Did they track my phone?
Did they know last night that I was leaving?
Was I followed?
I was certain I wasn’t followed.
Begonia pulls her phone out of her back pocket. “Of course. Sorry. Nervous habit. Not that I like cleaning, but I—never mind. The contract. It’s right here in my email…” She swipes her finger over the screen, and after a moment, she bites her lip.
I cross my arms.
She hits the screen harder.
“Is there a problem?”
“No, no. It’s just thinking. I like your pajama pants. One of my students found that old video of the dancing hamsters late last year, so we did a unit on the art of the early internet memes.”
I frown at her.
She gestures to my crotch. “The dancing hamsters on your pants. I assume you’re a fan? Or were those a gift?”
“Hamsters have nothing to do with your contract.”
“I have the contract. I do. But my email program seems to have had a little glitch and emptied all the emails that were in my inbox, and I don’t get service here, and there’s no wifi, and…and that was supposed to be exactly what I wanted, but it’s a little inconvenient right now that I need to download my inbox again and I…can’t.”
“Inconvenient,” I repeat.
She tosses the phone on the counter. “I paid for this house! And Mr. Ferguson sent me instructions on how to get to the island and which golf cart company to use to get to the gate with my luggage, and to play a game where I said I was Marilyn Monroe, which makes so much more sense now, for the record, and he sent the code, and I wouldn’t know any of that if I wasn’t authorized somehow to be here, even by someone who shouldn’t have authorized me. I’m not a thief. I’m not a trespasser. Do you believe in fate, Hayes? Because I saw this house come up on the vacation rental site—one minute it wasn’t there, and I got lost in my search and started it over, and then poof, here was this house, and it was fate’s way of saying I’m sorry you married the wrong person and took too many years to realize it, here, go enjoy coastal Maine for a couple weeks, and gah, that sounds like I’m trying to sob-story you into letting me stay, but I’m not. I’m just telling you what happened, and you don’t need to feel sorry for me. I just want you to know I honestly thought I was supposed to be here.”
My headache is back, and the longer that dog sits there switching between watching her load the dishwasher while she babbles, and gazing at me like it’s a teenage girl and I’m my brother at a movie premiere, the more my sinuses clog up again.
“Give me your phone.”
She pauses in the midst of wetting a rag. “Are you going to make my dog eat it like he did yours?”
For the record, twitching while your head is pounding isn’t enjoyable. “Yes. That will solve everything.”
Her face screws up in irritation. “I’m trying very hard here.”
“And I have a headache, I haven’t slept in two days, and I wanted peace and quiet and to be alone, and this is my house. Give me your damn phone so I can find this damn contract you claim to have so that I know who I have to murder.”
“I don’t have signal, and I—”
“Give. Me. Your. Damn. Phone.”
She closes her eyes, sucks in a very large breath that has her chest rising under her pink shirt, and blows it out like she’s counting to three thousand.
When she opens her eyes again, I swear she’s muttering to herself about wishing it was my brother here instead of me. But she hands me the phone with very controlled movements, like she wants me to know I’m trying her patience, and like she thinks I’ll truly care about where her patience sits when she’s trespassing in my house.
“Does your family know you say damn? That’s not allowed in any of your movies.”
“Unlock it,” I order softly.
She flips it around to her face, swipes up, and then hands it back to me. “If I find out you’re Hayes Rutherford’s doppelg?nger and that you are really the one who’s not supposed to be here, I’ll do something we’ll both regret.”
“Believe me, Ms. Fairchild, if I could be anyone else right now, I would be.”
Her nose wrinkles, and she goes back to attacking the countertops. “Why would you want to be anyone else? You’re financially set, you have a good reputation, your family is lovely, and there’s literally nothing in the world you can’t have.” She lifts a hand. “Yes, yes, except this house to yourself at this exact moment. And no family is ever as perfect as they look on TV. I’m aware. You’re inconvenienced and imperfect. So am I, Hayes. So am I. But I’m rolling with it, and I think you’d be happier if you tried to do the same.”