Page 27 of You've Got Hate Mail
Ginny nods. “We’ve tried living without plumbing on occasion, and it’s a lot more complicated than you think it is.”
“Unfortunately true,” Mabel agrees.
“The main house is right here,” I say. “That’s close enough. And you said come and go at all hours, right?”
Ginny cringes. “I’d agree with you, except this isn’t the first time we’ve been in this situation, and experience tells us it’s still not the best spot for you—foranyoneto be.”
“And the floor in the kitchen is a little hazardous right now too,” Mabel says. “But we do have a solution that’ll give you a bed and plumbing.”
My heart sinks lower and lower, and my chin starts to wobble.
I wonder how far I’ll be from these ladies. Does one of the neighbors run a bed-and-breakfast? Or are they talking about a hotel in town?
I wasn’t payingclose-close attention on the final stretch of my drive here last night, but I know Foxwood isn’t the short, walkable distance from the main house here that my current accommodations are.
Shake it off, Cricket. It’s just a few days. “Sure. Of course. Whatever you—whatever you need to do with me.”
“It’s actually the nicest bedroom on the property,” Ginny tells me.
My heart thumps hard in relief.
It’s on the property.
There are acres and acres of grapevines here, so I could still be some distance away, but at least it’s still on the property.
Mabel pulls my red-stained shirt out of the washer, sprays it with a stain remover I hadn’t spotted on the shelf above the two machines, then tosses it back in and starts the cycle.
“Come,” she says. “Let’s talk in the sitting room.”
They steer me through the kitchen and down the hallway, past the wall of pictures that I was studying before the urn incident.
“You’ll have a private bathroom without windows and a kitchenette, just like in the mother-in-law house,” Mabel says as we walk through the house.
“You actually might not want to leave even when the mother-in-law house is fixed up.” Ginny smiles at me, but it’s a guarded smile, and I suddenly need to know the catch.
“Where is it?” I ask. “That big stone building? It has bedrooms?” I think I heard Olivia call it the banquet hall, but I could be mistaken.
I’m still getting my bearings.
They share a look.
Ginny winces.
Mabel’s expression stays neutral as she points me through the wide doorway into the sitting room, where the rug has been rolled away and the urn of ashes returned to the mantle over the marble fireplace, though a drawing of a uterus now accompanies the walrus drawings on the coffee table.
“It’s a full apartment in the basement of the caretaker’s cottage,” Mabel tells me. “The basement is a walk-out, so you have your own private entrance. Not much different from the mother-in-law house, honestly. Just a little further away.”
The caretaker’s cottage.
The—oh fuck.
I keep my smile plastered on my face even as I freeze in the doorway of the sitting room. Years in broadcasting trained me well, even if it wasn’t anything my family consideredserious work.
“Heath’s house.”
“Like I said, private entrance, full apartment, windowless bathroom, and there’s a door at both the top and bottom of the stairs, and they each lock,” Mabel says.
“How does…he…feel about this?”
