Auntie Zee grunted. “They talked.”
So why didn’t she—
“They didn’t listen.”
“But…I need to stay!” It was supposed to be her summer to recover and heal—to do self-reflection and find inner strength and practice self-care and all of her best friend Crystal’s favorite phrases—before she had to face senior year, college applications, and the utter lack of regret in her ex-boyfriend’s beautiful eyes. She needed this! And she’d come all this way. She couldn’t slink back to Brooklyn jobless after one day and say her aunt didn’t want her.
Auntie Zee shuffled to the kitchen window and made shooing motions, as if scattering a flock of pigeons. She then humphed and turned back to Calisa. “So melodramatic. You don’tneedto stay. Youwantto stay.”
Glancing out the window, Calisa didn’t see what Auntie Zee had shooed away. It looked the same as before: an apple tree in an untamed yard, the forest and mountains beyond, the darkening sky. “Please, Auntie Zee, I know I can be helpful. I like to cook. Or at least bake. Pretty good at it, I think. Or I could clean. Dust. Vacuum. Whatever.”
Auntie Zee was shaking her head.
“How about dishes? I can do dishes! We don’t have a dishwasher in our apartment, so I’m expert-level at dish washing, even vases that have had flowers in them so long that leaves and petals are practically glued to the inner glass—”
“I don’t need your help.”
Calisa gestured at the stack of unused pots, the desiccatedherbs, and the horrifically overgrown garden out the window. “You clearly need someone’s help.”
“Says a girl who knows nothing about running a bed-and-breakfast.”
“Says a girl who has eyes and can see—” She cut herself off. She wasn’t going to convince her great-aunt by insulting the state of her inn, even though it was blatantly obvious that the place was one strong sneeze away from collapsing into a pile of dust. Auntie Zee was looking at her like she was a clump of muck on her shoe. Calisa added in a smaller voice, “Iwantto help.”
Studying her for a moment more, Auntie Zee snorted. “Why?”
“Because…” What reason would the old innkeeper like to hear? Should she say she thought it was important to help family (except she hadn’t seen Auntie Zee in years)? Or that she thought it would add a necessary line of work experience to her college applications (except she’d barely begun to think about them)? Or that she had no other way to spend her summer that wouldn’t involve her feeling as if she had been shoved through a vegetable slicer every time she saw Ethan with another one of his apparently multiple girlfriends that everyone had known about except her?
“The truth,” Auntie Zee demanded.
“Because I walked in on my boyfriend with his hand up the shirt of Jocelyn Pullman,” she burst out, “and I need to be as far from anything that makes me think about him as possible.”
Auntie Zee stared at her again, and then she laughed.
Calisa felt herself blush. She wished she’d chosen a differentanswer, ideally one that sounded less pathetic. She glanced up at the rafters, down at the scuffed wood floor, then over at the cabinets with their faded paint. You could just barely make out the remnants of delicately painted roses and ivy that decorated the wood. She focused on the little roses while her eyes grewhot.
The laughter stopped. “I appreciate your honesty. A far better answer than claiming you want to help out a grouchy old lady who never even sent you birthday presents.”
She looked back at her great-aunt, wondering if she had, against all odds, said the right thing.I can’t just turn around and go home.What would she tell her moms? Mom-Elise would tell her she needed to learn to stand up for herself and understand her own value, while Mom-Kate would want to march up to Vermont to yell at Auntie Zee. Neither reaction would help with the core problem of what Calisa was going to do to make it through July and August without turning into a blithering mess of self-pity.
“My B&B has always been a place for people who needed to escape.”
Yes. Escape. That was exactly what she wanted. She needed trees and mountains and so much work to do that she wasn’t able to think. Hope rose into her throat. “So you’ll let me stay for the summer?”
“Absolutely not.”
The hope dissolved.
“No, that’s a terrible idea. But…a few days, I think. You can stay three days, finish whatever moping you need to do tomake yourself feel better, and then you go home.” And with that, Auntie Zee waddled out of the kitchen.
Whatever moping she needed to do…
The entire point wasnotto “mope”!
Shaking it off, Calisa followed after her great-aunt.
Auntie Zee shuffled down the hallway into the lobby. She waved at the smoky mirror. “Ignore the mirror. It’s a pessimist.” And then she sidled behind the reception desk.
Calisa studied the mirror. That was a strange way to say a mirror was unflattering, especially when what it really needed was a wipe with Windex, which just seemed to be more evidence that shedidknow more about running a bed-and-breakfast than Auntie Zee thought she did. Not that she was going to say that out loud.
