“I’m up here.” I take the stairs two at a time, and it’s a gut-punch when I come across her in the hallway, huddled with her back to the wall, her knees pulled up to her chest, her face pink and tear-streaked. Oh, fuck, I already hate this. I hate seeing her upset. I’m frozen in place, staring at her, and it takes me a second to register the mess she has around her—there’s a propane steamer to her right, shut off, and the floor is lined with plastic. There’s a spray bottle and a metal scraper and a trash can and—I squint up at the walls—a good bit of plaster dust.
“Jesus, Kit.What happened?”
“I don’t know—well, I do know. I tried stripping the wallpaper, and I did everything right, exactly how I read about. And anyways, I didn’t just read about it—Iknowthis stuff. I know chemicals, right?” She picks up the spray bottle, gives it a little shake. “But I don’t know what went wrong. Now the plaster is peeling away too, and—I don’t know! It’s amess.”
Her head bows, and she brings her hands up to cradle it. That’s all it takes for my stomach to cramp in distress, such a sudden, visceral reaction that I move right away, and before I can think about it, I’m kneeling down in front of her amidst scraps of wallpaper, feeling it crinkle and stick to my jeans.“Hey, hey,” I say quietly, and probably my voice has never sounded that way, so soft and desperate. But that’s how I feel—desperate. Desperate to stop her looking this way.
“I really, really needed this to work today.”
“Why today?”
She shakes her head, the movement knocking her glasses a little from side to side. I wonder fleetingly where her brother’s gone, but I don’t want to press her if she doesn’t want to talk. I think if I could just hug her, or set a hand on her knee—touch her in some small way, maybe it would help. But I’ve never touched her in either comfort or affection, even though I’ve thought about it every single time I’ve been in the same room with her, and also lots of times when I haven’t been. So instead, I reach up past her shoulder and pull at a strip of wallpaper that’s hanging down near her hair. And sure enough, there’s small chunks of plaster stuck to the back. I touch the wall, pretty sure of what I’ll find.
“You’ve got some moisture behind this wall, I think,” I tell her, trying to break the news gently. It’s not the worst thing. Lime plaster isn’t so hard to repair, but Kit’s got a lot on her plate with this house, and I’m guessing every flaw she comes across at this point is a blow.
And sure enough, she lets out a little hiccup, the beginnings of a sob, and—fuck—that does me in. I can’t just sit here, so far apart from her. So I adjust myself, spreading my legs wide on the floor around her huddled form. I gently take her wrists, tugging her hands from her face. I wait for her to flinch or stop me, but she doesn’t—I think she might even lean in to it a little. Her eyes are huge and wet behind her glasses.“Listen,” I say, keeping my voice low.“It’s all right. My dad knows every contractor in this town, and he’ll get you a deal on whatever the work is. Or I could help. I’ve done plaster repair before. No charge, I promise.” It’s a small offer, but I make it as if I’m opening a vein. The way shelookssitting there—I’d say or do anything.
“It’s not the money,” she whispers, leaning back against the wall, closing her eyes. I’m still holding on to her wrists, a little awkwardly, like we’re on some strange seesaw, so I let my hands slip down to—well. I guess I’m holding her hands now, and I have to take a breath to steady myself against the feeling of holding even this small part of her. I’ve known all along I have a thing for Kit. But this thing? This is more than liking her, more than wanting her in bed.
“I won the lottery,” she whispers, snapping me right out of my thoughts. I look up to see if she’s joking, but her eyes are still closed.
“You what?”
“Yeah. I mean, not like, just now. About six months ago.”
“You won the lottery?”
“No one knows,” she says, opening her eyes and looking right at me, a warning.“Greer and Zoe know, because we played together. And my brother.” Here, she breaks off, clears her throat.“My brother knows. But no one else.” I think maybe it’s not a warning after all. Maybe it’s an offering.
I squeeze her hands gently, letting her know she can trust me. But I don’t know what to say now—my mind is reeling. A lot of things click into place—why Kit seems so completely uninterested in the massive salary Beaumont is offering her, how she’s got more renovations planned for the next year than most people would do over the course of a decade. But other things—why she bought such a rundown house in the first place, why she does so much of the renovation herself, why she drives such a shitty car—I’m wondering about those too.
“I think maybe it’s bad luck,” she says.“Greer was worried it was bad luck. And I bought this house, like an idiot, and not a single thing has gone right with it since I bought it.”
“Kit, this is a great house. You know that. It’s always this way with renos.”
She shakes her head again, her hair sticking a little to the wall behind her.“I shouldn’t have bought it.”
“Don’t say that. This place has great bones, and—”
“I mean I shouldn’t have bought the ticket! The lottery ticket.”
I rub my thumbs across the soft skin of her wrists, trying to calm her. Her skin feels so good, I want to press my mouth there.“It’s not bad luck,” I tell her.“That’s just one of those urban myths. I promise you.”Where do you get off, making her promises?I think.You’re probably part of her bad luck.
“My dad is a gambling addict.”
Oh. I shift then, turning to set my back against the wall so I can sit right beside her, but I hold fast to one of her hands, and when I stretch my legs out in front of me, I twine our fingers together. She takes a deep breath, and I wait, holding her hand. I’ll sit here all night, against this sticky, damp wall, on this hard floor, if I can only make her talk to me.
“I’ve never gambled in my life. I’ve never played the lottery before that night. I don’t even like to play Monopoly. My dad—he bets on everything. Horse races. Football. Sometimes reality TV shows. He plays craps and poker. And he plays the lottery too, mostly scratch-off tickets. He’s dead broke most of the time, and he totally fucked up my childhood, and my brother and I—we tried to get him into recovery for years, but nothing works, you know?Nothing.” She kicks out one of her legs in frustration, knocks it hastily into the steamer.“So, I mean, howgrossis it that I played the lottery, first of all, and then I fuckingwin? I win! He’s probably bought thousands of tickets. And I buyone.”
“You can’t think that way.You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I’m keeping it from him,” she says, her words coming more quickly now. She pulls her hand away, and I feel like I’ve lost a limb.“I haven’t said a word. What about that? Do you thinkthat’swrong?”
“No, I don’t. I think you shouldn’t tell anyone if you don’t want to. And I think if he’s an addict, he may want something from you, something that’s not good for him.”
She gives this impolite little snort. I think it’s supposed to be sarcastic in tone, but she’s been crying and sniffling and so it just sounds sad, defeated.“I send him money every month. Alex and I both have, for a long time. But now—I’m still sending him the same amount. Because if I send him more, he’ll use it for stakes instead of for food, instead of paying his water bill. I know I shouldn’t feel bad—I know I shouldn’t. I used to go to these, you know, Gam-Anon meetings? And people there, they’re always telling you how you can’t make yourself responsible for someone’s addiction. But it’snot easy, you know? I want to be able to do something, and I had this big fight with Alex…”
Alex is the brother, I guess, and I’ve never met the guy but I’d like nothing more than to punch his face for being even partially responsible for the way Kit feels right now.“Is he here?” I say, trying not to sound how I feel, which is restless and pissed.
