Page 100 of The Fix-Up

From the group text messages of Ellie, Mae, and Ali:

MAE: Anyone up?

ALI: You know it’s after midnight. Some of us are trying to sleep.

MAE: Whoops.

ALI: Whoops?

MAE: Iris came over tonight with a little gossip. But I’ll let you get back to sleep.

ALI: Do not even think about it. Spill it.

MAE: I was hoping Ellie would spill it.

ALI: Ooo. TELL ME.

MAE: It involves Gil, Ellie, and a mouse.

ELLIE: Can you two STOP TEXTING RIGHT NOW? I have to get up at 4.

ELLIE: Also, Iris has a big mouth.

ALI: Well, you’re up now. You might as well tell us.

ALI: Ellie?

ALI: You don’t think she blocked us, do you?

April slid into May and Gil didn’t bring up Teddy again. In fact, we never talked much about the things we should talk about—the tension between us or selling the property. Both of us, it seemed, were very good at pretending everything was just fine.

As Gil spent more time in the café, I made him try every job in the place, hoping something would pique his interest. Jorge taught him to make decent waffles. Iris trained him on serving. Which didn’t mean much since Iris’s version of serving was a little suspect. He rotated through bathroom duty, mopping the floors, clearing tables. His strongest showing was running the cash register until Mr. Grueber complained Gil shortchanged him.

What Gil didn’t know was that Mr. Grueber always complained about being shortchanged. Mr. Grueber was eighty-seven, hard of hearing, and mean as an angry goat. Plus, I think he was a little lonely since his wife had passed on and he enjoyed the whole ritual of the arguing. I always gave him back the fifty-seven cents (or whatever minute amount he was grumbling about) so he would leave, but Gil was not me and he and Mr. Grueber got into a loud “discussion” about it before I could intervene.

After that, we all thought it wise Gil should not have a customer-facing position.

So, it seemed I’d found something Gilbert Dalton wasn’t good at. I was probably an awful person for feeling almost gleeful about this piece of information. Finally, something Mr. Competent couldn’t do.

It was when I’d mentioned I needed to pay bills one day that he volunteered to take over the accounting, a job I gladly handed off. I had been managing it, but all that time at a computer double-checking numbers and accounts was mind-numbing.

“Here are all the receipts.” I placed a banker’s box on the desk in the office.

Gil looked at it with horror. “That is a box.”

“Of receipts.” After pulling the lid off, I reached in and held up a handful of receipts and invoices. “It’s every single one, I swear.”

“Eleanor,” he said in his principal voice. A shiver raced up my back. I really liked that voice. “This is not how you keep books.”

“I know this looks bad.” I crossed my arms. “But I swear it’s because I’ve just gotten a tiny bit behind. I’ll show you.”

I stomped around the desk and nudged him to move over so I could log onto the dinosaur of a computer. It took forever to boot up, enough time for me to realize how close I was to Gil. Very close. So close that when he took a deep breath and exhaled, the bits of frizzy hair on the back of my neck moved. So close that if I moved two inches to the side, I’d be touching him.

Here was the wild thing: I sort of wanted to see what would happen if I did it. I laughed under my breath at the thought. We’d been through this already. Nothing was happening between us.

“What’s so funny?” Gil asked, his voice so close I almost jumped.

I ignored the question. Using the wireless mouse, I clicked around on the computer until I pulled up the accounting program. “See, I’m only four months behind for the year.”

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