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“Winnifred!” I rap the door again. I can hear movements coming from behind nearby doors. People are probably peering out through their peepholes, trying to gauge how much danger I pose to their beloved neighbor.
“Answer!” I slam my shoulder against her door with a growl.
“The damn!” I thrash into it again.
“Door!”
Finally, I hear a door creaking open. Unfortunately, it’s not the one I’m assaulting. A woman appears on the other end of the hallway. She is wearing a green face mask and has rollers in her hair.
“As much as I appreciate the romantic gesture—and don’t get me wrong, I totally do, unless you’re here to collect drug money—Winnie’s not here.”
“What do you mean, not here?” I spit out, panting. The Seagull should’ve ended two and a half hours ago.
She tightens her bathrobe over her waist. “I saw her leave maybe a couple days ago with a suitcase.”
“A couple of . . . what?” I jeer. “She couldn’t have. She’s in a goddamn show. My show. I pay her a salary. We have a contract. She can’t leave.”
“Well, she did.”
“That’s impossible,” I insist. “Where’d you get this dumb idea?”
“Don’t shoot the messenger.”
Then don’t tempt me.
“I wonder why she left, though. You seem like such a great boss.”
“The little, reckless, egotistical, sh—”
“Stop it right there.” The woman lifts a hand, shaking her head. “Don’t finish that sentence. That girl you’re talking about is one of the kindest women I’ve ever met. You know, the other day I caught her asking our neighbor for a cup of sugar. The woman is a single mother and works two jobs to keep her kid in this school district.”
Blinking slowly, I ask, “So fucking what? She asked a single mother for a cup of sugar, you wanna give her a Nobel Prize for it?”
The woman reddens under the neon-green mask slathered on her face. “So I asked Winnie why she did that. Winnie’s a responsible human, and she bakes. There’s no way she needed sugar. You know what she told me?” She licks her lips. “She told me that every now and then, she goes downstairs and asks her neighbor for something small and cheap so that the neighbor would always feel welcome to ask Winnie for things too. Food items, toothpaste, soap. This was her way of making sure our neighbor knows they’re on equal footing. I don’t know what your story is with this woman, but I can tell you she is not egotistic. She’s an angel on Earth, and if you lost her, well, I’m inclined to believe you deserved it.”
I never had her in the first place.
I make my way downstairs, head pounding, heart thrusting. The lady has some nerve to just up and leave the city as though she hasn’t any responsibilities. How dare she? This is my theater. My show. My business.
And you care about this business since . . . ? Christian taunts in my head.
“Shut the fuck up, Christian,” I murmur aloud, pouting myself out to the street like a goddamn teenybopper.
I scroll through my contacts until I find Lucas Morton’s number. He is the director. He’ll know where she is. Lucas answers on the third ring.
“Yes?”
“It’s Arsène.”
There’s a pause before he answers, “Mr. Corbin . . . ? Is everything—”
“Where’s Winnifred Ashcroft?”
“Oh, goodness.” He sighs in a don’t-get-me-started way. “Finally, someone to talk to! She bailed. Skipped town. Her agent just called me out of the blue two days ago. So unprofessional. Penny had to step in and work every night. We should sue her!”
“Where’d she go?”
“How would I know?” he cries out. “She just wrote us a text saying she was going away for a while. Where is ‘away’? What is ‘a while’? This is what I don’t like about working with actors. They’re prone to dramatics. What’re you going to do about it? This is a real problem. You know how difficult it’ll be for me to train someone else now? I don’t have time to find and teach—”
I hang up the phone on him, and I’m back in my car, calling Christian now.
Because Christian has Arya.
And Arya knows Winnifred, and her agent.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
WINNIE
The first day coming back to Mulberry Creek was a hectic one for sure.
“Auntie Winnie!” Kenny throws her arms around my neck, peppering my face with sticky marshmallow kisses. “I missed you so!”
“I missed you, too, pumpkin!” I nuzzle her close, my nose inside her curly blonde hair. I pull away, grinning. “How’s my favorite girl been?”
“No complaints. Well, actually, my back’s a little sore, but what can you expect when you’re thirty-five weeks pregnant.” My sister, Lizzy, answers the question directed at Kenny. She wobbles into the room, her belly preceding her. I stand up and hug her. I’m not so pure hearted as to not be jealous of her, even though it’s Lizzy, my big sister, who taught me how to braid my hair and cut my jeans into Daisy Dukes with surgical precision.
