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He left the room with a final wave, and I started running again. I bumped up the incline and the pace until I was red faced and sweating. I had to do something with all of my energy. I was seriously pissed.
I’d never liked Leanne Fraser. She’d been years ahead of me in school, and probably I wouldn’t have known her well, except that she was in the same year as my best friend’s older sister, who hated her. Leanne got good grades and she acted like that made her special. Better than everyone else. She got into a good college, and her mother, who was a hard-nosed bitch, went around town boasting about her brilliant daughter. Which made it almost funny when Leanne got knocked up in her second year and dropped out. She did buy that inn and build up her business, which I might have respected if it were someone else, but she’s so goddamned humorless and disapproving.
Take her clothes. Leanne lives in the same outfit—basically dumpy jeans with battered sneakers. A fleece jacket over a long-sleeved T. I swear she wore the exact same outfit when she was in high school. She’s the kind of woman who pretends she doesn’t think about clothes or looks because she’s above all that, but of course that’s bullshit. Everyone gets up in the morning and makes a choice about the clothes they wear. Whether you choose a pastel twin set, or knee boots and a black leather jacket, or a ratty pair of jeans that are too baggy around the ass, it’s still a choice. You’re still deciding what message to send the world. Leanne’s choice was to wear a badly applied smear of lipstick and a smudge of mascara to the school fundraiser and call it virtue. She’s been trying to pull off that innocent-girl-next-door look for the last thirty years. Given that she got knocked up and had to come back to Waitsfield with her tail between her legs, you would think she would have called it quits by now, but nope. She keeps on keeping on with her shy smiles and her sideways looks and her butter-wouldn’t-melt bullshit. I don’t know who she thinks she’s fooling, because everyone in town knows she’s hard as nails. She runs her inn like a drill sergeant.
I hate that kind of hypocrisy.
And now it was turning out that her daughter was exactly the same way. All fake butter-wouldn’t-melt on the outside, while she goes after exactly what she wants. It made me so mad. Simon was good looking, smart, popular, and athletic. Everyone loved him. He was worth ten of her, and it pissed me off that she’d been the one to dump him, rather than the other way around.
After my workout I went to the laundry room to look for Rita. Rita’s our housekeeper. She comes three days a week and does the heavy cleaning and all the laundry. Usually I avoid her. Rita likes to talk, and it’s always the most boring shit imaginable. Celebrity gossip, which, fine, but she’s always at least three weeks behind whatever’s going on, and she always seems to expect me to be amazed at whatever random story she’s picked up from some friend on Facebook and usually mangled. So I try to avoid her, but I pay her well and I’m friendly when I do see her. It’s a good idea to stay on good terms with your staff. You’d be surprised how many secrets they pick up, just from being in the house.
“Hi, Rita,” I said brightly. She was standing with her back to me, examining something in her hands. She jumped when she heard me, and turned around, pushing the something—it looked like a cream sweater—behind her.
“Oh, hi,” she said. She was a little flushed.
“Everything okay?”
“Everything’s great!” She said it with too much enthusiasm. Something was off, but really, whatever small drama she was caught up in, did I want to know about it? I did not. If she’d screwed up and ruined a piece of clothing—I was suspicious about that cream sweater—did I care? I did not. Rita was very good, usually. Everyone made mistakes, and really, I’d rather pay for another sweater than listen to a long, drawn-out explanation as to what had gone wrong.
“I just wanted to pop in to let you know that Simon’s going back to college on Wednesday morning. If you could have his clothes ready and packed for him by Tuesday night, that would be great.”
“Of course. No problem,” Rita said. But there was something about her expression that made me feel awkward, suddenly.
“He should do it himself, of course.” I laughed a stupid kind of laugh. “I’m sure he’ll get there eventually.”
“I’m sure he will,” said Rita. She didn’t smile, and I was mad at myself. I didn’t owe her an explanation.
“Okay, well. His bags will be in his room. You know where to find everything.” I got out of there and went to the shower. I got dressed in a pair of jeans so soft they felt like leggings, and a white silk T-shirt with a deep V-neck. I left my hair loose and went back downstairs to prepare dinner. That night, Rory was in a talkative mood.
“There’s a great deal of potential right now,” he said, over our glazed roast salmon and greens. “After Covid and Ukraine, suddenly everyone’s looking at their supply chain, trying to get key suppliers onshore. We’ve had more inquiries in the last six months than we had for the three years prior. We’ve started a waiting list.” He took a bite and looked at me, waiting for a response.
“Are you thinking about expansion?” I asked.
“We’re examining some options. It’s pretty obvious that we can grow here. The challenge is going to be getting the pace of that expansion exactly right. Grow too quickly and we’ll overleverage or overcommit and burn out. Grow too slowly and we’ll miss opportunities and allow our competitors an opportunity to take over our space.”
“Sounds challenging.” I can do that kind of thing with less than half my brain engaged. Ask questions he obviously wants to be asked. Give him little encouraging responses. I should be grateful that it’s so easy, but the truth is, I resent the fact that he doesn’t even notice that I’m going through the motions.
Rory opened his mouth to answer me, but before he could say anything the intercom buzzed. Rory frowned at me at little, as if the interruption was my fault. I checked the panel and saw a car I didn’t recognize. The camera zoomed in on the driver and I saw Leanne Fraser. I frowned, but I pushed the button that opened the gate. The doorbell rang before I could get to the front door. I opened it to find Leanne and her husband standing there. I couldn’t remember his first name... Aaron, Andrew? Something like that. Leanne launched straight into a series of questions about Nina. I told her that Simon and Nina had broken up. I didn’t explicitly say that Nina was probably off in the sack somewhere with her new guy, though I was tempted. People say that I’m not considerate. They have no idea.
“If she’s not here, then where is she?” Leanne said, with attitude. I felt a surge of irritation that they were here, interrupting our dinner, like we’d done something wrong, when it was their girl who’d broken our boy’s heart. I told her I couldn’t help, and then I shut the door on them.
“Who was that?” Rory asked. He’d come to the kitchen door, his napkin still in his left hand. Before I could answer, the doorbell rang again, longer and harder than the first time.
“Jesus,” I said.
“Who is it?” Rory said.
“It’s Leanne Fraser and her lunk of a husband. They’re looking for Nina. They say she hasn’t come home. Surprise, surprise. She probably doesn’t want to face the music.”
Rory looked at me blankly.
“Simon and Nina broke up. She cheated on him and then dumped him. They broke up at the Stowe house and Simon came home early. And now her parents are here, looking for her.”
Rory raised an eyebrow. “I’ll go,” he said. He went to the door. I retreated back to the kitchen. I was glad that Simon wasn’t at home. He shouldn’t have to deal with this. After a minute, I heard the front door shut, and Rory came back into the room. He made a comical gesture, as if he was wiping sweat from his brow.
“Phew,” he said. “Those two are a little worked up.” He sat down again and gestured for me to do the same.
“I’ve never liked Leanne Fraser. She’s a priss. She’s boring. And she thinks she’s better than everyone else.”
