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Charlotte’s apology feels sincere, so it’s easy for me to reciprocate. I look up from the box I’ve been sifting through. “I’m sorry, too. I should have given you the parking spot. That’s what I’d normally do in a situation like that. I don’t know what got into me. I’m not normally a dick like that.”
“You weren’t a dick. I was the dick.”
“No, I was, too.”
“In response to me.”
I think she’s right about that, so I don’t contradict her. And I sure as hell don’t admit I was, in fact, the one who called the tow truck. Hell no. That’s a secret I’ll take to my grave, baby, especially now that we’re getting along. Upon reflection, however, thereissomething I’m willing to admit to her now. Something I’m not proud of.
“I think I acted like a petty dickhead to you,” I say, “at least, in part, because my delicate ego admittedly got a bit bruised at Captain’s when you flirted with my father, instead of me.”
“Understandably.”
“That day at Captain’s, my father was delivering some bad news to me.” I tell her the whole story, and to her credit, Charlotte expresses nothing but compassion and sympathy for my plight, as well as regret for the way things went down between us.
When we finish talking about my father, we both work in silence for a bit. I move a big box to get to another one and discover an old piano hiding behind a stack.
“The pervert played piano,” I murmur. I tinkle the keys.
“Do you play?”
“Not really. I took basic lessons as a kid, but I forget most of it. My grandma played, though. Really well. I still have her keyboard in a closet. Sometimes, when I’m bored or in need of a break from studying, I’ll grab it and make up a silly song to blow off steam. Lucky thinks I’m brilliant.”
Charlotte laughs. “I’m impressed you’re a songwriter, in addition to everything else you’ve got going for you.”
I blush. “No, I’m not asongwriter. What I do is the difference between a doodle and a well-drawn piece of art. In my family, we’ve always concocted silly songs on the fly. It’s ourthing. My grandma started it with my mother at bedtime, and my mother continued the tradition with my brother and me.”
“I’d love to hear one of your silly songs.”
“I don’t think so. These days, I sing to Lucky and that’s about it.”
Charlotte waggles her eyebrows. “I have my methods.”
I smirk. “I’m sure you do.”
Charlotte moves onto a new box. “I’ve always wished I could play a musical instrument.”
“It’s never too late. You own a piano now. You might as well learn to play it.”
“Nah. I looked it up and I can get four or five hundred bucks for that piano. I’d rather sell it and get the cash, than keep it, just in case I want to take lessons one day.”
“If you ever decide to learn, you can borrow my grandma’s keyboard any time.”
“Thanks.”
We share a smile and return to our respective boxes.
“Nothing but documents in this one,” Charlotte mutters after a while. She sighs and looks up. “Should I go through these docs and look for anything with your grandma’s name on it?”
“Like what?”
Charlotte shrugs. “Maybe Lloyd made a handy-dandy list of all the sick and twisted videos he ever recorded through his dastardly peephole. Or maybe there are bank records showing he received monthly income from a porn site?”
I wince at the thought, even though I don’t think it’s likely. “Lloyd was a Boomer, right? So he probably wasn’t all that tech savvy.”
“True. Plus, his place was auctioned off because he died without heirs, so I don’t think it’s likely he had someone younger coming around to help him with tech stuff.”
“If someone did come around, would he have asked them to help him upload illicit naked videos of the sweet old lady next door?”
