“There’s that,” I say with a sigh. “But I’m not so sure he wants to be liked. In fact, I’m positive he doesn’t want me to like him.”
“Maybe you should try,” she says. “I mean, the whole not-liking-him thing. You could still have sex.” She pauses for a sip of her drink. “In fact, the best sex of my adult life was with a man I could not stand. He felt the same way, but we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. We only met up for sex.” She crinkles her nose. “But he ended up proposing to me, and the thing was, he was still a dick. So that put an end to that.”
“It would be nice if things like this were easy, huh?” I say with a slight smirk.
“Yeah,” she says with a sigh that speaks volumes. She’s been there, done that, too, and neither of us got a T-shirt.
Tina and I have a date with Mrs. Dahl tomorrow afternoon, but I texted Tina earlier because I felt all kinds of messed up after what happened with Cal. I could have told my sisters, but Maisie would have worried and Mary would have pressed her lips into a firm line and told me I’m a sex addict.
I’m not. Nor is it usual for me to sleep with men I’m not dating, against a tree no less, but a kind of madness possessed me. Possessed both of us, I guess. I blame that stupid sunrise and my whole near-death tumble.
So I texted Tina, and she suggested we get drinks at Prohibition, an uncreatively named bar that nods to the Prohibition-era joints. It used to be an empty building when I was a kid, but it’s nice. There’s an outdoor deck that we’re currently drinking on, overlooking the city, and if it weren’t so hot out here, it would be flocked with a dozen other people. It’s a funny contrast—it was so cold this morning in Bluff, and now it feels like we’re hanging out in someone’s mouth.
“What are you going to do about all of this?” she asks after taking a sip of her martini. She drinks them dirty, nothing sweet and syrupy like my sister Maisie prefers.
I sigh, swirling my own drink and looking out at the view, which is frankly unimpressive after this morning. “There’s the question. I think maybe I should just back off. He’s made it very clear what he thinks of me. Besides, any journalistic integrity I might have had has gone out the window. Or up the tree, I guess.”
“You’re not a quitter,” she says, with another flourish of the drink. This time a few droplets escape, and she draws the glass in closer to her chest. “You’re like me. You’re a doer.”
I can’t help but smile, because she’s a little tipsier than I am. “You’re too much of a doer, Tina. You’ve got, like, five jobs.”
It’s only a slight exaggeration. In addition to the occasional dog-sitting, filling in at the brewery, and working at the tea shop, she also occasionally runs those pub-cycle beer tours for tourists—i.e., she shuttles them around to breweries on an enormous and cumbersome vehicle powered by a nothing motor and their feet. All of this, and she’s only been in town for a few months.
“Jill of All Trades,” she says proudly.
“Why don’t you call it the Tina of All Trades? You’d get the consonance going for you.”
Another wave of her drink sends a small splash over the balcony.
“Oops,” she says, just as someone down below gives an angry shout. Both of us shrink away from the side on instinct.
“It’s because of my last name,” Tina says in a whisper. “DiVirgilio. Jill. Get it?”
“Yeah, no one’s going to get that,” I say with a laugh. “I’ll bet one person in five can pronounce your last name.”
She sighed. “More like one in ten. Sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing leaving home.”
“Why did you?” I ask as we both straighten.
“A man,” she says with another flourish of her drink. “What other reason?”
That drink is going to be empty before she gets in a second sip, but I’m too interested in her story to say so. The door has the discourtesy of interrupting us, swinging open nearly fast enough to clip me.
“Hey, what gives?” Tina blusters, but I’m busy gaping.
It’s Harry.
He does a double take.
“Are you following me?” he hisses.
“I was here first!” I say, feeling faintly self-righteous. “If anyone’s following anyone, you’re following me.”
He thinks that over for a second, then nods and shuts the door.
“How’d it go this morning?” he asks. “You didn’t answer our texts, and Cal won’t say anything either.”
I got back from the hike feeling shaken and confused, only to immediately step into a puddle of dog vomit and find my phone had blown up with twenty texts from a new SMS group I’d been added to, labeled Setting the Record Straight. Ninety percent of those texts were from Nicole and Harry, asking whether I’d gotten the goods from Cal. I settled for a few variations on no—non, nee, nein—and Nicole proceeded to private message me saying she has other ways of helping me. I’m pretty sure she means something underhanded, but when she offered to get contact information for Augusta Glower, who has changed her email address and phone number since publishing the book, I didn’t argue. Even if I’m no longer convinced of the soundness of this venture.
What kind of reporter sleeps with the subject of her piece, anyway? Flirting was one thing, but this…this was stupid. Something about Cal makes me completely lose my senses.
I spent several hours of my morning freaking out at the vet with Ein, only to be told that he is both old, which I knew, and currently fine, which came as a relief to both me and Maisie, who got so anxious about the puke thing that I worried she’d send herself into early labor. While I was waiting, a check-in message came in from the Rogue Word editor, as well as an email from Constance.
She wants me back but didn’t directly say so.
A text to Beth revealed the company is being sold again, which means I’m less of a liability than I used to be. But the thought of going back makes me feel cold inside, like my heart is withering under those mountain winds that made me so cold earlier.
My mind skips back to Cal wrapping me up like a human blanket, making me feel safe and protected and special…
And that, of course, makes me think of those awful things he said to me.
Do I even want to write this story anymore?
What will happen to me if I don’t?
Rogue Word only wants me if I get this scoop.
I spent the rest of the day writing up a piece based on one of the stories Mrs. Dahl told me the other night. This was a fairly innocuous one, about the year Husband Number Three, Henry, dressed up like the Easter Bunny, and horrified the neighbor kids so much they had insomnia for a week. I’m hoping she’ll tell me more.
Dottie’s story was almost big enough for a book, albeit one only a few people will ever read, and I suspect Mrs. Dahl’s is the same way.
It occurs to me that Tina’s watching me with big WTF eyes, and she has no idea who Harry is. That night at Buchanan Brewery, he adiosed before she came over to check on Mrs. Dahl.
“Tina, this is Harry. He’s the person I was interviewing at Buchanan Brewery the other night before the whole to-do with Mrs. Dahl. He’s in the Bad Luck Club, and he knows Dee. Harry, this is Tina,” I say. “She’s Dee’s sister-in-law.”