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“She seemed really nice, I think it’ll be great,” Sterling said, but that didn’t matter to me. It only mattered if I could get this job, absolutely do my best work, get the house sold and have a satisfied customer at the end of it.

Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and I was a beggar right now. Facts were facts.

“Want to chop some veggies for salad for me?” she asked, and I raised one eyebrow.

“Really? You’re letting me help?”

She rolled her eyes and bumped me with her shoulder. “I’m not that bad.”

I selected a knife from the block on the counter and confronted the pile of veggies on the cutting board. “I’m going to remind you of this in five minutes when you’re taking this knife out of my hand and telling me I’m doing it wrong.”

Sterling scoffed, as if she hadn’t done that about a million times to me already.

We fell into silence as I worked on cutting the vegetables and Sterling dealt with the stove.

I let Sterling talk about work as I concentrated on not slicing off my fingers. Cooking wasn’t one of my strong suits. When I’d lived in the city, I’d relied too much on delivery food and eating out. It had been expensive, but the convenience was worth it for me. Now here I was in a no-delivery town. Good thing the local pizza place was decent or else I might have starved.

“It’s not so bad here, you know,” she said, and I realized she was staring at me.

“That’s a matter of opinion.”

“And what is your opinion?” she asked.

I set down the knife. “My opinion is that I can’t fucking wait to get back to the city.”

Sterling crossed her arms. “I know you don’t love vanlife, Gwen, that’s not a secret. And I know you want to get back to a stainless-steel apartment in a skyscraper, but would it kill you to just have a good time while you’re here? I feel like I’ve barely seen you smile once.” What did I have to smile about? Not much.

“My fucking life fell apart, Sterling. Am I supposed to be thrilled about that?”

“No, of course not. I’m not trying to be an asshole here. I’m your sister and I love you and you seem miserable. Am I not allowed to be concerned about that?” she asked.

It wasn’t her fault that my life had gone south, and I knew she came from a good place.

“I know,” I said. “I know you’re just worried because you love me, but I’m fine. This is a bump in the road. A pothole. A blip in the grand scheme of things. Once I get my business running, everything is going to fall into place.”

Sterling smiled and pulled me into a hug. “I know it will.”

I hugged her back and sighed. “I really don’t know why you love living in a van so much.”

She laughed. “Guess I just stole all the vanlife genes in the womb.”

* * *

I’d gone back to the van for the night when I realized the woman I’d emailed about the job had responded.

Hi Gwen,

Thank you for reaching out to me. Here’s what I need: someone to assist with cleaning out my grandfather’s house and then staging it for showings. I need this house sold ASAP, so speed in getting this job done is a priority. I’m happy to discuss additional compensation for a rush job. I’m also attaching several photos of the house so you can get an idea of the time commitment. Please write back with any questions, and I’d be happy to give you a tour of the property.

-Lacey Pierce

The email was brusque and businesslike, which I appreciated. Then I opened the file with the pictures and I almost fell off the bed.

Junk. The house was full of junk. Clocks and books and figurines and paintings on the walls and tacky decorations and the ugliest mustard yellow and green kitchen I’d ever seen in my entire life. It honestly looked like one of those listings that went viral due to how wild the interior was.

“Fuck,” I said as I scanned through the pictures a second time. Was I up for this?

I scanned through Lacey’s email again and saw she had offered additional compensation. I wanted to see just how much that would be. Pulling up my rate sheet, I added a line about my rate for rush and difficult jobs and then sent Lacey a reply.