“Why change the sheets?”
“Apparently they like to keep the place ready, just in case.”
“In case of what? Who do you think owns it?”
Lily shrugged. “I’m guessing some billionaire from Manhattan who can afford to keep it empty.”
“Isn’t it a bit small for a billionaire?”
“Maybe he’s a small, single billionaire.”
Mike grinned. “A single billionaire. Does such a thing exist? Money is a powerful aphrodisiac.”
“Not to everyone.” In her experience, money didn’t always bring out the best in people. “I have to go. See you tomorrow, Mike.” She climbed onto her bike and pedalled down the drive and onto the cycle track that led to a remote part of the outer cape. The trail took her over sandy dunes and past salt marshes and then finally the cottage appeared, nestled among the dunes, separated from the ocean by soft sand and whispering seagrass. Its white clapboard walls and shingle roof had been weathered by the elements, but still the building stood firm, and it had become as much a part of the landscape as the shifting sands that surrounded it.
Whoever owned it was the luckiest person in the world, Lily decided. Also maybe the most foolish, because who would own a place like this and not use it? It was a criminal waste.
She and the people she worked with occasionally played guessing games. It was owned by a rock star who had ten mansions and never quite got around to using this one. It was an FBI safe house. The owner was dead and buried under the deck （that wasn’t Lily’s favorite theory）。
Whoever it was had made sure that they couldn’t be identified. The management fees were paid by an obscure, faceless company. Occasionally over the years they’d give instructions that the cottage was to be inhabited and the staff should stay away, but no one could remember when that had last happened. It was as if it had been forgotten, abandoned, except not quite abandoned because it was maintained as if the owner might be coming home any day. And Lily was responsible for keeping it that way.
It was, in her opinion, the perfect job, and if she was ahead of her workload she occasionally sneaked an hour or more to paint because the light and the views in this particular corner of the Cape were spectacular.
She leaned her bike against the wall where it would be protected from the elements, hoisted her backpack onto her shoulders and headed up the wooden steps to the deck that wrapped itself snugly around the cottage.
If Lily had been asked to name her dream house, this would have been the one. Not for her, the mansions that were dotted along the coast from Provincetown to Hyannis. She didn’t want marble, or hot tubs, a games room or a cinema room.
She wanted this. The ever-changing light. The views. The feeling that you were living on the edge of the world. When she was here, some of her misery lifted. Some of her energy returned and she just wanted to grab her sketchbook and her paints and record the view so that the memories would stay with her forever.
She delved into her pocket for the keys and opened the front door. Every time she stepped into the place she fell in love all over again.
She tugged off her shoes （she didn’t believe in making more work for herself） and left the door open to allow the air and sunshine to fill the place.
The interior was simple but sophisticated, every item carefully chosen to complement the ocean setting. The sofa was cream, the armchairs facing it upholstered in the same shade. There were hints of nautical everywhere. The cushions were marine blue and turquoise, bringing the summer skies indoors. The coffee table was made of timber salvaged from a shipwreck, no doubt a casualty of the dangerous waters and shifting sandbars. It was stacked with books and sometimes Lily curled up in the evening and read them with the sounds of the ocean floating through the open windows.
The living room opened onto a wide veranda that Lily was continually sweeping. At the back of the cottage there was a studio, north facing, with large windows overlooking the ocean and the wide expanse of sky.
Upstairs was a master bedroom with glorious views across the dunes and the ocean, a large second bedroom and a third bedroom built into the eaves. No one had slept in the cottage for at least a year, probably more. At least not officially.
Lily headed upstairs and dropped her backpack in the smallest bedroom. She felt a stab of guilt and had to stop herself glancing over her shoulder to check that no one was watching her.
Just one night, she’d told herself the first time she’d stayed here. And then one night had become two, and two had turned into a week and she was still here two months later. At first she’d felt so guilty she hadn’t even slept on the bed. She’d unrolled her sleeping bag and slept on the sofa in the living room and woken when the morning light had shimmered across the room. She’d used the shower in the smaller of the two bathrooms, and told herself that occasionally running the shower and flushing the toilets was an important part of her caretaking responsibility.
Over the winter she’d shared a room with two other girls in a house in the town, but then the tourist season had taken off. Every bed was needed for visitors and Lily’s funds didn’t stretch far enough to cover the cost of a new rental.
That was what she told herself, but the truth was she couldn’t bear to leave this beautiful place. She sometimes felt as if the cottage needed her as much as she needed the cottage. And who was ever going to know? No one came out this far once the sun had set, and she’d already decided that if someone found her here during the day she would simply say that she was cleaning the place.
Gradually the cottage had embraced her, and made her feel at home. She’d graduated from the sofa to the smallest bedroom in the eaves （the master bedroom was taking it too far） and now her sleeping bag was stretched on top of the bed and she even kept a few toiletries in the shower room.
And over time she’d started to think of the cottage as hers. She cared for it as lovingly as a family member. When she’d noticed that one of the stairs down to the beach had rotted, she’d told the management company and they’d had it replaced. Nothing escaped her. A window that didn’t quite close after the winter. Paint peeling away on the front door. Lily noticed it and arranged for it to be fixed. Sometimes she even talked to the cottage as she was shaking out cushions and dusting down surfaces.
Why does no one come and stay in you? What sort of people are they that they’d leave you alone like this?
Whenever anyone asked her where she was living she gave a vague response, leading them to believe that she was couch surfing until she found somewhere permanent. The truth was, she’d stopped looking. Partly because her days were so full, and partly because she couldn’t bring herself to leave and saw no reason to do so as the place was empty.
She loved being alone here. She loved the fact that she could cry and not worry that someone might see her and worry. She loved the fact that if she couldn’t sleep she could switch on the light and read without anyone asking her if she was okay. She could eat, or not eat, knowing that no one was policing her food intake. She could feel what she wanted to feel without the added pressure of knowing she was worrying someone.
She didn’t have to pretend to be fine.
Because she wasn’t fine. She hurt, inside and out, and until she stopped hurting she didn’t want to be anywhere but here. She couldn’t think of a better place to be wounded.