Page 99 of An Introvert's Guide to Life and Love
Someone on my work meeting coughs loudly. I glare at the computer. Gramps looks at it too, and wordlessly shakes his head.
“What?” I ask, hearing an edge of defensiveness in my voice.
He raises his fluffy white eyebrows, mildly surprised. “I didn’t say a word.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Anyway, I’ll let you pack.” Gramps retreats down the hallway. I hear him sigh as he settles next to Wally and flips open the newspaper.
I turn the volume up slightly on my laptop so I can hear the end of this meeting. I finish packing the clothes I know I won’t need this weekend. As voices drone on about metrics and quality standards, I gaze at the little photograph. Lottie was so beautiful—her beamingsmile, dark curls floating above her shoulders in the breeze—and I realize with a jolt that she was around my age when the picture was taken. Mother of one with another on the way, a woman with enough conviction and courage to become a public defender when nobody wanted her to. Not her parents, not the professors who graded the female students harsher than the men in the class, not her bosses and co-workers. But she didn’t let that stop her. I picture her living in a run-down apartment, stretching her grocery dollars to the limit, hitting the streets day after day to find a house for her family, not taking no for an answer.
Guilt and regret settle heavily on my shoulders as I picture the state I’m leaving that house in. Unpainted walls, unfinished floors. Empty, abandoned.
I barely register what I’m doing as I close my laptop and gather my phone and keys. I tell Gramps I’m going out. Half an hour later, I’m wheeling my bike up to Pebble Cottage.
Chapter 33
I stop to gaze at the magnolia tree in the front yard, thankful that I got to be here to watch her bloom. The creamy white petals stir in the salty wind coming from the west. I’ll miss this tree, and this tidy patch of St. Augustine grass, and the quaint carport.
I park Daniel’s yellow bike in the carport and let myself into the house, the surfing Obama key chain jingling cheerfully against the lock.
The house smells like paint and dust.
I know I don’t have time to finish anything, but I can at least give it a few more hours of my time, this house that my grandmother loved so much.
In the main bedroom, I turn on some music and crack open a can of paint. I’d impulsively chosen a sage green for this room, though I’d stuck to a safer eggshell white for the rest of the house. I’m glad I chose this color; it makes me happy just looking at it as I roll it onto the walls.
I paint the entire room in under two hours. My arms ache, and I roll my shoulders and stretch my triceps as I walk from room to room. The two small bedrooms remain unfinished—one painted, one not, both with no floors. In the living room, I stop to survey the damage I’ve done: half the room has new flooring, laid the wrongdirection. It looks so pathetic that I sit down on the subfloor and wrap my arms around my knees.
As I sit here knowing that I won’t be able to finish this room, something wells up inside me, a big dark wave; before I can stop it, it crashes down all around me. I don’t know why I bothered starting all this. I don’t know why I thought I could handle such a big project on my own. I should have just paid someone to do it all. I’ve never,ever, been the type of person to follow through on something like this. I’m the type of person who has an idea and abandons it at the first sign of potential failure. Like when I attempted a cross stitch for my nephew’s nursery before he was born. The stitches were too complicated; I knew it was going to take me way longer than I had bargained for—and so it’s still sitting, unfinished, in a bag in my closet. And the time I decided to start a blog—abandoned after two entries that were only read by my mom. Same with the book club I joined after a former co-worker invited me—I was convinced, for one shining evening, that I’d finally found a group of girlfriends, a group I’d carry with me for my adult life, sharing gossip about bad dates, wedding planning, husbands, pregnancy, kids. And then I’d failed to read the next month’s book and silently disappeared from their midst as suddenly as I’d joined.
These thoughts make a bitter taste rise in the back of my throat. It’s over. I’ll just add Pebble Cottage to the list of things I’ve failed at.
An afternoon rainstorm starts suddenly, pattering on the roof. I let myself out into the sunroom and take a seat at the old Scrabble table, letting the humid, rain-soaked air hug me, listening to the rhythmic rush of rain falling in the garden.
I try to make peace with goodbye. I never wanted to live in Florida. I’m not a fan of hundred-degree weather, not to mention their politics. I’ve always been a Pacific Northwest girl. It’s where I grew up, where my family is, where my friends are—or were. It’s been anice vacation from my real life, that’s all. It’s been a change of pace that I didn’t realize I needed. But that’s all it was: a break. Now I’m going to go home, and that’s okay. Things will be different there, too: No more holing up in my apartment day after day. Back to a commute, an office. Making myself presentable enough to interact with real humans. Maybe different will be a good thing.
By the time I’ve given myself this pep talk, the rain has stopped. That’s the funny thing about rainstorms here: They’re intense and short-lived. Kind of the opposite of the constant drizzle in Seattle. There’s probably a metaphor in there about my time here. I just have to appreciate it for what it was: short and sudden and entirely different from what I’m used to.
The sharp scent of earth after the rain makes me feel… something. Alive. My thoughts stray to Daniel. I’m not going to ask him to come help me with the house, not now. He’s helped me so much already, and there’s just not enough time.
Sitting in the sunroom, feeling the sticky warmth of the metal chair under my thighs, the prickle of sweat at the nape of my neck, I think about that bath. His finger pads pressing into my scalp. Gazing out at the kidney-bean-shaped pool surrounded by flower bushes, I remember that night, too. The weightlessness of my body as I treaded water with his hands whispering against my waist. The slick warmth of his open mouth on mine.
I send him a message:Can you meet me at Pebble Cottage?
I barely have time to exhale before he responds:I’ll be right there.
Twenty minutes later, I’m still in the sunroom, staring dreamily out into the backyard when I hear the doorbell.
I open the front door to find Daniel, slightly out of breath and running one hand through his sweat-damp hair.
“Hey,” he says. “Everything okay? Did you want me to help with some last-minute house stuff?”
“No. I know you’re busy and I—”
“Mallory.” He drops his arm, and a crease appears between his brows. “I think I’ve made it pretty clear by now that I’m never too busy for you.”
“Right.” I shift from one foot to the other, my hip bumping against the doorknob. I seem to have forgotten how to stand like a normal human. Dimly, I’m aware that I should invite him inside, but I feel like I don’t know what will happen if I leave the shelter of this doorframe.
