“I’m so sorry about your mom Rune,” I tell him, “I know she was the emotional center of your extended family.” Both she and her brother Hank, Gunnar’s dad, were single parents of only children, and none of the grandparents are still living.
“Thanks,” Rune glances at me sideways, with a small sad quick smile before looking down at his feet again, “We all appreciated the lovely flowers and card when she passed.”
I nod, my throat tight. Yes, I’m mad at him. But now that he’s here in front of me I realize I’d really like to see if it’s possible to get my friend back. It’s horrible the last two interactions we’ve had before this have been exchanging flowers and cards for the death of his mother and Theo. I’d forgotten it was Rune’s writing on the card that came with the flowers the Borstads sent when Theo passed.
“Where is Lorelei?” I ask, looking at the late model dark green electric SUV in the driveway. I don’t see Rune’s tween cousin’s adorable, freckled face peering out at us.
“I dropped her off on the way to spend the night with her best friend,” he jogs up the steps and crosses the wide porch with me on his heels, “Charlotte’s family moved to Bainbridge Island two years ago, right before my mom died. It was a big one-two punch for Lorelei to lose her Granty and her best friend at the same time. And now her dad’s getting married to someone Lorelei doesn’t like. She’s not having a very good summer, which I can certainly relate to.”
“What are you going to do for a bed for her, give her yours, and sleep on the couch?” I ask as he puts the key in the lock. He gives me a confused look as the door swings open, but immediately clamps his hand over his nose.
“Shit!” Rune exclaims, as the overwhelming unpleasant smell of paint hits me, “Let’s get the windows open.”
I take one side of the house as he takes the other. We move quickly through the living room, dining room, kitchen, downstairs bedrooms, and laundry room. A few minutes later, with all of the windows and the front and back doors open too, the vacuum starts to pull fresh air through.
“I’m glad I never travel without candles,” Rune says as we come back together into the living room.
“In case a place smells weird?” I guess, that’s certainly why I’d do it.
“Exactly, it only masks things but it helps. Did Jenna use some oil-based paint? Doesn’t she know how toxic that is?” he asks, scowling with judgmental annoyance radiating off of him, as he looks around, hands on his hips again.
“It smells like she may have,” I concur, the place does stink. I’m glad Lorelei won’t have to sleep here tonight.
“Nan’s sweet, comfortableness has been erased,” Rune laments, sounding both angry and sad, “Now it looks like it’s becoming a bland Airbnb. Peach and blue-gray,” he glowers at the walls, “yuck.”
“Maybe she’s not done yet?” I ask, noting that none of the art has been hung, it’s all sitting against the walls.
Rune does have a point though; the once charmingly cozy farmhouse interior is now all eggshell white, a variety of light blue grays, and a peach that’s reminiscent of baby aspirin. It feels more like a dentist’s office than a house now.
I know Jenna’s an accountant who wants to become an interior designer once she’s settled here. This makes sense with Gunnar being such an in-demand rebuilder of antique homes. I knew she was doing work on the house, but I didn’t realize how much.
“Does Gunner know how much she’s done?” I ask, “He must, right?
“I doubt it. I can’t imagine Gunnar agreeing on this color palette,” Rune retorts, “And technically I’m half-owner of the house, she should have asked me.”
I had no idea about this last bit of information, “So about the beds,” I remember to tell him, “There’s only one in the master bedroom right now. The others were supposed to be delivered last week but they’ve been delayed.”
“Well, at least now I know why most of Nan’s furniture is in the barn,” Rune says eyeing the new couch. It’s a dark gray riff on mid-century modern. It’s very square and not too comfy looking.
“Jenna didn’t let you know?”
“No,” he sighs, scrubbing his hand across his tired face, “but to be fair, Jenna didn’t know I was going to spring into action to pick up Lorelei from her mom’s house quite so quickly to drive up here. I told Gunnar, but I avoid texting with Jenna whenever possible.”
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“Listen, you can borrow one of our twin beds,” I tell him, “It’s small enough that you and I can move it.”
**
We decided to go ahead and move the bed immediately since Rune has phone meetings for the rest of the day, and I need to work on my response to Trident.
If he thinks it’s strange I’m sleeping in what’s always been known as the kids’ room Rune doesn’t say anything. We break down the small bed quickly and efficiently.
The truth is I can’t deal with the sadness of cleaning out Theo and Reuben’s master suite just yet. There’s also a queen-sized pull-out couch in the spare room downstairs, but unless Jack’s staying the night, I prefer this room. It has happy memories.
“I know Lorelei lives with her dad most of the time, but doesn’t she usually spend part of the summer with her mom, too?” I ask as we haul the box spring up and lean it against the wall.
“Yes, but things got challenging,” Rune says, picking up one end of the wooden frame he thinks we should move first, “Her mom now has three kids under the age of four, and doesn’t have much time for Lorelei right now.”
“I thought Lorelei only had a baby half-brother,” I say as we easily maneuver the bulky piece of furniture out of the bedroom toward the stairs.
“Her mom had twins this spring, and Lorelei’s so used to being the kid with adults she’s not keen on babies,” Rune says, twisting around so he can carry the frame facing forward down the stairs.
Oh boy, I think. It would be really hard at twelve to be suddenly surrounded by babies if you weren’t used to them.
**
Okay. Maybe I’m a coward. But it just didn’t seem to be the right time to address the elephant in the room of my anger with Rune. Somehow, while we were breaking down the bed and moving it over to Lorelei’s new room, I couldn’t quite get myself to say, hey why were you such a jerk at Sundance?
Anyway, I need to switch gears and focus on what really matters right now. I don’t want to lose my coloring book deal. How can I demonstrate to Trident that I’m a good bet? My social media following might not be huge, but my numbers are growing.
With multiple glasses of iced tea and a dog at my feet, I spend the next few hours creating an alluring highlight deck of my social media growth since I started working on Horse Girls. I’m proud of myself. I create a list of doable but fairly big audience growth goals to meet as the coloring book gets published. I even created a new style guide for the ideas of the look and feel of the Instagram posts I’ll share.
When my alarm goes off at 6:30, I blink in surprise. It’s so easy for me to lose track of time when I’m working on anything visual. I quickly make a PDF of what I’ve put together and send it off to the Trident team for our meeting in the morning.
I also text my sister Sydney to tell her about Rune’s surprise arrival. It’s not likely Syd’s sitting and staring at her phone, so it’ll be a while before I can share the gossip with her.
Howl’s Moving Castle is sitting patiently on the bookshelf waiting to go upstairs with me tonight. Why not use it to create an Instagram post about it being the subject of my next coloring page? After all, it won’t look good to the Trident team if they check my Instagram feed and see I’ve been ignoring it for the past couple of days.
Along the top of the wide, shoulder-height bookshelf on the wall across from my desk sits my Uncle Rueben’s collection of antique glass flower vases. An idea sparks. The earlier drizzle has cleared up and it’s now a lovely evening. The yard’s bursting with flowers. I’ll put together an arrangement to do double duty.
Flowers play an important role in Howl’s Moving Castle. First, Sophie notices that Howl wears different floral fragrances throughout (including hyacinth, rose, and apple blossom), and they end up running a flower shop towards the end of the story. So, I’ll use an arrangement as part of my post announcing Howl’s will be my next coloring page. And then the flowers can be in my background for tomorrow morning’s call with Trident. That feels like a stylish influencer thing to do.
Rune’s handsome face pops into my head again as I walk across the porch to the West side of the house where most of Uncle Reuben’s rose bushes are. He didn’t look good. Handsome yes, healthy no. What’s going on? Was it just dealing with Lorelei? Was the drive stressful? Or is it the blowback from all of the hearts he’s broken? Maybe someone’s finally broken his.
I walk along surveying the mix of rose bushes and hydrangeas along this side of the house. We had a wet cool spring even for here, so the hydrangea blooms are still green, but I've realized their big oval leaves make good greens. I snip branches of them for my basket as I think about the arrangement. I'll do a mix of two colors. I start snipping a few of my favorite ones which are the gorgeous deep red-orange of some sunsets. The petals lightening to a delicate peach as they open fully. They have a light tea scent. I mix these with a few of the deep yellow roses with that are the most fragrant. Their scent is a divine mix of apricot, and honey woven in with the magic that's all a rose's own. Frankly, they smell like passion. I like to make rose water out of them to mix with cocktails and my bath.
Last summer, almost exactly a year ago, I had a Tarot card reading from my friend Luna’s Tia Cecilia at the Hummingbird Floral Farm’s annual Fourth of July party. Cecilia told me to surround myself with roses if I wanted to bring romance into my life. I’ve made a point of doing just that. It’s certainly not hard to do at this time of the year. Uncle Reuben carefully cultivated a variety of roses over the years.
Until the last couple of weeks, it did seem like my romance with Jack was absolutely blooming in the right direction. And maybe, starting with tomorrow night it’ll be back on track again. Maybe we’ll be able to focus on a few things I’m interested in bringing forward in the relationship.
But instead of focusing on Jack, my mind chews back over Rune. If he’s not acting, what could he be doing besides traveling and breaking hearts? Do I care? I don’t, I decide; I just hope he’s okay enough to take good care of Lorelei.
My phone beeps from Syd as I’m calling Butterscotch and heading back into the house.
Sydney: Gunnar and Lorelei are already there?
Me: Rune brought her.
Sydney: No! Have you talked to him?
Me: Yep.
Syd: I’m calling. I need to hear about this, and we need to talk about other stuff.