“What I’m doing is clearing out this house,” he informs me. By this point I’ve seen more of Wesley’s back than his front, and in spite of the nice view I’m getting real tired of it.
He attempts to pitch a guitar case into the dumpster, but I tug it out of his grip. He capitalizes on my moment of distraction and disposes of the moth-eaten clothes I’ve just tried to save. “You’ve only been thinking about estate plans since, what, yesterday afternoon? I’ve been planning this for a year, since Violet first told me I was going to inherit everything after she died. I’m going to fix it up, raze five acres of land, and turn it all into a sanctuary for old farm animals.”
“Into a what?”
Wesley shoots me a hard glare. I’m not prepared for it, for the horrible way it feels to have someone who looks like someone I thought I knew, someone who was warm and kind, direct such coldness at me. “What’s wrong with an animal sanctuary?”
“What’s wrong is that you’ve decided this all by yourself.” Plus, I’m not living next to a literal pigsty.
“Why shouldn’t I? Violet was my friend. I cared for her every day.” He tugs the guitar case from me, opening it to reveal broken hinges and stained velvet lining. See? his expression tacks on smugly. “You, on the other hand? You’re a stranger. You appeared from out of nowhere. No offense, but I don’t believe DNA gives you seniority over me.”
He’s calling me an opportunist. Julie Parrish’s girl, through and through.
“I know what improvements are best for Falling Stars,” Wesley concludes pragmatically. “I’ve been suggesting them ever since I was hired.”
“If Violet liked your suggestions, she would’ve implemented them,” I retort. “I inherited half this place. And so help me, if you throw out one more piece of my rightful property without my approval, I’m going to take legal action.” Please don’t call my bluff. I can’t afford a lawyer.
This stops him in his tracks. “I’m clearing out trash. Just trash, not anything that’s salvageable. Is that not the obvious next step?”
He’s got a point. I hate that he’s got a point.
“What about Violet’s wishes? Every little item, she said. Extraordinary care, she said.”
He exhales through his nose, irritated. The irritation is contagious. “That wasn’t serious. Movie night? Making cupcakes? Those aren’t wishes, it’s meddling from the afterlife.”
“Donuts,” I say, correcting him. “There’s a thousand-year curse hanging in the balance. Sounds plenty serious to me.”
“That’s because you didn’t know her.”
Wesley isn’t fazed by my crossed arms or formidable scowl. He chucks a cardboard box full of books with their covers missing and ignores me.
“Those can be recycled.”
“I’m paying extra for the trash company to sort through it for recyclable materials. Part of the premium service package.”
That sounds made-up. And possibly sarcastic. He’s saying whatever he thinks will get me to stop talking to him.
It’s a relief that I don’t have to feel bad anymore about intruding here, living in his cabin. He’s been waiting around for my aunt to die so he could do whatever he wanted with her home.
I busy myself quality-checking holiday lawn ornaments. That’s what I’m doing officially, anyway. Unofficially, I’m side-eyeing the muscles in Wesley’s arms that cord and shift when he lifts heavy boxes, hunter-green shirt straining across his broad shoulders and back. His skin is tanned and freckled from an occupation that puts him center-stage in the sunlight, so when sweat crops up along his forehead and the bridge of his nose, he shimmers like gold dust. Whenever I’m warm and sweaty, my hair both frizzes out of its ponytail and plasters to my face, which goes as red as a stop sign. When I blush or get overheated, I don’t get two cute splashes of pink on my cheeks. My face incites alarm. I blame the fact that I was born a redhead, which is my go-to piece of trivia whenever anyone mentions the strawberry highlights in my light brown hair.
I wonder idly if Wesley was born with dark blond hair, or if he’s one of those blonds who had snow-white hair as a child. The idea of him having ever been a child is ridiculous. He looks like he was born with a five o’clock shadow and some sharp words for the nurses. I bet he refused to wear onesies because he found them demeaning.
I resent my intimate familiarity with what he looks like, which is at rotten odds with the coarseness beneath his surface. I know every inch of that face, thanks to my dumb, deluded self not running Jack’s pictures through a Google reverse image search.
Physically, I speak fluent Wesley Koehler. Spiritually, he’s a mysterious unknown. An enigma. That kind of face should come loaded with a cocky grin and eyes that twinkle with teasing humor. In the game of Who Wore It Better?, Jack wins, and he doesn’t even exist.
Wesley threads his fingers through his hair, rumpling the every-which-way waves, darting a peculiar look in my direction, then away again. I watch him a while longer while trying to be discreet about it, but now his attention stays firmly fixed on his task. No good morning, no how did you sleep, no curiosity about me as a person and where I came from, no small talk between roommates. No bless you when I sneeze. It’s next-level rudeness.
It’s a feeling too familiar to be mistaken. I’m unwanted in my home.
“Zero points for originality, universe,” I mutter. “You’ve given me that story line loads of times and I’m still here.” The Maybell Parrishes of the world are a gullible, often down-on-our-luck breed with determination that exceeds our talent, but at the end of the world, we’ll be the last ones staggering through that field of zombies. Grumbling, shaking our fists at the sky, too bullheaded to know when to quit, with soft, stupid hearts that won’t be jaded. Being delusional is our downfall but it’s also our saving grace: we’re deluded enough that we don’t see why tomorrow shouldn’t be better, even if the last thousand days in a row have been bad.
Our being equal inheritors of my aunt’s estate is going to be a circus, I can already tell. But if one of us is going to give up, I know it won’t be me.
Chapter 5
A FEW HOURS HAVE PASSED since I first began cock-blocking Wesley’s mission to run afoul of Great-Aunt Violet’s dying wishes, and I’m forming a hunch around how he justifies this behavior.
He and Violet were close, I’m guessing, being the only two people all the way out here, cohabitating in the very close quarters of the groundskeeper’s cabin. When you live with somebody long enough, you pick up kernels of information about each other that lead to anticipating what the other person might say or do, how they might react in any situation. You learn their habits, you establish rituals. You grow comfortable. This spawns an easy rapport.