At least avoiding her husband during the day was fairly easy work. Elliot had commandeered the dining table as a remote workspace for his job in DC, where he fielded calls with government colleagues and FaceTimed Sebastian; Sebastian’s wife, Annie; and their three-year-old son, Grayson, who lovingly referred to Elliot as Uncle Elliot—though it sounded more likeEwiott. Grayson loved to show off his Duplos to an appropriately captivated uncle, while Elliot lied through his teeth to Seb and Annie about the joys of innkeeper life in Wisconsin.
Lainey let him be. She filled her days working on sculpture pieces or building hideous commissioned furniture or doing literally any job in town that paid in Venmo, PayPal, Cash App, or, in a dark moment, an IOU for farm-fresh eggs. One twenty-three-year-old with seven computers and no furniture to speak of paid her in crypto to replace his sump pump, so now she had one-third of a Liminal Coin she couldn’t figure out how to deposit. Or how to determine whether it was actually a prank. With all this on her mind, she’d probably be able to forget Elliot entirely if he didn’t text her incessantly throughout the day.
Elliot: Where are the garbage bags?
Elliot: Where do we keep the toilet paper rolls?
Elliot: Never mind. I found the cabinet where you keep them and there’s only two rolls left, so I’m going to the store. Do you want me to get anything else?
Elliot: Do you have a coffee bean preference or are you more of a “whatever is on sale” kind of woman?
Elliot: I went to EZ Gas again. I know, I know, but at this point, switching to Bauer’s would be succumbing to intimidation. And I can’t live like that. Is this feud actually serious? Or can we exist as a house divided?
Elliot: Where should I eat lunch? I’m becoming increasingly curious about Jörg’s/Justin’s Bavarian/Swedish meatballs.
Lainey sighed. She’d have to make Brad Bauer’s wife that creepy antler chandelier she’d sent Lainey from Pinterest. Hopefully that would buy her enough goodwill with them to get her through July, as her husband insisted on purchasing gasoline and Cheetos from the enemy.
She typed out a response.
Lainey: You are too comfortable texting me.
Lainey: Garbage bags are under the sink. You’ve seen how much milk is in my coffee, so you know it literally makes no difference to me what kind of beans are in there. I’ll handle the Bauers. Don’t go to Jörg’s/Justin’s unless you’re looking for a dramatic shakeup in the functioning of your bowels.
She sat on the porch of the five-bedroom “cottage” with a railing in need of repair, waiting for his response.
Elliot: Aw, look at you looking out for me!
Elliot: I wish you’d sent that twenty minutes ago.
Elliot: I got you more pasta for dinner tonight. You’re out of bowties.
At dinner, there was no avoiding each other. Separate meals had made sense in theory, but in practice, the two shared a narrow galley kitchen that barely accommodated one human, let alone two people cooking independently and trying not to knock elbows over the sink.
“Ope” and “Sorry” were their cooking soundtrack as Lainey usually made some kind of bean and veggie pasta—not because she was a vegetarian but because meat was expensive—and Elliot made a lot of fish. A notable amount of fish. Like,alarmingquantities of fish. One night, he tripped on the bathroom rug, and Lainey privately googled if dizziness was a symptom of mercury poisoning (inconclusive).
They’d go to sleep and repeat the pattern again.
Until one morning, when they didn’t.
The morning had begun otherwise unremarkably. She’d snuck into the shower during his workout, gotten dressed, and put on her “no-makeup” makeup, but when she walked into the kitchen, the mug of coffee she’d begun to take for granted was missing.
That was when she peered out the window to find a post–morning run Elliot buzzing around her carport workshop like an agitated bumblebee.
“Elliot.” She stepped cautiously outside to greet him. He was wearing those damn running shorts again. He was alwaysdisplaying his thighs like a lewd KFC three-piece combo. “You good?”
She was hoping he wouldn’t answer honestly. He was so palpably “not good,” and she wasn’t equipped to help him with that. She didn’t know the guy. Deep conversations were bound to be a minefield.
“Dave Lindley asked about you while I was buying rodent traps at EZ Gas.” He said it like a riddle, as though the sentence had a second, more critical meaning.
“Okay…” She kept her eyes up, careful not to wander over his sweat-darkened shirt that mapped the lines of his chest, an image of which she now had printed on her prefrontal cortex. “Why are you still going to EZ Gas? Dave is going to rope you into his downline for his ‘primal snack food’ MLM.”
“Because I’m terrified of the Bauers, but you’re missing the point. He was asking aboutyou.” He raked his hand through his hair. He had a light sheen of sweat on his inner bicep that was more distracting than she would’ve liked.
“He was askingmeabout you,” he continued. “Because he thinks we’reactuallymarried.”
“Weareactually married.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head with an air of frenzy. “We’re in a legitimate business arrangement.”
