. “That’s okay,” she said in a monotone, effectively cutting off Linnea’s enthusiasm. “I’ll just cook my own food. I have my own diet and I’m pretty particular.”
“But… it will be more economical to cook together.”
“Tell you what,” Anna said, her expression one of boredom. “We’ll split the basics. Toilet paper, laundry supplies, flour, that kind of thing. The rest we can buy for ourselves. I’m used to cooking for myself. Prefer it.”
Linnea felt a profound sense of disappointment. “I just thought, given that we’re both staying at home… together… we might make it a bit more enjoyable. Get a bottle of wine from time to time. Share ideas.”
Anna just dove into her granola without replying.
Linnea stiffened, anger bubbling at Anna’s thinly veiled contrariness. “Well, then, as for the rest…” She cleared her throat. “I’ll bring you the bills for utilities and all at the beginning of the month. I should have April’s bills coming in any day. In the meantime, I will get staples. If you’d like to check the list, of course you can.”
“Hey, don’t be mad just because I don’t want to cook with you. I hate cooking.”
“Okay. I get that. What is it you do like to do? The house needs a thorough cleaning every week, and I hate to tell you, we don’t have a maid.”
“I’m good with that. Just tell me what to do.”
“But, Anna, I don’t want to always tell you what to do. I didn’t ask you to live here to have to take care of you.”
Her face flushed. “I didn’t ask you to.”
“But you are, by asking me to tell you what to do. Hope is gone. I’m done being a nanny. I want you to take an interest in living here. In the house. Hey, even me. I live here too. Being a roommate means a certain level of concern for the well-being of the person you share space with. We share this house. We live together.”
Anna’s face clouded and she shook her head. “I’m sorry, but that’s never been my experience. I’ve always lived alone, or with a group of people who barely knew each other. We put our names on our food in the fridge, tried to find time at the stove or the washing machine, and waved at each other as we cooked in the kitchen. Our own food.”
That sounded horrible to Linnea. “Was that college? We’ve grown beyond that, I hope.” She pursed her lips. “I’m curious… who did the dishes?”
Anna snorted a short laugh and twisted her mouth in a grin. “Well, we were all supposed to do our own dishes, but you know guys. They tended to leave them in the sink and say they’d do them later. Ditto with the housekeeping.”
“That won’t work here,” Linnea said simply. “I have a thing about dishes in the sink. Cockroaches. They’re real out here on the island. And I don’t like a dirty house.”