Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
But Greta knew. The slight flick of her mother’s gaze to the left told Greta that Nell had been perfectly aware how Greta would respond.
“Okay, cool. Great,” she said sarcastically. “A push. Well, that sounds great to me. Yup, a push actually sounds like exactly what I need. The hell away from here.”
And without another word, she turned on her heel and walked back into the snow.
***
“I have to get out of here. I don’t care where,” she said to her friend Ramona after relating the incident.
“So get out, babe. I know it’s Chanukah and I know your family, but I must introduce you to my friend Boundaries, and her best friend, Also Boundaries.”
Greta sighed. She had been introduced to Ramona’s friends before. They seemed great. Great and utterly unattainable, like the effortlessly cool people at the parties they’d once attended together.
“I know,” she said.
“So go.”
Greta looked around the house she’d rented for the last year since returning to Owl Island. It looked nearly the same as it had when she’d moved in—a furnished favor from a friend of Tillie’s—except for her plants. Greta’s joys, they hung from every window frame and reached for each bit of sunlight they could.
In the second bedroom were her treasures: the carnivorous plants. Her pitcher plants, Venus flytraps, carnivorous bromeliads, and cobra plants. They were helped along by three humidifiers that ran constantly, and she kept the room balmy enough for the tropical species with a heater set to seventy-two degrees.
She walked among them, stroking a pitcher here and inspecting a saw-toothed mouth there. In Maine winters, especially, they required careful attention.
“I can’t. My plants.”
“Get one of your ten thousand sisters to take care of them.”
Greta’s nostrils flared. The last thing she wanted was to have anything to do with her family.
“Can you hire someone?”
“It’s nearly Christmas, and everyone’s busy with their own stuff.”
She heard Ramona’s sigh that clearly said You’re making excuses, and I don’t approve.
And maybe she was right.
“Look, I’ll…um…I’ll ask around and see if maybe someone can take care of them.”
But she knew the only person she could ask was Ash, and he already had his hands full with more than anyone should have to tend to with the shop and his mother.
“You do that, babe. Call me if you need some sense talked into you. Again.”
Then the line went dead, and Greta sat down very carefully on the floor amid the Venus flytraps, wondering if she sat there long enough and still enough maybe they would just consume her slowly and put her out of her misery.
Chapter 2
Truman
The Garden District was alive with revelers, its grand houses touched with holiday cheer in everything from the subtlest to the most extravagant displays.
Truman Belvedere held the wrapped gift carefully as he strolled past Lafayette No. 1, pausing as he always did to appreciate the roots creeping through the stone walls to meet the ivy that adorned them. The way the tree boughs bent in to shade the sidewalks, beckoning pedestrians inside the cemetery. How the late afternoon sun fell slantways on the graves, offering up the names of the deceased to any who gazed upon them.
Truman loved this cemetery and had visited it often in the eight years he’d lived in New Orleans, beginning with his time at Tulane.
Now, though, rather than stop and walk among the graves as he usually did, he turned the corner and walked past Commander’s Palace, toward Guy’s house.
He was stopping by unannounced to drop off Guy’s Christmas gift, since his boyfriend was taking a trip with his brother for the holiday. Truman was disappointed that he wouldn’t get to spend their first Christmas together—and even more disappointed because the announcement had come too late for him to make other plans—but hoped to send Guy off with a smile thanks to the gift he’d spent practically his whole paycheck on. And maybe from the quickie he had planned too.
He’d only been to Guy’s house once in the eleven months they’d been dating, but he knew which one it was. A gorgeous gray-and-white Queen Anne with a wraparound porch on the lower level and a step-out balcony through French doors off the master bedroom. The trees were lush and the hedgerow perfectly manicured behind the wrought iron fence.
Guy liked his things just so. And Truman was honored to pass muster.
He crossed the street, nerves singing in his stomach. Nearly a year together and he still got butterflies before he saw Guy. He smiled, picturing the way Guy’s severe face softened into a smile when Truman amused him. The way he let his guard down when they curled up together on Truman’s couch or in Truman’s bed, becoming a younger, gentler version of himself.
Truman knew that was the smile he’d see when Guy opened his front door to see Truman standing there with his perfectly wrapped gift.