Page 77 of You've Got Hate Mail
She lifts a brow. “So what’s with the scowl?”
“I’m not scowling.”
“You’re doing something.”
Pip’s out here with her too, dressed for joining the gardening crew in a way that only Pip can pull off, with a straw sun hat as wide as the porch, dark sunglasses that aren’t much smaller, oversized gardening gloves, short shorts showing off her bony knees and thin-as-a-rail legs, red feathered house shoes, and a red knitted poncho with loose enough stitching that you can almost see as much as she usually shows off in the house.
“Did somebody say they saw an owl?” she says as she struts past us.
“Yes. Heath did. In the owlery,” Mabel replies.
We don’t have an owlery. Even an accidental owlery. I’ve been in every building on the property, and I’d know.
“Bad luck to see owls,” Pip says. “Probably shouldn’t do that big wedding here now.”
Mabel sucks her lips together, clearly amused. “Other option’s selling this place and finding a nice senior home that’ll take me in too.”
Pip lifts a hand, but if she’s trying to flip Mabel off, which I assume she is based on past behavior, we can’t tell.
Her gloves are too big to make out any distinct fingers, and she might have them on backward.
“Aunt Pip, come garden with us,” Lav calls. “We’re growing dragons!”
“The dragons are more consistent than the leprechauns or the studiwafers were,” Mabel muses.
Don’t ask me what astudiwaferis.
It’s something straight out of Lav’s imagination, and every time I asked her if she meantStudebaker, she’d say no and ask if Studebakers were also in the three-legged fish-potato family.
Even after she drew me a picture, I still don’t quite get it.
“The dragons convinced her she needed to hide in the gift shop for two hours yesterday,” I tell Mabel.
And that’s the other thing.
The true reason I think Lavender and I might actually need to move.
For real.
Because Lav has a habit of sneaking into random buildings here to hide.
“Missed that detail,” Mabel says.
“I hear you had your hands full with a popcorn incident.”
We both look at the Notorious P-I-P.
Mabel cracks a warm smile. “For all that she gives me heartburn, I can’t wait to be her someday.”
“Look, Mabel—” I start, then stop because I don’t know how to continue.
She looks at me, and I feel like I’m another one of the women here.
Someone she’s taken under her wing while they get their footing back. Giving as much space and support as they need.
Rarely asking for things for herself.
And here I am, about to drop the bomb when she deserves for this to be as easy as I can make it on her.
