Twice Shy

by Sarah Hogle

I’m co-inheritor, buddy. Your personal remake of Charlotte’s Web isn’t happening without my consent.”

“You want a hotel, which means people in my living space.” He doesn’t hide the pure revulsion such a scenario inspires. “An animal sanctuary won’t affect you at all. They’ll be living outside.” “I’ll have to smell it.” He casts a withering look up at the ceiling, grinding his molars.

He tries to silent-treatment me into giving up. It almost works, but my discomfort with long silences prompts me to react strangely and I throw both of us off by giving him a wink. He stares at me, wide eyed, like I’ve grown another head. “What the hell was that?” “A wink?” “Winking is weird.” “You’re weird.” “That’s a bizarre thing to do, shutting your eye at someone.” I shrug. “It can be kinda hot, I think.” Wesley is visibly uncomfortable, but the wink is effective.

IT’S THREE DAYS AFTER we struck a deal and we haven’t agreed on a single thing since. Also, the manor is trying to kill me. All I want to do is love it, and it responds by raining plaster over me and moving the broom and dustpan so that they’re never where I last put them.

Whenever I brush past Wesley, the image of him beneath the iron archway in my dream flickers to life, those eyes probing mine like I might offer the answer to a long-held question, or I remember him in the dark woods beside me, a solid protector, and it’s annoying.

“What do you want the sunroom for?” I can’t resist asking at one point, as we’re passing each other in the foyer. “Why’s my picture on your phone?” he shoots back so quickly, he had to have been already thinking about it. I grumble as I skulk away and he takes off up the stairs.

The next time we bump into each other, it’s because he’s got a busted armoire and can’t fit it through the door. I could help, but he didn’t help me when I was trying to roll up a rug and he watched me wrestle with it. So I lean against the wall and cross my ankles, observing. “Hmm. Having some trouble there, partner?”

“Please do take care not to scratch the door frame.” He rolls his eyes. “Why not? We need a new door frame, anyway.” “Okay, well. If you scratch it, you’ll be responsible for putting the new one on.” I don’t know why I’m feeling particularly argumentative today.

“I’m being thorough. What would Violet say if she saw you treating her belongings like this? So callous.” I think the reminder of Violet is going to stick him where it hurts, but he doesn’t care. “I informed her myself of exactly what I was going to do with her belongings. I told her several times, after she told me I’d inherit it all.

Maybe she’s the one who tripped him on the stairs earlier when I hollered up that I’d discovered his little secret (it was the remnants of a bacon sandwich, to which he’d sputtered, red faced, that it was vegetarian bacon; I took a bite and spat it back out, confirming he was telling the truth).

“Need some help?” I ask. I’m an angel. “No.” Lord, he’s stubborn. “I wasn’t going to help, anyway.” “I know. Can’t wait to see you try to drag the pool table out of the billiard room by yourself.”

I press down on the armoire to make it heavier. He twists away from me, and it’s just the right angle to finally squeeze them both out the door. “Thanks!” he chirps. I make a truly ugly face at him, and it happens again: that almost-smile. He fights it and wins. I think he’s under a curse—if he laughs, he’ll die. This is a sensible explanation to me. It isn’t that I’m not a joy to be around, it’s that he’ll literally die.

“So when are you going to let me take you to Venice on my private jet, you beautiful genius?” I sigh. For whatever reason, Jack just isn’t doing it for me today. I’m finding his presence grating. “Rain check?” I propose, and his hopeful smile crumbles. He’s devastated, of course. Jack’s been chasing me for months.

“Are you in there?” he asks. Rudely. I bolt out of bed, too fast, giving myself fuzzy brain static. Every time I’m interrupted mid-daydream, it’s an embarrassing reminder that I’ve once again lost touch with reality. I become irritable. “What?” I yell back. “Sorry to bother you.” His tone is testy. If I ever need a rather large stick, I’ll know exactly where to find one.

“You made me burn my apple fritters, so we’re even.” “When did I do that?” He perks up, sniffing the air. “You made apple fritters?” “Here.” I hand him the hat. He eyes it like I’m offering a dead skunk, not taking it from my hands. I try to put it on his head, but he’s too tall. I play a game of horseshoes, which one of us finds very amusing.

“Need to get a picture of this.” I dig out my phone. “Another one for the collection?” He isn’t being mean, I think, but he does take the hat off and pushes my phone away. “I don’t like having my picture taken.” “Why not?” “Just don’t.” “Are you in witness protection?” He shakes his head, walking away. It’s been less than three minutes and he’s already done with me.

It’s like he’s trying to escape or something. All the more evidence that he’s in witness protection.

“I’m not going to drink your tea. Imagine that: me putting my mouth on somebody else’s thermos.” I glance at the lid and imagine it. “Chill out.”

“There’s nobody else around here to talk to. I don’t know how you can be so quiet all the time, unless you’re arguing. You’re the most argumentative and the least talkative roommate ever.” He doesn’t reply, face tilting up. I think he’s underlining my point. And surveying me, it feels. My skin goes hot and itchy.

He’s already grumpy as a young man—I can’t imagine what kind of sunshine his nineties have in store for us.

I think he knows that lounging in front of the window turns his face to shadow, all the light hitting me and lighting me up instead. Vulnerability and uncertainty creep in.

I have no response to this, so I stomp off. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure I hear a dark laugh curling after me.

I’M STARVED FOR HUMAN attention and Wesley’s the opposite of a warm friend, so I call my mother.

except she left me the house, so she probably did love me … except she left it to Wesley, too …

“Your expression. It’s like if a person could be crispy.” “Crispy?” He makes a face. “There’s your other expression. You have two of them. One is crispy and the other is sour milk.” I point, grinning. “Wait. That’s a new one. Mystified.” It’s like he waves a wand over his face, how rapidly it goes blank.

“Your expression is—” he begins, then clams up. “Go on,” I dare him. “Never mind.” His cheeks are turning pink. Not mystified, not sour milk, not crispy. One might almost think Wesley Koehler has become embarrassed.

“What were you going to say?” “Nothing.” He stomps off, and I lau...

My gaze darts to the ceiling corners, where Violet might be watching us and, it can only be assumed, laughing wickedly. I am starting to visualize her with horns instead of a halo.

“I’m aware that mixing chemicals is a no-no, but it’s good to know if I pass out you won’t even drive me to the hospital.”

At first, I think he’s ignoring me. But then a heavy object clatters between the floors, between the walls. I open the broken dumbwaiter in the foyer to find a chunk of brick that sloughed off the chimney, a piece of paper taped to its front. NO. In aggressive capitals. “You couldn’t have just yelled that?” I holler up the metal chute. “This required more work than saying no!”

This man’s unbelievably stingy with his decibels and he’s got to have the best-preserved vocal cords ever. When he’s a hundred years old he’ll be able to sing like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

“Down here,” he calls from the end of a hallway on my right, sticking his hand out a door to wave. I don’t make front-door deliveries. I chuck the wipes like a football right as he emerges, which means the package hits him in the neck. “Ow!”

subsisting on Violet’s expired pretzels and Wesley’s sweet tea, which he doesn’t know he’s sharing.

As an animal sanctuary. Which will not, by the way, turn a profit. How am I the impractical one here?

New insulation, which he tells me will save us money on heating and cooling in the long run, which I already knew. Mansplainer.

“Those aren’t weeds.” He gestures to the wall, as if I have X-ray vision and can view what lies outside. “That’s Cain’s reedgrass. Smoky Mountain manna grass.” “Well, it looks awful.” “Ugh. I can’t—you are just—” He shoves a hand through his hair. At the rate he’s doing that, he’s going to end the week with bald patches.

“But you want to raze it, you said. For your pig nursing home.” “First of all, this is not the first time you’ve mentioned pigs,” he tells me, vehement. “When did I ever say pigs? Not that I’m not going to get pigs, but you keep going back to that one animal—” He waves a hand. “Never mind! I’m not razing all of it, just a few acres, and none of the endangered plants. Some of the property is wild but can be altered without hurting the environment.”

“So … some of the property is simply neglected, you mean.” “You think that’s neglect?” He angles his head, facial muscles clenching, and takes a stride toward me, then another, getting up close in my personal space. Oh, wow. When his eyes flash like that, they don’t remind me of root beer or bronze coins. They’re daggers glinting in starlight. He’s never invaded my personal space before, as if I am an ogre to be shied from, so I must have really touched a nerve.

“Okay, but it still doesn’t look good.” If I could read auras, I think Wesley’s would be black as the night sky right now. His wild stare fixes on me for a tick too long, which sends my nervous system spiraling; my automatic reaction is to smile, and he definitely takes it the wrong way. He stalks off and doesn’t speak to me for days.

“What do you think?” I ask aloud. It gets lonely, so I like to imagine that Violet and Victor are hanging around, keeping me company.

Violet, I think, would gently tell me I’d done a good job, and then at one in the morning I’d walk in on her redoing my efforts. “Thought I’d help just a tiny bit,” she’d say guiltily.

Maybe Violet asked me to paint a mural because she thought I’d grow up to be more talented.

“We’ll get a proper grand piano,” I murmur, dabbing my paintbrush into a blue puddle. “Or a harpsichord. The carpet needs to be ripped out, for sure. You can’t throw a lively masquerade ball in these conditions.” “A lively what?” I twist on my stool, paintbrush dribbling cerulean across my skirt. Wesley needs a goddamn bell around his neck.

Everything I know about baseball can be traced back to that scene from Twilight.

But he doesn’t have to look at my painting like that, with his lips closed around an unspoken Hmm. “At you,” I snap. “I’m going to throw a baseball at you, if you don’t change your face.” Wesley endeavors to change his face.

Wesley leaves, and he’s right, the acrylics are a way better medium. The paint stays where I ask it to, thick and vibrant. I begin to hum, swishing my brush, until Wesley reappears and plucks the brush from my grasp. I frown at my empty hand, still in midair, until he prods a new brush between my fingers. “Use this one,” he tells me, and disappears again. But not for long. Every time I turn around, he’s hovering in the doorway. I can’t focus while he’s doing that. “What?” He looks like he wants to backseat-paint so badly and can barely hold it in, pressing his knuckles to his lips, other hand cupping his elbow. “Nothing,” he mutters.

I copy him. “Ahh! Look at my tree! I made a tree!” “Very good,” he replies, even though his tree is much better. “Would you mind helping me?” Wesley doesn’t take any convincing. He asks what I’d like him to do, and I put him on tree duty.

“You’re really good at this,” I say. He grumbles noncommittally, arm stilling its movements. It takes him a while to get back into the groove, and as I watch his progress, I also watch his cheeks and neck redden. I can’t believe it. He’s self-conscious.

“No, seriously, you’re an actual artist,” I force myself to tell him, like I’m trying to pet a dog who might bite me. “You’re legit.” “Not really.” He squirms.

“I’m not … I’m not that good.” Wesley rubs the nape of his neck. I think complimenting him is making it worse. It’s so humanizing, to see this giant starchy potato get all pink and flustered simply because I’m bearing witness to his fluffy trees. It makes me want to compliment him more, which is a disturbing development.