Vanessa
I never should have come back to Pigeonpond. I would get on the next train, get off at the airport, and fly...wherever. Who knows. Torwood could come with me, and Grandma Shirley, if I didn’t kill her first. Maybe we’d go somewhere tropical, somewhere with coconut trees and beaches and no leprechauns in sight. I would open a dance studio and teach all the local kids ballet, and you know what, I’d take up surfing too. My deathly fear of the ocean and being allergic to coconut were minor obstacles. Maybe Torwood could be a fisherman, or a-
“Ma’am? Ma’am?”
a voice interrupted my fantasy, and snapped me back to my unpleasant reality: knelt on the floor, hair up in a scarf, cleaning leprechaun vomit out from the cracks between the hardwood. Those tiny fuckers could really party, and whatever they drank made their green puke thick and pungent. I turned my head to look at the speaker.
It was an older man with an English accent, who I knew as staying in Room 6. He was nice, and a very important customer. I shouldn’t be mean to him, even if I was nauseated from the smell of bleach and vomit.
“Yes, Dr. Vanderclamp, how can I help you?”
“Terribly sorry to bother you, I can see this is a bad time,”
he began. I stood, peeling off my yellow gloves and wiping my hands on my apron. Dr. Vanderclamp was well put-together, with round spectacles and a smart suit jacket that made me feel quite underdressed.
“I just, well,”
he began. “How do I say this. I have been wanting to speak to you away from your grandmother, because, you see...I suppose what I’m trying to say is I’ve become rather taken with her, and would like to inquire if she is otherwise spoken for? I saw no wedding band on her finger, but of course didn’t want to presume.”
Oh. Oh. My bad mood alchemized quickly to a mischievous glee.
“Well, you are in luck. She’s a single gal, has been since my grandpa died.”
“Oh. I’m terribly sorry,”
he said, looking genuinely sad.
I waved him off. “It was a long time ago. Honestly, I think this is long overdue for her. She’s a real catch, you know.”
He smiled. “I can tell. I’d like to take her to dinner. Does she enjoy dwarven cuisine?”
I thought about it. I’d definitely seen her eat mushrooms before. Damn, I had really been craving mushrooms the last few days. “I think so. You know what? How about I talk with her, get her temperature on this before you go making any big moves. If she seems open to a date, I’ll let you know.”
“That sounds wonderful, thank you, ah...I didn’t catch your name?”
“Vanessa,”
I said, and stuck out a hand.
“Georges,”
he replied, shaking mine.
“Well, I’ll leave you to your task. Again, thank you very much, Vanessa.”
He returned to his room, and as soon as he was out of sight I cast off my apron and bolted down the stairs.
I rounded into the foyer like a slingshot, and made a beeline for the kitchen.
I passed the front desk, where Torwood’s young cousin Brul was checking someone in, and nearly toppled over the Welcome to Chateau Shirley, please ring bell for service sign.
I could see in the kitchen, beyond the saloon-style doors we’d installed, the large green back that could only belong to one man: my fiancée.
He was kneading dough on the counter while an incredible-smelling pot of soup simmered on the stove. I snuck up behind him and slipped my hands under his apron and around to his washboard abs. My favorite.
“I thought I told you that you have to wear a shirt in the kitchen, baby. It’s dangerous, and we don’t want any more guests complaining in their reviews,” I said.
“This apron is thick and protective,”
Torwood replied, his hands continuing to work the dough. If he was surprised by me, he didn’t show it in the slightest. “And, if I recall, what Ms. Dumitru wrote was not a complaint. I rather enjoyed being described as ‘sizzling like a vegan steak’.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, Ms. Dumitru did book for another week in September, so I guess you didn’t scare her that badly.”
He chuckled, and the low noise reverberated through his body and into mine. I pressed my cheek against his bare back and closed my eyes contentedly. Sometimes I still couldn’t believe that this man was real, and that he was mine.
Wait, what was I doing here again?
“Oh! I have something to tell you!”
Torwood turned his head and gave an inquisitive look.
“Guess who just came up to me and asked for permission to take my grandma on a date?”
Torwood looked confused. “I do not know.”
“Fucking Vanderclamp! The professor? He’s in Room 6.”
Torwood’s eyes lit up with recognition. Georges Vanderclamp was a renowned lecturer on astronomy, who was currently being courted for a full-time position by Pigeonpond University. Each time he came to town he stayed with us, and I was realizing that the reason wasn’t just the soft beds and excellent room service.
“That is...exciting. He seems to be a kind man,”
said Torwood.
“I think he really is. I told him that I’d talk with her and figure out if she’s looking to get back in the dating scene. Wanna come with me? We’ll have to be subtle.”
“Hm. Subtlety has never been my strongest quality, and unfortunately there are guests waiting on me. But, you absolutely must tell me how this develops. This is very exciting news,”
he said, and placed a kiss on my forehead.
I meandered out of the kitchen and towards the back garden, where I knew my grandma was working.
I swung it open, and my eyes adjusted quickly to the sudden brightness.
The garden was flourishing, the trees heavy with fruits and trellises thick with vines. I spotted Julie watering the tomatoes, and waved to her.
A few weeks after she attacked me, Torwood and I found Julie wandering alone near the river.
She had escaped the Herbaceous Mother compound, but with no place to go was considering sleeping in the park that night.
She seemed significantly more lucid than when she had accosted me, and was unbelievably apologetic.
We offered to let her stay with us for the night, which turned into a few weeks, and when the inn reopened, became a job offer and a permanent room on the third floor.
Julie was, once rid of the cult fanaticism, a lovely woman, and her time under the Herbaceous Mother had left her with a mean green thumb.
Although it took a while to feel totally at ease with her, it became quickly clear that with her system free from the so-called “Mother’s pollen”, she was harmless.
“Hey Julie, is my grandma out here?” I asked.
“She’s over there harvesting the zucchini,”
she replied with a grin. “Well, more like trying not to get squished by the zucchini. Some of them are already bigger than she is!”
I squinted, and made out the shape of my grandmother huddled behind the massive leaves of a zucchini plant. I walked over her, carefully treading between the rows of vegetables. Our inn wouldn’t be able to keep its renown for delicious, fresh vegetarian meals if I stomped all over everything.
“Hey grandma! How’s the gardening?”
Shirley looked up at me, from her hunched position, shaded by the broad flat zucchini leaves. In the year since we’d opened the inn, it seemed like she had been aging in reverse. Her leg was completely healed, her skin was tan and rosy, and she sprung around greeting guests and tending the grounds like a woman half her age.
“Endless. How’s the clean-up in Room 5?”
“Similar. I needed a break before I added my own puke to the floor.”
She cocked an eyebrow at me. “You’re usually pretty good with the gross shit,”
“Yeah, well, these leprechauns were gross gross. Anyway, what are you gonna use these guys for?”
I hefted a zucchini, and made an effort not to blush. My relationship to large, green objects had...changed.
“Dinner tonight. Pasta with basil and zucchini pesto and a side of fried pink oyster mushrooms. We’re gonna roast some of those cherry tomatoes too,”
she said, pointing at a nearby bush heavy with golden and red fruit.
This was perfect. “Mushrooms, huh? Bit of a dwarvish twist. I’ve really been craving dwarvish food recently, I didn’t know you liked it too.”
“Well sure. There used to be a great dwarvish diner by the waterfront many years ago. Your great-aunt Sarah worked there for a few summers, when we were kids. All us siblings would go visit her after school and sit on the pier and eat leftover bits of their famous serviceberry pie.”
She looked wistful, her hand resting loosely on her basket, lost in memories.
“I wish I’d met more of your siblings. It must have been tough being here without any family since grandpa died. Do you, uh, ever wish your family would grow more?”
Nice. About as subtle as a plane crash. Shirley looked at me, slightly bewildered.
“Well, of course having you and Torwood here has been wonderful, dear. Is this about Tom?”
“No, not about Tom,”
I replied.
Tom hadn’t reached out directly since the event we now referred to as “the tossing”, but each month since an envelope arrived in the mail with no return address, stocked full of cash. He didn’t even try and deny it when I finally called him. Tom didn’t ask to visit, or ask about Torwood, but did let me know that he had quit our dad’s company and was finally trying to make it on his own. I guess it was his strange, stunted way of apologizing, and it had helped the inn out tremendously in the first few unsteady months.
I saw Shirley glance back at the house, towards the sunroom where Torwood was pouring tea for a guest. A slow grin spread on her face. “Say no more, dear. Yes, I would be very open to adding someone to our little family unit. Thrilled, in fact.”
Wait. No. That’s not what I-
“Grandma, I’m not pregnant. The guy in Room 6 wants you to go on a date with him, and I was supposed to find out if you were interested. Georges Vanderclamp, he’s a professor. He’s gonna ask you to go to a dwarvish restaurant, and you’d better act surprised when he does.”
Damn it all to hell. Torwood would laugh in my face when I told him how this had gone down.
“Oh! Well,”
she said, and let out a decidedly girlish giggle. “I can’t pretend I haven’t caught him looking my way more than once. He’s very handsome, no?”
To me Georges looked like any other grandpa. “Super hot, yeah. Anyways, you should probably start thinking about a nice outfit. Do you own makeup? I’ll buy you some, I need to go to the store for some stronger cleaning supplies anyway.”
We chatted about the date for a little longer, feeling funnily like I was a teenager helping my friend get ready to meet a boy she liked. I think my grandma felt the same way, and when I finally bid her goodbye and hopped on my bicycle to head downtown, she was positively glowing.
A drugstore was located a pleasant ten minute bike ride from the inn. I hunted down a nice blush and mascara which I thought would compliment Grandma Shirley, then found the cleaning supplies I needed.
An annoying thought nagged in the back of my head, despite my best efforts to ignore it. At the checkout counter, as though taunting me, a display of pregnancy tests stood on the counter by the candies and travel-size lotions.
Fuck, fine. I grabbed one, scanned it, paid, and walked out. The nausea, which hadn’t really gone away since this morning, the strange mushroom cravings...it was probably just a coincidence, right?
***
That night, Georges and Grandma Shirley went out on their date, leaving Torwood and I to mind the inn. We served dinner and coffee, cleaned up, then found ourselves blessed with an evening free from clogged toilets or late check-ins.
“Would you like to practice our dance?”
Torwood asked me. I had taken his dance education into my own hands, and we were now pursuing the fine craft of the two-step. It turned out neither of us were very good at it, but that only made it more fun.
“Sure!”
I said. “Just don’t step on my feet this time, okay?”
He laughed. We were alone in our room. The lamps were off, the only light shining from the floating candles that dotted the room. We liked it that way, just as it had been during our first few days together. I put on a record, a slow old country song, and Torwood placed a hand on my back. I grabbed his bicep, unable to reach his tall shoulder.
We swayed together, and I leaned my head against him.
“Would you like to try some steps?” he asked.
I was silent. He didn’t ask again, just began to stroke my hair while we danced slowly. Things would change soon. Maybe Grandma Shirley would move away with Georges, or her health would decline. Maybe the wedding would be a complete disaster. Maybe Tom or my dad would show up and wreak havoc. Maybe Torwood and I would have less of this precious time alone. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Torwood’s chest was warm, and his heartbeat was steady.
I sighed, then smiled.
“I have something I need to tell you.”
Want to see how Torwood and Vanessa first fell for each other ten years ago?