Rose continues to busy herself, fanning her face with an oven mitt. “I mean, it’s not my fault, I was just trying to water the flowers, but I ran straight into him as he was exiting. His towel nearly fell off.”
Now I can’t help but giggle. Mom narrows her eyes.
“It’s not funny!” she says. “Poor Matilda was outside, watering her garden and heard my shriek. She could have had a heart attack.”
Matilda is an eighty-year-old widow who lives across the street. She and Lottie had a famously contemptuous relationship—Matilda always complaining that Lottie’s rosebushes were extending over the property line, Lottie complaining that Matilda had “a broom-sized stick up her ass.”
“Matilda probably got her binoculars out,” I say, still laughing.
I debate telling her about what I saw last night: Thomas and Josie together in the booth, evidently on a date. I start to speak but then chicken out. I don’t want to face her wrath. She’s already agitated. Maybe now isn’t the best time. Or maybe I’m just a coward.
“Do you think I should go next door and say something? Apologize?”
My brain is still slow, the coffee just beginning to work its magic. “To Matilda?”
Mom narrows her eyes even further. I’m impressed she can still see. “No, obviously not. I mean to Tommy,” she whispers, nodding her head in the general direction of the guest quarters. “I must have scared him. And I mean, it is his right to use the shower. I said he could in the welcome packet. But of course, that’s before I knew who the renter was…”
She trails off, wringing her hands around a dish towel and looking out the window, torn. “I should apologize,” she decides. “It’s common courtesy.”
“Maybe wait until he’s clothed this time,” I say. Mom rolls her eyes. “But actually, what good would that do? I would just leave it alone.”
Thomas and Josie’s image from last night bobs back up to the surface of my brain: him leaning in, her throwing her head back laughing. Their knees touching. I understand if he wants to move on from Rose after the disastrous wedding setup, but Josie is far too close to home. I can’t believe he would do something so… careless. It feels wildly out of character.
Rose is still staring out the window with an anxious expression. “No,” she says. “You’re right.” But her lips are pursed.
A knock startles us both, and I turn to see Thomas standing outside the screen door, hands behind his back, looking exceptionally polite.
Mom turns to me with frantic eyes and whispers, “Be cool.”
“Hi!” she says, smoothing her pink button-down when she opens the door. “What can I do for you?”
Thomas speaks in a calm, deliberate manner, but his cheeks are reddened, too. “I just want to apologize for a few moments ago. I didn’t know you were outside.”
Mom laughs too loud and waves the dish towel at him playfully. “Oh, that?” she says, trying for nonchalance. “That was nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
Thomas is now, mercifully, dressed in a plain white shirt and tan pants. His hair is still wet. When he nods his head, a few longer strands fall into his face. “Of course,” he says. “Again, my apologies, however. I’ll be more mindful in the future.”
They stand for a moment in silence, just staring at each other. The tension is a physical presence, weighing the air down. I half expect the clocks to start running backward, the stove to magically turn on.
Rose opens her mouth like she’s about to say something more, but then closes it, back to wringing the towel. The blush on Thomas’s face deepens, but he too stays silent.
I’m confused. I know my mom is with William and said that she and Thomas would never work, but looking at them now, it’s impossible to deny the pull. I’ve never seen anything like it. Rose is usually so composed, and yet here she is, speechless.
“Do you want to—I mean, no pressure, of course—but do you want to maybe come in for a coffee?”
Thomas’s eyes lift. He teeters on his feet, looking into our small, crowded kitchen like he’s just been invited to the White House.
“Are you sure? I mean, I wouldn’t want to intrude…”
“No! Not intruding at all, please. Come in.” She opens the screen door for him, but as he is about to enter, my father appears.
“Hey, Tommy boy!” he says. “It’s good to see you again, you handsome devil.”
If it’s possible, Thomas’s face turns even more red. He was about to take a step forward, but he leans back on his heels.
“Oh, hello,” he says. “I didn’t know you were here.”
My father makes an exaggerated, performative yawn. “The rumors are true. I’m still couch surfing.”
