HARMONY
Igot up this morning and embarked on something terrible. Hand-washing bed sheets and towels.
Why would I do this to myself? It is the pits. I need to get it all finished, so I can get to the ranch by lunchtime. I got an
invite from Asa yesterday.
Hey sweetheart-come to lunch tomorrow? Pretty please! 1pm… We’ve got some things to talk over with u…I’m making chamomile tea cake with strawberry icing! #cake xoxoxox
That sounds lovely and scary at the same time.
They have things to talk about with me?
The scary bit is being around Lennox and Asa at the same time. I like them both. There is no way I could say I like one more than the other, I just…like them both equally.
The lovely bit is also being around Lennox and Asa. And cake, and Hugo.
Thoughts whirl around my head, some of them too weird to contemplate.
Just keep scrubbing the sheets, Harmony.
Finally through the whole pile of laundry, I need to get it dry. I have a plan. I’ll tie a rope from the apple tree to the corner gutter of the cabin.
When I finally get it secure, I drape the wet sheets across its length.
I’m a regular pioneer woman these days.
Shit, the rope is sagging. My hard-cleaned sheets are a bare inch above the dusty ground. My heart droops along with my sheets.
A car pulls up at the front of the house
“Don’t move any further,” I tell my sheets. Peeking around the corner, I see a battered, maroon Subaru. Waldo gets out.
Sheila said to trust him. As he walks towards the front door, I step round the corner. “Hi, Waldo.”
“Morning,” says Waldo, then adds, “alright if I call you
Harmony?”
“Please do.” I certainly don’t want him calling me anything else. He must have seen the look in my eye.
“I just mean, I call you Harmony, rather than Miss Harmony?” he says. “Wouldn’t call you anything else,” he says gruffly.
I appreciate him trying to show that he is on my side.
“Thanks, Waldo. And thank you for your discretion. I know Sheila trusts you.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” he says. As he does, I hear a wet thump.
I groan.
“Problem?” Waldo asks.
I wave him to follow me.
My apple tree knot has come undone. The washing is in a wet heap on the dusty side yard.
“Oh dear.”
