Twice Shy

WISH 3. MAYBELL, DEAR, I’d be thrilled if you painted a mural in the ballroom.

Wesley was right: there isn’t going to be enough money in the budget for an in-ground pool. I’m gratified, however, to report that the estate sale netted a nice chunk of change. Which Wesley didn’t help with. At all. He hid up in his bedroom the whole time and wouldn’t come down even when I tried to tempt him with vegetarian hamburgers, because he thought it was a trap. (It was. I needed help lifting a chair into the back of a teenage girl’s truck, but he saw us struggling from his window and came out to help. He made up for the moment of niceness by glaring excessively.)

If I can’t offer my guests a refreshing swim in a pool, they can at least stand in the ballroom and marvel at my giant painting of a waterfall lagoon.

I’m having trouble making the paint do what I want with it; it’s dripping down the wainscoting instead of staying put. I try to blend colors à la Bob Ross and they’re too faint, more like the memory of color than true pigment. My trees are pale green blobs. I can’t get the branches to distinguish themselves, so I add black for definition and end up with bigger blobs. I’ve got enormous, washed-out black blobs on either side of a blue smear that’s supposed to be a waterfall.

“What do you think?” I ask aloud. It gets lonely, so I like to imagine that Violet and Victor are hanging around, keeping me company. Victor’s finally out of his stuffy old bedroom I still can’t bring myself to enter, relaxing with some ghost magazines in the library. Good Housecreeping and (After)Life. Victor loved his magazines. Whenever I see a TV Guide at the grocery store checkout, I’m transported back to the ottoman at Victor’s bedside, reading him the “Cheers & Jeers” section. His favorite show was The King of Queens and he told me, every single time I watched an episode with him, that nobody has range like Jerry Stiller.

“Perfection,” I reply to myself, because that’s exactly what Victor would have said about my disaster mural.

Violet, I think, would gently tell me I’d done a good job, and then at one in the morning I’d walk in on her redoing my efforts. “Thought I’d help just a tiny bit,” she’d say guiltily. Then she’d distract me with spontaneous chocolate chip pancakes. She made them for dinner sometimes, as a special treat, which I thought was the most incredible thing. Chocolate chip pancakes for dinner! In our pajamas! Don’t tell anybody, she’d mock-whisper, even though the only other person at home was Victor and he loved to encourage the indulgence in special treats.

“Violet, I think I should have hired a professional for this,” I say. The summer I lived here, I found a Garfield comic book in the library and promptly zipped through a comic-drawing phase. Violet and Victor were overly complimentary of my clearly plagiarized comic strip about a lazy rat who loved spaghetti, and made me believe I was a genius. Maybe Violet asked me to paint a mural because she thought I’d grow up to be more talented.

The sky in my mural looks like the sea, and the lagoon looks like . . . someone who doesn’t know how to paint tried to create a lagoon and didn’t take her time with it. I don’t have the patience to nurture the skill required for this.

When I was a kid, this room was the one and only fragment of Falling Stars I privately thought could be improved. When you tell a ten-year-old you have a ballroom, she’s going to picture the one from Beauty and the Beast. And then when she finds out the floor has shaggy peach carpeting, the windows are adorned with heavy floral drapery you’d find in a Best Western, and the piano isn’t even an old-timey-looking piano but rather an upright piano that belongs in a church—well, that child is going to be underwhelmed.

“We’ll get a proper grand piano,” I murmur, dabbing my paintbrush into a blue puddle. “Or a harpsichord. The carpet needs to be ripped out, for sure. You can’t throw a lively masquerade ball in these conditions.”

“A lively what?”

I twist on my stool, paintbrush dribbling cerulean across my skirt. Wesley needs a goddamn bell around his neck.

“Uhh . . .” I cast about for a good lie. You can’t have a ballroom and not throw a holiday masquerade ball—the idea is madness—but he needn’t know this particular event is on his horizon until the day he walks in and gets a load of me and my forty finest guests outfitted in Regency attire. Because yes, costumes are absolutely necessary. “A baseball. I want to throw a baseball.”

He raises his eyebrows. I smile with all my teeth and start estimating how much work it would be to put down a baseball diamond on the property. Everything I know about baseball can be traced back to that scene from Twilight.

Then his gaze skids onto the mural.

Okay, so it doesn’t look like an expert did it. I’m not an artist, except when it comes to flavors, icing, and sprinkles. But he doesn’t have to look at my painting like that, with his lips closed around an unspoken Hmm.

“At you,” I snap. “I’m going to throw a baseball at you, if you don’t change your face.”

Wesley endeavors to change his face. “Are you using watercolors?”

“Yeah.”

He appraises the wall as if in pain.

“Why? Does it matter?” I love watercolors. They’re so dreamy and serene.

Groaning deep in his throat, he throws his head back and walks straight out of the room.

I stare after him. “Does it matter?”

I squint at my painting, straining to view it through someone else’s eyes. It isn’t recommended. I slip back behind my own eyes again and ponder the merits of paint-by-numbers wall hangings. Would that be considered cheating?

Wesley returns with a large, rectangular plastic tub loaded with bottles of craft paint. “Whoa!” I paw through the rainbow of colors, some brand-new, some a quarter full, with rivulets of dried paint encircling the caps. “Where’d you find all this?”

“Upstairs.”

I shake a bottle of sunflower yellow. “These are fresh, though. Do you think Violet—”

“These are acrylics,” he interrupts quietly. “I think you’ll find them easier to work with.”

“Okay, great.” I squeeze some admiral blue onto a paper plate. “Thanks.”

Wesley leaves, and he’s right, the acrylics are a way better medium. The paint stays where I ask it to, thick and vibrant. I begin to hum, swishing my brush, until Wesley reappears and plucks the brush from my grasp. I frown at my empty hand, still in midair, until he prods a new brush between my fingers.

“Use this one,” he tells me, and disappears again.

But not for long.

Every time I turn around, he’s hovering in the doorway. I can’t focus while he’s doing that. “What?”

He looks like he wants to backseat-paint so badly and can barely hold it in, pressing his knuckles to his lips, other hand cupping his elbow.

“Nothing,” he mutters.

I lower my brush, which has smoother bristles than the last one and applies paint more evenly. “Come on, spit it out.”

“It’s just . . .” He begins to point, then tugs his fingers through his hair sheepishly.

“Listen, if you happen to have any tips, I’m all ears. I don’t know why Violet asked me to paint a mural. I haven’t painted since art class in high school.”

Wesley loses his hold on his restraint and drags over a chair, positioning it two feet from mine. He second-guesses the distance between us, then drags it another foot in the opposite direction.

“Are those supposed to be trees?” he asks benignly with a motion toward my green-black blobs, to which I can’t help but laugh.

“If you have to ask, I guess they’re pretty bad.”

“No! Not bad. Not at all.” Lies. “Here, try this.” He plucks two brushes with flat, fanned bristles from the plastic tub, one for him, one for me, and dips them in water. Wipes the excess carefully against a paint-stained rag. “These are perfect for coniferous trees.” He dabs his into hunter-green paint and then creates a realistic fir tree in seconds, like it’s nothing.

“You don’t always need to have your brush loaded with paint,” he says. “If you let it fade out, you end up with softer branches. Then you come back, like this, with a little bit of yellow. These brushes are handy for grass, too.” He demonstrates, barely tapping the bristles against the wall but managing to leave behind feathery strokes of yellow-green grass.

I copy him. “Ahh! Look at my tree! I made a tree!”

“Very good,” he replies, even though his tree is much better.

“Would you mind helping me?”

Wesley doesn’t take any convincing. He asks what I’d like him to do, and I put him on tree duty. I try to mirror whatever he does on my side of the mural but keep stopping to watch him work. He makes all sorts of trees, using different brushes for the trunks, for different textures. He knows exactly which brush is the right one for the result he wants. Which colors to use. “You’re really good at this,” I say.

He grumbles noncommittally, arm stilling its movements. It takes him a while to get back into the groove, and as I watch his progress, I also watch his cheeks and neck redden.

I can’t believe it. He’s self-conscious.

“No, seriously, you’re an actual artist,” I force myself to tell him, like I’m trying to pet a dog who might bite me. “You’re legit.”

“Not really.” He squirms.

“You must paint all the time, then? To be this talented?” There are a few landscape paintings hanging up in the cabin, but I assumed he or Violet bought them.

“I’m not . . . I’m not that good.” Wesley rubs the nape of his neck. I think complimenting him is making it worse. It’s so humanizing, to see this giant starchy potato get all pink and flustered simply because I’m bearing witness to his fluffy trees. It makes me want to compliment him more, which is a disturbing development.

“Anyway.” He rolls his shoulder and tries to twist himself so that I can’t see his face. “Light. And shadows. Um. So, look, there’s the sun, so . . .” He darts me a sidelong look. “Pay attention to the art.”

“I am.”

(Awful, is what I am, but in my defense he walked right into that one.)

His blush is furious. You could fry an egg with it. “Look at my brush, please. You’re missing important techniques here.”

He adds whitecaps to the waves, and reflections of overhanging trees. I imitate him. He isn’t as precise anymore, fumbling with the paint bottles, knocking over our cup of water. He mutters and grumbles and, honestly, looks completely miserable. I have never seen him like this. I’m so startled that I don’t know what to say.

“Thanks for teaching me,” I say, nodding at the wall, where a waterfall lagoon mural is slowly emerging from the mess I made. “I appreciate it. You must have taken quite a lot of pity on me and my painting abilities to help out somebody you hate.”

It’s a joke. It’s mostly a joke.

Wesley swivels his head, eyebrows knitting. “I don’t hate you,” he says slowly, like it’s obvious.

“Kind of thought you hated everybody,” I say. It’s another sort-of joke that falls flat.

“No.” He looks hurt. “I liked Violet. I like my family.”

This piques my curiosity. “What’s your family like? Are they all giants?”

“My mom’s four eleven.”

“Holy cow, your dad must be Paul Bunyan.”

His grunt tells me this conversation is closed. Then, a few minutes later, after I’ve forgotten and moved on: “I’m not that tall. The national average for men in the Netherlands is six feet. If I lived there, no one would even notice me.”

I stare.

He swings away.

“Could you teach me how to draw a pirate sh—” I begin to ask, but Wesley drops his brush in a fit of frustration, rising from his chair.

“I’m not any good at this.” He sounds so resigned. And sad.

“What?” Not any good at this? What in the hell is he talking about? “Are you kidding? You’re amazing at this!”

“No, I’m not,” he mutters under his breath, cleaning up after himself jerkily. I can tell now that staring bothers him, but it’s impossible not to.

“Wesley.” I stand up.

“I should be cleaning. I’m too busy for this, I shouldn’t be messing around.” He holds out a hand like a stop sign, as if to say, Don’t you dare move. Stay where you are. “You’ve got this,” he assures me, gravely serious. “You’re doing great.” He keeps his hand up—Don’t come any closer—all the way out of the room.

I gape at the doorway. Then the mural.

“Okaaaaaay.”

I keep going for about two minutes longer, but concentration’s a pipe dream. I’ve got to go see what’s up with Wesley.

I find him in the kitchen, standing at the sink rinsing out his paintbrushes. I can’t tell if he’s hanging his head because he’s upset or just tired, but he isn’t his usual rigid self tonight.

In this silent house, my footsteps are an uproar. Wesley glances my way, eyes shuttering. We’re hungry and exhausted, a dangerous mix. We’re sick of requesting constant approval over every renovation detail when it comes to our own home, which we are each being forced to share with a stranger. Or not a stranger, anymore, not really—but certainly not a friend. He makes his distaste for my company crystal clear by finding any excuse to exit a room right after I’ve entered it and responding to my attempts at conversation with apathetic monosyllables.

“You all right?” I ask. I can’t help it. I’m an incorrigible peacemaker.

“Fine.” He shuts the water off, even though his hands still have paint on them, and begins to leave. He’s an incorrigible room-leaver.

“Have you seen the new box of garbage bags?” I ask before he can perform one of his vanishing acts. “I need to bag up about a billion paper towels. Cleaning out vents is disgusting.”

Without turning fully around, I know he’s gone stone-faced. I can tell by the shape of his profile, the minuscule jut to his chin. I hate that I pay close enough attention to be able to tell. “New bags are at the cabin. On top of the fridge.”

“Why’d you put them all the way up there?”

I’m trying to lift the mood with a little light ribbing, but Wesley’s too distressed to realize it.

“The top of the fridge isn’t all the way up there to me,” he replies tartly.

I don’t think I like his tone. “Not everyone’s as tall as you are.” He’s the ungrateful kind of tall. If I had that sort of height, I’d be a blessing upon the earth. I’d hang tire swings and save cats. Ask my neighbors if they needed their curtains taken down to be washed.

“Not my problem. You should have eaten more vegetables when you were a child.”

I glare at him, which he doesn’t see, because he’s refusing to look at me. After a short miracle of getting along, showing me kindness, he’s reverted back into the grouch he’s been from the start. When I get my hotel up and running, I’m putting families with small, loud children in the bedroom directly beneath his. There will be complimentary trumpets and kickballs.

“For someone as beautiful as you are, it’s a shame you’re such an insufferable ass,” I blurt out angrily.

Stillness rings. “I’m not that bad, you know,” I continue. “You are constantly turning your back on me, ignoring me when I’m around like I’m a punishment to talk to, and it makes me feel like shit. You make me feel even lonelier than I already was.”

I can’t believe I said that. I can’t believe I said that out loud. But if I’m shocked, he is floored.

His eyes are saucers. I’d give up the left wing of the hotel to know what’s running through his mind.

“Whatever!” I shout, embarrassment joining my anger. “I won’t bother you anymore, then. Go ahead and be alone.”

I spin on my heel, leaving him behind. From another room, I hear him yell out: “I was just kidding about the vegetables thing! Maybell! That was a joke!”

I slam the front door. A section of door frame splinters apart.

“Damn it.”

God, I have had it with today. With this week. Month. Year. Maybe Falling Stars is cursed. My phone starts to vibrate in my pocket and I decide that if it’s that telemarketer from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who’s been calling me for two years nonstop, I am going to give them hell.

“Hello?” I bark into my phone, marching stiffly across the dark yard back to the cabin.

“Maybell?”

I stop short. “Ruth!”

I don’t know why my attitude does a one-eighty. Too many years spent using my customer service voice, I suppose.

“Hi! Sorry it’s taken me so long to return your call. I’ve been swamped.” Right. Violet probably wasn’t her only client, and being a home health aide must be a demanding job. “My son moved back in with me, my mom decided to visit for the next few weeks unannounced, and I just found out my daughter dropped out of culinary school to get away from her ex-boyfriend.”

I feel stupid for having called days ago, wasting her time. “Oh my gosh. You’re so busy—I didn’t really have anything important to say—”

“No worries, I’m taking a drive right now to escape the madness. So, how are you settling in?” She’s bright and cheery. Friendly. It’s nice to know some people still know how to be.

“Fine, fine. Settling in fine!” I chirp. “Everything’s great. Fixing up the manor.”

“That’s wonderful! I’m so glad to hear it.” She genuinely sounds glad, too, which makes me smile. “How are you and Wesley getting along?” There’s a cautious edge to her question that tells me she suspects we might not be.

“We’re not,” I reply baldly. “He’s driving me nuts.”

“Ah, well.” Ruth is warm. Sympathetic. “Don’t worry, it probably won’t be long before the house is good to go and you’ll be off the couch in no time.”

“I’m not—”

“The plaid is quite an interesting choice,” she continues. “The couch, I mean. Wonder where Wesley got it from. It was so strange when I visited. Eerie to walk in and not see Violet’s hospital bed taking up the whole living room anymore.”

“Why’d she have a hospital bed in the living room?”

“Where else would she go?” I hear an ignition spur to life on the other side of the phone. “I’m just glad she had a room there, you know? The way she was living before Wesley moved in was . . .” She audibly shudders. “It took plenty of convincing on his part to get Violet out of that house, but he hated her sleeping there. Fire hazard, you know. And unsanitary. We’re lucky nothing fell on her. Then he got in touch with some doctors, brought me on board.”

I wheel around to peer up at the second floor of Falling Stars. All the windows have gone dark but two. In one yellow rectangle, a tall, broad silhouette looks down on the lawn. His body curves away slightly, as if preparing to make a quick getaway, but I don’t move and neither does he.

“Wesley’s the one who contacted you?”

“Before Wesley, Violet hadn’t been to a doctor in years. This woman was in her late eighties, mind you. Had nobody. I don’t like thinking about it. We tried to convince her to let us clean up. Let us donate all the stuff she didn’t need. She couldn’t bring herself to part with anything, kept saying we could get rid of it after she was gone if we hated her belongings so much. A benefit of moving into the groundskeeper’s cabin was that it’s only a one-bedroom, which meant no extra space to fill up with Amazon splurges.”

My attention wraps around one-bedroom and squeezes tight. “What about the bedroom upstairs?”

“The what? Hold on, Maybell.” I hear a window rolling down. “I’d like a number one, please. With cheese. No pickles or onions. An apple pie, too. Oh, and a Cherry Coke! Thank you very much.” To me, she adds, “Are you talking about the loft? Honey, that’s a closet.”

I stare at the silhouette in the window for one beat. Two beats. Three. The light gutters out, taking Wesley with it.

My thumb is already hovering over end call. “Thank you so much for calling me back, Ruth, I really appreciate it. Good luck with everything.”

“Good luck to you, too. I’m going to park five houses down from mine, listen to a podcast, and enjoy my food in peace.”

“You deserve it. Thank you again for talking to me.”

“Anytime, Maybell. Don’t be a stranger.”

Hanging up, I walk calmly into the cabin. I’m not going to go into his bedroom. I’m not. It’s an invasion of his privacy.

I grab a chair and clamber up, but only because I want to see if I can reach the cord on the ceiling. I won’t pull it.

As it happens, I can reach it. Just to experiment—I’m not actually going to go up—I grab the ladder and slide it down.

Maybe I’ll climb a little bit, but not all the way to the top. This is Wesley’s bedroom. It is indubitably, 100 percent, no-gray-area, none of my business.

Up at the top, I press on the ceiling and it gives way, a warped square of thin wood that pitches forward easily. Invitingly. A wave of hot air slams me upside the head.

I suck in a sharp breath, pressing a hand to my mouth. Oh my god.

It’s not a bedroom.

Exposed beams, exposed insulation, exposed wiring, dust motes eddying in stagnant air. A small window with a hand towel stapled to its frame to block the light that would stream in at sunrise and aim directly at the bed, which isn’t a bed at all. It’s a sleeping bag on the floor.

A sleeping bag that takes up the entire floor, the bottom six inches of it curling up the wall because there’s not enough floor for it to lie completely flat.

A miniature desk fan blows loose sheets of paper as it oscillates, plugged into a surge protector along with a small table lamp resting on a stack of books. There’s a flashlight and a wallet. Three neat piles of clothes at the head of the sleeping bag, functioning as a pillow. Headphones attached to a thin cord that snakes beneath a laptop. A half-empty cup of water.

It’s stuffy, cramped, the ceiling too low—Wesley would have to duck or risk hitting his head, even in the middle of the room, where the vaulted roof slants up to its highest point.

I lock gazes with a familiar pair of blue eyes staring out of Wesley’s sleeping bag and sway, overtaken by dizziness.

It’s me. I’m lying in his bed.