“Okay,” she says quietly. Then, “I won’t say anything to Mom. You don’t have to come with me tomorrow.”
We stay quiet until we reach the door. “We can do one or the other—thrifting in town or Mrs. Mayhew’s. Which is it going to be?”
Her face scrunches up as she thinks. I’m surprised this is such a hard decision for her. Thrift stores are like her Disneyland. Finally, she sighs. “Mrs. Mayhew’s.”
“You’re sure?”
She doesn’t look giddy about it the way I expected, but she does look determined. She gives me one firm nod.
“Okay then, tomorrow it is.”
Twenty-Four
Lili
When I wake up the next morning and turn over in my bed, it’s to find Goldie awake and staring at me with her practiced creepy doll smile on her face.
“Ah!” I scowl and roll back over to face the other side. “Mom told you not to do that to me anymore.”
I hear her sit up in bed. “I haven’t done it since Arizona. You should be thanking me.”
“No,” I say, my voice muffled from my pillow.
And then my bed is moving, jerking under the weight of her bouncing on her knees. “Come on, get up. You promised to come with me to Mrs. Mayhew’s today.”
“Goldie! Stop!”
The bouncing slows. “Okay, but get up. Please.”
It’s thepleasethat drains my irritation away. That and the fact that I’m witnessing weeks of pent-up impatience from a ten-year-old. Honestly, I should be thanking her for only a creepy smile and jumping on my bed. I’d have been way worse at her age.
“Fine, but stop so I can get up.”
She climbs off and I take my time sitting up, doing the whole yawn and stretching thing, noticing that Goldie is already fully dressed and even has her shoes on.
“Lili.” My name is a whine coming from her.
“I’m moving.”
Her huffed response says not fast enough.
“What is the big hurry? It’s not like we’re gonna show up at this woman’s house this early anyway.”
“Her name is Mrs. Mayhew. And Stan and Ollie wake her every morning at five a.m. anyway.”
I pause in the act of digging through my nightstand that doubles as a dresser. “Who?”
“Her cats. They’re Maine coons and both weigh over twenty-five pounds. She brought Ollie with her the first day we met her.” I can hear a bit of accusation coming from my sister that I didn’t remember this.
“Fine, whatever. Do I at least have time to take a shower?”
“Why? We have to get through some old boxes and everything’s really dusty.”
Great. “Are you sure you wouldn’t just rather go thrifting in town?”
Goldie can’t nod her head fast enough. “Positive.”
Keeping her dust comment in mind, I grab my least favorite pair of jeans and a T-shirt that I usually wear only when helping Mom paint something, then I twirl my finger at my sister to turn around so I don’t flash her while getting dressed. She does a good impression of someone whose bones are melting as she begrudgingly turns.
