I was jittery the rest of the afternoon. I needed to do something about this article. I was going to have a heart attack. Then I really would need the hearse.
"Drink too much coffee?" Garrett asked early that evening when he was done with his meetings. There was a softness around his eyes that hadn’t been there when I first met him.
"I’m a pumpkin spice addict!" I quipped, holding up my third cup of coffee. I had ordered two to go from Hazel that morning. They were large ones with whipped cream, powdered nutmeg, and a caramel drizzle. A pile of whipped cream remained in the bottom of my last cup.
Garrett shut the door to the office. "Penny," he said.
I slurped my whipped cream.
"I wanted to ask if you wanted to go out."
"Outside?"
"Out with me, to dinner or drinks at a bar."
You're going to betray his trust and ruin his life. Even if it's the nicest article in the world, he won't like it.
I wanted to say yes though. But I cared about him too much.And you have to write that article. Think, Penny, you'll have an actual real job with health insurance and a 401(k) and dental. After all this sugar, you're going to need dental. Besides, maybe Bronwyn was right and Garrett doesn't like girls like you.
"I don't think that's a good idea," I said, looking down at my cup. "I mean, we work together."
"Apologies," Garrett said in a clipped tone. "I misread the signals."
No you didn't!I mentally screamed.Well, maybe just the biggest signal, which is that I'm a crappy person who is seriously considering selling you out.
I licked the whipped cream off my lips then mentally face-palmed when he looked at me like a leopard eyeing a piece of meat.
"Do you need to go home now?" I asked meekly.
* * *
The drive wassilent and tense. I had both hands on the wheel of the hearse as I navigated down the dark road to the Svensson estate.
"I've ordered a new car," Garrett said when I dropped him off. "Actually several. We will not be using this hearse anymore."
"Okay," I said softly. "Good night."
Without responding, he walked up to the ornate front door.
I felt like crying as I slowly drove back to the old Victorian mansion. I parked the hearse then slunk inside. Morticia and Lilith were in the living room. Before them on the table was a plastic doll on a white sheet. The twins were slowly removing the head. Morticia—or maybe it was Lilith—was wearing a set of Victorian glasses that had several layers of lenses.
She peered at me. "It's for the haunted tiny house."
I sighed. "I had a horrible day and too much caffeine and probably too much sugar. I'm going to go bake a cake."
Lilith grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved me down onto one of the large wooden chairs. She handed me the head of the decapitated doll. Its lifeless eyes stared at me accusingly.
"You don't need sugar," she said simply.
"I know I'm getting soft," I said, poking my midriff. "At first I thought all the fat was going to my boobs, but now I think it's migrating down to my tummy."
"You don't need cake," Morticia said, peering at me through the steampunkish glasses. "You need to go talk to the Romani queen."
"We will prepare an offering you can take to her," Lilith said. "Think about what you're going to ask her."
I already knew. I wanted Garrett.
28
