Happy Medium

by Sarah Adler

she found one of those places so diminutive that Google Maps doesn’t even deign to label it until zoomed in almost to the street level.

Maybe showing up to a goat farm looking like Alexis Rose gone goth wasn’t the most practical idea.

“You an undercover pork chop by any chance?” “Am I a . . . No. No, I’m a . . . human person.” “Ah. Probably not, then.”

Because the way he’s described her is so close to how she views herself that she feels suddenly exposed. Like she’s standing naked on the porch in front of him. She should be frightened by how easily and quickly he’s seen right through her, seen to the very essence of what she does, but instead it makes her . . . perversely excited? He sees me.

Ev and Gretch on a mission. Like a buddy cop show.”

And her hair feels as if a large snake/rodent hybrid drowned and its corpse was laid to rest upon her forehead.

Everett was right; Charlie Waybill is softhearted, no matter how much he might hate her at this very moment.

porch to the ground without bothering to take the stairs. In Gretchen’s experience, a crying woman sends most men into a tailspin,

“Hey, now, that would’ve been a good idea.” Everett stands straighter. “Say, you should definitely be the brains of this operation.”

Gretchen is actually talking to a ghost after years of pretending to do just that, and he’s trying to convince her to get naked in front of him. Men.

Charlie glances up from his reading half-heartedly. Then, as he absorbs the reality of Gretchen Acorn in apparently nothing but a towel, she wins his full attention.

“Mm, yeah, no. I can’t deal with you using Guy Fieri catchphrases.” “Well, that’s not very Flavortown of you,” he says, frowning.

I already think of you like a sister. A hot sister, sure, but a sister all the same.”

Thanks to an upbringing that didn’t particularly hold the concept of authority in high regard, usually Gretchen has the immediate urge to defy anyone telling her what to do.

“Why don’t you give some to them? Show them there are no hard feelings.” “No thanks. There are hard feelings.”

It’s very . . . gothic grunge Gorton’s Fisherman. And based on the face Everett is making, it isn’t particularly working.

Except what if maybe she doesn’t want to run away so much as be chased? And maybe . . . maybe caught? Now, that’s a frightening thought.

It feels like quite a stretch to call herself a friend of Charlie’s. Probably more accurate would be “the current bane of his existence,”

One time, he stuck a finger in an apple pie cooling in a neighbor’s window. And another time, he stuck a finger in the neighbor’s wife—”

he thought maybe he’d rather be dead than alone any longer.”

It gave him a lot of time to think, and he started to realize that perhaps the reason no one cared about him when he was alive was because he didn’t care enough about others.

“Why do it, then?” she asks. “Why do something that’s probably going to hurt?” “Oh, doll,” he says, sounding for the first time like the much older—and perhaps wiser?—soul he actually is. “Because it hurts so much more not to.”

He tugs on her ponytail and, even though he isn’t rough, a tingling sensation travels from her scalp down, down, down. She lets out a small whimper, and Charlie freezes. “Don’t do that,” he warns, his voice quiet. “Or I’m going to have to bend you over this table and take you right here.” “Well, then don’t do that,” she counters, “or I’m going to have to let you.”

What she feels for Charlie is a strange, selfless thing. There’s lust, of course, but there is also a fierce affection crossed with the profound need to do anything in her power to ensure and support his happiness, even if it does mean making herself unhappy in the process. Is that love?

“The truth is this: I want to stay here. And I want you to stay with me. I want to work together every day. Sleep together every night. Plant a field of sunflowers together, one that will actually grow. I just want to be together for as long as we can. I want you to be my family. And even if it doesn’t work out and I wind up stuck at Gilded Creek for the rest of my life, it’ll have been worth it.” He pauses and takes a deep, slow breath before continuing. “Loving you . . . loving you will always be worth it.

“I’ve never wanted you because you were useful, Gretchen. I want you because you’re you.”

Hmm, it’s almost as if I did you a favor by lying . . . Almost like I left you off better than I found you . . . Something out of your own playbook, really. Which means you can’t be too mad at me, Gretch, right? Right?”

it’s all real—no bullshit anywhere to be found.