Mimi exhaled, looking at the ceiling. “We’ll talk about it when I get back. Gordon, come on.”
“Trinity!” Bailey yelled as they left, the door again slamming behind them. “I need the butter.”
“I told you, I’m getting dressed. Damn!”
“You two stop yelling, before you chase me out of my own kitchen again,” Oxford warned.
“Fine,” Bailey said, ripping a paper towel off the roll and folding two slices up inside it. “I’ll eat it dry on the way to work. If I choke to death on the way, you’ll know who to blame.”
With that, she was gone, the door banging again behind her. A beat later, the toaster popped up: BING! Oxford reached over, extracting the slices and dropping them on the plate Mimi had left for this purpose. Then he put it on the table between us, taking one before looking at me.
“You want butter?”
I smiled. “Nope.”
“Wise move,” he said, and went back to his paper.
The two obits read, I pulled over the horoscopes to read Aries for myself. Apparently, Bailey and I were both going to savor something delicious in the day ahead. My thoughts drifted back to Trinity, who was coming back down the hallway, dressed now in shorts and a tie-dye, carrying the butter. She went straight to the toaster, loading it up again with what I could not help but notice was the last of the bread. Suddenly Celeste’s frustration the day before made sense.
“Here,” she announced, dropping the butter in front of me, as if I’d been the one demanding it. I didn’t say anything, instead just picking up my dry toast and taking a pointed bite. I was pretty sure she didn’t notice. “Is Bailey going to come clean today?”
“She’s got to work,” Oxford replied.
Trinity’s expression, already sour, grew more so. “Great. So it’ll just be me turning over four rooms before check-in.”
Oxford did not reply to this. I said, “I can help you, if you want.”
“You?” She narrowed her eyes, as if I was so small she couldn’t see me otherwise. “You’re on vacation.”
This stung, for some reason. “Not really.”
“Well, tell it to Mimi. That’s what she said.”
Oxford glanced at her, then me. I thought he was about to say something, but was glad when he didn’t.
BING! went the toaster, six slices popping up. Trinity retrieved them before bringing them to the table on a paper towel. She reached across me for a knife, which she then used to briskly butter each slice, the scraping sound hard to ignore.
“I’m late,” Jack, also in a BLACKWOOD T-shirt, said as he came down the stairs. “Is there any—”
Wordlessly, Trinity picked up two pieces of buttered toast, holding them over her head. As Jack passed, he grabbed them. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
“We’re short a cleaner,” Oxford said as he started for the door. “Mimi’s knee. Ask Roo if he wants some hours.”
“Will do,” Jack said, heading for the door. “Thanks for the toast.”
“Thank the Sergeant,” she replied. “He’s the one who bought that huge thing.”
I looked at the toaster, remembering how my dad had remarked that it was new. Apparently, there was a military aspect to it as well. In this house, even the appliances were complicated.
“Trinity?” I heard Mimi yell from outside. “Best get started on those rooms.”
In response, Trinity sighed loudly enough I literally felt a breeze from her direction. Then she pushed back her chair, grabbing a piece of toast. Oxford said, “Mimi’s got no business cleaning. Her knee can’t take it.”
“I’mpregnant,” she replied unnecessarily. But she got to her feet, yelling outside to Mimi, “Coming!”
As she left, I looked at the table. Only three pieces of toast remained. On the counter, the bread bag, defeated, was crumpled into a ball. The clock on the stove said 8:58 a.m.
