Iknew it wouldn’t be easy. That’s why I allotted so much time for these lessons, but I hadn’t expected Suzie to be so mulishly stubborn. After the disaster of last weekend, I developed a syllabus for the next few weeks. I couldn’t improvise with her. The silly accents were a fluke but we needed to get serious. Bouffant had called to check the progress of our lessons. She was a quick learner, but we hadn't done anything but elocution.
Music had been blaring from her room for hours, rattling the windows until I was sure the homeowners association would call us. Whatever she was doing resulted in intense thumps that had the dining room chandelier swaying. I gathered my patience and made my way to the guest room.
I beat her door with a fist. After a minute of no response, I knocked again and opened it.
“Can you please turn that down—“
She was spread-eagle on the carpeted floor facing the door. Her cleavage was exposed as she leaned in half to stretch to one foot. Her cheeks were flushed with exertion and tiny hairs framing her face stuck with sweat to her skin. Her workout clothes consisted of a brightly colored sports bra that couldn’t contain much of her and tight athletic pants.
“Ford?”
“What are you doing?” I asked unable to move from my position just inside the door.
She leaned forward and pressed something on her phone that made the music stop. “What am I doing?” She snapped her legs together and got to her knees. “You’re the one barging into my room.”
“I knocked.” I looked down to where she was on her knees just a few feet in front of me.
I swallowed.
I stepped back at the same time she scrambled to stand. “Well, if I don’t respond, assume I don’t hear you and knock again.”
“You shouldn’t be listening to music that loudly. This is an old neighborhood. Our neighbors are in their eighties and would report me to the HOA at the first sign of rule breaking.” They already assumed Jack and I were a couple and gave us begrudging stares that only got better when we hauled up their trash cans each week. I kept that much to myself.
“Fine, I’ll turn it down.” She grabbed a towel from the floor and dabbed her cleavage with it.
I stared resolutely past her and noticed her room.
“Good Lord, what have you done in here? You’ve only been here a few days.”
Her comforter was half off the bed, the sheets twisted off one corner exposing the mattress. Bras, shirts, and various and sundry items were strewn over every surface, as though her suitcases, which sat open on the floor in the corner, ate too much and spewed the contents. Tiny brushes and tubes of creams and pastes were leaking out on the surface of the antique vanity that had come with the house.
She followed my gaze around the room and shrugged. “I’ve been told I’m not super tidy.”
“Tidy?” I ran a hand through my hair. “It looks like you were attacked and used whatever you could find to defend yourself.”
“Okay, okay. I get it.” She folded the towel she’d been using and set it gingerly on the bed. As if that could help. Like putting sunscreen on a third-degree burn.
“Is that one of my tea towels?” I groaned. “It’s like this room is the end of the wormhole where all the missing socks of the world disappear to.”
“Okay, Ford.”
“I mean seriously, where do you even sleep?” I gestured to the bed where more clothes and various corded hair tools occupied the only corner that wasn’t twisted up. “Do you hide under the bed? Sleep standing upright in the closet?”
She stood to block my view of the room, with arms crossed and a serious glare contorting her features. “I get it. I’m a slob. Is there a reason you came up here?”
I could see I’d gone too far but, my God, how did somebody live like that? I focused on why I had come up, ignoring the clawing desire to tidy up. “I made dinner.”
Her eyebrows shot up.
“We’re going to have your first etiquette lesson on table manners,” I clarified.
“Oh.” Her shoulders slumped.
“Don’t look so excited.”
“No. Really. I am,” she said deadpanned.
“This isn’t a vacation. This is about change.”
