Page 20 of If All Else Sails
“Do you give sponge baths?” I ask.
It’s hard for me to voice a question like this, even in a sardonic tone that’s not in any way flirtatious. I obviously don’t mean it. Nor do I need sponge baths. I’m capable of showering. I’ve just chosen not to for the last few days. Week. Whatever.
But I hope the mere suggestion will send her running.
Josie rarely touches me. Which is maybe why I responded so strongly to her hand on my arm moments ago.
If anything will get her back in the car, heading home, joking about giving me a sponge bath should do it.
But her expression doesn’t change. She doesn’t blink. We are at the poker table, and she’s tossing her chips to the center, calling my bluff.
“A sponge bath? No. But a garden hose would work. Really gets a good deep clean. You do have a hose outside somewhere, yeah?”
She leans back on the couch, spreading her arms like she’s getting comfortable, and I realize she’s going to be harder to dislodge than a tick.
Which seems incongruous for her. Usually I’m saying something accidental to send her running away from me. Why is it that now, when I’m trying to send her away, she’s settling in?
“But I don’t think you need the hose,” she says. “I bet you can shower fine with the boot. You’re just choosing not to do it, so far as I can tell.”
When she looks me up and down, I want to shrivel under her gaze. I know how I must look.
Abruptly, she asks, “What’s the injury?”
“It’s a Lisfranc,” I mutter.
“Liz Frank? Never heard of her.”
“It’s not a woman.”
“A band?”
“Not a band.”
She waits. “Are you going to make me google it?”
“That’s up to you. But you don’t need to know.” I pause. “Because you’re not staying.”
“Jacob hired me.”
This makes more sense. She’s being stubborn about staying because Jacob is paying her. She’s determined to stay not for me but for the money.
There’s no reason this should hurt my feelings. None at all. Still—it does.
“Then you’re fired.”
She smiles. “The thing is,you’renot paying me. Jacob is. Which means you can’t fire me,” she says, then stands, brushing her hands off on her shorts with their now-loose hem. “And you’re not going to scare me off with threats of sponge baths or your surly attitude. I’ll go get my bags from the car.”
“I’ll pay you double what he’s paying,” I tell her, and she pauses with her hand on the doorknob. “To leave.”
“You don’t even know what we agreed on,” she says, glancing at me.
“Don’t care. I’ll pay more.”
Josie goes quiet, and a riot of emotions passes over her face. When she speaks again, her voice is soft. “You really hate me that much—enough so you’d pay me to leave?”
The question is a sledgehammer. One edged with tiny blades. It hits me with force, but also cutting precision. Deeply.
“I don’t hate you,” I tell her, but my tone is off. Probably because my feelings are somewhere in the opposite realm from hate, and I don’t want her to hear it in my voice.
