Page 41 of A Novel Love Story

JUNIE WASN’T SURPRISED TOfind me up and dressed the next morning when she came into the kitchen. In fact, she looked a bit sheepish. Because she knew what I had endured last night. Oh, she definitely knew. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been awake on a Sunday before noon. Nursing my coffee, I watched her sleepily shuffle over to the coffeepot and pour herself a cup, before joining me at the table. I set down my cup, and looked her in the eyes.

“When you said ‘noise’ last night, you didn’t mean …” And I made a motion with my two hands.

She dipped her head down, embarrassed, and her tangled mop of pink hair fell into her face like a curtain. “Oh, so you heard it.”

“I’m not an expert, but I am going to say this with all the love in my heart: don’t find a plumber.” I leaned against the table, closer to her. “Find an exorcist.”

“I’m so sorry. It was worse last night than most—did you get any sleep?”

I waved her off. “Sleep is for the weak. And lucky. What I want to ask is how do you and Will sleep with that?Isn’t your bedroom, like, right over the basement?”

“Earplugs,” she replied simply, and then took a sip of coffee. “Ooh, this is so good. Is thisourshitty coffee?”

“You learn how to make good coffee when you live on it for your entire grad program.” I leaned back in my chair again, and cast a suspicious look at the basement door. “Honestly, it sounds like something’s alive in your pipes.”

“Right? I don’t know what it could be. We’ve tried everything, and if you go look now, I can bet you there’s water all over the floor.”

“A ghost who likes to get a little wet, who knew?”

She almost spewed her coffee. “Elsy!”

I giggled. “Couldn’t help it.”

“Couldn’t help what?” Will asked, coming into the kitchen with a stretch, his rumpled shirt lifting to show his tanned midriff. He yawned, and sniffed the air. “Is that coffee?”

“Elsy made it,” Junie said, and he quickly grabbed a cup and joined us at the table.

He hummed as he took a sip. “Junebug, get her recipe.”

“My dude, it’s just coffee. There is no recipe,” she replied, looking offended, “and my coffee isgreat.”

I bit the inside of my cheek, because I wasn’t about to point out that she, also, had just complimented me on the taste. There really wasn’t anything to it—I just made it so strong you could stand a spoon up in it, and hoped you had a taste for molasses.

“Your coffeeisgreat,” he agreed, nodding, “but Elsy’s is better.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re sleeping in the basement tonight.”

He blanched. “Babe!”

“Don’t youbabeme, it’s too early. Oh, by the way, give her an extra pair of your earplugs tonight.”

He took another sip and eyed me. “So, you heard it, too? The bane of our existence?”

I hesitated, looking between the two of them. “It wasn’tthatbad,” I finally amended. Besides, I didn’t want them to feel like their hospitality had somehow turned out worse than sleeping in my car, ready for a visit from Smokey Bear. I’d gotten to sleep intheDaffodil Inn, and no matter what, no haunted toilet had mucked that up. It was still memorable. Just maybe not in the way I’d imagined. “It was fine, really. And Ididget to sleep.” Finally. At four in the morning. For thirty minutes. “So I’m good.”

Junie didn’t seem all that convinced, but Will was. “Man, you gotta tell me your secret, then, because I can sometimes hear that suckerin my sleep.”

I shrugged nonchalantly. “I guess I’m just a heavy sleeper.”

Which was a lie. I was just good at pretending to be awake for all those 8:00 a.m. classes that my dean somehowalwaysscheduled me for. I was convinced that she had it out for me ever since I told her that Nora Roberts had as big an impact—if not bigger—on the modern publishing landscape as literary giants like Franzen or Tartt. She’d been scheduling me for the ass-crack-of-dawn classes ever since.

I took another long sip of coffee. Will didn’t have to know that. Neither did Junie.

I’d deal with the haunted toilet for the next few nights—after all, this was a place to sleep and they were already so gracious. I wasn’t about to complain any more than I already had.

“What do y’all have on the docket today?” I asked, steering the conversation elsewhere, and they told me about the molding they had still to paint, and some aesthetic work on the wraparound porch, but otherwise it was simply a waiting game until they could find a different plumber.

Or an exorcist.

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